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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: Meeting a Witch

If I had to sum up my life in this world in one sentence, it would be this: "I became the good-for-nothing youngest son of a famous family of prophets."

"Your prophetic ability is truly pathetic. How do you expect to make a living with that?"

"You certainly won't be able to inherit the divination house that's been passed down through our family for generations!"

"Prophecies about good fortune can be vague, but prophecies about misfortune must never be vague! They need to be incredibly specific! You're truly useless!"

The Jericho family I was born into had been renowned prophets for generations. A family that peered into people's futures and lived off the divination fees they received in return.

The problem was, perhaps due to the nature of their profession giving them ample opportunity to interact with the upper class, my parents were extravagantly spendthrift to an egregious degree.

They chased after all sorts of events and banquets, even racking up debts, always living in pursuit of the fanciful dream that they, too, could become part of the nobility.

Their extravagance alone would have been one thing, but the fact that they also thoroughly discriminated against their children based on their abilities marked the true beginning of my misfortune.

"Bread is wasted on an incompetent person like you!"

Going hungry was an everyday occurrence since childhood.

My older brother and sister, who could prophesies as easily as breathing, ate fine food and wore fine clothes, while I lived in a stiflingly hot attic in summer and a freezing one in winter, dressed in worn-out hand-me-downs.

For twenty years, I was treated not as a child but almost as a servant, attending to my family and performing all sorts of menial tasks—that was just an added bonus.

Unlike my older brother, sister, and parents, who could prophesy good fortune, I could only prophesy misfortune. And even that was incredibly vague; no matter how hard I tried, I could only glimpse a short span of the future, barely one to three seconds long.

A prophecy of misfortune only held meaning if it could predict a specific and accurate calamity, thereby allowing one to take the exact opposite action. Predicting concrete misfortunes was crucial, but mine were always... like that.

When it came to prophecy, I truly was a good-for-nothing.

How much of a good-for-nothing, you ask?

Even when my parents, older brother, and sister all died suddenly in a traffic accident, all at once, on the same day...

I couldn't predict that fact at all.

My family vanished overnight, but I wasn't particularly sad.

Given what they'd done to me, it would be stranger if I were sad.

The problem was...

"Mr. Amael Jericho? My condolences. Your parents incurred a considerable amount of debt. Were you aware of this?"

The fact that those people, my so-called family, still shackled me even after their death.

The debt was massive.

It was so much that I had to sell off the house I lived in, the fortune-telling shop, and all my inheritance.

Overnight, I was left with absolutely nothing.

And on that very day, as I stood there, utterly penniless...

[Confirmed: You have passed your 20th birthday and reached adulthood!]

[Congratulations!]

[You have acquired a total of 4 skills: , 

[Feel free to train your sex slaves as you please!!]

Before my eyes, for the first time in twenty years...

I witnessed the sight of a status window appearing.

So I had these reincarnation skills all along, but they were eroge skills, which meant I couldn't use them as a minor?!

With the life skills I had honed over twenty years of doing menial tasks, I managed to secure a job at a small restaurant near the fortune-telling shop.

All day, I served food and wiped tables, and by night, I lay on the small employee bed provided by the shop, concluding my day.

Lying there, the intense desire that welled up several times a day resurfaced once more.

Unlike before, when all I had were trash-tier prophetic abilities and nothing else, now I have these eroge skills, don't I?

Can't I just use them to eat well and live comfortably?

A life where I approach a wealthy, lonely widow, completely turn her into my sex slave with my reincarnation skills, and live as a kept man.

That doesn't sound bad at all.

If my superior height and handsome appearance—the only things I'm remotely grateful to my dog-like parents for—are combined with my eroge skills, then a life as a kept man becomes a highly realistic plan, not just a simple fantasy.

But, of course.

Thinking about it is one thing; actually executing it is impossible.

It's all because of a single poster brazenly plastered on the wall of the very restaurant where I work.

[The use of unregistered illegal magic is a serious crime!]

[If you witness an illegal magic user, report them immediately! Immediately!]

[Make reporting illegal magic a part of your daily life! It makes the Empire and your life even safer!]

Let's say I went ahead with my plan.

Let's say I seduced a wealthy, lonely widow and completely made her mine with my skills.

The moment one of the servants hears this widow saying something like, "Ohhh! I can't live without Master Amael's giant rod! I can't take it anymore♥" and reports it, I'd be immediately hanged.

Even if I somehow managed to get the servants on my side, there's no such thing as an eternal secret.

The fact that some idler suddenly latched onto a rich widow's house, using strange magic-like abilities and spending money lavishly, would eventually become known.

If that happened, I'd have to prove that the abilities I'm using aren't illegal magic. But do I have the Tower of Mages' permission, or the temple's permission?

Since I don't have that, the moment it's revealed, death is certain.

Why not just formally register those skills and use them, you ask?

Registering magic is difficult.

I'd have to explain to the strict mages and witches of the Tower of Mages the principles by which the magic I want to register manifests...

How am I supposed to know the activation principles of eroge skills?

If that were possible, I'd have been a mage long ago!

Besides, look at the skill list.

If I explained those skills—the kind an incubus would use—to people, how would they look at me?

And even if I somehow managed to register them and could use them, forcibly applying a skill to an innocent woman to turn her into my financial source isn't exactly morally sound, is it?

The conclusion is: a life as a kept man, leveraging eroge skills, is utterly unfeasible.

