The evening air was cool, but the teenager barely noticed the temperature as he walked down the bustling street.
His entire world was currently narrowed down to the glowing rectangular screen in his palm.
He was absentmindedly navigating the sidewalk while engrossed in re-reading the manga of his absolute favorite series, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
With the second season of the anime rapidly approaching, his enthusiasm was at a fever pitch.
He needed to refresh his memory on every panel and every line of dialogue to fully appreciate the upcoming adaptation.
As he scrolled through a particularly poignant chapter, the background noise of the city suddenly shifted.
The typical hum of traffic and chatter was violently overtaken by a loud, rising commotion.
Before he could even lift his head to assess the situation, a wave of panic crashed into him.
A stampede of people came rushing from further down the block, their terrified faces creating a blur of motion as they shoved past him.
The physical force of the crowd knocked the teenager off balance, jarring his arm and sending his phone tumbling out of his grasp to skitter across the pavement.
Annoyance flashed across the teenager's face. He turned his head sharply to see what had caused such a disruption, ready to scold whoever had made him drop his device. The words died in his throat.
There, standing amidst the fleeing crowd, was a man wielding a gun. The gunman seemed erratic, sweeping the weapon back and forth towards the innocent bystanders.
Most people would have turned and joined the stampede, but the teenager froze for a split second. His eyes locked onto the threat. Instead of retreating, his body moved on its own.
With a burst of adrenaline, he sprinted directly toward the armed man without a shred of hesitation, intending to knock the weapon away before anyone could get hurt.
The gunman, already on edge, saw the blur of the approaching figure. In a panic, his finger convulsed on the trigger.
A deafening bang reverberated through the entire street, momentarily stunning the screaming crowd into silence before the chaos erupted tenfold.
The teenager felt a sharp burn as the bullet grazed him, but the momentum of his sprint was already too great to stop.
He slammed into the gunman with his full weight, tackling the man to the hard concrete.
The impact jarred the weapon loose, sending it sliding away across the asphalt.
The gunman shouted incoherently, struggling to throw the boy off, but the teenager held on tight, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to pin the man's arms.
Witnessing the gunman fall and lose his weapon, the bystanders who had been fleeing suddenly found their courage.
Desperate to ensure the threat was neutralized, they stopped running and turned back.
One by one, they threw themselves into the struggle to help restrain the attacker.
"Hold him down!" someone screamed nearby.
The teenager felt the weight of one person land on top of him, followed quickly by another, and then another.
The pile grew heavier and heavier as terrified citizens tried to do their part.
Crushed beneath the mass of bodies, the teenager's thoughts began to drift away from the immediate danger.
He was not thinking about the bullet wound, nor the heavy limbs pressing him into the pavement.
His mind went back to the story he loved so much. The philosophy of the characters he admired.
It's what Himmel would have done, the teenager thought with a faint, internal smile.
The pressure on his chest became unbearable. He tried to inhale, but the immense weight of the crowd prevented his lungs from expanding.
Darkness crept into the edges of his vision. Slowly, his consciousness faded away completely.
When the paramedics and police finally arrived and peeled away the layers of people, they found the gunman subdued, but the tragedy had already occurred. The teenager was dead.
He had not died from the gunshot, which was merely a flesh wound, but from traumatic asphyxiation. He had been suffocated by the very weight of the people he had stepped up to save.
It was a cruel and bitter irony that the helping hands of the crowd became the instrument of his end.
------------
Consciousness returned to the teenager slowly, like wading through thick water.
When he finally opened his eyes, he was not greeted by the hospital ceiling he might have expected, nor the open sky above the street where he had died.
Instead, his gaze met a towering, majestic expanse of stone. The high ceiling was crafted with intricate masonry that suggested he was lying inside the great hall of a royal castle.
Instinctively, the teenager tried to sit up to get a better look at his surroundings. He sent the command to his limbs, but his body refused to obey.
He could not stand. He could not even lift his head. A wave of confusion washed over him as he realized he was completely immobilized, lying on his back and staring helplessly at the stone archways above.
Before panic could fully set in, a glowing blue window materialized in the air directly in front of his face. The text within shimmered with divine authority.
[DEAR HERO! I HAVE HEARD YOUR FINAL THOUGHTS. I AM THE GODDESS OF CREATION, AND I HAVE DECIDED TO TAKE YOU FROM YOUR OWN WORLD AND TRANSFER YOU TO MINE.
I HAVE NO NEED FOR YOUR SERVICES AS A WARRIOR OR A SAVIOR, NOR DO I REQUIRE YOU TO DEFEAT A DEMON KING.
