Sage 1

Prologue

“You can’t die.”

They say raising children is all for naught.

Indeed, the words of the ancient sages are true. I raised the protagonist of a fantasy novel, making him even more ridiculously overpowered than he already was, and after being sealed away for his sake and finally awakening, the first thing he says to me after 12 years is that again.

Irkus Sakrina Robain, who was a breathtakingly handsome young man even at seventeen, had aged like a fine wine, becoming even more alluring.

I looked at Irkus, who had grown well on his own while I was sealed, with renewed interest.

My disciple, who hadn’t even reached twenty the last time I saw him, had grown up so much that he would soon be thirty. At times like these, the long passage of time felt cruel to me.

Contrary to the contract we initially made, I stared, as if mesmerized, into the beautiful violet eyes of this ungrateful wretch who refused to kill me.

Perhaps it was because of the witch’s bloodline, or perhaps it was the protagonist’s beauty buff, but he had a way of confusing people’s hearts without even casting a single charm spell.

“If you’re twenty-nine this year, I’m four hundred and seventeen.”

“Are you going on about your damn age again?”

“Damn? This kid… his mouth has gotten foul with age. Yes, I’m going on about my damn age again. At this point, I’m old enough to die, aren’t I?”

At my words about dying, Irkus’s perfectly shaped eyebrows crumpled in displeasure.

When he was young, that frown used to look cute, but now, with a bit of age, it actually felt somewhat intimidating. Even so, he’s still just a kid to me.

Nonchalantly, I reached out and rubbed the space between Irkus’s furrowed brows with my thumb. Human aging is so fast, why does he keep frowning? Does he think he can avoid wrinkles forever just because he’s the protagonist?

“Keep your promise. We made a contract.”

“…….”

“Seeing you not answering properly, you must have become emperor, huh? You certainly look the part.”

I moved my hand from Irkus’s forehead and stroked his neatly styled bright blond hair.

Whether he lacked the self-awareness of being an emperor of an empire, or whether the saying “old habits die hard” was true, Irkus didn’t reject my hand messing up his hair. Instead, he lowered his head and calmly accepted it. Despite his submissive attitude, his words remained the same.

“Yoo-an, I’ll say it again… You can’t die.”

“You can’t break the contract.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I raised you, and I taught you.”

From the age of twelve to seventeen, Irkus always looked at me with the same gaze.

Eyes yearning for affection, a gaze shining with the characteristic childishness and longing of children who want to be acknowledged.

A child’s love or admiration is fine. It’s easy enough to ignore. Just turn your head and pretend not to see, and it’s over.

Fortunately, that was one of the things I was good at. Living for a long time, I couldn’t help but become accustomed to it, even if I didn’t want to.

However, the fact that the grown-up Irkus still harbored the same feelings for me was a big problem. These lingering feelings he didn’t even try to hide were not good for either Irkus or me.

Between Irkus and me, there lies a gap of centuries. I am immortal, and he, a mortal, will grow old and die someday. There is nothing with a worse ending than a mortal falling in love with an immortal.

So, my indifference was for the sake of both of us. Irkus might resent me now, but as time passes, the day will come when he understands my actions.

“I thought that maybe once…”

“No, don’t say any more.”

“I thought that maybe once… you would answer my love.”

“If you love me, you have to kill me.”

“…….”

“That’s all I can say.”

Four hundred and seventeen years old…

I’ve lived for far too long.

If Irkus won’t kill me, I’ll have to wait countless more years for someone who can.

But no matter who appears, the probability of success would be lower than with Irkus, the protagonist of this world, in every aspect.

If this is how it’s going to be, it would have been better to be sealed forever. If I can’t die, it would have been better to never wake up, to have everything erased from my memory.

As I withdrew the hand stroking his hair, Irkus grabbed my wrist with a strong grip, as if to prevent me from moving away.

I thought he had only grown in size, but his hands had also become more like those of a swordsman than an emperor or a mage. It seemed he had gone through quite a bit while I was helplessly sealed.

I obediently took a step forward as Irkus pulled me along.

