"Once you're sent back, every being in this timeline will vanish. Everything will reset—except me. My soul won't survive the transition. There can only be one Ashen Crimson, and the world has already suffered through mine."
Those words echoed long after he spoke them. My brain was trying to catch up, but the storm of thoughts wouldn't stop. If I understood him correctly, he wanted me to rewrite the story that he had already ruined beyond recognition. The problem was—I wasn't sure I even had a story worth saving.
"And just so you know," he continued, as if discussing the weather, "we don't even know which timeline you'll land in. Fate's funny like that. But wherever you go, there'll be time—enough time to change everything."
My head was pounding. Questions raced through my mind like bullets. I wanted to ask why me, what happens if I fail, how do I survive, what kind of world am I entering, will I still be me?
But all I managed to say was, "So... basically, you're going to control my actions, right?"
He smiled. Not the evil kind, not the warm kind either. Just… tired. "Kind of. The life will be your own. I've embedded my familiar into your soul. Think of it as a system. It'll guide you, assign you missions to protect people important to this timeline. But the rest? It's yours to shape. Be a hero. Be a tyrant. Be a weirdo in a treehouse if that's what you want. I won't stop you."
I scowled. Great. A talking quest log in my head and a dead guy's emotional trauma as luggage.
"Alright," I muttered, "Let's get this over with."
Ashen didn't respond. He just looked up toward the golden sky and whispered, "Begin."
The moment the word left his mouth, it felt like lightning crashed into my chest. My body arched as a searing sensation, like molten fire mixed with liquid ice, surged through my veins. Pain stabbed through every inch of me. I couldn't scream. I couldn't even breathe. Then, the real nightmare began—his memories.
Faces I didn't recognize. Voices I'd never heard. Blood. Fire. Laughter. Screaming. Triumph. Madness.
Ashen's life, his sins, his regrets, his rise and fall, all flashed before my eyes like a movie on fast forward with the sound set to maximum volume. And then—darkness.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on silk sheets in a room so lavish it made a five-star hotel suite look like a street corner. Golden trim lined the ceiling. Velvet curtains shimmered in the light. A chandelier bigger than my old apartment hung overhead. At that moment, I understood.
I wasn't Kai anymore.
I was Ashen Crimson—heir to the Crimson family, one of the ten strongest noble houses in the world of Zerawell, and historically, one of the three ruling powers in the capital, Nowa.
And unfortunately, a total piece of shit.
The memories of this body surfaced in horrifying detail. As a child, Ashen had been adored by his family—worshipped, even. His mother saw him as her precious jewel, his father saw him as a future king, and his sister would've killed gods for him. Even when he did terrible things—like maiming a servant for spilling wine—they'd just sweep it under the rug.
There was even a time when a noble boy pushed Ashen during playtime, and his mother wiped out the boy's entire family in retaliation. Every. Last. One. For a bruise.
That was love in the Crimson household—violent, obsessive, and dangerous.
But that wasn't what destroyed him. The real fracture came later.
Ashen had been born with potential for shadow magic—one of the rarest and most feared forms in Zerawell. But for reasons unknown, he couldn't use it. And when the great Tournament of Noble Houses came around, he was humiliated. Beaten. Not once, not twice—three times in front of thousands, while his sister rose in the rankings like a star.
Suddenly, the perfect son became the family shame.
His father—the man who once praised him endlessly—began to sneer at his failures. Cold eyes replaced proud ones. The once-golden pedestal crumbled beneath his feet.
The fall broke something in Ashen.
He started lashing out—abusing the maids, attacking the weak, and demanding reverence like it was his birthright. The noble boy became a tyrant in the making.
His mother, desperate to save what was left of her beloved son, tried a last gamble. She reached out to her oldest friend—none other than the Queen of Nowa—and arranged a marriage proposal. Her daughter, the imperial princess herself, was offered as a bride to Ashen in hopes that love would "fix" him.
Spoiler alert: it didn't.
And now, that was my life to live. His sins to correct. His destiny to rewrite.
I sat up slowly, holding my head as the last fragments of his memories settled like ash in my mind.
"This is gonna suck," I muttered. "Why couldn't I get reincarnated as the hero or the farmer or even a freaking cabbage merchant?"
From the corner of the room, a small golden light flickered to life. A soft voice, smooth and slightly smug, echoed in my head.
"Welcome to Zerawell, Ashen Crimson. I am your familiar. Please refrain from causing any mass genocides before breakfast."
I stared at the glowing speck.
"You have jokes."
"You'll need them."