I’ve read this book several times, but strangely, it felt like the first time I’m reading it at all.
“Transmigration…?”
As I repeated the word with a particularly unique ring to it, my head gradually became heavy.
I tried to blink my eyes to clear my blurry vision, but it was in vain. Instead, with each blink, my eyelids grew heavier.
Under my long eyelashes, a dim yet distinct shadow began to settle.
Amidst my vision being engulfed entirely in darkness, a faint yet sharp voice echoed from somewhere.
“Come now, Rosetta. You pitiful Valentine. I shall grant your wish.”
And just like that, I lost consciousness.
“…Ah, this world… I wish it would just fall apart.”
With a forgotten wish buried deep in my heart, even my memories faded away.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer Rosetta.
I was Lee Mina.
The protagonist of the book I had often read, the character I had believed to be my ‘real life’ all along.
This was my first transmigration.
* * *
“Gasp!”
I opened my eyes.
The flames had disappeared, and the excruciating pain in my stomach was no longer there.
After groping around my belly several times, I glanced around the surroundings.
“Where am I…”
Wherever it was, there was nothing in sight.
Just an expansive white desert.
The sky, the ground, the walls—everything was blindingly white.
I woke up with my body sprawled on the ground, taking in the sight of the towering, white ceiling.
My head felt hazy.
What was that dream just now?
No, what was that…
‘Was that a memory?’
I blinked my eyes.
A subtle sense of reality and surreal sensations flowed through my entire body.
Having lived in someone else’s life for decades, I had long forgotten the name of my real life.
Only dim memories remained.
I had lived in Korea, where there were cars and trains, and my hobby was reading novels from time to time. I had lived just a normal life…
Lee Mina.
The protagonist from the novel I used to read and love, ‘My Diary’.
“Ahahaha….”
I let out a bitter laugh.
What on earth was this?
What was happening?
All this time, I had believed that ‘Lee Mina’ was my real identity.
That “Mina’s” life was reality, and the lives after that were the start of my transmigrations.
My forgotten real name was ‘Mina’.
But no, that wasn’t it.
Everything had been wrong from the beginning.
The starting point was never ‘Mina’ to begin with.
I.
I am…
“Rosetta.”
Uttering that name felt strangely familiar and nostalgic.
Despite being called that for over half a year, I was overwhelmed with emotions, as if I had lost something precious and finally found it.
…Oh, I see. I found it.
I found my real name.
Rosetta.
This was my long-lost real name.
At the same time, it marked the beginning of this tiresome cycle of transmigrations.
* * *
“How do you feel, Rosetta?”
Amidst my shock at the sudden truth, a voice echoed from somewhere.
I jerked my body upright.
The voice was familiar.
“Come now, Rosetta. You pitiful Valentine. I shall grant your wish.”
It wasn’t from a dream—it was a voice I had heard before.
I had heard it in a dream during the hunting festival.
I frantically scanned my surroundings, but there was no visible figure. The voice seemed to echo from all directions, making it impossible to pinpoint its source.
Helplessly, I pointed at the empty air and opened my mouth.
“…God.”
As I quietly muttered, laughter resounded from all around.
“How do you feel, Rosetta? Is your wish still in effect?”
A question tinged with mockery.
I looked around once more, but I still couldn’t see anything.
It seemed like God had no intention of revealing their true form.
With no other choice, I stood up straight and continued to gaze at the empty air as I spoke.
“What was my wish, anyway? You mean the one where I said I wish the world would fall apart?”
“Your gaze seems fierce.”
“Because I’m in a terrible mood. But more importantly, please answer my question. What was my wish?”
“You guessed right. It’s that wish you made, saying you wish the world would fall apart. Isn’t that your wish?”
“How can that be…!”
…How can that be a wish?
Instead of continuing to speak, I swallowed my anger and took a deep breath. There was no use getting furious at a divine entity.
Calm down. First, calm down…
“How can that be a wish?!”
Calm down, huh. How though?
“I had so many other wishes. Wishing to become a real Valentine, wishing that my family would love me more, or wishing that I could be happier! But… how can the words I blurted out in despair become my wish?”