A truly good teacher would see these hands and pat their disciple on the back, acknowledging their hardships. But I wasn’t good at that sort of thing.

While I didn’t want to sadden Irkus, my heart beat anxiously at the thought that he might actually kill me. I was afraid that because of Irkus’s finite life, I might lose my desire to die.

What if I start wanting to live until he dies?

If I get swept up in my emotions and prolong my life as Irkus wishes, I’ll lose another chance to die. The thought of being left alone, unable to age or die, to hold Irkus’s funeral, was horrifying enough just to imagine.

Standing so close that I could feel his breath, I felt a pang of longing. When Irkus was young, I could hold him in my arms. Now, all I could do was helplessly look up at him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yoo-an, please…”

“You know, don’t you? I took you in so that I could die by your hand.”

I’ve lived too long to endure this life alone any longer. Time has taken too much from me. My only wish was to escape through death before I lose everything that’s left.

The Great Sage… wants to die now.

The Great Sage Wants to Die – Chapter 1

The starting point of this whole story goes back 398 years. That is, to the time before I fell into the world of the 17-volume epic fantasy novel <The Book of Irkus>, back when I was a third-year high school student in South Korea.

I had never been interested in fantasy novels in my entire life. Because fantasy novels don’t appear on the college entrance exam.

But as is the case with most otherworld transmigration stories, I took a peek at a fantasy novel, something I had never been interested in my whole life, just the day before the exam, and ended up in this predicament. If I had just quietly read the literature passages for the CSAT Korean language section the day before the exam, this tragedy wouldn’t have happened.

Why shouldn’t you read a fantasy novel the day before the college entrance exam?

There are roughly three reasons.

1. If you read a fantasy novel the day before the college entrance exam, there’s a high probability you’ll get hit by a truck and transmigrate.
2. Usually, a South Korean high school senior who dies right before the entrance exam becomes overpowered in another world.
3. Nevertheless, until they become overpowered, they go through all sorts of hardships.

A classmate, whose name I can’t quite recall now, had jokingly said something like that.

‘Hey, don’t read fantasy novels the day before the college entrance exam. You might get hit by a truck on your way to the exam and transmigrate into that novel.’

Looking back now, that guy was a prophet. He should have become the Great Sage, not me.

Bright light poured in through the window I had left uncovered because I was too lazy to draw the curtains. Dust motes, oblivious to their insignificance, shimmered gold in the morning sunlight.

The day I picked up Irkus in the Southern Forest was also a clear day with bright sunshine like this.

Back then, I crawled into bed with the half-hearted resolution of sleeping for at least twenty years! But because I hadn’t properly cast a preservation spell on the bed, I woke up after only five years with a sore back. This was because the wooden bed, unable to withstand the passage of time, had completely collapsed.

“Gilbert!”

Cursing on top of the collapsed bed and yelling for Gilbert, my cohabitating oak tree spirit, was the start of my 400th birthday.

* * *

‘That relentless bastard. He’s going to wear out his CSAT prep books.’

‘Are all the guys who get perfect scores on the September mock exam like that?’

‘Han Yoo-an, you really… don’t ever read fantasy novels the day before the college entrance exam. It’s guys like you who always get hit by trucks the day before the exam.’

‘Is that a curse? Even if I get hit by a truck, you guys won’t be able to get first place.’

‘Crazy bastard obsessed with studying…’

‘It’s crazy bastards like me who are responsible for the future of South Korea’s college entrance exams.’

I’m a gifted student. I’m not the least bit ashamed to say this myself. Because it’s true.

In good conscience, I won’t call myself a genius.

In this unfair world where there are tons of guys who can memorize things with a single glance, I had to look at something at least three times to memorize it. So, I couldn’t say I was born with a gift for studying, especially when I wilted after just one all-nighter, surrounded by guys who were fine even after several sleepless nights.

My “moderately intelligent brain” was too weak to survive the South Korean college entrance exam system, which was overflowing with people with excellent mental stamina.

While the world was full of people who were worse than me, there were just as many who were better. The fact that I could rank high in my school but not nationally was proof of that.

