Chapter Text
Help! I Transmigrated into a Novel and Now I Share a Body with the Evil Duke's Son Who Thinks I'm a God and It Makes Him Horny
(aka The Birth of A LEGEND!!)
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i. are you a god?
Kim Roksu has read enough webnovels to immediately understand, at least on a theoretical level, what transpired since he fell asleep in the middle of reading a new fantasy series.
On a practical level, however? He might start screaming.
Five volumes into The Birth of a Hero and Roksu blissfully sinks into his favourite pastime of sleep-oblivion. When he wakes up, he’s no longer in Korea on his vaguely-uncomfortable bed surrounded by books; instead, he seems to be in some type of fantastical Western-style rich person’s abode and inside a different body. An undignified scramble towards the closest mirror reveals that he became a tall muscular man with long white hair and unnaturally vibrant green eyes.
The unfortunate magical whitewashing is already shocking enough, but Roksu has a sinking feeling he knows who this man in the mirror is despite never seeing him before in his life. He recalls information from The Birth of a Hero about a white-haired wyvern knight from the northern Paerun Kingdom who was obsessed with making a legend become reality.
Did I transmigrate and become Clopeh Sekka? Roksu wonders, a sinking feeling starting to grow in his gut. (His very well-defined and muscular gut. How does this guy have such prominent abs? Disgusting amounts of exercise?)
If that’s the case, Clopeh is a terrible person to transmigrate into. Roksu fell asleep before getting very far into The Birth of a Hero, but he would have bet his next paycheck on the Guardian Knight meeting a rather unfortunate end in a future volume, probably because of the protagonist Choi Han’s sword. Fuck.
Why couldn’t Roksu have become some sort of unimportant side character, like… that shitty bastard Cale Henituse or something from the first volume? Sure, Cale also got beat up by Choi Han, but only to the brink of death and not actual death. And Cale was rich and unpopular so it would have been easy to hide somewhere and become a slacker.
The prospect of possible decapitation via Choi Han is awful enough, so the universe obviously makes Roksu’s life even worse:
Are you… a god?! says a voice directly into Roksu-Clopeh’s skull.
“Fuck!” Roksu feels like he jumped out of his skin—well, Clopeh’s skin—at the sudden shock of hearing what could be a ghost in an empty room. “Who is this?” he asks, hoping the answer is not the one he’s currently hypothesizing.
Guardian Knight Clopeh Sekka of the Paerun Kingdom, the disembodied voice says, promptly dashing all of Roksu’s fragile hopes to the luxuriously carpeted floor.
“Fuck!” Roksu swears, with more feeling this time.
Are you a god? Clopeh asks again.
“Absolutely not,” Roksu says firmly. He didn’t read much information about Clopeh Sekka, but he does remember the man’s near-fanatical obsession with legends and myths. It’s better to nip this misunderstanding in the bud as soon as possible before something horrifying and humiliating happens. He still hasn’t given up on his aspirations to be a slacker, and being mistaken for a god makes him want to run away screaming into the mountains.
Unfortunately, Clopeh seems to have his doubts. If you are not a god, then how did you possess my body?
That’s a fucking good question that Roksu doesn’t have the answer to either. “I just fell asleep and ended up here,” he grumbles, opting for honesty in such unbelievable circumstances. “Your guess is as good as mine for how that happened.”
Then it must be the work of a god, Clopeh confidently concludes, making Roksu immediately regret his choice of words. A god! A god sent you to me!
A horrifying surge of… enthusiastic elation bubbles up inside Roksu. Fantastic—not only is he stuck sharing a body with Clopeh Sekka, but he can apparently feel some of the knight’s emotions too, like an uncomfortably worshipful intrusive thought. “Stop that. I was not sent by a god,” Roksu protests, sensing the situation starting to spiral.
Clopeh acts like he didn’t hear anything. And maybe he didn’t, while lost in his delusions. I have been chosen! he exclaims excitedly. A god has chosen my body to be a vessel! I will become A LEGEND!!
If a god really is responsible for this absolute shitshow, Roksu viciously vows to smack them in the back.
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The next few days are some of the most harrowing in Roksu’s thirty-six years of life so far.
