The Genius Actor Who Brings Misfortune

Translator: Marctempest
Editor: Rynfinity

Chapter: 3

“Why didn’t you dodge the bike? I thought you’d move since you were standing there in the alley for a while!”

“…I needed it.”

“Huh?”

“I needed confirmation.”

I stood in front of the alley, contemplating for a long time.

I vividly remembered the warning that I would collide with a bicycle as soon as I entered the alley and concluded it would be safer to take another path.

But I needed confirmation. Confirmation that it wasn’t a dream, but reality.

So I deliberately went into the alley, and as soon as I took a step, I saw a bicycle rushing towards me.

I already knew it, so I could have dodged it if I wanted to, but my body froze at the fact that the bicycle actually appeared.

“First of all, can you explain the misfortune factor in detail?”

“Huh? What?”

“Everything you know.”

My mind was still a mess, but understanding the situation came first.

Mist, startled by my suddenly serious expression, opened his mouth.

After listening to his long explanation, I summarized it simply.

“So, the reason the misfortune factor and the happiness factor stick to people is because of the energy emitted from them, right?”

“Yeah! The factors move according to the energy!”

The energy emitted from people changes every day.

Therefore, the types and number of factors that stick to people naturally change daily.

The events of the next day are determined by how much the happiness factor and misfortune factor stick to a person.

‘So the start of everything is energy.’

When I asked what criteria the energy changed by every day, Mist replied, ‘Fate.’

“The change in human energy is a large flow decided even before a human is born! No matter what a human does, they can’t change it!”

“Then, the traffic accident I had two days ago was also a predetermined event before I was born?”

“As expected of a top student!”

Mist laughed and created a crown like the one he made on the first day.

As it floated up and came over my head, I stared at it expressionlessly. Mist quickly waved his hand to make it disappear.

He had become more perceptive.

“Sigh…”

I sighed at the situation that was beyond common sense.

I’m not usually this imaginative.

One of the ways I endured a boring day was through books.

At first, I read books in the orphanage, and after enrolling, I read books in the school library.

I finished all those last year, so my routine now was to go to the city library every weekend.

Since I read anything I could get my hands on, of course, I read fantasy novels like HaXX Potter.

But I had never read about anything related to the misfortune factor in any novel.

At least it wasn’t something I made up in my head.

As I chewed over Mist’s words, something seemed off, and I tilted my head.

“Wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Huh?”

“You said all events are predetermined, and your role is to manage the factors that move according to that flow.”

“That’s right…”

Mist looked like he didn’t understand what I was getting at.

“Then how do you explain changing my fate two days ago? You removed the misfortune factor, so the event where I was supposed to be seriously injured changed. You, as the manager, intervened.”

“…That’s true?”

Mist answered blankly.

When I repeatedly asked why he did it, he kept saying he didn’t know and that his hand moved on its own.

Mist, who had been muttering in the corner for a long time, suddenly gasped.

“Gasp! Could it be that you’re a mutant?”

“What?”

“Yeah! You’re a mutant!”

Mist came running, looking incredibly excited.

“Let’s experiment! Let’s see if your fate can change again! If it changes again, you really are special.”

“You’re the manager, are you allowed to do that?”

“No one told me to manage, anyway! I just started managing before I knew it!”

“What?”

The more I listened to Mist, the more confusing it got.

So I chose not to listen. This guy didn’t know anything either.

“Sigh…. So, how do we experiment?”

I tried to see if the misfortune factor could be removed, just in case, but the only answer was that it was stuck too firmly.

In the end, we decided to try avoiding the events by hearing about them in advance, just like yesterday.

Mist said I had to focus really hard this time, so I did.

And the next day, I indeed managed to avoid an unfortunate event.

I fell asleep in a bewildered state until the end and met Mist, who was extremely excited.

“Amazing! I can’t believe it actually worked!”

Mist acted as if he had thrown his social responsibility and conscience as a manager into the trash.

“You really are a special being! You’re the best! This is so much fun!”

Feeling uneasy about the way the kid from the next class was laughing heartily, I asked Mist to change into another form.

“It’s not like the misfortune I dodged will go to someone else, right?”

“Nope! For that to happen, the misfortune factors stuck to you would need to move to another person, but they’re still firmly attached!”

Mist, now transformed into our brawny P.E. teacher because he liked muscular arms, laughed brightly.

Only then did I let go of my unease and sit comfortably in the chair Mist had conjured up for me.

I still couldn’t believe it, but… I had really avoided it. Avoided misfortune.

I didn’t know how long this method would work, but if it kept working, I could preemptively deal with various incidents that might happen in the future.

As I sat there, still not fully grasping it, Mist, who had been bouncing around excitedly, approached me.

“Human, aren’t you happy? I thought you’d be really happy, but you’re surprisingly calm!”

“I am happy. It just doesn’t feel real yet.”

