How to Live as a Genius Scholar in another World

Chapter 1 – Prologue: The Day I Became a Graduate Student Translation Slave

—–CROW—– 

Since I was a kid, my dream was to be a veterinarian.

Not the kind that sticks their condom-covered arm up a cow’s giant pussy or cuts a calf’s umbilical cord with butcher’s scissors, but the kind that treats dogs and cats at the local animal clinic.

So, by the time I was in high school, I had already resolved to become a graduate student.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say I had accepted the future of forced, passion-fueled labor as a vet school graduate student. In 2013, I was a 19-year-old punk, ready to voluntarily enter the graduate school that everyone else avoided, prepared to become a professor’s slave and the lab’s Dobby.

I got into a pretty good university, completed about two years of courses, took a leave of absence, and served in the military.

Now, all I had to do was graduate in a few years, and I was ready to accept a “Re: Life as a Master’s/Doctoral Student Starting from Grad School” with the same attitude as accepting death.

“…What the?”

That is, until the day I was discharged, got shitfaced drunk, and somehow ended up in another world.

***

My first day in another world.

When I came to in a vast meadow, I thought it was all just a nightmare.

It was a disjointed dream, but I figured it wouldn’t be strange for me to have such a dream. I had just returned from the other world of the military, only to be dragged into the other world of graduate school.

I truly realized the gravity of the situation about half a day later, after nightfall.

My stomach kept growling, and it was getting colder, but there was no sign of waking up from this terrible dream that was engulfing me.

“Fuck. This isn’t a fucking dream.”

After spending a night in the darkness, I gave up on denying reality.

After that, it was a journey of wandering around the meadow. After several days of twists and turns, I finally arrived at a city, and the real challenges of my survival in this other world began there.

“Hmm. A traveler. I see. Please present your identification.”

“…Identification?”

“Yes. You should have received it if you went through the proper immigration procedures.”

There was no such thing as simply writing down your name and being let through.

Asked for identification by the guard, I realized I was now an illegal immigrant. It was only natural that I tried to flee before things got out of hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I must have left my ID at home! I’ll come back next time!”

“Arrest him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What the fuck, ack! Wait a minute! Aaaack!! Why are you hitting me?!”

And it was also only natural that I was thrown in jail in less than 10 minutes.

“The 23 defendants are hereby sentenced to three years of slavery for illegal immigration.”

A few days after being arrested, a white judge gathered me and other scruffy illegal immigrants in the same situation and turned us into slaves. What the fuck, isn’t this racist?

So, after being stripped of everything, down to my brand new 98,000 won underwear, I was thrown into the slave market wearing nothing but rags.

“Mister merchant, I’m cold.”

“Me too.”

You fucker, don’t sympathize with me, give me some clothes.

Fucking bald slave trader. At least they had the decency to not leave us completely naked, but being left half-naked by the side of the road wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.

When a passing noblewoman glanced at me and snickered, I was plagued by suicidal thoughts that I hadn’t even felt when my junior on duty brought his phone to guard duty.

That time lasted for almost a month. That’s because the state-sponsored slave market was held over the course of a month.

It didn’t even take a week for me to be classified as unsold goods.

“Hmm… This slave doesn’t look very strong.”

“Yes! But if you put him to work, he’ll work hard like an ox!”

“Like an ox? Huh, what’s a guy with no calluses on his hands going to do?”

It hadn’t been long since I was discharged from the army, but I was born with a skinny physique. Probably because of that, I didn’t look very useful as a slave by this world’s standards.

As a result, I couldn’t find a master until two days before the market closed.

Just as I was starting to feel faint, wondering if I’d end up as a mine slave or a battlefield arrow target.

A group of scholars appeared at the shop where I was.

“I’m looking for a slave to run errands. Do you have any good ones?”

She was a woman with short, dark blue hair and long, elf-like ears.

No, not elf-like, she was just an elf. That’s when I first realized that this place was a real, fucking, true fantasy world.

The group of four men and women, led by the elf woman, chatted with the slave trader, who came running out in a hurry, and then walked up to the iron cage where I was locked up.

“He’s cheap. Two silvers. He’s not a defective slave, is he?”

“Absolutely not! He may look like that, but he understands what you say, and he doesn’t have any minor illnesses!”

I wanted to ask what he meant by “look like that,” but I didn’t say anything. If I failed to find a master this time, my life would really be fucked.

“Hmm. If he understands what I say, he can run errands. …What do you all think?”

“He’s thin, so he’ll eat less. We’re not going to use him for rough work, so wouldn’t he be fine?”

“I disagree. He’s too thin. He looks like he can’t even carry things properly.”

“He’s tall, so wouldn’t he improve if he’s fed well? I heard that the hunting tribes of the far East have great physiques.”

After whispering among themselves for a while, they bought me at a bargain price of two silvers, which in my estimation was roughly equivalent to two million won.

“I’m Yernara, an archaeologist. And you are?”

“I’m Kang Buk-ho from the new continent.”

Apparently, the new continent was where yellow-skinned people like me established a country called “Khitai” and swarmed about. As such, I was naturally treated as an illegal immigrant from there.

“Haha. Your name is ‘Kang Buco’? What a strange name.”

Hearing my name, the elf Yernerana giggled and laughed with a joyful face.

To be precise, it was ‘Kang Buk-ho (姜北互)’, but I knew from my experience over the past month that it was useless to say so.