I passionately blurted out my words, and my breath was hitching with emotion.
Unbeknownst to me, tears streamed down my cheeks, and I wiped them away roughly with the back of my hands.
What a pathetic sight this was.
My hands felt damp from the tears.
God remained silent. It seemed like they were genuinely contemplating or silently laughing. All that was certain was that they were watching me.
Finally, the silent voice flowed out.
“That is because this was your most desperate wish.”
The answer was concise, leaving me almost having to ask again.
“…What?”
“Didn’t you sincerely wish for this world to perish? And didn’t you sincerely wish for Alicia to die?”
The whispering voice was calm and secretive.
However, the intimidation from the whisper was so overwhelming that I involuntarily lowered my head.
It felt like someone was pressing on my forehead.
‘What I wished for… My most desperate wish…’
What was pressing on me was the truth that God had spoken.
Yes, that’s right.
Back then, perhaps I sincerely…
‘…Wished for the world to fall apart, for Alicia to disappear.’
I ran a hand through my hair.
Memories of my forgotten self as Rosetta came rushing back relentlessly.
How miserable I was.
How wickedly I acted.
How much I hated and resented this world.
How much I wished for Alicia to…
‘Disappear from this world.’
“Ahaha…”
Mixed with a bitter laugh, overwhelming emotions swirled in my head and chest.
The things I had forgotten were all bundled up and churned inside me.
God chuckled quietly.
I stopped laughing and looked in the direction where the sound came from.
“I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“If my wish was for the world to fall apart, why didn’t you grant my wish? What does transmigration have to do with that wish?”
The answer didn’t come immediately.
After a brief silence, a faint voice responded.
“I quite like the world you live in. I was enjoying it. So, when humans like you started a war, I intervened with special powers to stop the fighting, didn’t I?”
“If you liked the world, then why did you choose to grant my wish? My wish was for you to destroy the world you liked.”
“Well, I liked this world because it was amusing to watch creatures like you. Pitiful, miserable, and…”
Those who made wicked wishes from time to time.
For a moment, my father’s voice from the secret library overlapped with his words.
The criteria by which the book of aspirations made its choices.
“The most pitiful one. The most miserable one. Or… the one who has committed the most sins.”
Now, everything became clear.
That wasn’t just the criteria for the book of aspirations to make its choice.
It was the criteria for the humans that God enjoyed watching.
No, not enjoyed, but rather those that God found amusing.
Such a wicked God.
I blinked my eyes and glared as laughter echoed from afar.
The sound drifted past me like the wind.
“So, were my transmigrations your punishment? Because I dared to make a wicked wish?”
“Well, you could call it a kind of punishment. But fundamentally, it was all to grant your wish.”
Snap.
As God stopped speaking, I heard the sound of fingers snapping somewhere.
Soon, an image appeared on one side of the white wall.
“I first allowed you to glimpse other worlds through the tool called a ‘book’. Yes, you could say that Lee Mina was a kind of… guide.”
The image showed Lee Mina reading a book.
A bus on a crowded street.
A room filled with stacked books.
The subway on the way to work.
Lee Mina kept reading, over and over.
“In addition, as you were still Rosetta, I taught you happiness. I let you experience the happiness of living a normal life in a world completely different from this one. I erased all your memories as Rosetta so that you could truly know ordinary happiness.”
As the words continued, I bit my trembling lips.
To stifle the screams that wanted to escape.
Suppressing the screams, a twisted smile naturally formed on my lips.
I met the invisible eyes of God.
‘Taught happiness.’
Because I understood what that meant.
He had given me something sweet that I had never tasted as Rosetta.
When you lose what you had in your hands, humans become even more miserable.
Being born without having anything and living as Lee Mina was different from having everything as Rosetta and then having it taken away.
Unlike Rosetta, who was born without anything from the beginning, Lee Mina had lived a life of simple happiness while forgetting all her memories as Rosetta, but she transmigrated…
“Was your purpose to drive me insane?”
Yes, I must have gone insane.
Completely, just as I did in the end.
