As the reality of being an extra character began to sink in, Damien took a few slow breaths and tried to calm down. Panicking wasn't going to help,
especially when even sitting up made his body hurt.
His gaze fell on the glass vial the girl had given him earlier.
Well, she wasn't a mystery anymore. He knew her name now. She was Seraphina Draven, his half-sister in this world.
He held the vial up to the light. The blue liquid inside shimmered as he tilted it, giving off a faint glow even in the dim room.
It was a healing potion, made through alchemy and infused with mana. Something he had only read about was now resting between his fingers.
Damien pulled out the stopper and drank it before he could think too much about the taste as a cold sensation spread from his stomach to the rest of his body.
He watched the bruises on his arms fade, their dark patches growing lighter until there was nothing left. The pain in his chest eased and he felt something shift beneath his skin as his damaged bones returned to their proper places.
Within moments, his body had healed completely but now there was nothing to distract him from what had happened.
I'm really dead, huh?
A bitter laugh escaped him.
He sat on the edge of the bed with the empty vial in his hand, trying to remember the face of the person who had stabbed him but all that came back clearly was the knife.
Who the fuck killed me?
Was it a robbery that had gone wrong, or had someone planned it?
A few people had disliked him, but he couldn't imagine any of them going that far. They barely had the courage to say anything to his face but then again there was no way to find out from here.
His body was still back on Earth, and sooner or later, someone would find it.
Mom and Dad... who is going to tell them?
He could picture his mother crying as soon as she heard. His father would probably try to hold himself together for her, only to break down when he thought no one was watching.
Damien lowered his head.
He was their only son. They had spent so much of their lives worrying about him, and now he had left them with this.
Who would take care of them when they grew old?
He remembered his mother's smile and the quiet pat his father would give him on the back. Even when things went wrong, even when he came home ashamed of himself, they had never made him feel as if he had nowhere to go.
"Damien, you can do it. We believe in you."
He pressed his hand against his eyes, but the tears came anyway.
Why did I have to die like that?
There were so many things he had meant to do for them. He had kept putting them off, telling himself there would be time once his life was in better shape. Even saying that he loved them had felt awkward, as if they didn't already know.
Now he would have given anything to say it once.
His shoulders shook as he cried, trying to keep quiet even though there was no one in the room to hear him.
Hours passed before he could no longer cry. By then, he was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling with swollen eyes. Every time his thoughts drifted, they returned to the same place.
Damien was dead, and his parents would have to live with that.
He had Alden's memories now and yet he could still remember the home he had grown up in on Earth just as clearly.
What he did know was that he was still breathing.
Somehow, after dying once, he had been given another life. His parents had always wanted him to live well. He couldn't return to them and nothing he did here would take away their pain. Still, he didn't want to spend this life regretting everything he had failed to do in the last one.
Damien slowly sat up and wiped his face with his sleeve.
I can't change what happened. But I'm still here, aren't I?
His legs were stiff from lying in bed for so long. He waited for the feeling to pass before standing and then walked toward the mirror.
The boy reflected in it had pale skin, black hair, and crimson eyes. Damien studied the face for a while, searching for something familiar and finding nothing.
"Alden," he said quietly.
The name still felt strange in his mouth, but this was the name he would have to answer to now.
From now on, I am Alden. I have to live as him and this time, I want to live without regretting everything.
* * *
The next day passed with little to mark it.
Alden stayed in his room, sleeping when he could and eating whatever was brought to him. The grief was still there, though it no longer left him unable to think about anything else.
Finally, he forced himself out of bed and into a cold shower. The water made him flinch, but he stayed beneath it until he felt awake enough to sort through his thoughts.
His thoughts turned to the novel.
This world was Eryndor, the setting of Chronicles of the Unworthy Prince. He had spent countless hours reading about it, following every update and arguing with himself over the author's choices.
Across its five continents lived humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen, and other races. There were ancient ruins, forgotten powers, and enough secrets to keep the story going for hundreds of chapters.
There was also a threat that none of its people could afford to ignore.
The demons had been banished long ago, but they were trying to open a gate to Umbra, the cursed realm where the Demon King and his generals had been sealed.
The other races had formed an alliance to stop them, though their agreement did little to settle the grudges between them.
Most of the early story took place in the Vallorian Empire, the human nation ruled by the Celestrian family.
Its protagonist was the third prince, a boy dismissed as unworthy until he awakened a mysterious power and entered the Academy.
At first, it had seemed like a familiar story.
A looked-down-upon prince would gain strength, prove everyone wrong, and eventually save the world but istead, the author had put the prince through one disaster after another.
Whenever he seemed close to gaining something, he lost it. People died, plans failed, and victories rarely lasted long enough for him to enjoy them.
Damien had kept reading because he wanted to see the prince finally overcome it all. Surely, after making him suffer that much, the author would give him something in return.
But then the protagonist died in the final battle.
Even now, remembering that ending annoyed him.
Back on Earth, he could curse the author and close the novel but here, he would have to live through the events that led to and if the story follows the same path, this world is going to be destroyed.
The final battle was still far away and before he could worry about it, there was a much more immediate problem.
Alden Draven was supposed to die during the academy arc.
He remembered that part well enough.
At the time, it had only been the death of a minor character, one more event in the protagonist's story but now it was his own future.
Alden reached for a towel, his thoughts finally settling on something he could work toward.
I need to survive the Academy first. Whatever happens after that, I have to make sure I get there alive and leave alive.