Ray's life had always been small.
He worked part-time at a convenience store in the city, barely scraping by on $200 a month. No dreams, no future — just surviving shift to shift.
And then, in a single moment, everything ended.
A dark road. A speeding car without lights. Pain. Cold. Nothingness.
Then… light.
When he woke, it wasn't to the sterile white of a hospital, but a crooked wooden ceiling. The scent of hay and ash filled his nose. His body felt different — smaller, fragile, strange.
He sat up, heart pounding, and caught sight of his reflection in a cracked mirror.
A boy. No older than ten.
"Where… am I?" His voice trembled — thinner, higher.
Muffled voices came from outside the shack. He couldn't understand the language — it twisted like old runes, unfamiliar and strange. Panic set in. He looked around the room. Worn wood. Patchwork cloth. No machines. No electricity.
He wasn't in his world anymore.
Did I really… reincarnate?
That thought hit like a hammer.
He staggered outside — and the sight that greeted him told him everything.
A village — if it could be called that. Dirt roads, rotting fences, and homes made from crumbling stone and thatch. Gaunt faces, worn clothes, and a cold, hungry silence. It was a forgotten place.
In the distance, rising like a monument to power, loomed a massive noble's castle — its white towers piercing the sky. The village lay barely 10 kilometers away, yet it felt like two different worlds.
He would later learn the noble ruling that domain held the rank of Baron, a low but still powerful title in the kingdom. Higher still were Viscounts, Earls, Dukes — and above them, the King who ruled from the distant capital.
---
Days passed, and Ray adapted. He learned that this world was filled with danger and wonder.
Mages trained in the Nine Circles, their power growing with each breakthrough. The greatest, Archmages, could control storms, raise cities, or erase armies.
Swordsmen were divided by mastery — from Third Rate to Swordmaster, whose blades could cleave boulders and split flames.
There were Mercenaries who took on monster hunts, dungeon raids, and noble wars. A Mercenary Guild existed in every major city, offering coin in exchange for blood.
Slavery was real here — a brutal market in the larger towns where broken people were bought and sold.
And beyond the mountains, beyond the walls of human civilization, stretched the Demon Realm — a twisted land where monsters roamed and corruption spread like wildfire.
---
Ray wasn't born into a knight's bloodline or a mage's heritage.
He was reborn in a starving peasant's body, in a dying village, under the looming shadow of a Baron's indifferent castle.
But he remembered everything.
And he refused to die again.