Chapter 0 – Prologue. The Day I Became a Translation Slave for Graduate Students
Since childhood, my dream was to become a veterinarian.
A veterinarian who treats dogs and cats at a local veterinary hospital.
So, by the time I became a high school student, I had already made up my mind to become a graduate student.
As a graduate student at a veterinary hospital, it is safe to say that I accepted the future of being forced to pay my passion. In 2013, I was a 19-year-old goppiri who set foot in a graduate school that others avoided and prepared to become a professor’s slave and a lab lab’s Dobby.
That’s how I managed to get into a good university, and after completing college classes for about two years, I took a leave of absence and went to the army.
Now, after graduating after a few more years, I was thinking of accepting ‘Re: Master’s and Ph.D. Life starting from graduate school life’ with an attitude of accepting death.
“… Meme?”
That was until I came to a different world after drinking alcohol on the day of my discharge.
***
The first day of my life in another world.
Even when I woke up in the vast meadow, I thought it was all a nightmare.
It’s a disjointed dream, but I thought that if it were me now, there would be nothing strange about having a dream like this. At best, I returned from the different world of the military, but I ended up being dragged into the different world of graduate school again.
It wasn’t until about half a day later that it became night when I realized the problem in earnest.
I was hungry all the time and the days were getting colder, but the terrible reality with no sign of awakening from the dream hit me.
“Mother. It was a dream and it wasn’t fucking.”
After spending a night in the dark, I gave up denying reality.
After that, it was a journey wandering around the meadow. After several days of twists and turns, I finally arrived at a certain city, and the real difficulty of my survival in another world began from there.
“Hmm. Being a tourist Got it. Please present your ID.”
“… ID?”
“Exactly. If you had gone through the formal entry procedures, would you have received it?”
Just write down the name and pass, there was no convenience like that.
When the security guard asked for my ID, I had a hunch that I had become an illegal alien. It was also self-evident that I tried to escape before the matter escalated.
“Oops, sorry! I forgot and left my ID at home! I’ll come back next time!”
“Arrest him.”
“Yes.”
“No fuck, evil! Wait! Aww!! Why are you hitting me!!”
And it was self-evident that I got stuck in a dark room in less than 10 fucking minutes.
“The 23 defendants are sentenced to three years of slavery for illegal immigration.”
Within days of my arrest, a white judge rounded up a bunch of scruffy illegal immigrants like me and turned us into slaves. Shit, isn’t this racist?
Deprived of all my brand new underwear worth 98,000 won, I was driven to the slave market wearing a rag.
“Mr. Merchant, I am cold.”
“I also.”
Don’t sympathize with this motherfucker and ask for clothes.
Like a fucking bald slave trader bastard. Although she was not naked to see if she had the minimum human rights, it was not a very good experience to be left half-naked by the side of the road.
Even when a young lady passing by glanced at me and smiled, I had to suffer from suicidal thoughts that I hadn’t felt even when my next colleague took a cell phone and came out on guard duty.
That time lasted for nearly a month. This was because the state-sponsored slave market was held over a month.
Although it took less than a week for me to be classified as bad stock without finding the owner.
“Hmm… Not a very strong-looking slave.”
“Yes! But if you give them a job, they will work hard like a cow!”
“Like a cow? Huh, what about a guy with no calluses on his hands?”
Although I had just been discharged from the military, I was skinny from birth. Maybe that’s why it didn’t look very good to be used as a slave by the standards of another world.
As a result, I couldn’t find the owner until two days before the market ended.
It was around the time when my eyes were dizzy, thinking that if I continued like this, I might be used as a slave in the mines or as an arrowhead in the battlefield.
A group of scholars appeared at the shop where I was.
“I’m looking for a slave to use as an errand boy. Is there any good one?”
She was a woman with short bobbed indigo hair and long ears like an elf.
No, not like an elf, just an elf. It was then that I first knew that this was a different world, a real world of fantasy.
A group of four men and women, starting with the elf, walked to the front of the iron cage where I was locked up after talking for a while with the slave trader who ran out in a hurry.
“It’s cheap. 2 silver, isn’t that a flawed slave?”
“Absolutely not! Even though he looks like that and ate, he understands well and doesn’t have a single bottle!”
I wanted to ask what it meant to be born and ate like that, but I didn’t say anything. If I couldn’t find the owner again this time, my life could have been really messed up.
“Hmm. If you understand the language, you will be able to run errands. … What do you think?”
“Those who are skinny will eat less rice. It’s not going to be used for rough things, wouldn’t it be fine?”
“I am against it. It was too skinny. Won because he looks like he can’t even lift his luggage properly.”
“Since you are tall, won’t it get better if you eat well? They say that hunter-gatherers in the distant East have great muscles and bones.”
After flirting around for a while, they bought me at a low price of 2 silver, roughly equivalent to 2 million won in my senses.
“I am Yerna, an archaeologist. You?”
“I am Kang Buk-ho from the New World.”
The new continent is where yellow-skinned people like me build a country called ‘Kitai’ and teem with it. As a result, I was naturally treated as an illegal alien from there.
“Whoops. Is your name ‘Kang Buko’? That’s a strange name.”
Upon hearing my name, the elf Yerina snarled and laughed happily.
To be precise, it was ‘Kangbuk-ho’, but I knew enough from my experience over the past month that it would be useless to say it.
“You can call me by any name you like. It will be difficult to pronounce.”
“Yes? Then I will build a new one What does your name mean?”