“You can call me whatever you want. It must be hard to pronounce.”

“Really? Then I’ll give you a new one. What does your name mean?”

“The surname means strong, and the given name roughly means north.”

My name, Buk-ho (北互), means to get along well with the North.

Yes, that North. It’s about the communist dictatorship where an obese, missile-firing pig is clapping and looking down.

My grandfather was a separated family member due to the division of Korea, so he gave me that name in the hope that we would be reunified in my generation, but I don’t really like it. So I just conveyed the meaning of north.

“Okay. You only need a name while you’re a slave, so you don’t need your last name… Good.”

The blue-haired elf smiled as she put a leash around my neck.

“From now on, your name is ‘Nord’.”

That was the beginning of my three-year life as a slave.

***

Although I was sold at the lowest price as a chore slave, fortunately, the period of exhausting my body with hard labor wasn’t long.

There was a reason for that. Just as the protagonists in otherworld stories are often given some language translation ability, I could understand the language of this world from the beginning.

This automatic translation ability was a fucking OP cheat skill.

Even in this world where God created humans, language unification was impossible. Here, too, different countries and races used different languages, and that reality was a huge opportunity for me as a slave.

How many languages are there on Earth alone? In this world, too, the language barrier was incredibly high.

But the Papago translator in my head could smash that language barrier as easily as a kid smashing a sandcastle in a playground.

“It would be stupid to let this awesome ability go to waste.”

I immediately proved my ability to those around me. When the professors at Carmine University found out that I was a fucking competent speaker of seven languages, they promoted me to a desk job slave.

“This guy works well.”

“Hehe. Thankyouverymuch.”

“Huh. You completely translated 20 pages of Romanian history in a week? Do you want to be our department’s slave for life?”

“Why are you cursing me when I worked hard?”

It didn’t take long to prove my competence. Thanks to that, the errand boy that Yernara’s group was originally looking for was assigned to another slave they bought six months later.

And that’s where the shit started.

“Are you the slave from the archaeology department? You’ve come to the right place. Here’s a part of the manuscript. Translate it into Britannian by next week and bring it to my desk.”

“Yes!”

“I’ve heard the rumors. They say you’re quite competent. But I don’t believe anything I haven’t seen with my own eyes. Translate the manuscript to be submitted to the academy and its associated 30 pages of maps by the end of this month.”

“Yes? Yes.”

“Hey, you. This is my thesis. Go to the library, attach 10 supporting documents and reference books, and proofread the grammar.”

“…Yes.”

“You, there. Put my elephant in the refrigerator.”

“Yes?”

“Ah, I misspoke. Park my elephant, and classify the food and specimens that came with it, label them, and store them in the restaurant refrigerator and my lab freezer, respectively. By lunch today.”

“…Yes.”

“What are you doing? Hurry up.”

“…………Yes.”

What’s the point of being fucking competent when you’re a slave?

Slave! Competence! Free!

With this triple debuff, I became a free translator that everyone used at least once, like a coffee machine at a barbecue restaurant. This Easterner will do it for free!

“Fuck, this is just like being a graduate student.”

It made me furious, but that was the reality.

Somehow, I had become a lab slave to translation-fucking-crazy professors.

And my outstanding translation skills, comparable to those of current professors, and the broad title of “university slave” made me a translation slave shared by a dozen professors.

“What the fuck, is this a country?”

I came out about my ability to make things easier, but I ended up with more work than when I was a chore slave.

Back then, I just had to move things, clean up, and occasionally run errands, and the rest of the time was free!!

“When I get back to Earth, I’m going to drop out of college, work part-time at a convenience store, and die. I’m not a human being if I ever go to graduate school again.”

Seriously, without a hint of a joke, it was three years just like my fucking military service. It says it all that I regretted cursing the administrative soldiers for having it easy when I was a gunner.

But it was worth all the fucking trouble and the goddamn side-to-side somersault kicks.

When I was freed after three years of service, I was given the right to stay in this country because the professors offered me a position as a researcher.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do when you get your free status? It’s hard to get a job these days, and it’s not easy to get residency.”

Why did it remind me of my company’s first sergeant asking if I wanted to become a non-commissioned officer?

I still vividly remember Yernara offering me the researcher position.

Thinking about it now, it was the same kind of kindness that professors use to lure graduate students into pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees.

“Even though it won’t show up on your resume, you’ve spent three years here. Wouldn’t it be a waste to throw it all away? We’ll pay you a salary, so why don’t you work hard for a few years, get certified, and become a professor?”

“Um… What if I don’t?”

“You’ll have to go back to your hometown. I can give you enough for the boat fare.”

Boat fare, my ass. Does the professor have a dimension-hopping warp ship at home?

It was obvious that I wouldn’t be able to return to my home country, South Korea, if I was kicked out of here.

I had no choice but to decide to stay at the university.

It wasn’t a big loss. After all, I needed some degree of power and money to investigate and prepare to return home.

It was better than starting from scratch.

So, I wanted to get a proper degree and position here at the internationally renowned Carmine University.

“I’ll do it, researcher.”

“Really? That’s a great decision!”

Even though I saw Yernara’s smile that looked like she had caught a sucker, I didn’t regret it much.

After all, I had gained enough know-how and material for my thesis over the past three years. I didn’t think it would take long to achieve the appropriate results.

But fuck.

Thinking about it now, that was the stupidest decision of my life.

—–CROW—–