However, naturally intelligent people tend to get overconfident. They rely solely on their innate memory and think they can start later than others and still come out on top. Pre-studying and reviewing are the basics, but these arrogant people who don’t even do the basics.

Unlike the geniuses, I was smart because of hard work, so I never let my guard down. There are times when having an average brain spec is helpful.

As a result, I always ranked at the top of every exam held at school.

What if you don’t have a natural talent for studying? It’s something you can overcome with repetitive learning and developing techniques. The Korean college entrance exam system is far from philosophy, and there are always somewhat fixed answers and solutions.

Even if you don’t understand, as long as you memorize well, that’s all that matters. Even a fuel-inefficient Tico can overtake a Benz in the college entrance exam.

Any idiot can reach a perfect score on the mock exam by reading the CSAT prep book until it’s worn out, to the point where they remember what the fourth line of the fourth unit of the English passage is. You can’t turn a pumpkin into a watermelon by drawing lines on it, but if you highlight a textbook until it’s worn out, you can become a fluorescent green zucchini.

If you have time and will, you can do it without talent… that’s the South Korean college entrance exam. Those with weak wills who get distracted by all sorts of entertainment are the ones who complain that the entrance exam is all about luck.

So, everyone from my parents to my school teachers, and even the classmates who were jealous of me, expected that I would get high scores on the college entrance exam and easily get into a prestigious university. Because I was such a determined high school senior, it was unlikely that I’d fail the college entrance exam.

I was so confident that I didn’t even submit applications to any universities except for the top university in Korea that I was aiming for, just in case I got “sniped” and was forced to attend one I didn’t want to.

But, crazy… I didn’t even get to take the college entrance exam.

Korean can be interpreted in multiple ways. What I mean by “didn’t get to” here is not that I did poorly on the exam, but that I was unable to take it at all.

What I’m trying to say is this: on the morning of the day I was supposed to take the college entrance exam, I died after being hit by a truck driven by a drowsy driver.

My parents didn’t raise me with such care, saying, “Oh, our son must be a genius…” just so I could be so pointlessly hit by a car.

To study for a total of 12 years through elementary, middle, and high school, only to die on the way to be evaluated on all those years of study in a single day’s exam. If life were a product, this would be grounds for an immediate refund.

If I knew I was going to die like this, I wouldn’t have spent all my time studying, stabbing my thigh with a pen. When other kids asked me to go to the PC bang, instead of looking at them like they were pathetic, I would have joined them, and I would have skipped school at least once.

But as they say, you never know what’s going to happen in life. How can you know what the future holds when you don’t even know if this year’s college entrance exam will be a walk in the park or a living hell?

The only deviation I had made was flipping through a fantasy novel that had been sitting on the living room bookshelf without much thought the day before the college entrance exam. Fuck… I shouldn’t have done that. Though it’s now in the distant past, looking back, that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

My classmate, who was gifted in prophecy, had even warned me, but I was only nineteen at the time and made rash decisions too easily. I fell right into the trap of doing exactly what I was told not to do.

But humans are animals who, when told not to think of a pink elephant walking on two legs, will imagine that elephant in even greater detail, so there was nothing I could do.

The old fantasy novel, published as a physical book and not an e-book, had the straightforward title of <The Book of Irkus>.

The cover, with its large, archaic font, looked old-fashioned no matter how you looked at it, and the writing style was like a non-literary passage from the CSAT Korean language section. It was exactly the kind of fantasy novel that my father’s generation would have enjoyed.

The novel was about… what’s his name, the protagonist, Irkus Sakrina Robain… why is his name so long?

Anyway, this guy, Irkus, is the third prince of the Robain Empire and also a descendant of a witch. Despite all the court intrigues that take place in the story, Irkus survives to the end just because he has good blood and because he’s the protagonist. Whether it’s Korean society or a fantasy world, good lineage is what matters.

Irkus, like the protagonists of fantasy novels from that time, gets into all sorts of trouble and suffers a lot from the very first volume just because he’s the protagonist.

