The first thing I felt wasn't the scratchy bedsheets.
It wasn't the chill wind slipping through the cracked window.
It wasn't even the thunderous knock rattling my skull.
It was weight.
No, not the weight of regret, or the weight of a new world pressing down on me like a grand isekai destiny.
I mean actual weight. Me. My body. This body.
"Oh no," I croaked, lifting a hand to my face—and nearly gasped.
Pudgy. Squishy. My fingers looked like five breakfast sausages glued to a marshmallow. My cheeks, reflected in the cloudy mirror across the room, jiggled when I blinked. Blinked.
This wasn't my body.
This was someone else's… someone well-fed. And very, very neglected.
Darian Ravenscar.
The name flashed in my mind like a bad subtitle from a fantasy gacha game.
Disgraced heir of a crumbling noble house. Former prodigy turned dropout. Widely mocked for abandoning his studies and stuffing his face instead.
He was a side character in a game I used to play—a forgettable blob with a tragic background and no plot relevance past chapter five.
Except now, I was him.
I sat up slowly, wincing as my stomach shifted with the momentum.
"Ugh… is this what it's like being a noble? I thought there'd be... more velvet and less mildew."
My room was depressing. The curtains hung like dying vines, the bed creaked with every breath, and the family crest above the fireplace was chipped so badly it looked like a sad owl instead of a mighty raven.
Tap tap tap.
There it was again. A knock. No, the knock. Like a battering ram politely trying not to break protocol.
"Master Darian, it is nearly second bell. The Headmaster expects your presence in the Hall of Tomes," came a clipped voice beyond the door.
I knew that voice.
Ormond, the butler. Loyal to a fault. Disappointed like an art teacher grading with a sigh.
"Coming," I called, only to wheeze halfway through standing. "Eventually…"
By the time I finished wrangling my pants over my belly, I had a good ten minutes left before the bell. Enough time to remember what I'd read in the wiki back home.
House Ravenscar. Once known for their Runeweaving—a lost art of binding elemental magic into objects, scrolls, even clothing. Darian had inherited the bloodline talent, but not the will to use it. Or so the rumors went.
But I wasn't that Darian.
I was Kieran Valenwood. And I wasn't going to waste this life.
"Right," I muttered to myself, adjusting the tarnished family brooch on my lapel. "First step to rebuilding a legacy: get out the door without collapsing."
The corridors of Ravenscar Hall groaned with age. My steps echoed as I waddled—walked, I mean walked—with purpose, head high. Or as high as it could go while huffing.
Servants peeked out from behind doors. Some blinked in surprise. Others smirked.
"Is that the young master? Dressed? Before noon?"
"Did he lose a bet?"
"Maybe he's possessed…"
They weren't wrong.
Still, I ignored them. Pride was the armor of the disgraced, and I wore it like a breastplate two sizes too small.
By the time I reached the academy's central courtyard, the bell was chiming its last note. Students in immaculate robes rushed past. Sleek Aetherial students with windswept hair, stern Runeweavers trailing floating ink scrolls, Hydromancers adjusting the flow of fountains just for aesthetic.
And then… there was me. The Piggy Duke of this world.
I adjusted my too-tight collar and marched into the Hall of Tomes, where Professor Theron Flameheart waited with arms crossed and eyes aflame—literally. Pyromancers were dramatic like that.
"Darian Ravenscar," he said, voice sharp as a blade. "You've decided to grace us with your presence."
"I've… turned over a new leaf," I replied, bowing as best I could. "Also, my sheets were itchy."
A few students snorted.
But Theron's eyebrow rose. Not in amusement, but in assessment.
"Then prove it," he said. "You've been reassigned to remedial Runeweaving. The Trial of Binding begins in three days. You will either redeem yourself—or be expelled."
Three days?
"Oh. Wonderful," I said, my smile strained. "No pressure."
Theron's fire-red eyes gleamed. "There is every pressure, Lord Ravenscar."