Episode 19: Money < The Peaceful Life of a Possessor < Too Much Money (7)

‘The real problem is that, since I’ve taken over this body, the original story might have changed. What if the creature that appears is different? And what if Baek Juyul ends up losing control because of that?’

She might be able to smooth over the first scenario, but there was no way to deal with the second. Baek Juyul was the strongest character in this world, with his only outward weakness being the lack of proper Guiding. If he lost control, this place could shift from a modern fantasy into an apocalyptic scene.

‘How could an F-class Guide like me possibly survive that? I’d probably be the first to go down. I have to prevent that, no matter what.’

Finally managing to fully convince herself, Sodam couldn’t help but let a small smile tug at her lips.

With her mind a little more at ease, she rubbed her tired eyes and mumbled softly to herself.

“Alright, I’ll just sleep for a little while, a very little while. If Baek Juyul still isn’t back when I wake up, then I’ll go find him. Yeah, that’s the plan.”

She piled up her excuses like layers of a shield and closed her eyes.

When Sodam opened them again, about an hour had passed. Forcing her heavy eyelids open, she grabbed her phone with blurry vision to check the time.

「5:18 AM.」

Even after checking the news, there was no update about Juyul having finished the subjugation. As she’d suspected, the timing of the creature’s appearance seemed to match what happened in the original story. In other words, all her excuses had crumbled, and it meant she had to go to where he was.

“Ah, my precious thirty thousand won…”

If she followed the route she’d researched earlier, she’d arrive at the subjugation site a little past 7 AM. It hurt to spend such a significant amount of money on transportation, but she decided to see it as an investment in her happy future.

“Ugh, I feel so dizzy. Even after almost twenty-four hours of rest, I still feel like this. Damn F-class.”

Of course, the real reason Sodam was struggling so much was because just yesterday, in the early morning, she had been completely drained through a Guiding session that happened during sex, and then she had walked nearly two hours to get back. But as a novice Guide on her second day in a possessed body, she couldn’t possibly know that.

All she knew was that her body felt strangely heavy, and that she got dizzy whenever she pushed herself even a little bit. It wasn’t all that different from how she felt on difficult days in her previous life, which only made her more complacent about her situation. And that complacency quickly turned into carelessness.

“Let me just close my eyes for ten more minutes. Just ten minutes…”

* * *

“Damn it. Should’ve just taken a taxi. But then again, that’s a bit too…”

Sodam ground her teeth quietly as she sat in the back row of an intercity bus. The ticket she had pre-booked was rendered useless when she woke up after 6 AM, and the frustration of spending a whopping 60,000 won left her stomach churning.

Luckily, she managed to snag a seat on a bus that was departing right away. The problem was that, as soon as she got on the bus, the other passengers scurried out like they’d seen a ghost. Even the driver, who was supposed to take the wheel, trembled so much that she ended up moving from the front seat to the very back, to be ready for a quick exit if necessary.

“I guess I can’t blame them. I’d run too if I saw someone wearing these clothes in the middle of summer. I feel a bit sorry for the driver…”

She briefly considered taking off Juyul’s coat, thinking it might help, but ultimately decided against it. A woman with hand-shaped bruises on her neck was probably worse than someone looking like a lunatic dressed for winter. Muttering to herself in the back seat probably made her seem crazy enough already, but it was better than the alternative.

The bus, empty except for Sodam and the miserable driver, reached Gunsan Terminal at 8:30 AM. For some reason, the driver had offered to take her directly to the terminal after asking her destination the moment he saw her, which turned out to be a small victory.

“Did he think I was going to hijack the bus or something? As if I’d even know how to… Not that I’d want to, anyway…”

She quickly got off the bus and gave the driver a polite nod, though he seemed too frightened to notice. From there, the subjugation site was about an hour away by public transport, but considering the current situation, she worried that getting on another bus might result in a police intervention the moment she boarded.

“Damn it, damn it. I’m going to charge all this back as travel expenses. It’s such a waste…”

Sodam’s next choice was the fastest and most expensive option: a taxi. The taxis designated for Espers and Guides were driven by retired Espers, so there’d be no fear or suspicion from the driver, just a smooth ride. Though the fare was double or even triple that of a regular taxi, she had no other options left.

Screech—

“Did you call for a taxi?”

The driver, whose face was marred by a large scar where one eye should have been, asked her this as she climbed in, and Sodam gritted her teeth. This was going to take a lot of courage—she had never said such words in her previous life or even in this new one over the past two days. Clenching her fists and swallowing hard, she forced the words out.

“If you can get me there quickly, I’ll pay double.”

“They say there’s a subjugation going on. Are you heading there too, Guide?”

“Yeah? Oh, uh, yeah, something like that.”

Sodam bit her lip as she gave a vague response to the driver’s friendly question. She’d already spent 60,000 won just on the bus fare, and who knew how much more she’d need for the taxi ride? The thought of spending over 100,000 won just to reach the subjugation site made her stomach churn, but she had no choice.

‘Who knows, maybe if I act desperate enough, Baek Juyul will throw me some pocket change. Yeah, I’m not diving into the plot; I’m just here for the money. That’s right. Milking the protagonist’s money is a perk of being a transmigrator.’

In the countless transmigration stories she’d read, the protagonist usually started by snatching up the main character’s hidden opportunities and money. Of course, in most cases, this led to them getting entangled with the protagonist and, inevitably, the genre shifting into romance…

‘It’s not like I’m an amazing Guide like the main heroine, nor am I a tough, persistent type like Han Daram, the secondary heroine. There’s no way I’ll get involved that deeply.’

Sodam snorted at herself for even considering such a remote possibility and leaned back into the seat with a sigh of relief. Yet, she overlooked two crucial facts. One: unlike in the original story, Juyul had received some intense Guiding from her before the subjugation. Two: her complacency, the misplaced belief that she fully understood everything about this world.

“Alright, we’re here. That was practically a flight, if I do say so myself.”