But this guy is a born overpowered character whose mana level can’t even be measured because he’s of witch’s blood. He’s not even a character that grows stronger. He’s just a… a new, unpatched game character created due to a failure to adjust the power balance (and a character that the developers must love).

Just reading the description that his ‘possessed mana cannot even be measured’ made it easy to guess what would happen next. For me, a master of the non-literary passages of the CSAT Korean language section, this was a piece of cake. This guy… whether he becomes a mage or a magic swordsman, he’s bound to succeed at whatever he does.

However, since Irkus is only twelve years old at the beginning of the first volume, the first prince and crown prince, Radanta, or whatever, Robain… seriously, why is his name so long? Anyway, Radanta, or whatever, subjects him to all sorts of persecution, torture, and threats on his life, until he loses everything he holds dear and escapes to the Southern Forest, which is full of cranky tree spirits.

That’s right.

Even just reading the first volume gives you an estimate.

The protagonist will chew up that first prince and become emperor. Irkus, whatever Robain, after much hardship, will become emperor, make some friends, and build a harem or something.

Just the description of the twelve-year-old’s appearance, saying that he’s a stunningly beautiful boy with blond hair and purple eyes, makes it obvious that he’ll grow up to be an incredibly handsome man thanks to the protagonist buff.

The protagonist is strong and also handsome? Then he has to have a harem. If it’s 17 volumes, there should be some romance to make it worth it.

It was a typical mass-produced fantasy novel, with nothing particularly different about it, except for its serious writing style, the complete lack of humor in the story’s progression, and the fact that the story, which could have been condensed into two volumes and finished with “Ta-da, Irkus became emperor!”, was stretched out to 17 volumes.

The reason I closed the book after reading only the first volume was not so much because the next day was the day of the college entrance exam, but because the content that would follow was easily predictable.

How frivolous… Frivolous is the English word for frivolous… As I fell asleep, I was memorizing English words, so in fact, about half of the contents of the first volume had already evaporated from my memory.

As I said before, I’m a gifted student, not a genius. That means my brain capacity is very limited.

When I woke up in the morning, I had forgotten most of the details, except for the fact that the names of Irkus, whatever, and Radanta, whatever, were incredibly long. Because on that day, it was more important to memorize one more math formula than the contents of the first volume of a fantasy novel.

However, this was the outcome of the day of the college entrance exam: while on my way to the exam site, wearing the neatly ironed uniform that my mom had prepared for me to do well on the exam, I was hit and killed by a cargo truck driven by a drowsy driver at a crosswalk with a green light.

I don’t think my parents raised me with such care, saying, “Oh, our son must be a genius…” just so I could be so pointlessly hit by a car.

To study for a total of 12 years through elementary, middle, and high school, only to die on the way to be evaluated on all those years of study in a single day’s exam. If life were a product, this would be grounds for an immediate refund.

If I had known I was going to die like this, I wouldn’t have spent all my time studying, stabbing my thigh with a pen. When other kids asked me to go to the PC bang, instead of looking at them like they were pathetic, I would have joined them, and I would have skipped school at least once.

But as they say, you never know what’s going to happen in life. How can you know what the future holds when you don’t even know if this year’s college entrance exam will be a walk in the park or a living hell?

The only deviation I had made was flipping through a fantasy novel that had been sitting on the living room bookshelf without much thought the day before the college entrance exam. Fuck… I shouldn’t have done that. Though it’s now in the distant past, looking back, that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

My classmate, who was gifted in prophecy, had even warned me, but I was only nineteen at the time and made rash decisions too easily. I fell right into the trap of doing exactly what I was told not to do.

But humans are animals who, when told not to think of a pink elephant walking on two legs, will imagine that elephant in even greater detail, so there was nothing I could do.

The old fantasy novel, published as a physical book and not an e-book, had the straightforward title of <The Book of Irkus>.

The cover, with its large, archaic font, looked old-fashioned no matter how you looked at it, and the writing style was like a non-literary passage from the CSAT Korean language section. It was exactly the kind of fantasy novel that my father’s generation would have enjoyed.

