What an unfair accident it was.
Suddenly, a cargo truck rushed toward the sidewalk.
Unfortunately, I happened to be right in its path.
At that moment, I was engrossed in my smartphone screen.
It was the most exciting part of the popular shonen manga, Pixie.
A merciless 10-ton steel beast charging at full speed.
By the time I noticed it, it was already too late.
The truck driver’s head was deeply bowed.
Probably dozed off while driving. Figures.
For someone like me who overthinks everything and never jaywalks, this was truly an unexpected bolt from the blue.
The only silver lining? After dying painlessly…
I woke up in an unfamiliar body.
Being a huge fan of subcultures like manga and anime…
I quickly realized this was what people call reincarnation or transmigration.
But life is unpredictable.
Things don’t always go as planned.
Soon enough, I faced two very inconvenient problems.
First, I couldn’t speak, as if my throat had been severely injured.
And second… I now looked unmistakably like a young girl.
Reincarnation is one thing, but as a mute TS girl?!
Seriously?!
Just like how the Little Mermaid lost her voice to gain legs…
Perhaps losing my voice and gender was the price for coming back to life.
“Hmm… Thinking about it that way, it kinda feels like a reasonable trade-off. I mean, coming back to life at the cost of just my voice and gender isn’t so bad.”
My positivity circuits were spinning wildly in my head.
Anything beats staying dead, right?
Being reborn as a human with all limbs intact instead of some bug or plant?
How incredibly fortunate!
Especially since I’m terrified of bugs.
If I’d been reincarnated as a caterpillar or centipede… I’d have crawled straight into the water for a reset.
“So, where am I?”
After concluding that being reborn as a mute girl wasn’t such a bad deal…
I crossed my soft arms and looked around.
The place I woke up in was a stark, white room.
All there was, was a bed, a door, and lighting. No windows. The plain white walls and floor gave off hospital vibes.
Even the clothes I was wearing were pure white with no patterns.
Maybe this wasn’t far from reality after all.
“Not much info here. Guess leaving this room is my only option…”
Naturally, I headed toward the room’s sole exit—the door.
After checking for surveillance cameras…
I carefully pressed my ear against the door.
Opening it carelessly could’ve led to irreversible consequences.
I needed to gather whatever intel I could.
“No sound at all.”
Not a peep came from the other side.
It felt like there was nothing out there.
Still, just in case, I kept my ear glued to the door and waited.
Once I was certain nothing would change no matter how long I waited…
I cautiously placed my hand on the doorknob.
Planning to open the door without making a sound…
I intended to turn it slowly and gently.
“Huh? It won’t budge.”
Contrary to my expectations, the doorknob didn’t move.
Unless it was purely decorative, the door was definitely locked.
This was an emergency.
The only exit I thought of was locked!
I started applying more force to the doorknob.
But even with all my weight, the stubborn thing refused to budge.
“Now what? How do I get out of here?”
As I fully grasped the situation…
A news story I’d seen once flashed through my mind.
[Man in his 20s dies in bathroom after bike blocks door…]
Not good at all.
To think I’d starve to death without external help…
Instinctively, my eyes darted around, searching for anything useful.
Of course, in this barren space with only a bed, finding something helpful was hopeless.
Other than realizing the ceiling was pretty high, I had no breakthroughs.
“If I dismantle the bed frame to make a tool… Nah, these weak arms won’t cut it.”
No matter how I thought about it, escaping on my own was impossible.
Especially with these frail, pale, childlike arms.
Breaking down this solidly locked door seemed out of the question.
“I’m completely trapped in this bleak room.”
Oddly though, despite fully understanding my predicament…
I didn’t feel scared or despairing.
Instead, a strange, unshakable certainty bubbled up inside me.
Like an athlete convinced they can leap across a distance.
Something like that.
So, following my instincts, I raised my hand and aimed at the doorknob.
When I felt my palm connect with it…
I twisted the doorknob with all my might using an invisible hand.
Kiiikkkk…!
The doorknob warped under pressure, looking mangled and useless.
At this rate, instead of opening the door, I’d just break the knob entirely.
Intuitively, I raised my other hand and wrapped it around the knob.
“Might as well destroy it completely.”
The invisible force obeying my will went beyond merely crushing the knob.
It began wrecking the internal structure of the door itself.
Once the once-neat door turned into a twisted mess…
The seemingly impenetrable door started creaking and tilting.
Thus began my escape from this blank, white room.
*
I peeked through the grotesquely mangled gap in the door.
Beyond lay a corridor.
An obsessively white hallway reminiscent of a lab wing.
With no windows and not a soul in sight…
The long, empty hallway gave off serious horror vibes.
“No people. No cameras or devices either…”
Maybe because my emotions had dulled since reincarnating…
Despite the unfamiliar setting, fear didn’t grip me.
Perhaps I just couldn’t process the reality of my situation.
Still, getting tangled up with people would be annoying.
I stepped into the corridor as quietly as possible.
Even if trouble arose, I wasn’t worried.
I had telekinesis now, after all.
I walked cautiously, senses sharp.
Whoever locked a perfectly healthy person in a room wasn’t sane.
I wanted to detect them before they detected me.
But despite my efforts, no matter how far I walked…
I found neither people nor an exit.
After wandering through countless turns and staircases…
It felt like I was trapped in a maze designed to confuse.
Continuing to wander aimlessly wouldn’t help.
Giving up on finding a way out, I decided to rethink my approach.
“There are no windows anywhere, and the stairs go surprisingly high. If that’s the case… We’re probably underground.”
It was still just a hypothesis…
But what if this place really was underground?
Considering the endless corridors…
There had to be ventilation shafts connecting to the outside somewhere.
Sure enough, after exploring a bit…
I spotted a vent covered by a metal grate on the ceiling.
“That’s it… Hmm, it’s a bit high though.”
About three meters up.
Without a ladder, no way a small girl like me could reach it.
But that wasn’t a problem.
I had telekinesis, remember?
Strong enough to force open a locked metal door.
A simple metal grate held together by screws? Easy.
Using the torn-off grate as a foothold, I climbed up.
Carefully controlling my telekinesis, I slipped into the ventilation shaft.
Inside the narrow, dim passage, I felt a faint breeze brush past my cheeks.
“Bingo.”
The presence of wind meant it connected to the outside.
I crawled forward, upward, relentlessly upward.
Unsurprisingly, the vent wasn’t designed for human passage.
The passage twisted and turned unpredictably.
But telekinesis made navigating these impossible routes manageable.
By pressing my feet like stepping on invisible footholds, I managed to keep climbing.
After what felt like crawling nearly dozens of meters upward…
Finally, I reached the exit.
Outside the vent lay a dark, forested night.
The cold sensation of grass tickled my bare feet.
Despite the vastness and depth of the place I’d escaped, the outside was a forest.
Clearly, where I’d woken up was hidden from prying eyes.
“Is this some kind of secret base? What were they thinking… Huh?”
Lost in thought, I glanced around—
And froze at the sight of something in the distance.
A surreal skyscraper towering with overwhelming presence.
Its upper section bore a familiar emblem.
The stage where the protagonist of Pixie, the manga I’d been reading before the truck hit me, was active.
Night Haven, the city where Earth merged with another world, humans coexisting with different species.
It was unmistakably the dragon emblem symbolizing Night Haven.
“Wait… Reincarnated into a manga world?”
Dying and ending up in the world of the manga I’d been reading.
Should I be happy? Or sad?
With a hollow expression, I stood rooted to the spot…
Staring blankly at the towering skyscraper.
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