"Damn it, if you're going to give me eroge-like skills, you should create an eroge-like environment, shouldn't you?"

With a sigh-like mutter, I pull the blanket over myself.

If you give me eroge skills, you should create a situation where I can actually use them.

What am I supposed to do when I'm thrown into a country where using them gets me immediately hanged? Seriously.

My grumbling was short-lived.

Restaurant work is arduous.

The urge to sleep began to weigh down my body, and it wasn't long before I fell asleep.

The Arcal Empire was burning.

Mountains of corpses were piled everywhere, and rivers of blood flowed through the streets.

The desperate screams of humans being burned alive echoed endlessly from all directions, like a horrifying concerto.

At its center was a witch.

That four-armed witch was exposing her naked body to the world.

Without hiding her mad laughter and sensual body, the witch ceaselessly unleashed all sorts of powerful magic, massacring people again and again.

The flames she was unleashing drew closer and closer.

Just before the flames devoured my body...

My eyes met the witch's.

With her blood-stained hair, turned dark red, raised high to the sky, she asked me a question.

"Do I disgust you too?"

One side of the witch's face was incredibly beautiful.

But the opposite side was precisely the inverse.

On her distorted skin, more than ten eyes were clustered together like a spider's, blinking irregularly.

A horrifyingly twisted form that made one want to vomit.

Seeing me consumed by terror, the witch laughed.

"You also find me disgusting! Hahahahaha!!"

The witch unleashed her magic.

The flames that consumed the Empire did not stop there, soon beginning to incinerate the entire continent.

The world burned.

And I too was consumed by the flames.

In horrible pain, I too had to add my voice to the screams of the people around me.

There was no more happiness in the world.

Only ash, flames, screams, and monsters that were once twisted humans unable to die remained, shrieking.

Springing up from my spot like a coiled spring, the first thing I felt was my sweat-soaked clothes.

As if I had taken a bath, my clothes and blanket were thoroughly drenched with an immense amount of sweat.

Damn it.

It seems my prophetic ability was the kind that could only accurately predict prophecies of a truly massive scale.

A prophecy about the end of the world!

The problem is, when will it happen?

And who was that witch in the dream?

Even if I knew who the witch was, I had absolutely no plan on how to stop it.

I clutched my head and sank onto the bed.

"What am I supposed to... what am I supposed to do with this?"

All I had were these eroge abilities, unlocked after twenty years, and my insignificant prophetic ability that even my own blood relatives ignored.

And I'm supposed to stop a witch who can unleash magic powerful enough to obliterate the entire Empire with these?

No, seriously, how am I supposed to do that?

Wasn't this an eroge?

What am I supposed to do if you suddenly show me a scene from a dark fantasy that reeks of post-apocalyptic despair?

Sleep wouldn't come.

Tearing at my hair, I tried to think about what to do.

They say that when a person is in mortal danger, their brain works faster.

Like a lightning strike.

A single idea flashed into my mind.

Half of the witch's face was extremely hideous.

A sight so terrifying, with eyes clustered together, that I feared it would appear in my dreams.

And she had definitely looked at me and asked, "Do I disgust you too?"

I didn't know the details, but I thought perhaps the witch had gone berserk and caused this disaster because of her hideous face, having been consumed by darkness.

If so?

Couldn't I heal her face before she went berserk and obliterated the Empire?

That's not a bad idea.

But how?

How am I supposed to heal that horrifyingly twisted witch face?

I'm not a priest, nor a doctor trained in healing methods.

It might be different if I had been a medical student in Korea in my past life.

I was just a science student, I mean...

"Body Modification."

One of the four eroge skills I received.

This!! With this, couldn't I change that hideous half of her face into a beautiful one?

"Status window."

I quickly brought up the status window and read the description for 'Body Modification' once more in detail.

To summarize the skill description, which was so vulgar that King Sejong might shed tears and halt the creation of Hangul if he saw it, it ultimately comes down to this:

It's a skill that allows me to change another person's body into the form I desire!

This is possible.

It's possible to change the witch's hideous half-face into a beautiful one, prevent the end of the world, and live happily ever after.

My face brightened.

And then it immediately crumpled again.

[The use of unregistered illegal magic is a serious crime!]

[If you witness an illegal magic user, report them immediately! Immediately!]

[Make reporting illegal magic a part of your daily life! It makes the Empire and your life even safer!]

The content of the poster brazenly and proudly displayed on one wall of our restaurant came to mind.

Illegal magic use.

What do I do about this?

If I get caught using the skill, I'll be hanged even after healing the witch.

What kind of no-win situation is this?

If I don't heal the witch, she'll go berserk, the Empire will be destroyed, and I'll die with it.

If I heal the witch, I'll be hanged for using unregistered illegal magic.

Why is this truly happening to me?

Why are you doing this to me?

Is there no way to use the skill without getting hanged?

A way to use the skill without obtaining permission from the Tower of Mages or the temple.

My deliberation continued throughout the night.

"Amael! Are you awake! Let's start preparing to open the restaurant!!"

The deliberation that had continued without proper sleep, by the time the restaurant owner called my name...

There is.

A way to use the skill without being hanged as an unregistered illegal magic user.

"I'll only work until today!!!"

"What are you talking about? Why are you saying that all of a sudden?"

"Something I absolutely must do has come up!!!"

After working until that very day, I received the wages for my labor, and with that money, I bought a train ticket to the capital.

It was the only way to avoid being hanged while using unregistered magic.

That was to pretend to be a Saint.

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