Wasn’t This a Night Game

This Wasn’t a p*rn Game (Revised)

My gacha luck had always been shit.

There was never anything that came out the way I wanted, never ever.

Back then, I just thought I was unlucky, but goddamn.

To fail even the reincarnation gacha.

*

The Jericho Family, a prestigious lineage of prophets.

I was born as the youngest there. Unlike my older brothers and sisters who prophesied like it was breathing, I couldn’t even see something resembling the future until I became an adult.

“A useless b*stard who can’t even prophesy!”

Naturally, my treatment within the family was the worst.

Living fell to me, the kind of drudgery only servants knew.

Still, my life wasn’t so bad.

The ability to see the future was always a moneyed profession, and because of it, the Jericho family was one you could call upper class.

They say if you gotta beg, beg from a rich house, right?

I lived doing those chores, but the absolute level of my life never really fell all that far.

But was there no happy ending in my life?

Around the time I turned fifteen.

My parents, one day, went on an outing with my older siblings, and, absurdly, a traffic accident took them all in one fell swoop.

As a result, our family was ruined.

Properly ruined.

Traffic accident?

Could happen.

A tragedy where people die, sure, that could happen too.

But for a whole family of seers to die together? That was a serious problem.

“Folks who claim to see the future, they didn’t know their own accident was coming?”

“Madness, that is.”

“Guess the ability fades as you age. Dying after blathering on about such ridiculous things in their later years.”

“Those so-called prophets couldn’t foresee the future where they died in a traffic accident? What kind of absurd types were they?”

“They charged a fortune for their readings, too. Must’ve been swindlers, after all.”

Laughter and scorn.

No one would trust the words of the Jericho family anymore.

Those people, who, though they treated me poorly, still called me family, were gone in a single morning.

And my misfortune didn’t end there.

“Jericho, Amael, my condolences for your tragedy. But it seems you’ll have to offer condolences for our own pocketbooks as well. Your parents left behind quite the debt.”

Turned out my parents had racked up quite a few debts here and there.

If they were alive and kicking, continuing to pay them off, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but thanks to their sudden, unnatural deaths, the creditors explained they had no choice but to seize the house and properties held as collateral.

And just like that, at fifteen, I was penniless, with absolutely nothing.

A flashy transmigration to another world?

A harem life filled with awesome skills and stacked heroines?

That was a distant, distant dream for me.

But every cloud has a silver lining.

Or, as they say, a loss may turn out to be a gain.

“Amael! Beer for table three!!”

“Yes! Coming!!”

The resourcefulness I’d developed doing odd jobs saved me.

I managed to get hired at a restaurant near my family home.

Even if I was stuck wiping tables, serving food, and filling beer mugs all day, well, whatever.

It wasn’t that different from the life I’d been living before transmigration.

*

Serving food and wiping tables all day, then come night, I’d crash on the small staff bed the shop gave me, ending another day.

Even so, the shopkeeper wasn’t a bad sort, paid a decent enough wage, and if need be, I could even use the bath in the corner of the restaurant. Not a bad gig, all things considered.

But so what, right?

When there’s no future.

After soothing my weary body in the hot water, I lay on the bed, pulled the blanket up, and stared at the ceiling. The emptiness settled in again, fresh.

In just a few hours, it’d be my 20th birthday here, after this isekai reincarnation.

Twenty years spent tumbling through one damn thing after another in this place, and I still got nothin’.

No super-duper reincarnation skills, and I sure as hell wasn’t born with some kinda genius talent.

My family’s gone to shit, and even if I tried to use my experiences from Korea, I needed to be someone great, right?

That modern-day genius theory? It’s a lie.

If you ain’t got talent back in Korea, you ain’t gettin’ it here either.

Hell, if I could even pull off a prophecy based on the family bloodline, I could at least make a living as a damn seer.

Can’t even do somethin’ like that.

A textbook example of a screwed-up isekai reincarnation, that’s my life.

“Tomorrow I’ll be 20. Happy birthday, Amael.”

The name I got here.

Twenty years of meaningless, miserable time.

Don’t really feel like celebrating.

I’m beat.

Better get some sleep.

Sleeping’s better than this kinda thinkin’. Gotta sleep good so I can serve tomorrow.

Workin’ hard does it. My eyes, they close up quick.

Ain’t long ‘fore sleep, deep as a well, comes callin’.

*

The Arcal Empire, she was burnin’.

Mountains o’ corpses piled up everywhere, rivers o’ blood runnin’ in the streets.

The screamin’ o’ folks burnin’ alive, it was a terrible choir, never stoppin’, comin’ from all sides.

And right in the middle o’ it all, there was a witch.

Four arms she had, and standin’ there bare-naked for the world to see.

Laughin’ like a madwoman, showin’ off her body all brazen, she was throwin’ down magic, powerful stuff, slaughterin’ folks, over and over.

The flames she’s sendin’ out, they’re comin’ closer.

Just ‘fore the fire eats me alive.

My eyes meet hers.

Her hair, black-red with blood, held high, she asks me a question.

“Am I ugly to you, too?”

One side o’ her face, it was beautiful, somethin’ fierce.

But the other side, it was the opposite, clear as day.