The limited information about Clopeh Sekka in the first five volumes of The Birth of a Hero did not adequately prepare Roksu for the sheer deranged depths of the character’s megalomaniac aspirations. Apparently, what Nelan Barrow meant by ‘Clopeh believed in the legend. He was the type to believe in legends, fables, and superstitions.’ was actually ‘Clopeh believed he was the protagonist and probably jerked off at least a dozen times while imagining the Wyvern Knights Brigade's debut during the upcoming war’. For such a uselessly meticulous author in other aspects of the novel, this severe oversight makes Roksu want to strangle Nelan Barrow if he ever returns to Korea.
(Let’s just say that Clopeh Sekka is very much into the possibility that he has a god’s attention. All Roksu’s years of media consumption did not teach him the name of that particular kink.)
Being body-mates with a villain that has divine fetishes is already stressful enough, but it’s made worse by the fact that Clopeh is making concerted efforts to be highly communicative. The knight somehow convinces himself that Roksu is, at minimum, some sort of oracle, and proceeds to eagerly share all sorts of information that was never asked for. Therefore, Roksu learns against his will that the Northern Alliance is supported by the mysterious organization responsible for the Harris Village massacre, as well as the Huiss plaza bombing, and possibly other sorts of other conflicts on the Western Continent. There’s almost too much to keep track of.
Once again, Roksu feels like running screaming into the mountains. The organization doesn’t even have a good name; what sort of idiots called their group Arm? Is it because it has a long reach, huh? Any other branches named Leg, perhaps? Might as well just fucking call it something stupider like Darkness at this rate.
(Roksu conveniently neglects the fact that he used to work in a company almost exclusively referred to as The Company.)
Roksu has absolutely zero interest in cooperating with some sort of shadowy terrorist organization. Unfortunately, Clopeh Sekka turns out to be the fucking figurehead of the entire Northern Alliance or something. Roksu would throttle the knight if they weren’t currently sharing the same windpipe.
My god, Clopeh says reverently, interrupting Roksu’s murderous musings. Do you have any new revelations?
The Roksu of the present day feels the strong urge to sob. The Roksu of the past was a filthy traitor who, in a temporary moment of weakness and panic, impulsively revealed the fact that Clopeh Sekka was a ‘character in a novel’ and that Roksu knew about some future events. This only spurred the wyvern knight’s delusions up to greater heights, as he became thoroughly convinced that the second person inhabiting his body received prophecies from some sort of divine tome.
“No, I don’t have any revelations,” Roksu says, glaring viciously at a map of the Western Continent as he tries to continue familiarizing himself with his current world. “Go back to. Sleeping or whatever it is you do in there when you’re not speaking to me.”
I am no longer capable of sleep! Clopeh says brightly. I am aware of everything happening while this body is conscious and unconscious. Thank you for this blessing, my god!
That’s… a lot to unpack. Roksu’s urge to cry and scream grows stronger as he imagines Clopeh admiring himself in the bathroom like a narcissistic ghost voyeur. It’s probably for the best if he does not examine that thought too closely.
“Just. Just stay quiet.” Roksu rubs his face with his hands. Thankfully, Clopeh immediately does as he’s told (though Roksu is not going to examine that too closely either) and Roksu continues researching. The only stroke of luck since transmigrating is that it’s not unusual for Clopeh to spend long hours in the Sekka household’s library, so Roksu can do his research in peace without arousing suspicion. With Clopeh’s… passion for legends, the knight clearly spent a lot of his time reading.
The luck does not last very long as a nagging curiosity starts to burn at the corner of Roksu’s consciousness like an annoying sunbeam in the eyes. “What do you want?” he grumbles, starting to seriously consider whether obtaining the Vitality of the Heart or Healing Star would allow him to safely self-lobotomize.
The curiosity shifts into a rather uncomfortable emotion that Roksu has difficulty placing until he hears Clopeh’s eerily calm voice.
My god… Are you planning on writing a new legend?
Apparently the unknown emotion was Zealotry, somehow even stronger than the usual brand of Clopeh-craziness. Roksu suppresses a shiver. “I don’t want to be a legend,” he snaps, opening another book. “I’m going to prevent this stupid war. Then I’ll live a peaceful slacker life. Being stuck in your body won’t change what I want to do.”
