Episode 2: The Independent Mage

I was staring at myself in the mirror when I gave my cheek a small pinch.

"Ow!"

A sharp sting crawled up my cheek, and at the same moment, tears began rolling down my face.

"Ugh."

Against every ounce of my will, the body wept freely.

The stinging didn't fade—if anything, it only grew worse with time.

"Hiing…."

A pathetic whimper escaped through my nose, and I clapped both hands over my mouth and nose in a panic.

"……."

The Exorcist—feared as the judgment of mages, renowned for an expressionless, iron-cold charisma—was now crying over a self-inflicted pinch on the cheek?

If anyone had seen this, I would have had to end myself on the spot.

"How did I end up like this…. Hm?"

I grabbed my throat in alarm.

"Ah, aah, aah."

What came out was not the low, measured voice I knew. It was thin, childlike, and small.

"……."

The strength drained out of me all at once.

"First. Calm down. Think."

I lay down on the floor and gave myself time to sort through the chaos.

Which is to say—

I lay on the floor and cried.

Not by choice. The body simply refused to obey.

*Sniff. Sniff.*

"Hiing…."

My sense of self—the Exorcist's self—didn't feel like it had changed. But the emotions surging through me were impossible to rein in.

Aggrieved. Wronged. Sad. Frightened. And the nagging, bewildered question of how any of this had come to pass.

"What in the world is all this."

When the crying finally stopped, I kneaded my soft, squishy cheek and pushed myself upright.

"The terror of mages. The living death. That was me. And now I am some sniveling little child? This is reality?"

I prodded the cheek that still hadn't stopped aching.

"I have become a seven-year-old girl. Difficult to believe—but I must find a way to survive, regardless."

Immediate finances, at least, would not be a problem.

I had accumulated considerable funds from assassination contracts over the years.

"There should be money I left with Orbis, the mage hunter syndicate…. Ah!"

A cold thought struck me, and I seized my round little cheek.

"Blast! I cannot retrieve the money in this body!"

Orbis—the illegal organization that supported mage hunters—operated an underground bank. Every last coin of my fortune was locked inside it.

Walking into that notorious underground bank in this form? I would be lucky to leave with my life.

"……."

I composed myself again.

"Ah. There should be cash at the safe house."

I searched the apartment from corner to corner. Three fifty-thousand-won notes turned up.

"Tch."

That would not last long. I needed a plan, and I needed one now.

"…For the moment, I lack the information to plan properly."

To begin with, I wasn't even certain this was the same world I had lived in.

"Having suddenly become this body, it would not be strange if this were not Korea at all."

There used to be stories like that, did there not.

Wuxia heroes tumbling into fantasy worlds. High school students dropped into other dimensions.

"And here I am, old as I am, in a situation like this. Tch…."