MR GHOST ( 1 )

"Ghost!"

A ghost!

There's a ghost here! My instinct screamed at me to yell at the top of my lungs, the sheer shock nearly overwhelming me. But before I could let out a sound, the ghost spoke.

"Calm down, buddy. No need to scream. Just take a good look at me—don't I seem familiar?" The ghost's voice was oddly soothing, as if it was trying to put me at ease.

"I don't know any ghosts!" I shot back, my feet already moving toward the door, desperate to escape this room.

"Don't you want to know why you suddenly ended up in this world?"

That one sentence stopped me in my tracks. I had no choice but to turn back and face him—though I made sure to keep my body angled toward the door, just in case I needed to bolt.

"You know why I'm here? How could you possibly explain my situation?"

"That's why I said—look at me closely. Don't I look familiar?" The ghost's tone remained calm, almost coaxing.

I hesitated, but then I really took in his appearance.

A man, probably in his thirties. A large, heavyset body covered in layers of fat. His face was buried under a thick, unkempt beard, his shaggy black hair showing zero regard for how society might perceive him. He was dressed in an oversized sports jacket and equally baggy sweatpants.

In other words, the ultimate NEET.

"Like I said, Ghost Uncle, I have no idea who you are," I blurted out. "I'm sorry, but please don't take my body!"

No matter how hard I racked my brain, there was nothing remotely familiar about this ghostly NEET standing before me. And considering I had only arrived in this world yesterday, I highly doubted I had any connections here at all.

"Who the hell are you calling Uncle?! I died young, at 28, you bastard!" The ghost suddenly shouted, his voice filled with rage.

"Haha, nice joke, Ghost Uncle." I let out a dry laugh. There was no way in hell this pig-like man had died in his twenties. If he had said 48, I might have believed him.

"I'm not joking! Look closely, you idiot! I am you in the future!"

His words hit me like a truck.

Me? In the future? No way. That was impossible. There was no way this was me.

I had just arrived in this world. One day, I go to sleep, hoping to wake up from what I assumed was a lucid dream—only to have this so-called Ultimate NEET ghost show up and claim to be my future self?! I won't believe this.

"Hmph, judging by that dumb look on your face, you don't believe me. Then look in the mirror. Compare your face with mine. We look alike, don't we? Yeah, sure, I might look a little, uh… messier right now, but the resemblance is there. Oh, and another thing—how dare you call me the Ultimate NEET like it's some kind of insult?! We just met, and you're already trash-talking me!"

Despite my reluctance, I turned toward the mirror in the room. I examined the body I now inhabited.

And that's when I saw it.

Shit.

There was a resemblance—no, scratch that, a disturbing amount of similarity between me and this ghost.

A young man with thick, unkempt black hair. A round face with chubby cheeks. A neck that was practically nonexistent. A body so overweight it was clear I had long since entered the obesity zone.

An unhealthy, neglected body.

It looked just like the ghost standing in front of me.

Damn it.

"See? We look the same, don't we? I told you—I'm you from the future! Or to be more precise, I am the original owner of that body—your body—from the future!"

"The original owner… from the future?!"

Just like that, Future-Me—Carlo, or whatever the hell he was—dropped another bombshell of information, one so insane that I couldn't even react.

"That's right. I'm the real owner of the body you have now. So… do you want to know why you ended up in it?"

I had no choice but to hear out Ghost Carlo.

"Alright, I'll listen. Please explain everything to me."

With that, Ghost Carlo began his explanation—how he ended up like this, and why I woke up in his body.

---

Carlo, as a child, was just like any other kid. He had a normal family—four members, consisting of himself, his younger sibling, his mother, and his father. But there was one thing that made him a little different from most children: he was noticeably smarter than the others.

He had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, spending most of his time reading books. While other kids ran around playing in the park with their friends, he found his joy in diving into the worlds hidden between the pages.

His parents saw nothing wrong with this. Their eldest son seemed happy, and his grades were excellent—what was there to worry about?

But there was a consequence to this habit.

Carlo became socially inept. He struggled to interact with others, preferring the company of books over people. He also grew lazy, and as a result, his body became increasingly overweight. He spent most of his time in his room, his world shrinking to the confines of his bookshelves.

Then, after finishing elementary school, Carlo discovered the otaku world.

Hundreds, even thousands of new stories—manga, anime, light novels—opened an entirely new universe for him to explore. It was a rabbit hole he gladly dove into, leaving him with even less time for real people. Friends? Who needed them? Family? An afterthought.