I’ve read this book several times, but strangely, it felt like the first time I’m reading it at all.
“Transmigration…?”
As I repeated the word with a particularly unique ring to it, my head gradually became heavy.
I tried to blink my eyes to clear my blurry vision, but it was in vain. Instead, with each blink, my eyelids grew heavier.
Under my long eyelashes, a dim yet distinct shadow began to settle.
Amidst my vision being engulfed entirely in darkness, a faint yet sharp voice echoed from somewhere.
“Come now, Rosetta. You pitiful Valentine. I shall grant your wish.”
And just like that, I lost consciousness.
“…Ah, this world… I wish it would just fall apart.”
With a forgotten wish buried deep in my heart, even my memories faded away.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer Rosetta.
I was Lee Mina.
The protagonist of the book I had often read, the character I had believed to be my ‘real life’ all along.
This was my first transmigration.
* * *
“Gasp!”
I opened my eyes.
The flames had disappeared, and the excruciating pain in my stomach was no longer there.
After groping around my belly several times, I glanced around the surroundings.
“Where am I…”
Wherever it was, there was nothing in sight.
Just an expansive white desert.
The sky, the ground, the walls—everything was blindingly white.
I woke up with my body sprawled on the ground, taking in the sight of the towering, white ceiling.
My head felt hazy.
What was that dream just now?
No, what was that…
‘Was that a memory?’
I blinked my eyes.
A subtle sense of reality and surreal sensations flowed through my entire body.
Having lived in someone else’s life for decades, I had long forgotten the name of my real life.
Only dim memories remained.
I had lived in Korea, where there were cars and trains, and my hobby was reading novels from time to time. I had lived just a normal life…
Lee Mina.
The protagonist from the novel I used to read and love, ‘My Diary’.
“Ahahaha….”
I let out a bitter laugh.
What on earth was this?
What was happening?
All this time, I had believed that ‘Lee Mina’ was my real identity.
That “Mina’s” life was reality, and the lives after that were the start of my transmigrations.
My forgotten real name was ‘Mina’.
But no, that wasn’t it.
Everything had been wrong from the beginning.
The starting point was never ‘Mina’ to begin with.
I.
I am…
“Rosetta.”
Uttering that name felt strangely familiar and nostalgic.
Despite being called that for over half a year, I was overwhelmed with emotions, as if I had lost something precious and finally found it.
…Oh, I see. I found it.
I found my real name.
Rosetta.
This was my long-lost real name.
At the same time, it marked the beginning of this tiresome cycle of transmigrations.
* * *
“How do you feel, Rosetta?”
Amidst my shock at the sudden truth, a voice echoed from somewhere.
I jerked my body upright.
The voice was familiar.
“Come now, Rosetta. You pitiful Valentine. I shall grant your wish.”
It wasn’t from a dream—it was a voice I had heard before.
I had heard it in a dream during the hunting festival.
I frantically scanned my surroundings, but there was no visible figure. The voice seemed to echo from all directions, making it impossible to pinpoint its source.
Helplessly, I pointed at the empty air and opened my mouth.
“…God.”
As I quietly muttered, laughter resounded from all around.
“How do you feel, Rosetta? Is your wish still in effect?”
A question tinged with mockery.
I looked around once more, but I still couldn’t see anything.
It seemed like God had no intention of revealing their true form.
With no other choice, I stood up straight and continued to gaze at the empty air as I spoke.
“What was my wish, anyway? You mean the one where I said I wish the world would fall apart?”
“Your gaze seems fierce.”
“Because I’m in a terrible mood. But more importantly, please answer my question. What was my wish?”
“You guessed right. It’s that wish you made, saying you wish the world would fall apart. Isn’t that your wish?”
“How can that be…!”
…How can that be a wish?
Instead of continuing to speak, I swallowed my anger and took a deep breath. There was no use getting furious at a divine entity.
Calm down. First, calm down…
“How can that be a wish?!”
Calm down, huh. How though?
“I had so many other wishes. Wishing to become a real Valentine, wishing that my family would love me more, or wishing that I could be happier! But… how can the words I blurted out in despair become my wish?”