The novel was about… what’s his name, the protagonist, Irkus Sakrina Robain… why is his name so long?

Anyway, this guy, Irkus, is the third prince of the Robain Empire and also a descendant of a witch. Despite all the court intrigues that take place in the story, Irkus survives to the end just because he has good blood and because he’s the protagonist. Whether it’s Korean society or a fantasy world, good lineage is what matters.

Irkus, like the protagonists of fantasy novels from that time, gets into all sorts of trouble and suffers a lot from the very first volume just because he’s the protagonist.

But this guy is a born overpowered character whose mana level can’t even be measured because he’s of witch’s blood. He’s not even a character that grows stronger. He’s just a… a new, unpatched game character created due to a failure to adjust the power balance (and a character that the developers must love).

Just reading the description that his ‘possessed mana cannot even be measured’ made it easy to guess what would happen next. For me, a master of the non-literary passages of the CSAT Korean language section, this was a piece of cake. This guy… whether he becomes a mage or a magic swordsman, he’s bound to succeed at whatever he does.

However, since Irkus is only twelve years old at the beginning of the first volume, the first prince and crown prince, Radanta, or whatever, Robain… seriously, why is his name so long? Anyway, Radanta, or whatever, subjects him to all sorts of persecution, torture, and threats on his life, until he loses everything he holds dear and escapes to the Southern Forest, which is full of cranky tree spirits.

That’s right.

Even just reading the first volume gives you an estimate.

The protagonist will chew up that first prince and become emperor. Irkus, whatever Robain, after much hardship, will become emperor, make some friends, and build a harem or something.

Just the description of the twelve-year-old’s appearance, saying that he’s a stunningly beautiful boy with blond hair and purple eyes, makes it obvious that he’ll grow up to be an incredibly handsome man thanks to the protagonist buff.

The protagonist is strong and also handsome? Then he has to have a harem. If it’s 17 volumes, there should be some romance to make it worth it.

It was a typical mass-produced fantasy novel, with nothing particularly different about it, except for its serious writing style, the complete lack of humor in the story’s progression, and the fact that the story, which could have been condensed into two volumes and finished with “Ta-da, Irkus became emperor!”, was stretched out to 17 volumes.

The reason I closed the book after reading only the first volume was not so much because the next day was the day of the college entrance exam, but because the content that would follow was easily predictable.

How frivolous… Frivolous is the English word for frivolous… As I fell asleep, I was memorizing English words, so in fact, about half of the contents of the first volume had already evaporated from my memory.

As I said before, I’m a gifted student, not a genius. That means my brain capacity is very limited.

When I woke up in the morning, I had forgotten most of the details, except for the fact that the names of Irkus, whatever, and Radanta, whatever, were incredibly long. Because on that day, it was more important to memorize one more math formula than the contents of the first volume of a fantasy novel.

But, the day of the college entrance exam ended like this: I died after being hit by a cargo truck driven by a drowsy driver while crossing a crosswalk with a green light, on my way to the exam site, wearing the neatly ironed uniform that my mother had prepared for me to do well on the exam.

I think I had a pretty good life. It would have been great if a gifted student like me could have led the future of South Korea… I was the perfect talent for the corrupt Korean-style rote education system. S University? Y University? K University? They were all in the bag.

But whether it was because I wasn’t the only one who regretted my life, which could have been on a smooth path to success, I opened my eyes in the world of <The Book of Irkus>.

What the… Why was the 1:1 meeting with the creator, which one must go through before being transported to another world, skipped?

Thinking about it again, it’s so unfair. I was going to grab this so-called god by the collar and complain that I could have gotten into S University as an active student.

If I had known my future in advance, I would have spent the night before the college entrance exam reading the 17-volume fantasy novel instead of memorizing English words.

Hey… If you’re going to make me an overpowered high school student in another world, please give me a heads-up in the future so I can be mentally prepared. If you drop me in without any foreshadowing or omens, I can’t include it in the literature section of the CSAT Korean language exam.