1.

1.

When I came to, the first thing that entered my eyes was the ceiling particular to hospitals.

Worms wriggling as they swam through a white sea, and a thin IV drip.

Following the transparent tube connected to the IV down with my gaze, I saw my arm in a hospital gown.

…Waking up to find myself in a hospital. I never thought I’d actually experience something I’d only seen in comics.

“…Looks like I didn’t die, at least.”

My memories were clear. I’d been working, picked up a strange bead, and then it suddenly shone before I lost consciousness on the spot.

It was something that happened from time to time when you worked in collection.

Items that came out of dungeons were varied beyond count, not just in kind but in abilities as well.

The problem was that there was no way to identify them safely on-site right away.

But it wasn’t as if we could test them one by one in the middle of a street full of civilian onlookers, either.

So the idea was, “Let’s move it to the guild first and have an expert check it somewhere safe!”

…Doing things that way, grabbing everything first and sorting it out later, meant people sometimes got caught up in incidents. In other words, there was a reason the daily pay was so high.

“My body seems more or less intact, too.”

I blinked a few times, then slowly moved the hand that had held the bead.

Maybe because of the IV, or maybe because I’d just woken up, my arm felt heavy, but it moved well enough.

Same for the other side. Fortunately, it seemed the item hadn’t been that dangerous.

…You might ask what kind of nonsense that was coming from someone who’d lost consciousness.

But there were cases where people casually picked up a tool and lost a part of their body forever.

There were also cases where people fell into comas and never woke up.

Compared to that, I could say I was lucky enough.

“But was I lying here for a long time? My arms look like chopsticks.”

Still, I wasn’t one hundred percent fine.

My body had never been ridiculously muscular, but I’d at least heard often enough that I was fairly well-built.

Yet the arm I lifted was as thin as a reed stalk, and my hand had become awkwardly small as well.

If I’d been lying around for a long time, it couldn’t be helped. Thinking that, I naturally brought my hand to my stomach and other places as well.

…Huh? There was a fair bit of flesh in other places.

“Something’s weird.”

I wrapped my fingers around my forearm, tugged once at the now-smooth skin.

I kneaded my softened stomach and thighs, too.

As I touched various parts of my body and checked my senses, the hazy sensations from having just woken up gradually became clearer.

—And at the same time, an unfamiliar sensation enveloped my whole body.

…What the hell is this?

If I had to pick the most alien thing among them, it was definitely the heavy weight pressing down on my chest.

Even through the blanket covering me, that spot felt especially heavy. When I carefully brought my hand to it—

—Squish. A soft, weighty sensation filled my palm.

It felt like grabbing a jelly so large it wouldn’t fit in my hand.

“……Is this a dream? No, it’s a dream.”

The moment I felt a sensation that should never be felt on a man’s body, my mind went blank.

As if expressing my confusion, I kicked off the blanket and sat up, then lowered my head. Through the clothes, I could see a definite curve. A graceful line that could never be seen on a man’s body.

“…This is gone, too.”

Naturally, below was empty as well.

If that had still remained after I’d gained a woman’s chest, that would have been an even bigger problem.

But perhaps because the companion I’d had for my entire life had disappeared, the emptiness doubled. My head spun just as much.

“What the hell happened…?”

Had I actually died and been reincarnated? Or was I dreaming?

Realistically speaking, it was probably right to assume my sex had changed because of the bead.

But with what should have been there gone, and what shouldn’t have been there present, I simply couldn’t think normally.

I was blankly moving my hands in the face of a reality I couldn’t easily accept when—

Slide—

The firmly closed hospital room door suddenly opened.

Had there been a knock? I felt like there had, but I must not have heard it because I was so out of it.

In any case, startled by the sound of the door opening, I turned my head—and my eyes met those of a nurse holding a clipboard.

The nurse, who looked surprised to see me conscious, very naturally lowered her gaze below my face.

“Ah.”

At that moment, I realized where my hands were. And froze solid.

My two hands were tightly clutching my chest, because of the weight I couldn’t get used to—and the texture I couldn’t get tired of no matter how much I touched it.

“……I’m glad to see you’ve woken up safely.”

“…”

I didn’t know when, or through what process, I had become a woman.

But unless I had come to an entirely different world, they should know that I had been a man.

I awkwardly pulled my hands away, placed them on my knees, then turned my head and looked out the window.

The sky really was dazzling.

Dazzling enough to make jumping out seem tempting.

* * *

After confirming that I had regained consciousness, the nurse soon brought a doctor.

“A month?”

According to the doctor with heavy dark circles under his eyes, exactly one month had passed before I woke up.

It felt like I’d only taken a brief nap and woken up, so it didn’t feel real that such a long time had gone by.

On top of that, my physical condition was far too normal for someone who had been asleep for a month.

The only thing attached to my body was a single IV, so when I asked what was going on, he said it was a mystery.

Something about it being medically inexplicable.

“How many do you see?”

“Three.”

