Dying sucked.
Ray could confirm this with absolute certainty. The lightning bolt to the chest? Painful. The whole "every nerve ending catches fire simultaneously" experience? Also painful. The existential dread of realizing he was about to die one LP away from Challenger?
Yeah. That was the worst part.
But you know what sucked even more than dying?
Waking up.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
The words flickered at the edge of Ray's consciousness, barely registering through the fog of pain and confusion. He was too busy dealing with the fact that his body felt wrong to care about hallucinating text.
Everything hurt. Not the acute agony of electrocution—that ship had sailed, along with his K/DA and his college degree—but a duller, more persistent ache. Like someone had stuffed his skull with cotton and replaced his blood with expired energy drinks.
The darkness pressing against his closed eyelids didn't help.
Neither did the overwhelming urge to vomit.
Ray tried to move. His body responded like a puppet with cut strings—jerky, uncoordinated, and deeply concerning. Too light. Too small. Like wearing someone else's skin, which was a thought he really didn't want to examine too closely.
"Ugh..."
He froze.
That wasn't his voice.
Ray tried again, forcing words past his lips. "What the—"
Nope. Still wrong. Too high. Too young. Like someone had cranked his vocal cords up an octave and forgotten to mention it.
Okay. This is fine. Probably just... trauma? From being electrocuted?
It wasn't fine.
Ray forced his eyes open. The darkness resolved into shapes—a water-stained ceiling with a cobweb-covered lightbulb, cramped walls, and furniture that looked like it had been salvaged from a college dumpster. The air smelled like mildew and regret.
This was definitely not his dorm room.
His dorm room had a $500 gaming setup. This place had what looked like a computer from 2005 and the lingering aroma of failure.
"Where..." His alien voice cracked. "Where the hell am I?"
The room offered no answers. Rude.
Ray struggled to sit up. His arms trembled with the effort. When had he become this weak? And why did his whole body feel like it belonged to someone else?
He tried to stand. Bad idea. His legs had apparently forgotten how legs worked, and he stumbled forward like a newborn giraffe on an ice rink.
His foot connected with something that went skittering across the floor with a hollow rattle.
Ray looked down.
A pill bottle. Empty. Little white tablets scattered across the floor like confetti at the world's most depressing party.
He squinted at the label. Sleeping pills.
Oh.
Oh no.
Ray's stomach—this strange, wrong stomach that didn't feel like his—chose that exact moment to stage a violent rebellion.
"Shit shit shit—"
He lurched through what he desperately hoped was a bathroom door—bingo—and barely made it to the toilet before his body decided to forcibly evict whatever was inside it. Which, based on the taste, was definitely sleeping pills mixed with stomach acid and poor life choices.
"Fuck—bleurgh—this—hurk—suuucks—"
You know that scene in zombie movies where someone gets bitten and insists they're fine? This was worse. At least zombies didn't have to deal with dry heaving while their entire worldview collapsed.
After what felt like an eternity of retching, Ray slumped against the bathroom wall, gasping. His throat burned. His head spun. And he was pretty sure he'd just coughed up something vital.
He fumbled along the wall until his fingers found a light switch.
Click.
Harsh fluorescent light flooded the tiny bathroom. Ray winced, then slowly raised his gaze to the mirror above the sink.
"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me."
A stranger stared back. Not just any stranger—a kid who looked like he'd auditioned for a zombie movie and gotten the lead role. Brown hair that screamed "I've given up on everything." Sunken cheeks. Skin so pale it was practically translucent.
And the eyes. Empty green eyes that looked deader than Ray's jungle after he died ganking top lane.
This wasn't him.
This was some malnourished teenager who looked like he needed a sandwich, a shower, and possibly an exorcist.
Ray raised a trembling hand to his face. The reflection mimicked him. He poked his too-hollow cheek. The reflection poked back.
No. No no no. This isn't happening.
Except it clearly was.
Ray had read enough web novels during queue times to know exactly what this was. He'd just been too busy dying to connect the dots.
Transmigration.
He'd died—rest in peace Ray, press F to pay respects—and somehow woken up in someone else's body. Some poor kid who'd apparently decided to down an entire bottle of sleeping pills because... why? Bad breakup? Failed a test? Got flamed too hard in ranked?
The thought hit him like a Flash engage.
The pills.
This kid had tried to kill himself. And Ray had woken up in his place.
"Second chance," Ray muttered, fragments of that mechanical voice echoing in his memory. [WELCOME TO YOUR SECOND CHANCE, SUMMONER]
"Yeah, thanks for that," he said to his gaunt reflection. "Real considerate. Could've at least put me in a body that wasn't actively trying to die."
The mirror offered no sympathy.
Ray splashed cold water on his face—this stranger's face—and tried to organize his thoughts. Okay. Transmigration. That was apparently a thing that could happen. He was in a different body, probably a different world, and had no idea what the hell was going on.
Classic isekai protagonist problems.
He stumbled back into the bedroom on unsteady legs. The pill bottle still lay on the floor, mocking him. Ray picked it up with shaking hands.
Prescribed to: Kai Mercer
"Kai Mercer," Ray repeated, testing the name. "So that's who you are."
