The sound of the water enveloped everything, like a deep murmur that trembled across the surface of the skin. Beneath the warm liquid, amid irregular bubbles, a boy remained still with his eyes closed, suspended between a dead silence and an almost painful tension.
His held breath vibrated in his lungs, an almost agonizing endurance that would break at any moment.
And so it did.
A visceral impulse, the primitive spark of instinct, detonated deep within his being. His body reacted before his mind could form a coherent thought.
The boy emerged from the water as if escaping from an unfathomable abyss, breaking the surface in a violent burst, gasping, spitting, and splashing water from the bath that clung to his face and to his soaked clothes.
His hands grabbed the edge of the bathtub as he coughed forcefully; each spasm burned his throat like bitter acid. The water that had invaded his lungs came out mixed with a nervous tremor that wasn't entirely his own.
Confusion.
Disorientation.
A cold void where memories should have been.
Around him, the bathroom was too luxurious for his immediate understanding: polished white marble with golden veins, a toilet decorated with elaborate ceramic inlays, and above his head a shining chandelier whose crystals reflected the light as if it belonged to the noble mansion of some wasteful aristocrat.
But none of that was what captured his attention.
In front of him, suspended in the air like a solid mirage, a blue holographic window floated silently. Its edges emitted a soft hum, as if an indescribable energy vibrated within it. It was cold, sharp, impossible to ignore.
[Status Window]
"What the hell?" the boy muttered, still gasping.
The blue screen projected clear letters, arranged with surgical precision. .... ....
[Status Window]
Name: Reinhard Ashfield
Rank: G
Strength: G
Agility: G
Endurance: G-
Intelligence: G-
Aura Control: G-
Talent: G
Profession: [Special – Level 1]
....
....
The boy frowned, his breathing still unsteady.
"Reinhard… Ashfield? Who the hell is that?" he asked in a low voice. "And where the hell am I? Why am I lying in this bathtub…?"
The bewilderment wrapped around him like a heavy fog. The name displayed by the screen didn't resonate even remotely within his memory. It was as if he were reading it for the first time, as if that name belonged to a complete stranger. And even so… there was a suspicion, an invisible thread tying him to that foreign identity.
He staggered out of the bathtub, letting the water fall from his clothes in a steady drip that echoed through the silent bathroom. To orient himself, he walked toward a large full-body mirror above the sink. His steps sounded heavy, dense, as if they didn't fully belong to him.
In front of the mirror, an unfamiliar figure stared back at him.
A teenager with short hair, dark like wet coal, with a long-sleeved shirt half unbuttoned and clinging to his body from the water. His tie, loosened and crooked, hung like the remnant of some prior event. His face was marked by defined, balanced, almost perfect features, and his silver eyes gleamed with an unsettling lunar shine.
Too handsome to be casual.
Too perfect to be him.
"Now I'm even more confused than before," he murmured in disbelief. "As far as I remember… obviously this isn't me."
He tried to speak his real name.
His own.
His real identity.
His original self.
"My real name is… it's… my name… is…"
And he couldn't.
A mental block strangled him from within. As if an invisible force gripped his memories by the throat, preventing him from even brushing against them.
He couldn't remember even the first letter.
A bitter frustration ran through his chest.
"Well," he exhaled with a cold, almost resigned tone, "I can't remember my real name. How unfair."
A void carved itself into his mind, mercilessly, without explanations.
And then the fragmented memories arrived without permission: He was in his room after coming home exhausted from work, and a strange homeless man at the train station had offered him a book of dubious origin.
.... ....
"Hey kid, would you like to take a look at this book? It will increase your luck."
He turned around, where there was a ragged homeless man with a dirty coat and barefoot; however, he wore wrinkled and torn pants, with a short stature.
The boy looked at that strange book the vagabond was offering him—a purple book with sparkling glimmers that stood out above it like stars, and very strange, incomprehensible symbols.
"Mmm, I'm very tired today, and I need something to entertain me and relax, why not?"
"But I don't have any money to give you, sir," he said shyly.
"Don't worry, money is the last thing I need to find a great narrator like you," replied the hooded old man as he walked away.
"OK? What a strange vagabond, I thought he was going to stab me," the boy said discreetly, trembling.
.... ....
"After that, the last thing I remember…" he said slowly. "I tried to cast one of the strange spells from the book."
"I never thought they would work, but my luck hasn't increased."
A dense silence wrapped around that revelation.
"In short… I fell asleep because of that book," he concluded. "And I transmigrated into this body."
The serenity with which he said that was unnatural. He knew it. Any normal person should be in shock, screaming, denying their reality. But him… no. Calm covered him like an icy veil.
As if he had been born with it.
He had already read fantasy novels of this kind—he was actually a big fan of them—but he never thought something like this would happen to him.
The next second, a burning pang erupted in his wrists, like a deep tingling that didn't belong to his skin. He lowered his gaze. His veins glowed faintly, pulsing with an almost reptilian movement.
And before his own eyes, deep wounds—cuts too clean, too recent to be accidental—were closing with a slow but steady regeneration. The flesh stitched itself back together without leaving a trace.
"What the fuck?! This body had its veins cut!"
"This was a suicide," he said with a bitter, incredulous voice. "Damn. I reincarnated into a dead man."