This continued well into high school, and then—

"Hold up, hold up—Ghost Uncle, how long are you gonna keep yapping about your tragic backstory?"

I couldn't take it anymore. The long-winded monologue about this ghost's life had completely derailed the conversation.

Ghost Carlo scowled. "Hah?! Can't you just be patient?! Who the hell interrupts someone else's flashback?! You have no shame, you damn brat."

"Well, excuse me for expecting you to actually explain why I ended up in your body. And besides, it's already morning—I'm starving. I bet Mom's about to call us for breakfast any second now."

"So what you're saying is… your hunger is more important than my tragic backstory?!"

"Come on, don't be mad, Uncle. This stomach used to be your stomach, after all." I cleared my throat before continuing. "Ahem—basically, because of your past, you became an antisocial loner who had no clue how to interact with people and never made any friends, right? Then, thanks to your lazy lifestyle of hiding in your room all day, your body became… well, this. Carlo ended up overweight because he never exercised at all."

"Oh-ho! So you were paying attention."

The ghost nodded, surprisingly pleased with how well I had summed up his terrible life choices.

"But what I still don't understand is how any of this explains why I woke up in your body. You were about to start talking about your high school days, and from what I can guess, it probably wasn't a fun time for you. Let me take a wild guess—realizing you had no friends, you finally started feeling lonely, so you saw high school as a fresh start. You tried to make your big debut there… only for it to fail miserably because, well, you'd spent your entire life being an antisocial shut-in."

"…Ohhh."

The ghost in front of me looked completely stunned, his expression frozen as if I had just read his mind.

"So I was right, huh?"

Judging by his silence, I definitely was.

"Looking at the sorry state of your body, though, I'd say your failed high school debut was just the beginning of your downward spiral. Something even worse must've happened after that—something that pushed you to this pathetic state before you finally kicked the bucket at 28. Assuming, of course, you were actually telling the truth about your age."

"Hey! I wasn't lying about that!" Ghost Carlo snapped, clearly offended that I doubted such an important fact.

"But I still don't get it. If that's the story you're trying to tell me… what does any of this have to do with me? Isn't this just some long-winded tale of regret?"

(The more I dig, the less sense this makes… Wait. Regret? If everything this ghost is saying is true, then he must have had an overwhelming sense of regret. And what's the first thing someone drowning in regret would wish for? The chance to go back in time…!? No way— But then again, I woke up in a completely different world, in a body that isn't mine, surrounded by people who look like anime characters. So honestly… maybe it is possible.)

"Stop! Everything you just guessed is correct, so quit interrupting and let me explain!" Ghost Carlo practically shouted, desperate to regain my attention.

(Wait a second… At first, I thought I misheard when he got mad about being called an Ultimate NEET, but… can he actually read my thoughts?!)

"Yes, I can read your thoughts," he confirmed immediately, his voice laced with exasperation. "God, you're terrifying… How the hell are you piecing everything together this quickly? But yeah, you're right—this is my second chance. My opportunity to redo the mess I called a life."

Before I could fire back with another question, he held up a hand.

"Before you ask why you ended up in my body, there's something important you need to understand first," he said, his tone uncharacteristically serious. "Humans… don't just change overnight. No one can magically become a better version of themselves with the snap of a finger."

I knew that much already.

People are shaped by their experiences, their habits, the people around them—the accumulation of countless factors throughout their lives. Change isn't easy.

Take gambling addicts, for example. Even if they want to quit, even if they try to quit, their brains will still crave the thrill of gambling, clinging to it like a drug. It's nearly impossible to escape that cycle without some kind of intervention.

So if you applied that logic to someone reliving their life for a second time…

"You're right again," Ghost Carlo sighed, confirming my thoughts before I even said them out loud. "I knew I couldn't just magically change who I was. My life was already a complete disaster, and honestly? I'd gotten used to that misery. I had no idea how to fix myself or where to even start."

"And that's why," he continued, his voice firm, "I begged God to send someone else to take over my body. Someone competent enough to fix everything I screwed up."

…Wait. He doesn't mean—

"Yes. One last time, you're absolutely right," he said, cutting off my thought process once again. "You're the person God sent to control my body. Tell me, do you like video games? Because if we were to compare this to a game… you're essentially the beta tester of my second life."

He pointed at me with a grin.

"And your job is to create the perfect walkthrough for me—so that when I take back control, I can live a life free of regrets!"

"…So please, help me out, Player!"

…

"…Mother fcker."

That was the only thought running through my mind after hearing his insane explanation.