Were. Past tense. Because Kai Mercer had swallowed these pills, and Ray had woken up in his body.
Ray sat heavily on the bed—Kai's bed—and stared at the pill bottle in his hands.
The reality of it was starting to sink in now. Through the confusion and the dark humor and the shock.
He was dead.
Ray—the real Ray, the twenty-two-year-old college graduate with a scholarship and three job offers—was gone. His body was probably still lying in his dorm room right now, burned and broken from the lightning strike. His mom would get a call. His dad. They'd have to identify what was left of him. Plan a funeral.
His gaming setup—the $500 rig he'd saved up for over months—would get packed away in boxes. His posters taken down. His room cleared out like he'd never existed. That scholarship he'd worked so hard to maintain? Meaningless now. Those three job offers waiting on his desk? Someone else would fill those positions.
His friends would post about him on social media. "RIP Ray, you were a real one." Generic condolences. Maybe some of them would actually mean it. Most would forget about him in a week.
Everything he'd worked for. Twenty-two years of life. Gone.
And for what? One LP away from Challenger. One goddamn League Point.
Ray's hands trembled around the pill bottle. His throat tightened. His eyes burned.
Don't. Don't you dare cry in a dead kid's body.
But it was hard not to. He'd never graduate now. Never start that job. Never see his family again. Never hit Challenger—which seemed stupid to mourn, but it had meant something to him. Never prove he could do it.
Just... nothing. Erased. Like he'd never mattered at all.
He was gone. And he'd died angry, screaming at the sky like an idiot, cursing a video game company over pixels on a screen.
What a way to go.
Ray took a shuddering breath, forcing the emotion down. He couldn't afford to break down. Not now. Not when he was stuck in a body that had already tried to give up once.
Second chance, he thought bitterly. Some second chance. Trading one dead end for another.
But at least he was alive. Somehow. In some form.
That had to count for something.
Right?
Ray set the pill bottle on the nightstand and rubbed his face with both hands. He needed to focus. Needed to understand what was happening. Needed to—
Pain exploded through his skull without warning.
"Ah, fuck—"
Memories that weren't his came flooding in like a burst dam. Not gentle. Not gradual. Just a full-force assault of someone else's entire life crashing into his consciousness.
A large room filled with nervous teenagers. Glowing crystals mounted on pedestals. Adults in white coats holding clipboards.
Kai standing in front of one crystal, hand pressed against its surface. Heart pounding. Please work. Please let me be strong. Please let me be anything but useless.
The crystal stays dark. Doesn't even flicker.
A woman in a white coat frowns at her tablet. "Kai Mercer. Class: Unknown. Rank: E."
The room goes quiet. Then someone snickers.
"Unknown? What kind of trash class is that?"
"Might as well have not awakened at all."
"E-rank Unknown. That's basically a participation trophy, right?"
Walking through school hallways the next day. Everyone staring. Whispers following like a curse.
"There's the Unknown."
"My little sister awakened as C-rank. At least she's useful."
"Imagine being sixteen and already worthless."
Going home to this tiny apartment. Always alone. Always.
Staring at the pills in his hand. One solution to end all the mockery. All the shame. All the crushing, suffocating weight of everyone's disappointment.
Just peace. Finally.
The memories faded, but the emotions lingered. Ray could feel them—Kai's despair, his loneliness, the crushing weight of everyone telling him he was worthless. The kid had been sixteen years old. Just sixteen. And he'd felt so hopeless that swallowing pills seemed like the only way out.
Ray's chest tightened.
He knew that feeling. Not the same circumstances, maybe, but he knew what it was like to fail when it mattered most. To have everything you worked for slip through your fingers over something you couldn't control. To feel like you weren't good enough, would never be good enough, no matter how hard you tried.
One LP. One bad awakening. Two different failures that felt like the end of the world.
"Rough break, Kai," Ray said quietly, the flippancy gone from his voice. He looked down at the pill bottle. "You deserved better than this. Way better."
They both had.
Ray sat there for a long moment, feeling the weight of two lives pressing down on him. His own death. Kai's suicide. Two people who'd given up at their lowest points.
But somehow, impossibly, he'd gotten another shot.
Second chance, the System had said.
Maybe it was meant for both of them.
Ray took another shuddering breath and stood up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He pulled himself together and pieced through the memories more analytically now.
"Awakening ceremony," he muttered. "Crystals. Classes. Ranks."
His eyes widened as understanding clicked into place.
"Holy shit. This is a Hunter world."
Like all those manhwa he'd binged between ranked games. A world where dungeons had appeared sixty years ago, where people awakened at sixteen with supernatural abilities, and Hunters made fortunes—or died—clearing dungeons.
And Kai Mercer had awakened as an E-rank Unknown.
Which, judging by those painful memories, was the absolute bottom tier. The "you should've stayed a normal human" rank. The "please don't embarrass yourself by entering a dungeon" class.
Ray understood now why Kai had made that choice. When everyone told you that you were worthless, that your awakening was a joke, that you'd be better off not existing...
Eventually, you started to believe them.