I passionately blurted out my words, and my breath was hitching with emotion.
Unbeknownst to me, tears streamed down my cheeks, and I wiped them away roughly with the back of my hands.
What a pathetic sight this was.
My hands felt damp from the tears.
God remained silent. It seemed like they were genuinely contemplating or silently laughing. All that was certain was that they were watching me.
Finally, the silent voice flowed out.
“That is because this was your most desperate wish.”
The answer was concise, leaving me almost having to ask again.
“…What?”
“Didn’t you sincerely wish for this world to perish? And didn’t you sincerely wish for Alicia to die?”
The whispering voice was calm and secretive.
However, the intimidation from the whisper was so overwhelming that I involuntarily lowered my head.
It felt like someone was pressing on my forehead.
‘What I wished for… My most desperate wish…’
What was pressing on me was the truth that God had spoken.
Yes, that’s right.
Back then, perhaps I sincerely…
‘…Wished for the world to fall apart, for Alicia to disappear.’
I ran a hand through my hair.
Memories of my forgotten self as Rosetta came rushing back relentlessly.
How miserable I was.
How wickedly I acted.
How much I hated and resented this world.
How much I wished for Alicia to…
‘Disappear from this world.’
“Ahaha…”
Mixed with a bitter laugh, overwhelming emotions swirled in my head and chest.
The things I had forgotten were all bundled up and churned inside me.
God chuckled quietly.
I stopped laughing and looked in the direction where the sound came from.
“I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“If my wish was for the world to fall apart, why didn’t you grant my wish? What does transmigration have to do with that wish?”
The answer didn’t come immediately.
After a brief silence, a faint voice responded.
“I quite like the world you live in. I was enjoying it. So, when humans like you started a war, I intervened with special powers to stop the fighting, didn’t I?”
“If you liked the world, then why did you choose to grant my wish? My wish was for you to destroy the world you liked.”
“Well, I liked this world because it was amusing to watch creatures like you. Pitiful, miserable, and…”
Those who made wicked wishes from time to time.
For a moment, my father’s voice from the secret library overlapped with his words.
The criteria by which the book of aspirations made its choices.
“The most pitiful one. The most miserable one. Or… the one who has committed the most sins.”
Now, everything became clear.
That wasn’t just the criteria for the book of aspirations to make its choice.
It was the criteria for the humans that God enjoyed watching.
No, not enjoyed, but rather those that God found amusing.
Such a wicked God.
I blinked my eyes and glared as laughter echoed from afar.
The sound drifted past me like the wind.
“So, were my transmigrations your punishment? Because I dared to make a wicked wish?”
“Well, you could call it a kind of punishment. But fundamentally, it was all to grant your wish.”
Snap.
As God stopped speaking, I heard the sound of fingers snapping somewhere.
Soon, an image appeared on one side of the white wall.
“I first allowed you to glimpse other worlds through the tool called a ‘book’. Yes, you could say that Lee Mina was a kind of… guide.”
The image showed Lee Mina reading a book.
A bus on a crowded street.
A room filled with stacked books.
The subway on the way to work.
Lee Mina kept reading, over and over.
“In addition, as you were still Rosetta, I taught you happiness. I let you experience the happiness of living a normal life in a world completely different from this one. I erased all your memories as Rosetta so that you could truly know ordinary happiness.”
As the words continued, I bit my trembling lips.
To stifle the screams that wanted to escape.
Suppressing the screams, a twisted smile naturally formed on my lips.
I met the invisible eyes of God.
‘Taught happiness.’
Because I understood what that meant.
He had given me something sweet that I had never tasted as Rosetta.
When you lose what you had in your hands, humans become even more miserable.
Being born without having anything and living as Lee Mina was different from having everything as Rosetta and then having it taken away.
Unlike Rosetta, who was born without anything from the beginning, Lee Mina had lived a life of simple happiness while forgetting all her memories as Rosetta, but she transmigrated…
“Was your purpose to drive me insane?”
Yes, I must have gone insane.
Completely, just as I did in the end.
