A slow breath.
Then another.
His eyes cracked open to a world too vivid to be real.
The ceiling above him shimmered—not white, but a soft gold, as if morning sunlight had been frozen in crystal. Intricate carvings spiraled into the corners, glowing faintly with mana. Chandeliers of polished aetherglass hung like silent watchers.
His nose twitched.
Silk. Flowers. Expensive perfume. Clean linen.
"…Where the hell am I?"
The words came out dry. Not hoarse—but wrong. His voice didn't match the one in his head. Higher. Younger.
He sat up sharply—then froze.
His body felt… foreign.
His arms were thinner. Too thin. He looked down at his hands—small, pale, soft. No calluses. No scars. There is no trace of the hours spent swinging swords, typing away at a desk, or gripping the cold handles of subway poles. These weren't a grown man's hands.
"What the—?"
Panic stirred. He reached for his face, touched his cheeks, and ran his fingers through his hair. It was longer. Silky. Lighter in color.
This isn't mine.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, nearly falling over from how light they felt. The mirror across the room shimmered with an ornate silver frame.
Cautiously, he stood.
Each step toward it echoed louder in his skull than in the room.
He stopped in front of the mirror.
The reflection blinked.
It was him—but not.
A boy stared back. Around 10 years old. Jet-black hair, pale eyes. No stubble. No crow's feet. No signs of exhaustion. Just soft features. Lost. Confused.
"…This is… someone else."
He clutched his head as a dull pressure built inside.
And then it hit.
A wave. No—a flood. Not of water, but memory. Images. Feelings. Thoughts that weren't his… but somehow were.
After a pause, he said
"This world…"
He sat on the edge of the luxurious bed, still staring at the mirror.
This world is called the Continent of Elyngaea.
A land of swords, magic, and monsters. He didn't know how he knew that—but it pulsed through his new bones like instinct—or maybe… memory.
His fingers gripped the silky blanket beneath him.
"I've read stories like this before…" he muttered, eyes flicking toward the golden light spilling from the chandelier above.
He clenched his jaw.
Arkenterra Online—his obsession in his previous life. It was a VR MMORPG where death was permanent, and the NPCs had minds of their own. The parallels were uncanny. Magic. Aura. Guilds. Clans. Danger.
Only this wasn't a game.
"This isn't Arkenterra… but it's similar ."
He stood and took another look around the room. Golden-framed mirrors. A velvet chaise by the window. Crimson curtains with dragon motifs. A suit rack with clothes too elegant to even touch.
And in the corner, a tall armor stand held a decorative longsword—silver and ceremonial, not sharpened.
He wandered over to a carved armoire, pulling it open slowly.
Silk shirts. Vests. Formal coats. Each one was embroidered with a distinctive crest—a silver wolf with its fangs bared and a sword in its mouth.
"…House Vale," he muttered, narrowing his eyes.
The memories he'd absorbed earlier—hazy, like dreams after waking—were starting to settle.
House Vale.
One of the Four Grand Duchies of the Solkardia Empire. They ruled the Northern regions of the Continent of Elyngaea and the Solkardia Empire. They were feared across the continent for their unmatched swordsmanship and their battle-hardened knights.
And this boy… this frail body he now inhabited…
Eris Vale.
Fourth Son of that mighty house.
A whisper of a name. A background character in a heroic tale. The kind of loser that would die in chapter one to make way for the protagonist.
"Born weak. He Couldn't awaken aura," he muttered bitterly. "Yep. Sounds like the kind of character I'd skip past in a game tutorial."
He looked down at his thin arms again.
"He had no presence. Just a pretty porcelain doll." His lips twisted. "A disappointment to his bloodline. To everyone."
That much was clear. Even without the flood of fragmented memories, Eris's life clung to the walls of this room like mold—unwashed shame in a golden cage.
Right After his birth, His mother had fallen into a coma due to some diseases. A sickness or maybe a curse—nobody knew. She never opened her eyes again.
His father, the Grand Duke, never visited him. Not even once.
As for his siblings…he became a scapegoat for them.
He would occasionally get beaten and mocked by them for No reason.
Hiroto chuckled bitterly. "He was such a coward that After Getting hit by the youngest sibling, he would cry in his room till he fell Asleep?"
He stepped toward a writing desk near the window, ornate and polished, its corners gilded with vine-shaped gold. A small leather-bound book rested atop it.
Curious, he reached for it and opened it.
A diary.
The pages were neat at first, the penmanship controlled, as if someone were trying to appear worthy of something. But even a few lines in, the letters trembled.
His eyes scanned the entries, one after another.
April 12 – I cried again today. They laughed.
April 14 – Nanny told me not to bother Lord Father. I wasn't going to. I never did.
April 17 – I wish I could run away.
April 20 – I saw Mother today. Her face is the same. Still sleeping
April 28 – My third brother told the guards to lock my door. I stayed in the dark until morning. I pretended it was training. It wasn't. I cried again.
May 1 – Maybe if I die, she'll wake up.