"I'm sorry," Ray said to the empty room, to the ghost of the kid whose body he now wore. "I'm sorry they made you feel like this. I'm sorry no one gave you a chance."
He looked down at Kai's thin hands. His hands now.
"But I'm here now. And I'm not going to waste this."
Like the words were a trigger, glowing blue text suddenly materialized in his vision.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
Ray jerked back, nearly falling off the bed. "What the—"
The text stayed put, floating in his field of vision like some kind of AR overlay. Except he wasn't wearing any device. No VR headset. No smart glasses. Just... text. Hanging in midair.
"Okay, that's new," Ray muttered, waving his hand through the space where the words floated. His hand passed right through them. "And possibly a sign I'm having a psychotic break. Great. Fantastic."
[COMPATIBILITY CONFIRMED]
"Compatibility with what?" Ray demanded. "Who are you? What are you?"
The text didn't answer. It just kept loading, indifferent to his questions.
[CHAMPION ARCHETYPE: ACTIVE]
Ray's breath caught. "Champion Archetype..."
[WELCOME, SUMMONER]
He stared at the words for a long moment, mind racing.
Summoner. That was a League term. Players were called Summoners in the lore.
Champion Archetype. Champions were the playable characters in League.
This... this was League of Legends terminology. In a floating UI. In his vision. After he'd died playing League and woken up in a Hunter world.
"Okay," Ray said slowly, carefully. "Okay, let's think about this logically."
He counted off on his fingers. "One: I died. Two: I woke up in a different body in what appears to be a Hunter world. Three: There was a voice in the void that said something about a 'second chance' and 'Champion Archetype.' Four: Now there's a System interface using League terminology appearing in my vision."
He paused.
"Either I'm hallucinating—which, given the pill overdose situation, is entirely possible—or something gave me a System. A League of Legends-based System."
Ray rubbed his temples. This was insane. Actually insane.
But then again, he'd also transmigrated into another world, so maybe "insane" was just the new normal.
"Summoner," he repeated, testing the word. The System had called him that. In the void. Before he woke up here.
Which meant... what? That this was real? That whatever cosmic entity or god or random omnipotent being that had transmigrated him had also given him some kind of cheat ability?
Like those isekai protagonists who got special systems or skills when they reincarnated?
"This is real," Ray said aloud, trying to convince himself. "This is actually real. I have a System. A League of Legends System."
He waited for the System to respond. To explain. To do anything besides just float there with its cryptic messages.
Nothing.
"Of course you're not going to explain," Ray muttered. "That would be too convenient. Too helpful. Can't have that."
He studied the text more carefully. [WELCOME, SUMMONER]
The System had welcomed him. Past tense. Like the initialization was complete.
"So... what now?" Ray asked. "Do I just... accept this? Start using it? How does this even work?"
[FIRST CHAMPION ROLL AVAILABLE]
Ray flinched as new text appeared.
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?]
"Roll?" Ray's eyes widened. "You mean like... gacha? I have to roll for champions?"
Of course he did. Because his life—his second life—wasn't complicated enough. Now he had to deal with RNG.
"What happens if I roll?" Ray asked the System. "Do I get their abilities? Their stats? Do I turn into them? And what if I roll someone useless? Do I just... die? Again?"
The System offered no answers. Just that same question, hovering patiently.
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?]
Ray stood up and started pacing. This was too much. Too fast. He'd barely processed being dead, being in a different body, being in a different world, and now there was a System offering him champions?
"Think," he muttered to himself. "Think this through."
If this was a gacha system, there had to be rules. Rates. Restrictions. In League, there were over 160 champions. Some were simple. Some were complex. Some were strong. Some were... Yuumi.
And if Kai's memories were right, this world had dungeons. Real, deadly dungeons with actual monsters that could actually kill him.
Rolling the wrong champion could be a death sentence.
"Do I have a choice?" Ray asked. "Can I just... not roll? Keep the System dormant?"
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?]
Same question. No other options visible.
Ray stopped pacing and stared at the text.
"You're not going to give me any other information, are you? No tutorial. No explanation. Just 'roll the dice and hope you don't die.'"
The System remained silent.
Ray thought about Kai. About this kid who'd been mocked for awakening as E-rank Unknown. Who'd been told he was worthless.
If Ray didn't use this System, he'd stay E-rank Unknown. Weak. Vulnerable. Exactly what everyone expected.
But if he did roll... if this System was real, if it actually gave him some abilities...
He could change everything.
"Fuck it," Ray said finally. "I've already died once. What's the worst that could happen? I die again?"
He took a deep breath.
"Okay, System. Whatever you are. Wherever you came from. I'm trusting you on this."
He focused on the text, on that question hovering in his vision.
"Watch this, Kai," Ray said softly to the empty apartment, to the ghost that might or might not still be listening. "Let's see if this second chance is worth anything."
Then louder, with more conviction: "Yes. Let's do this."
Time to roll his first champion.
And pray to whatever god or system or cosmic entity was listening that it wasn't Yuumi.
Because if he'd died one LP away from Challenger just to get a cat that sat on people's heads, he was going to riot.