Chapter 0: Prologue

“The US customary system is garbage.”

That was the first thing the professor said in the first class after I entered college.

The subject was Engineering Physics.

On the first page of the PDF file distributed by the professor, it was written in large letters: ‘Chapter 1. Units and Dimensions’.

“The US customary system. That is, yards, pounds, inches, feet. There are two reasons why these units are garbage. First, the compatibility between units is poor.”

“For example, in the SI system, 1 liter is 1000 milliliters, 1 meter is 100 centimeters, and 1 centimeter is 10 millimeters, all neatly falling into the decimal system. So, how many quarts are in a gallon? How many pints are in a quart? As you might guess, they don’t fall neatly into units of 5 or 10. It’s a headache to convert them.”

“And the second reason. Even for the same unit, the measured values differ among themselves. A British gallon and an American gallon have different values.”

“To put it extremely, a value measured here is different from a value measured there. Even though you’ve measured the exact same weight or volume.”

The professor said so and took a sip of water.

Then, the professor continued.

“Anyway. Engineering students like you will use the SI system in class and, furthermore, in the field. Except for the aerospace and space sectors. They still use the US customary system as their standard there.”

What a barbaric field.

When the professor added that remark, the students chuckled.

I, Kang Haneul, was the same.

My target field wasn’t aerospace or space anyway.

I wrote in my notebook, ‘Units must be SI!’ and drew five stars next to it with a red pen.

‘I probably won’t have to deal with the US customary system unless I’m exporting to or importing from the United States.’

‘If it ever comes to that, I can just use a unit converter.’

…That’s what I thought.

Until I collapsed and died from overwork while struggling to get my doctorate.

And so I, who had spent my once-in-a-lifetime youth only in lecture halls and labs, was reincarnated into the world of a fantasy game I had only downloaded but never played.

Into the body of a girl, no less.

But what was more horrifying than that was the fact that this game was made in America.

That’s right.

This fantasy world I was reincarnated into uses the US customary system.

The very same barbaric yards and pounds that I thought I would never have to use in my entire life.