The weight of that sentence fell on him like an anvil.
Why did he reincarnate?
Who was that vagabond who offered him the book?
Where had he awakened?
And why had the original owner of this body decided to end his life?
Nothing had answers.
But staying in the bathroom wouldn't bring him any closer to them.
He pushed the door and stepped out.
A luxurious room welcomed him, illuminated by daylight filtering through thin red curtains like silk. The air carried a faint scent of varnished wood and freshly brewed tea, even though no recent cup was present.
It was a spacious room, magnificently furnished: red leather rugs, an enormous bed with fine fabric sheets, a dark wooden cabinet, shelves filled with books, a perfectly organized desk, and a set of armchairs with a tea table complementing the decoration.
"What a luxurious room…" he murmured. "I doubt the original Darius killed himself for lack of money."
He walked among the furniture, feeling the soft crunch of the carpet under his wet feet. Then he saw a modern tablet on the desk, next to an elegantly placed envelope.
Immediate curiosity.
Instinct to understand what was happening.
"I should check it. Something tells me this might give some context about this body…" he said while approaching.
He picked up the letter first, feeling its weight, made of a thick type of paper uncommon in his former world. He opened it carefully. The letters were written with a real pen—fluid yet nervous—marked by desperation.
Gently, he began to read it.
"To whoever is reading this letter… well, actually I left it for my uncle. But if you're a snoop who entered my room without permission, at least make sure to give it to him, please.
…I'm getting off topic.
Uncle, if you're reading this it's because I'm no longer in this world.
Thank you for taking care of me all these years, since my parents disappeared from my life. Thank you for everything you've done for me.
Uncle… I should've listened to you and not gotten involved in matters that were beyond my reach. I'm really sorry. I've ruined everything. They will come for me, and not even the police will be capable enough to help me this time.
I should've stayed with you in the underworld when you warned me, but the damage is already done, I can't turn back time. I wish I could… Forgive me for being a useless person who only brought you trouble and forced you to clean it up every time. The mafia has been driving me crazy lately, and I can't take it anymore.
Uncle, you are my only family, the only thing of real value I have, and my older sister too of course.
And this is the only way I can protect you from them. When you finish reading this letter, please burn it and move to another country far from here. I will no longer be here with you.
The Maximoud family, the most dangerous mafia in the entire human continent, is furious because I have too much information and forbidden files that cannot be exposed to the public. I won't say what they are or where I hid them, all of that is to protect you.
Take care, uncle. I love you.
P.S.: Please don't let my sister enter my room, and if she ever wants to do so, throw my computer into the sea, you would be doing me a great favor.
Your nephew,
Reinhard Ashfield."
"So I was right…" he murmured. "The letter completely confirms it."
The original Reinhard… had committed suicide. And that letter was specifically directed to his uncle.
He continued reading every word, feeling a strange weight in his chest. The content spoke of guilt, persecution, and despair. It mentioned "the Maximoud family." That information he had stolen and discovered didn't seem pleasant. And from what the letter made clear, that family was a mafia.
"This explains a lot…" he whispered.
The surname Ashfield was synonymous with the Golden Hand, one of the most powerful criminal organizations within the novel [The Rise of the Heroine of Light.]
Yes. A novel he used to read out of boredom; it was a long story about some kind of prophecy and future destruction of the universe.
He didn't know it very well, since he read it only when he had a bit of free time, because his job overworked him heavily.
He had only read from Volume 1 up to Volume 13, and the novel had 15 complete volumes. It was also a long novel with more than 4,000 chapters, and before bed, he had only read up to chapter 3000—basically Volume 11.
His knowledge of the novel was somewhat limited, so he wasn't fully aware of what information the original Reinhard had stolen from the Maximoud.
Yes. He had reincarnated inside the novel.
But then… who was the uncle Reinhard Ashfield mentioned? What information did he have about the Maximoud family? And what kind of danger had driven him to slash his veins in a luxury bathroom?
He hid the letter under the mattress.
"The original Reinhard wanted to burn this. And I should too… but not yet," he decided.
He needed every clue possible.
"I can't stay here. If he killed himself for something… it means I'm also in danger," he affirmed, swallowing hard. "I need to get to the bottom of this if I want to survive."
While thinking, the tablet suddenly vibrated. A sharp buzzing filled the room.
Darius tensed.
A holographic notification appeared:
""Congratulations, Reinhard Ashfield. Your application to enter our prestigious Zenith Academy of Talented and Promising Resonants has been approved.
We expect great achievements from you, and we trust that you will be able to leave a significant mark on our institution in the future. We will receive you with enthusiasm in three weeks.
Your user ID will be sent to your current location within the next 48 hours. Please stay attentive to our emails.""
His heart sank.
"Damn…" he took a deep breath. "Damn, damn, damn. The worst thing that could appear… exactly what I feared."
An academy of Resonants.
The starting point where everything in the novel began to turn very new and unreal.
And also… the place where most background characters like him died easily.
"You were right about one thing, original Reinhard," he said with a mix of sarcasm and resignation. "Every time you get into trouble… you make others clean up after you."
He let out a bitter laugh.
"Does this mean I just got into the mess of another idiot?"
"But holy shit."
The weight of that foreign responsibility fell upon him.