"Cough! Cough-cough!"
My throat was tearing itself apart in a fit of gruesome, suffocating coughs. Every convulsive breath felt like swallowing molten metal. Instead of life-saving saliva, thick, warm spatters of blood flew from my mouth, and the sharp pain in my chest pulsed so fiercely it washed out all the world's colors, turning everything into a blurry grey smear.
Looming over my ravaged body was the face of a youth with hair the color of pure gold, as if he'd stepped right off a magazine cover. Perfect, aristocratic features, porcelain skin... and complete, soul-chilling indifference in his winter-sky eyes. A bright smear of someone else's blood—my blood—adorned his cheekbone. He watched my death throes with the same detached interest a naturalist might observe an insect writhing on a pin.
"You… bas... tard…" the words escaped my mouth with another bloody clot. It was my last pathetic attempt to provoke some kind of emotion, to piss him off enough that he'd end my suffering quickly. It was useless. Not a single muscle twitched on his cold, angelically handsome face. He just kept looking down on me, impassive. In his eyes, I was less than the dust beneath his feet, a bug not even worthy of a fleeting moment of irritation.
This was my story. Or rather, what was left of it. A story that, in my dreams, should have ended very differently: with a harem of gorgeous women, with fame, with the legend of a hero who saved the world from certain doom. But in one fatal moment, like a shadow from a nightmare, this blondie appeared and shattered everything I had built with a single blow. My entire journey, all my hopes, had turned to dust.
"God Space, is the mission complete?" his voice, melodic and even, was suddenly addressed to the empty air above my head. "What? Finish him off? Please, he's a goner anyway. He'll bleed out in a couple of minutes."
He seemed to be talking to himself, but something about this scene was monstrously wrong. That term… God Space?
In the webnovels I used to devour in my past, peaceful life, something similar often appeared. An omnipotent entity or organization that cultivated "Hunters"—ruthless killers who carried out various missions across the multiverse, sowing death and destruction. And their gaze had fallen on me? A simple dimensional traveler who just wanted to live a quiet life?
"Tch, the third one today. Where the hell do you all keep spawning from…" His empty gaze landed on me again, and for a brief second, something like boredom and fatigue flickered in its depths.
"Why…?" I forced out with my last ounce of strength, clinging to my fading consciousness. I needed an answer. Any reason at all for this senseless cruelty.
"'Why?'" he smirked, a barely perceptible twitch of his lips that was more terrifying than any scream. "Do I need a reason? You're just a target. A run-of-the-mill NPC that needs to be eliminated so I can get my points and become stronger. You're nothing more than another stepping stone on my path to unlimited power."
Towards the end of his sentence, his calm tone began to fray, filling with notes of genuine, terrifying madness that finally burst forth in a quiet, insane laugh.
"You crazy son of a b—"
Unfortunately, that lunatic didn't let me finish. The icy steel of his sword flashed in the dim light. One short, practiced swing—and my world went dark. And so, the story of the multiverse's most unlucky traveler came to an inglorious and absurd end.
[Ding!]
[Soul matching requirements detected.]
[The Multiverse's Strongest Necromancer System has been activated. Enjoy!]
BOOM!
With some unknown, primal fury, my soul—instead of dissolving into oblivion—tore itself from my dead body. It was like an explosion, the release of a coiled spring. I felt the invisible chains that the mighty God Space was already trying to wrap around me snap with a deafening crack.
"Arrrgh!" a roar full of rage and surprise echoed from behind me, sounding more like a wounded beast than a human. The prey had slipped right through the predator's claws. That was the last thing my soul heard in that cursed world…
WHIP!
"A-A-A-A-A-A!"
I shrieked in agony from a new, entirely different kind of pain that assaulted me out of nowhere. It was searing, blinding, as if a red-hot iron had been dragged across my back. The deafening whistle of a leather strap through the air, followed by another strike that drove all the air from my lungs.
"Shut your trap, you little shit!" a gruff male voice roared, soaked in an irrational, animalistic hatred.
I instinctively tried to say something back, to protest, but I was too late. Something heavy and blunt slammed into the back of my head. The world exploded in a shower of sparks and… I plunged into a thick, viscous darkness.
The next time I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by impenetrable gloom. The kind of absolute, total darkness you only find in the deepest dungeons. There was, however, one piece of good news: I could distinctly feel the throbbing pain in the back of my head and the fiery welts on my back. And if there was pain, it meant I was alive.
Despite the horror and physical suffering, my mind remained surprisingly cold and clear. I could think, analyze, piece the puzzle together. Perhaps it was some innate ability I never knew I had until… until my very first transmigration.