The ink of the last line was darker—fresher.
Hiroto's throat tightened.
He slowly closed the book, hands trembling just slightly. The weight of it wasn't physical. It was emotional—dense with suffering and silence.
"…God," he breathed. "This kid…"
He stared at the closed Diary, the soft leather cover worn from too much gripping. His mind reeled.
This wasn't a brat who deserved hate.
This wasn't some spoiled noble.
This was just a boy.
A lonely, broken boy who had never been given a single hand to hold.
A boy who asked nothing from the world except to be seen… and even that was denied.
Hiroto leaned back in the chair and exhaled sharply.
"So this is the life I've been dropped into."
A bitter laugh slipped past his lips. "Born a loser. Reincarnated as an even bigger one."
But he didn't find it funny.
If anything… it pissed him off.
He stood suddenly, the Diary clutched in his hand like a relic.
"I don't know who brought me here or why I ended up in this body… but I'll be damned if I live like that again."
He glanced back toward the mirror. The boy—Eris—still stared at him. It's the same pale face. Same weak eyes.
But behind those eyes… now flickered something else.
He paced the room restlessly, fingers twitching, chest rising and falling in uneven bursts.
The Diary still lay open on the desk behind him, but its words echoed louder in his mind than in the room.
"Maybe if I die, she'll wake up."
That line wouldn't leave him.
Every step felt heavier.
He dragged a hand through his hair—longer than he remembered, silkier, too neat. Everything about this body felt wrong. Not just the size. Not just the softness. But the weight it carried.
"Dammit," he whispered. "Why the hell did I have to be reincarnated in the body of this loser?"
His breath trembled.
How am I supposed to live like this?
He was already losing his grip. Not even an hour had passed since waking up, and the pressure—the identity, the memories, the complete isolation—was already pulling at his sanity.
And then—
A chill.
Not cold like wind, but like someone had whispered behind his neck.
And a voice—not loud, but impossible—curled into his mind like smoke:
"It hasn't even been an hour… and you've already judged me."
He froze.
His eyes darted around the room.
"What…?"
"At least try to be grateful. I lent you my body, didn't I?"
Hiroto's heart stopped.
No.
No, that wasn't real. He hadn't heard that. I couldn't have.
"…What the hell did I just—"
His voice cracked. He spun on his heel, eyes wide, scanning the room. The armoire. The mirror. Under the bed. Behind the curtains.
"Who's there?!" he shouted. "Show yourself!"
Silence.
Only his panicked breathing.
I'm losing it.
Maybe it was stress. Leftover trauma. A side effect of reincarnation? A memory hallucination?
"Get it together," he whispered. "Get it—"
"You're not hallucinating, Hiroto."
He nearly screamed.
His knees buckled as if someone had kicked them out from under him. He fell, hands smacking the cold marble floor.
"…W-What… the actual hell…" His voice trembled.
He wasn't just hearing it.
He was feeling it. The words didn't come from the room—they came from inside. Somewhere deep in his skull, like a thought that wasn't his. Like an echo of someone else's mind bouncing off the walls of his own.
A separate presence.
A second soul.
"I didn't think you'd be this dramatic. Honestly, after all the things I Heard from Valtren, I expected you to have more backbone."
Hiroto clutched his head.
No. No. This isn't real.
"Still denying it?"
The voice was quiet—but sharp. Not malicious. Just… disappointed.
It's like watching a tired child fumble through a puzzle.
"Y-You're… Eris…?"
Silence. A pause. Then:
"Who else would it be?"
He went still.
He could barely breathe.
"But… you're me now," Hiroto whispered. "Aren't you?"
Then, before he could finish His sentence, he collapsed on the Floor
A White Dimension
He opened his eyes—
No. Not opened. There were no eyes here.
He existed.
Weightless. Suspended. Floating in a space with no shape, no smell or temperature. Just whiteness. Endless and formless, like a canvas untouched by gods or men.
No up. No down. No horizon. No shadows. No gravity.
Just him.
Where… am I now?
His voice didn't echo. It simply existed, like a breath whispered into a thought.
Then—footsteps.
Not loud. Not sharp.
Soft. Intentional. Real.
Each step was like a punctuation mark against the silence—final, undeniable.
He turned, or thought he did. And there he saw—
Himself.
Same face. Same hair. Same eyes.
But colder. Cleaner. As if every ounce of hesitation had been carved away and replaced with precision. Dressed in a regal silver-and-black robe, the Vale crest gleaming at the chest.
He didn't walk like someone who belonged in this body.
He walked like someone who owned it.
The figure stopped a few paces away, hands behind his back, chin lifted.
"...Hiroto Kurogane," he said. His tone was even—neither bitter nor warm. Just measured. "Allow me to introduce myself properly."
A pause.
Then, with a quiet gravity:
"I am Eris Vale—the one whose body you now possess."
Hiroto's breath caught—if breathing was even possible here.
He stared.
"…So this isn't a dream?"
To Be Continued...