I Became the Final Subjugation Target of That Era’s Light Novel

2004 was 20 years ago from the era I lived in.

And it was a familiar year for me.

It was the year I became a middle school student and also the year I started saving up my allowance to buy comic books for the first time.

To be precise, I didn’t start buying comic books right away.

I wasn’t earning money from a part-time job, and my parents gave me about 20,000 won once a month, so buying comic books felt a bit suspicious, which is why I opted for light novels instead.

On the outside, they looked like comic books, but in reality, they were novels. The content felt like it was just a novelized version of the comic, making it enjoyable to read. Given that they weren’t comic books, my parents let it slide to some extent.

Furthermore, novels often took full advantage of the “text” aspect, so while some explicit scenes were described openly, they didn’t hold back on featuring various kinds of intense descriptions, without deletions like in comic books, and the plots were richer in density.

When spending a similar amount of money, novels provided longer enjoyment, so I quickly fell deep into light novels.

Even now, if I were to return to the world I lived in and rummage around my house, I’d probably find piles of dusty light novels buried in the corners of my bookshelf that I haven’t taken out in a while.

I liked comic books too, and bought them often, but… it seems like, perhaps because light novels were the first thing I touched as an otaku, I was more attached to them.

And thanks to that, I could speculate that I had probably been reincarnated into one of those novels I had read.

Right after I realized the situation, my head was too cluttered to think clearly, but upon reflection, this school uniform seemed oddly familiar yet strange.

After all, among the novels I read, there weren’t many schools that wore sailor uniforms with such a dull design.

“Hanakawa High School…?”

I picked up the student notebook again, muttering to myself.

It was definitely Hanakawa High School.

…In the novel, it was described as a private high school with a high deviation score.

Naturally, the tuition fees were also high.

“…”

I raised my head and looked around the room again.

No matter how I looked at it, this didn’t seem like somewhere a student attending an expensive private high school would live.

I rummaged through my bag once more and pulled out the bankbook.

There was quite a lot of money. How it was saved up or who saved it, I had no idea.

The problem was how long I could survive on this money.

I had no clue how much the tuition would be right away, but it certainly wasn’t a small amount, and I had no idea what the rent was like here.

Moreover—

grumble

“Ah…”

I placed my hand on my stomach.

That’s right. I needed to eat to survive.

No, more importantly, where exactly was I?

*

Saitama Prefecture, Saitama City.

The nearest train station was Omiya Station.

Walking here, I figured it took a bit over 40 minutes, suggesting I must have gotten lost quite a bit on my way to the station.

Last night, I had stayed up all night, deep in thought and never even got a single wink of sleep. I realized I even forgot to wash myself after I reached near the train station.

Even if I had intended to wash up, I wondered how many washing supplies were available in that household.

Even after arriving here, I had more questions.

Where on earth was Minato Ward?

I had never once set foot outside the Korean Peninsula in my entire life.

When I say I’ve never left the Korean Peninsula, I mean it literally. I had never even seen Jeju Island.

I was born in Seoul, my family was from Seoul, and naturally, during the Lunar New Year or Chuseok, we traveled around and returned to Seoul. The only time I left Seoul was when we went to Gyunggi Province for ancestral rites.

Sure, I had been to Gyeongju for a school trip, but…

So, while I could somewhat recall the route from Gangbuk to Gangnam, I couldn’t even formulate anything about getting from Saitama to Minato.

Just because I watched anime doesn’t mean I learned Japanese geography.

grumble

“……”

I placed my hand back on my stomach.

…Should I eat something for now?

*

I considered entering a convenience store to buy some instant food—then remembered that my financial situation wasn’t very optimistic, so I bought the cheapest bread I could find.

The long, thin bread, which somehow looked like it had nothing inside it, truly had nothing!

As for the taste, it resembled that long cream bread sold in bakeries, but without the cream.

I’d love to ask which fool made and sold this bread, but then I noticed the sticker attached to the package: it was called ‘Koppe Bread.’

Oh, I see.

So this is that Koppe Bread I’ve only heard about.

It was indeed the kind of bread that had been left behind in old light novels.

Thinking back, it seemed I’d have to get to know this bread during lunch hours. After all, I’ll have to save money.

…Should I transfer to some prefectural high school right now? Or maybe drop out and look for a part-time job?

Even if it’s a light novel, ultimately, something must happen around that school, right?

Moreover, light novels from the 2000s had some unrefined and intense elements, so I might end up risking my life if things go wrong.

Then again, light novels had their fair share of supernatural creatures and serial killers popping out all over the place.

“……”

While I sat down on a nearby bench close to the station and munched through my bread, passersby glanced my way.

Midday. Weekday. Right after the school term had begun.

It must look like I was just a delinquent skipping school.