“Hehe! I’m happy too! It’s so much fun! I hope it stays this fun!”

I looked at Mist squatting and smiling next to the chair I was sitting on.

“So, will you keep helping me?”

“Huh?”

“You have to tell me in advance so I can dodge. There’s nothing in it for you.”

“Well… that’s true, but…”

“If it’s difficult or bothersome, you can say no. But you need to tell me now.”

Joy is fleeting.

Right now, I was happy and it felt like a dream to have a day without misfortune, but if this kept repeating, it would become routine.

What if everything suddenly went back to normal after that?

A day that I was silently enduring could suddenly feel unbearably miserable.

“Don’t say you can’t do it later, tell me now.”

A day could be managed with bewilderment.

I needed to be sure before this joy felt ordinary.

Mist, surprised by my sudden seriousness, stayed silent for a long time before answering with a blank look.

“Uh… I think it’ll be fine…”

“Did you think it through before answering?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, then.”

I reached out my hand.

Mist, who looked puzzled, asked with his eyes what I was doing. “A handshake,” I said, grabbing his limp hand.

“I look forward to working with you.”

Mist, looking somewhat bewildered, nodded and then muttered a small “I look forward to working with you too.”

Finally, my heart settled down, and I relaxed into the comfortable chair.

Mist, who had been sitting quietly by himself, suddenly stood up after a few minutes.

“It’s going to be so much fun! Hehe, I’m really looking forward to it!”

I watched the P.E. teacher’s muscular body doing a handstand in the air, and after feeling enough time had passed, I spoke up.

“So, can you tell me about the events that will happen tomorrow?”

It was the first day of a completely different life.

* * *

“Yeon-jae!”

“Hi.”

When Mist kept calling me “human,” it annoyed me, so I told him my name. Since then, Mist had been calling my name incessantly for the past two weeks.

It was a bit annoying, but calling my name didn’t cost anything….

As long as I endured him calling my name a few times, I could enjoy a peaceful day.

Of course, it did irritate me when he whispered “Yeon-jae, Yeon-jae, Yeon-jae” right into my ear.

But Mist seemed to have gotten a good grasp of me over the past two weeks, stopping just before I got really angry.

“You dodged everything perfectly today too! When you dodged the falling book, it felt like watching a movie!”

“You’ve seen a movie?”

“I just talked like a human! Can’t I say anything?”

By now, I had completely mastered dodging misfortune.

At first, the tension of having to dodge at the right time kept my body tense the entire day, and I didn’t feel like I got any proper sleep because I was talking to Mist in my dreams.

For the first three days, I felt like a lucky corpse walking around.

But humans are creatures of adaptation. By the third week, tension had been replaced by familiarity.

The bruises and wounds on my body gradually healed, and people around me started to get used to me deftly avoiding incidents before they happened.

There wasn’t much gossip about any changes in me because my social circle was already small, but change was happening slowly.

I had spent another day safe.

Feeling calm, I closed my eyes and relaxed in the rocking chair Mist had created for me.

I hoped it would stay this peaceful.

“Oh right! It seems like a few of your misfortune factors will transfer to someone else tomorrow!”

“What?”

―That was just wishful thinking.

When I quickly opened my eyes and looked at him, Mist was looking at me with his usual bright expression.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said! I can see the flow of your misfortune factors moving to another human.”

“Why? Is it because I keep dodging them?”

“That’s not it~ You just have so many misfortune factors clinging to you! Because you have such a large amount attached, they can’t help but transfer to anyone near you! Tomorrow, it looks like they’ll be sticking to some humans quite a bit!”

I was momentarily stunned by Mist’s words.

“…So you’re saying that just by being around me, people become more unfortunate?”

“Right? It’s the first time I’ve seen misfortune factors move to someone else because there’s just too many! Normally, they don’t stick as firmly as they do to you, haha!”

Mist’s cheerful voice didn’t quite register in my ears.

I see, the things that happened until now really did happen because of me.

“So, does that mean their fate changes because of me? They become more unfortunate?”

“That’s not it~! Even receiving misfortune factors from you is part of the flow that was determined when they were born!”

“So, their fate to become more unfortunate is because of me.”

I’ve had many difficult experiences, but the hardest part wasn’t the physical pain of torn flesh or flowing blood.

It was the resentful gazes from others.

I tried to accept them indifferently, but sometimes those looks made me feel wronged and emotional.

So, it really was because of me.

“Do you know who gets hurt?”

“Yes! It’s this human!”

Mist quickly changed his appearance.

Bright eyes, neat bangs, a smile with upturned corners.

It was a kid from my class. I think their name was Park Ha-eun, but I’d never spoken to them directly.

“When and how do they get hurt?”

“Huh? Why do you ask?”

“Why else? So I can stop it.”

“…? Why would you want to stop it?”

What?

Mist and I stared at each other with looks of mutual incomprehension.