I SIMPLY WISH TO COMMEND YOU FOR A JOB WELL DONE IN SAVING THOSE INNOCENT INDIVIDUALS.
AS A REWARD, I HAVE SCANNED YOUR MEMORIES AND THE COUNTLESS FICTIONAL ABILITIES YOU HAVE READ ABOUT OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR LIFE.
I HAVE COMPILED THEM ALL INTO ONE WHEEL. I GRANT YOU TWO CHANCES TO SPIN.
WHATEVER YOU OBTAIN WILL BE TRANSLATED TO FIT THE MAGIC SYSTEM OF THIS WORLD.
REGARDING YOUR BACKGROUND, YOU ARE NOW GEEHRT. YOU ARE THE GRANDSON OF FRASE, THE CAPTAIN OF THE EMPIRE'S IMPERIAL MAGE CORPS.
THIS LINEAGE NOT ONLY GRANTS YOU THE ADVANTAGE OF HIGH NOBILITY, BUT I ALSO GRANT YOU MY BLESSINGS TO A DEGREE THAT RIVALS THE NATURAL TALENTS OF THE PRIEST SEIN. THIS IS MY LAST MESSAGE. I HOPE NOT TO SEE YOU AGAIN TOO SOON.]
The teenager read the words breathlessly. He realized that his identity had been rewritten.
He was no longer the boy from Earth; his name was now Geehrt. As he finished the prompt, the glowing letters began to dissolve and rearrange themselves.
They transformed into a massive, holographic roulette wheel.
Geehrt watched as the wheel displayed countless amounts of information.
He saw incredible powers flashing by on the slices. He even spotted the anti-magic abilities associated with Liebe, which would undoubtedly make him an incredibly overpowered anomaly in a world dominated by mana.
[SPIN THE WHEEL?]
The message filled his vision. With a mental command, Geehrt started the spin. The wheel blurred, spinning so fast that the options became a wash of color.
Countless abilities passed in front of Geehrt's eyes as he waited with bated breath. He could not help but feel a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety.
A cold worry gripped him that he might land on a "bum" ability, for he knew that his memories contained plenty of powers that would be completely useless in the world of Frieren.
After a few agonizing minutes, the rotation began to decelerate. The teenager started to see the abilities passing by more clearly.
He saw the text for the solar flames of Amaterasu pass by, followed by the Wind Affinity of Yuno.
Finally, the wheel clicked to a halt, landing on a slice that made Geehrt's mind race with shock.
[CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE WON THE SIX EYES FROM JUJUTSU KAISEN. THIS ABILITY WILL BE ADJUSTED FROM CURSED ENERGY TO MANA TO ENSURE FULL FUNCTIONALITY. ARE YOU READY TO SPIN ONCE AGAIN?]
Another prompt appeared, but before he could answer, a sudden, sharp sensation assaulted him. Geehrt's eyes began to throb intensely.
It felt as though the biology of his eyes was being rewritten on a cellular level.
The Six Eyes were merging into his natural pupils, which remained a brilliant blue, as if it had been fated by the Goddess herself.
The pain faded as quickly as it had arrived, replaced by a new, overwhelming clarity. Geehrt could see the entire room with impossible detail.
It was as if he were viewing the world through a high definition camera with a three hundred and sixty degree field of vision. He could see behind him and above him simultaneously.
Through this new vision, he looked down at his own body and finally understood why he could not move earlier.
He was tiny. His limbs were short and chubby. He had been reincarnated into the body of an infant.
Furthermore, the world around him looked different. The air was filled with shimmering wavelengths of color.
He realized he was seeing mana itself, visualizing the different elements and their flow without any effort.
Geehrt forcibly stopped himself from getting too excited, remembering he had one spin left. He mentally triggered the wheel once more.
This time, it did not spin for nearly as long. It clicked to a stop, and the result made Geehrt internally cheer.
[ULTIMATE MAGIC (PASSIVE LVL: MAX) FROM THE MANHWA THE GAMER. ENHANCED VERSION.]
What does the enhanced version mean? Geehrt wondered, fixating on that specific line.
The answer came not in words, but in sensation. He felt a sudden warmth infiltrating his small body.
The mana he could see in the air began to drift toward him, sinking into his pores. He could feel his body automatically processing and refining the magical energy.
It felt similar to the mana suppression and control techniques Frieren taught to Fern, but this was happening automatically, refining his internal energy constantly, even while he did nothing but lie there in his crib.