“Do you remember your name, your age, and what you were doing before you lost consciousness?”

“Yes. I remember clearly.”

“That’s a relief. Then do you have the feeling that you went somewhere while you were asleep? As if you’d gone on a long journey… or that you miss someone.”

“…I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

In any case, since I had been asleep for an entire month, there was a chance something was wrong with my body, so they ran various tests.

I got out of bed and walked around the hospital room so they could see whether my body moved properly.

They tapped me from head to toe with something like a little wooden hammer to check whether my senses were normal.

They had me solve simple arithmetic problems and talk about my last memories to confirm that my mind was intact.

Apparently, the last question was to check whether only my mind had gone to another world while I was unconscious. All sorts of things really did happen.

“There are no issues with your movement, and your senses and memories seem normal as well. Good. Still, since this isn’t an ordinary change, there may be abnormalities or changes to your constitution, so let’s keep an eye on you for a while. We’ll inform you of the schedule for detailed examinations, including an MRI, sometime today.”

…Constitution? What did he mean, my constitution might have changed?

It didn’t feel like he was talking about ordinary traits such as tastes or allergies.

“Then I’ll see you again at this time tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

I considered asking the doctor right away.

But if there was anything wrong, they would tell me before I was discharged anyway.

And if I asked for no reason and heard something strange, I felt like I would just get anxious until the results came out, so I decided to stay quiet.

There was a reason people said ignorance was bliss. Mm-hmm.

“Come to think of it, when did I change like this?”

After the doctor left, I quietly asked the nurse.

There was no particular reason. I was simply curious.

Had my sex changed the moment I lost consciousness, or had it changed slowly while I was asleep?

“You were already like this when you arrived at the hospital.”

From what she said, it seemed to be the former.

So my sex changed the moment I lost consciousness, and I was brought here like that.

“…All sorts of strange things happen, huh.”

“They really do.”

An item that changed someone’s sex in an instant without surgery or anything else.

The nurse and I both laughed as if we found it absurd.

When faced with something incomprehensible, the only thing one could do was accept it.

Even if that meant laughing like this.

* * *

“…By the way, I wonder how much the hospital bill will come out to.”

Ever since gates and dungeons appeared, many people had died and buildings were frequently destroyed.

Most private insurance had vanished, and overall, insurance premiums and hospital fees had risen sharply.

At least Korea had responded quickly to the gate crisis, so they said things were much better here compared to other countries.

Even so, it was not an amount a young man in his twenties with neither a stable job nor family could easily pay.

“Damn it. If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve gotten insurance even if it meant cutting back on sponsorships.”

One month. In a private room, no less.

It felt like there would be at least seven zeroes attached. Thinking that I had to pay all of that made my vision go dark.

These days, they didn’t even have interest-free installment plans, so I’d have to pay it all at once.

If I worked hard on both weekdays and weekends, going all the way down to the provinces, it was an amount I could save without too much difficulty.

The problem was that I couldn’t work like I used to in this body.

“This is seriously bad.”

It wasn’t that I had no savings at all. But most of it was money I’d set aside for rent and utility bills.

On top of that, I hadn’t saved that much, so even if I somehow managed to pay the hospital bill, I was guaranteed to be penniless afterward.

Should I take out a loan? No, a loan is really not an option. Not only is it hard to get one, but the interest rates are insane.

If it were after I found a stable job I could do even with this body, maybe. But right now, that was a bit much. I’d rather become a homeless person without debt.

“Since it was an accident that happened while I was working, the guild will at least cover the hospital bill, right?”

Still, there was hope.

From the guild’s perspective, I might have only been an unimportant 9th-grade guild member, but I was officially affiliated with the guild.

And the work I had done this time had also been a legal collection request that I had submitted an application for through the guild.

Of course, if the guild argued that it was my personal mistake and that I should have been careful at my own discretion, things would get tiring.

But as long as I could get the money, I was willing to be as ugly as necessary.

—Knock, knock.

Just as I was lost in worry over reality, which was heavy enough to make the fact that my sex had changed seem like a minor issue—

Someone knocked on the hospital room door. Was it already time to eat? Or did they still have something left to ask?

Since I had no remaining family and no real friends, there was no acquaintance who would come visit me in the hospital. Naturally assuming it was someone from the hospital, I lifted the table on the bed and gave a short “Yes.”

But the person who opened the door and came in was unexpected.

“Excuse me. I heard you had woken up, so I came to see you. Would you have a moment to talk?”

“…Who are you?”

It was someone I’d never seen before.

The woman in a black suit answered my question by handing me a business card, as if to say she was this sort of person.

On the distinctive business card, with its luxurious texture and a white star coexisting with a silver sky, the following was written:

『Baekya Guild Administrative Support Team』

Senior Administrator I Runa.

“!”

I looked at I Runa in surprise.

The distinctive badge, like a white star pinned to her suit, sparkled beneath the light.

A person from the guild I belonged to. And with a rank that looked fairly high, at that.

I reflexively straightened my back.