I lifted my left arm to check again beneath my wrist.

There still clearly was a magic circle-like design drawn there.

“Haa…”

What kind of character am I?

Even rummaging through my memories from 20 years ago, I couldn’t recall such a character existing. All I could remember were just the main characters and their heroine faces.

Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure I finished reading that novel.

Letting my arm drop again, I had a piece of bread in my mouth and was staring into space when—

beep

The pocket of my skirt vibrated.

I pulled it out and looked at the small screen of my flip phone.

Unlike the internal screen, the external screen was that old-style digital display with a green background and black dots.

Just showing a phone number without being registered.

I hesitated momentarily before picking up the phone.

What would I even say?

“Moshi moshi?”

“Hello?”

“……”

While I was pondering such trivialities, I experienced a staggering moment of clarity and just opened the phone to answer the call.

“Hello?”

Moshi moshi.

Thanks to some unknown mechanism, my mouth automatically spoke Japanese. I didn’t even have to try. I have no clue why; perhaps it works similarly to when I was reading text.

[Ah, yes, hello.]

The caller seemed more flustered than me when I finally answered.

Despite the voice not sounding like that of some expert or a cold villain, I had to consider that in this world, this voice could still indicate a powerful figure lurking behind.

Because you know, there’s always the trope of the seemingly hesitant yet factually calm character who ends up having a sadistic side.

[Ah—could this be Kurosawa… is this your call?]

…Thinking back, this didn’t seem like the case after all.

“Yes, I’m Kurosawa Kotone.”

With a voice mimicking the dramatic tone of a voice actor, I spoke once more.

Just for the record, I didn’t intend that.

[Yes, ah, I see.]

Hearing my response, they seemed startled again.

[I’m Suzuki Sanae, the Japanese teacher at Hanakawa High School… I’m in charge of Class 1-B.]

“Oh, yes.”

Only after hearing that did I finally regain my composure.

[Since you are now a student in my class… Classes were supposed to begin on April 6th, but you haven’t come to school even once until today, so I’m calling.]

Now it made sense.

This person was indeed from both the novel and the anime adaptation.

I couldn’t exactly say they were a major character, but they were treated as one of the “moe-type characters” back in the day.

For the record, they weren’t the homeroom teacher of the protagonist. If Kurosawa Kotone was in the same class as the protagonist, I would have recognized it.

[Is there something wrong?]

“Ah…”

There’s a lot wrong.

The problem is that those “issues” aren’t related to ‘Kurosawa Kotone’ at all.

“…No, I’ll be there now.”

[Huh? Ah, yes.]

As I stood up to respond, the teacher on the other end seemed a bit flustered.

Maybe she thought I was a bad student who wasn’t showing up for school, hence expecting some rebellious attitude from me?

Well, I have to show my face to the teacher anyway, whether I switch schools or quit.

I ended the call, shoved the remaining bread into my mouth, and stood up.

*

And it took me two hours to reach the school.

No, it wasn’t originally supposed to take that long.

However, since I had no knowledge of Japanese geography, I ended up asking people and taking the train, and given my personality, I spent a lot of time deliberating before I approached anyone.

I could have reached near the school without transferring lines, but it ended up taking nearly an hour.

Moreover… while the base fare was 160 yen, the distance-related charges were atrocious.

Once again, I cursed whatever had landed me so far from the school.

What on earth were they thinking?

Finally, after alighting in Minato Ward, it struck me once more that I didn’t even know where to go next, prompting a thought that I should have asked for directions during that phone call.

However, calling back felt a bit inconvenient, so I managed to stumble my way through the heart of Tokyo before finally arriving at school.

Though it was described as a prestigious private school in the light novel, the buildings looked like an ordinary high school from the outside.

Nevertheless, the interior was quite impressive. Apart from its modest exterior, the school building itself was very large and clean.

How should I put it? Compared to my high school, the ceilings felt higher. That’s just how it felt.

Once at the school entrance, I was taken aback again.

The pretty large entrance featured a “shoe rack.” I assumed you were supposed to change into indoor shoes here before entering—

…But where was my place?

On top of that, even if I wanted to find it, I didn’t bring any indoor shoes with me.

“…Haa.”

I took a deep breath and just picked up my shoes.

*

“…Kurosawa-san?”

As I walked into the teacher’s lounge barefoot with just my socks on, one of the teachers immediately recognized me.

And I recognized that teacher right away.

A woman in her twenties with neatly styled short hair and oval glasses, she looked just like the illustration from the light novel.

“…Hello.”

As I greeted her with my shoes in hand, my homeroom teacher stared at me with her mouth slightly agape.

Yeah, well.

That’s how it turned out.

—With that thought in mind, I decided to just look her straight in the eyes without flinching.

My mental state took a bit of a blow, though.

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