Chapter 1: I’m Not Cut Out for Transmigration

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Death is just as unpredictable as life. Those who want to die end up living a lot longer than they expect and those who don’t want to die suddenly lose their lives.

This was the case for Cory Yaan.

The 21 year-old NEET was just about to get a bite to eat from the convenience store across the road when a speeding car crashed into him and sent him flying through the air.

Just like that, he was dead.

The world faded to black before he could even eat his first meal in 20 hours.

What a shame, he thought.

Wait, how come I can still think?

Cory tried to feel his fingers. He had fingers? And…they could move! The body that had lost all feeling from the crash now felt really heavy.

I’m not really dead after all!

He tried to open his eyes next. Nothing.

He tried again.

This time, a horizontal thread of light peeked through. Cory forced his eyes to open.

Bright light filled the darkness that ate up his entire world. Eventually, a wooden ceiling came into view, then a long room filled with rows of hammocks.

Before he could fully orientate himself, a large cannonball smashed through the wooden wall right next to him.

Seawater gushed in through the opening and flooded the room.

Cory tumbled out of his hammock from the shockwave of the blow and fell with a painful splash.

He looked at his surroundings in confusion.

The ground swayed under him and made him queasy. Above his head came sounds of weapons clashing and people hollering crude words.

This wasn’t the hospital!

He peered out the hole made by the cannonball.

A fleet of medieval-style warships surrounded the small wooden vessel he was on, their large sails blooming like parachutes—but sideways.

Cory’s jaw fell to the ground.

Not because he had never seen ships like these in the 21st century.

He had.

Recently, in fact.

In the MMORPG he had been playing for 20 hours straight before he died.

He was stunned because he recognised the insignia printed on the hull of the nearest warship.

It belonged to one of the naval forces in that very same MMORPG!

‘…’

Wasn’t Questasis a fictional game?

He bought it on Steam. There were elves and magic and spirit treasures in that game.

Playable characters included mages, assassins and summoners.

It even had a disclaimer on the loading page that proclaimed: All events, characters and places in this game are fictional.

So what’s going on here?

The Hiddel Navy’s insignia was a very distinctive one—it featured a beautiful woman with flowing hair sitting on a flying snake dragon.

Cory remembered this vividly because the insignia’s elegant design and profound symbolism (it was supposed to represent “a renaissance of peace") contrasted sharply with the crude and burly sailors that made up the navy’s ranks.

It was unlikely that any other organisation would dare to use such an undignified insignia.

His head began to throb at the thought of his new reality.

How did he end up inside the world of an MMORPG?

This isn’t scientific!

And why was it that as soon as he transmigrated here, he turned up in the middle of a sea battle, drenched from head to toe in dirty seawater?!

Cory squeezed water out of his now-transluscent cotton shirt, listening to the cacophony of clashing swords and men yelling indecipherable words that came from the deck above.

It sounded like the Hiddel Navy was winning but his crew was putting up a good fight.

His crew? What was his identity in this world?

He looked down at his small hands. His fingers were skinnier than he remembered, but just as pale and without the callouses of a real seaman.

(Of course, that was under the premise that this world he found himself in functioned like the real world.)

Maybe physical labourers here didn’t get callouses.

‘You’re awake,’ a loud voice startled him out of his thoughts.

Cory almost jumped out of his own skin.

A young man entered the cabin, his boots sloshing through the seawater like it was the most natural thing in the world.

‘Thought you’d be sleepin’ through the battle, boy.’

Boy? He was a man! A 21 year-old adult!

Cory looked down at himself, aghast.

No way! Did he transmigrate into a child’s body? How old was he now?

Would he have to go through puberty all over again in a fantasy world with no PC games or Internet?

I refuse! I’m a NEET! I’m not cut out for transmigration!

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