“The surname means strong, and the name roughly means north.”
My name, Beihu (北互), means get along with the north.
That north is right It is the story of a communist dictatorship that obese missile pigs clap and look down.
Since my paternal grandfather was a separated family due to the division of the South and the North, they say that the name was given in hopes of reunification in my generation, but I don’t really like it. That’s why I only conveyed the meaning of north.
“Okay. It’s a name you’ll use while you’re a slave anyway, so you don’t even need a last name… Great.”
The blue-haired elf put a leash around my neck and grinned.
“Your name will be ‘Nord’ from now on.”
That was the beginning of my three years of slavery.
***
I was sold at the lowest price as a chore slave, but luckily the period of time I did not lose my body by doing the last job was not long.
There was a reason for that. Just as in a different world, the main character is given the language translation ability one by one, I was also able to understand the language of this world from the beginning.
This automatic translation ability was a fucking OP skill.
Even in this different world where God created humans, language unification was impossible. Even here, the language spoken by each country and race was different, and such a situation became a great opportunity for me as a slave.
How many different languages are there on Earth alone? Even in this world, the language barrier was extremely high.
However, the Papago translator in my big mouth was able to break the language barrier with fucking ease, like a kid breaking a sandcastle in a playground.
“If you rot this damn ability, you’re an idiot.”
I immediately proved my ability to those around me. The professors at Carmine University, who discovered that I was a fucking proficient 7-lingualist, promoted me to a clerical slave.
“This guy does a good job.”
“Lol. Thank you Berry Much.”
“Huh. A week to complete 20 pages of a Romanian history book? Hey, don’t you want to be a slave to our department for the rest of your life?”
“Why are you talking badly about working hard?”
It didn’t take long to prove my competence. Thanks to this, the errand boy originally sought by Yerna and the others was assigned to another newly purchased slave half a year later.
And things started fucking from there.
“Are you a slave soldier from the archeology department? Welcome. Here is part of the edition. Translate it into Britannian by next week and have it on my desk.”
“Yes!”
“I heard the rumors. They say it’s pretty capable. But I don’t believe what I haven’t seen with my own eyes. Please bring the complete translation of the 30-page version and the linked map to be submitted to the academic world by the end of this month.”
“Yes? Yes.”
“Hey you. This is my dissertation. Please attach 10 supporting materials and reference books from the library and correct the spelling.”
“… Yes.”
“Sleep there. Put my elephant in the refrigerator.”
“Yes?”
“Ah, I misunderstood. Park my elephant and sort and label the ingredients and specimens you brought with you and store them in the dining room refrigerator and my lab freezer. Until lunch today.”
“… Yes.”
“What one. You don’t move fast.”
“… Yes.”
What would you do if you were so damn talented? I am a slave
Slave! Competent! Free!
Having received a triple debuff, I became the first free translator that anyone can use at least once, like a coffee machine at the entrance of a meat restaurant. This oriental does it for free!
“Fuck, this is a graduate student.”
Enthusiasm spreads, but the reality was like that.
Somehow, I had become a slave in the lab of professors who were crazy about translation.
And my outstanding translation ability, which is comparable to that of incumbent professors, and the broad title of “College-affiliated slave” Made me a translation slave used by dozens of professors.
“Wow, is this my country?”
When I came out of my ability to be comfortable, I had more work than when I was a slave to chores.
At that time, I just moved my luggage, cleaned, and occasionally ran errands, and the rest of the time was free!!
“When I go back to Earth, I have to quit college and work part-time at a convenience store. If I go to graduate school one more time, I will not be a person.”
Excluding all the jokes, it was three years that were as bad as military life. As an artilleryman, I regretted swearing at the administrative soldiers for drinking honey, so I said everything.
Still, it was worthwhile to go through hardships while performing a series of fucking side-rolling Somersalt kicks.
When I was released after three years of service, the reason I was given the right to stay in this country was because the professors gave me a position as a researcher.
“Have you decided what to do when you get free citizenship? Recently, it is difficult to find a job and it is not easy to obtain a residence permit.”
Why don’t you give a short-term sergeant to a kid who does a good job? Why was it that our Haengbo-gwan, who had been recommending it, came to mind?
The image of Yerna recommending that I become a researcher was still vivid in my memory.
Now that I think about it, it was kind of like the fucking professors hooking graduate students and letting them go through the master’s and doctoral courses.
“Even though you are not in the specs, I spent three years here, wouldn’t it be a waste to blow it all up like this? I’ll give you a salary, so why don’t you work hard for a few years to get a qualification and become a professor?”
“Uh… What if I don’t?”
“I have to go back to my hometown. I can give you the fare.”
The fare is a dog horn. Is there even a warp ship for dimension travel at the professor’s house?
It was an obvious reason that even if I was kicked out, I would never be able to return to my hometown, Korea.
Reluctantly, I made the decision to stake a stake in the university.
It wasn’t a huge loss. I had to have a certain amount of power and money to research or prepare things to go home anyway.
It’s better than starting from the bottom, like heading into the ground.
So I wanted to get a proper degree and position here at Carmine University, which is famous for its international level.
“I’ll do it, researcher.”
“Really? Good idea!”
I didn’t regret it much even when I saw my smile as if I had grabbed her hugu.
Anyway, in the past 3 years, I have gained enough know-how and information to write in my dissertation. I figured it wouldn’t take long for it to pay off properly.
─But fuck it.
Looking back now, that was the stupidest decision I ever made in my life.