Lying on the cold, damp floor and listening to the silence, I understood almost immediately. This place was not the world where my previous body was still growing cold. How did I know?
As my mind struggled to reassemble the fragments of memory—the flash of pain, the whistle of a whip, the blessed darkness—an outline slowly emerged from the murk. At first, it was just a silhouette. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light—probably from a single torch in the corner—the face of an old man leaned over me.
His face was a network of good-natured wrinkles, framed by a thick white beard and long hair of the same color. But the main feature was his eyes—kind, warm, and, despite his age and obvious weariness, they shone with an unfeigned spark of life and concern.
My brain, still buzzing from the trauma, made a connection so absurd that in any other situation, I would have laughed out loud. It was Rob. The kind old mage from the Fairy Tail guild, a character from the anime and manga I occasionally revisited in my past life on Earth. The shock of this realization was almost as powerful as the blow to my head.
"How are you doing, lad?" his voice was deep, though a little creaky with age. It held none of the hatred I'd heard from my "whip-friend" earlier. Only sincere, almost fatherly concern.
My self-preservation instinct, honed by years of survival, told me the best defense was a good offense. Sarcasm was my shield and my sword.
"Gramps, don't look at me like that…" I began, but then immediately faltered.
The words that had just left my lips sounded completely alien. The voice was high, clear, and unbelievably childish. It was nothing like my usual, slightly gruff tone. For a second, the cold terror of realizing this body wasn't mine washed over me. I quickly got a grip, showing no sign of it, and finished my sentence, packing it with as much venom as I could muster: "…you look like you're about to strip me down and start making fun of my body."
"Ahem!" The old man coughed awkwardly, a faint blush appearing on his wrinkled cheeks. He clearly hadn't expected such a retort from a beaten child. "I see your tongue is sharper than the whip you were beaten with today. Since you're alive and kicking, maybe you'll introduce yourself? What's your name?"
"Tch, definitely a pervert," I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear. "First, you lay it on thick, wine and dine me, and then… you sure you're not a priest?"
I squinted with feigned suspicion, watching his reaction. A flicker of genuine bewilderment crossed the old man's eyes. He obviously didn't get the joke, or half the words I'd used. Perfect. That meant I was in the right place. Time to play the trump card of every transmigrator.
I sighed and leaned back, wincing in pain as I rubbed my bruised head.
"I… I don't remember anything," my voice trembled, and I mentally applauded my own acting. "Not my name, not who I am. All that's in my head is pain and… darkness."
The moment I finished my tragic amnesia act, pulling the most lost and pathetic face I could manage, a System "window" flared into existence right before my eyes, as if someone had flipped an invisible switch.
The sensation was exactly like putting on a brand-new pair of Apple Vision Pros: the real world—Old Man Rob's worried face, the stone walls of our dungeon—was still there, but a graphic interface now hovered in the air on top of it.
A semi-transparent panel of a disgusting yellowish hue materialized, covered in grayish text. An absolutely eye-gouging color combination. My first sincere wish was to mentally track down the design genius who came up with this color scheme, find all his relatives back to the seventh generation, and warmly thank them for forcing me to squint for several seconds just to read the damn words. But I restrained myself. After all, I had bigger fish to fry.
Forcing my eyes to focus, I scanned the lines.
[The Multiverse's Strongest Necromancer System]
Ah, so that message after my death wasn't a hallucination. Nice.
[Name: Nameless]
[Profession: Necromancer. (System Note: Like there was any doubt.)]
[Level: 1. (A weakling of the highest order.)]
[Brief Description: A loser who was killed immediately after transmigrating. His epic saga ended as quickly as it began.]
[System Note: What kind of host did I get stuck with? Where is HR? I want to speak to the manager!]
I mentally froze, rereading the lines over and over. Every word was dripping with sarcasm. Necromancer… on that, I had to agree with the System. With a name like that, who would have doubted it?
Level one, "weakling"—thanks for the vote of confidence, you tin can. But that "Brief Description"… that was a low blow. The System was shamelessly prodding my deepest wound, my humiliatingly quick end.
And the cherry on top of this mocking cake was the final note. It wanted to file a complaint!
So, my transmigrator System turned out to be… a perfect match for me. Snarky, sarcastic, and with a god-awful sense of humor. Now I didn't just want to reward its designer with a spitball to the back of the head. I wanted to find him and personally give him an award for the most irritating UI in history. And a separate award for the most toxic AI ever created.