Clopeh seems genuinely puzzled by Roksu’s response. Why would you want to fade into obscurity?
“I’d rather be obscure than dead from some foolish pursuit of glory,” Roksu says, too irritated at the constant psychic interruptions to filter his words.
The sudden sharp stab of pain that shoots through Roksu’s head makes him hiss and drop the book he’s holding. He can only describe the sensation like somebody tried reaching past his eye sockets to attempt pulling his brain out by the stem in a fit of unhinged fury. There’s a disorienting sense of vertigo before Roksu feels like he collapsed outside in the snow, having a vague sense of being unceremoniously abandoned in a frozen wasteland to suffer from the biting cold and wind.
“My god?” says Clopeh, sounding more muffled and faraway than Roksu is used to.
Ah, the cherry on top of the shitshow sundae: they can apparently trade places.
Roksu will definitely kill Nelan Barrow if they ever cross paths.
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An unknown amount of time passes before Roksu regains consciousness. Or at least, the disembodied soul-in-the-passenger-seat version of consciousness. It’s a distinctly uncanny experience to be able to observe his surroundings without having any control over what his—Clopeh’s—body is doing.
They appear to be outside, and Roksu is briefly grateful that he’s not the one currently in charge of piloting the Clopehsuit if it means he can escape feeling the northern cold. The landscape is rather serene; the surrounding forest is quiet, and Roksu can see the empty Lake of God’s Tears and Paerun’s capital in the distance. He decides to enjoy the temporary peace and quiet and does his best to avoid alerting the other person in their shared body that he’s back from… whatever happened.
Unfortunately, Clopeh becomes aware of the awakened presence in his mind almost immediately. “My god!” the knight says before suddenly throwing himself to the snowy ground and teaching Roksu that soul-parasites can still feel motion sickness. “Please forgive my sacrilegious thoughts and grant me your favour once more!”
What the fuck are you talking about? Roksu groans, unable to squeeze his eyes shut to ward off any future bouts of motion sickness caused by Clopeh’s deranged movements. Because Roksu doesn’t have any fucking eyelids in his current form. Great.
Clopeh is, for some unfathomable reason, still prostrate on the cold ground. “It was foolish of me to doubt your divine plans,” he says past a mouthful of snow that might have some dirt in it. “From this moment forth, I, Guardian Knight Clopeh Sekka, vow to follow the commands of my god until I leave this world for the sake of creating an even more beautiful legend than my mortal mind can comprehend!”
That answers nothing. Roksu wonders if he can briefly regain control of at least one limb just to hit Clopeh in an area only the knight can feel. Answer my question properly you crazy bastard, he says, hoping his annoyance filters into the other’s consciousness.
“I must have disappointed you greatly, my god,” Clopeh says as if this entire situation hasn’t been far beyond Roksu’s mere disappointment from day one. “When you cast doubts upon my life aspirations, I felt myself momentarily consumed with rage, causing you to withdraw from my body. I was in despair that I lost your favour, but! My god!” He somehow mashes his face even further into the snow. “In your boundless mercy and grace, you forgave my transgressions and returned to me! I will never doubt your wisdom again!”
Roksu finds himself suddenly missing his life in Korea. Sure, he was at risk of getting mauled by a monster at any point in time, but somehow that feels preferable to whatever Clopeh is doing. I told you I’m not a god, he says, knowing it’s probably useless trying to convince Clopeh otherwise but needing to protest anyways. But if you’ve decided to stop doubting my wisdom, does that mean you will cooperate with me?
The… noise that comes out of Clopeh’s mouth makes Roksu extremely glad that the shared-emotions seem to be a one-way street. “Yes! I will serve my god! For the birth of A LEGEND!!”
Oh for fuck’s sake. Roksu thought he was finally getting somewhere but apparently not. This is likely the best he can manage though, so he’ll take what he can get. Yes okay, whatever, we’ll make a legend, he says, wishing he still had hands to rub his currently non-existent forehead. Stand up like a normal person and go back to the Sekka estate.
Roksu sighs at all the work he has to do in his near future. When will he get his slacker life…