Twisted skin, more than ten eyes stuck on there like spiders, blinkin’ all wrong.

Shape so messed up, it made you wanna puke.

The witch, she sees the fear in me, and she laughs.

A laugh like she’s gone clean outta her mind, full o’ crazy, she giggles.

“So, you find me hideous too! Hahahaha!!”

The witch unleashes her magic.

The flames that scorched the empire didn’t stop there, soon engulfing the entire continent.

The world burns.

And I, too, was consumed by the fire.

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

There was no happiness left in the world.

Only ash and flames and screams, and monsters – once human – twisted and unable to die, just howling.

*

I jolted upright like a coiled spring, and the first thing I felt was the sweat-drenched clothes clinging to me.

As if I’d taken a bath, my clothes and blanket were completely soaked in sweat.

I’d never seen the future before, but growing up in a renowned prophetic family, I’d picked up a thing or two here and there. I knew what I had just witnessed wasn’t just a simple dream.

The feeling was distinctly different from a dream.

What I just saw was the future.

An unfortunate future that would happen someday.

Why?

Why, after all this time of showing me nothing, are you showing me the future now?

Was I the type that could only see mega-scale misfortunes? Me?

Seeing the future was good.

But when would the future I saw actually happen?

So, who was that witch in the dream, anyway?

Even if I knew who the witch *was*, I haven’t got a clue how I’d stop her. No plan whatsoever.

I clutched my head and slumped onto the bed.

“What am I supposed to… what am I supposed to do?”

Naturally, I don’t have the capacity to handle a mega-event like the fall of an empire.

Isekai reincarnation powers?

Don’t got ’em. Just nada.

The thought of telling people about the prophecy flitted through my mind, but then I figured nobody’d believe a word I said.

Thanks to the whole family dying in a traffic accident thing, the Jericho family’s prophecy credibility was rock bottom, and then some.

Plus, out of that family, I was the one with zero prophetic talent, the one who grew up doing odd jobs. If *I* started spouting about the future, who’d believe me?

They won’t believe the prophecy.

I don’t have any special talents.

Not even one of those isekai reincarnation skills.

What am *I* supposed to do?

Huh?

Seriously, what the hell am I supposed to do?!

My first thought was to run as far away as possible, but then I remembered that lunatic witch torching the whole continent. Running wouldn’t save me from a burning end, I reckon.

No!!

At least give me some kind of ability before showing me a future like this!

Is this just waiting around to be burnt alive or what?!

“What kinda rigged bullshit is this?!”

That scream stayed trapped inside me, hands clawing at my hair, the very instant that struck.

The grandfather clock on the diner wall, chiming out its peculiar *dong-dongs*, announcing midnight had passed.

My twentieth birthday.

But joy? Nonexistent.

How could I be happy, not after just seeing a future where I burned alive, sometime, somewhere, sometime?!

Unless I get awakened some hidden, SSS-class reincarnation skill as a birthday gift, I’m doomed, utterly and completely fucking doomed!!

[Adult status confirmed, passing 20th birthday!]

And the moment that thought crossed my mind, like a goddamn lie.

[Congratulations!]

[Acquired a total of 4 skills: ＜Body Modification＞, ＜Absolute Hypnosis＞, ＜Time Stop＞, ＜Sensitivity x3000＞!]

No sooner thought than done, and before my very eyes, for the first time since this reincarnation, a status window materialized.

Looking at these skills…

These are… H-game skills?

Was it an H-game, so that’s why they weren’t unlocked ’til I came of age?

Unusable ’cause I was underage?!

What kind of fucked up crap is this…….

No.

No.

Think positive.

We’re in a situation where we gotta stop this nuke-wielding witch from ending the world, no matter what it takes.

Having some kinda, any kinda, ero-game skills is way better than nothing.

A hundred million times better.

Yeah.

So, the skills are good and all…

But how am I supposed to save the world – and myself – from a crazy, rampaging witch with ero-game skills?

Gotta think this through.

Gotta really dig up what the witch said in that dream.

Replay every single scene from the prophecy, piece by piece, meticulously.

Fists clenched tight, frantically racking my brain, I must’ve been digging through my memories like that.

Then it hit me. An idea.

“Am *I* ugly to you, too?”

In the prophecy, the witch definitely asked me that, just like that.

One situation pops up the second I hear those words.

The witch, discriminated against and oppressed because of her hideous, filthy appearance, went dark and went berserk!

There’s no other way to read it!!

So what does that mean?

If I go to her before she goes on a rampage and fix her messed-up face, wouldn’t that work?

Fix her left face with the eyes all clumped together, fix the four arms and all that.

Wouldn’t that do it?

“Yeah!

That’s how to solve it!!”

And to solve it this way, first thing’s first, gotta check something.

＜Body Modification＞ ＜Absolute Hypnosis＞ ＜Time Stop＞ ＜Sensitivity x3000＞.

Out of these four skills, especially the first one.

Body Modification.

Whether this b*stard even works right. If there are any penalties. Gotta figure out exactly what kind of traits it has.

Lucky for me, the test subject was right in front of me.

My heart thumped as I placed my hand on my own body.

And silently, I tried using Body Modification on myself.

And after a moment.

“…It really got bigger, huh?”

I confirmed the skill was working perfectly fine.