Orion Ember woke to a violent, splitting headache.
Not the dull throb of exhaustion—this was something else entirely, as if someone had pressed an electric drill to his temple and casually stirred the contents of his skull. Instinctively, he tried to raise his hand to clutch his head, but his arm felt encased in lead, heavy and unresponsive.
"Orion. His Highness summons you."
An impatient female voice cut through the haze, followed by a sharp clack—something struck his face and slid down his cheek, cold and metallic.
Orion forced his eyes open, vision swimming, and caught a glimmer of silver-white. A badge. Crossed fleets and a sword, and beneath them, words he knew too well:
Celestial Military Academy · Third Fleet Reserve
Celestial Military Academy.
Third Fleet.
Orion's focus sharpened abruptly.
This is the setting from Starfall—the game I was designing before I died.
"Stop playing dead," the voice grew sharper. "His Highness returned from field exercises today, and his Cinder Plague is flaring. A Defective like you has pheromones stable enough to serve as a sedative. Move, before I say it twice."
A black military boot slammed into his ribs. Orion grunted, rolling off the narrow cot. His skull struck the metal floor with a heavy thud. The impact cleared his consciousness, and memories flooded in—
The body's original owner: Orion Ember, nineteen years old.
The illegitimate son of House Jordan's Marshal. His mother a nameless half-blood commoner, dead shortly after his birth. Genetic optimization incomplete—silver hair streaked with dull grey, eyes a rare pale grey-blue. To House Jordan, he was a "Defective."
Three months ago, at a word from the Marshal's legitimate wife, this embarrassment was shipped to the Celestial Military Academy. On paper, a "study attendant." In truth, a gift delivered to the Crown Prince of House Peregrine.
Peregrine Cinder.
First heir to the Empire, eldest son of the Five Great Houses' leader, President of the Academy's Student Council. Silver hair, golden eyes—the flawless image of Pureblood nobility.
Also the first key NPC destined to die in the Starfall Campaign, according to the game's main storyline.
Orion—or rather, Jiang Jin—had spent his final living hours designing that very battle. He remembered every data point: the war would erupt on November 17, New Era 284. Which meant—
He looked up sharply at the digital calendar on the wall.
August 22, New Era 284
Eighty-seven days.
Eighty-seven days until Peregrine Cinder's death.
"What are you staring at?" The voice's owner finally emerged from shadow—a girl in logistics uniform, dark hair, brown eyes. Her name tag read: Lumen Sage · Junior, Logistics Department. "If you don't go now and His Highness tears the dorm apart in a frenzy, can you afford the damages?"
Orion pushed himself up, legs trembling. He looked down at his hands—pale, slender, neatly trimmed nails. Hands of privilege, nothing like his previous life's hands, slightly deformed from decades of keyboards.
He had transmigrated.
Actually transmigrated.
Worse, he had become one of the game's most pathetic cannon fodder. In the original lore, the "Jordan bastard" didn't even merit a name; the official setting book held only one line: "The Jordan bastard died during the Zerg invasion; no further records."
"I'll change," Orion said. His voice was lighter than expected, hoarse with sleep.
Lumen frowned but pressed no further. She studied this "Defective" a moment, gaze lingering on his grey-blue eyes. Her tone softened slightly. "Hurry. His Highness is in a bad state today. Just... be careful."
Orion caught the shift in her voice but asked nothing. He grabbed the uniform from his bed—silver-grey, no insignia, standard attendant kit—and pulled it on.
As he dressed, he assessed his situation.
Previously: Jiang Jin, twenty-eight, lead game designer for Starfall. Dead after seventy-two hours of overtime on the "Starfall Campaign" DLC. He knew this plot's every detail.
Peregrine Cinder, the game's most popular NPC. Official ending: "To cover civilian evacuation, he personally piloted the flagship to hold the rear, perishing with the Zerg Hive Mother."
But Orion knew the truth.
Peregrine was already Cinder-mad before death. Mindless, the flagship commander had turned cannons on his own fleet. The "covering civilians" narrative was a lie fabricated by House Cinder to hide their heir's loss of control.
In those final ten minutes, the real Peregrine Cinder was a monster.
And now, that monster waited next door, expecting his "service."
Peregrine's dormitory occupied the "Sky One" suite—half the Academy's top floor, outer rooms for study and reception, inner chambers for bedroom and private training. As an "attendant," Orion should sleep on the outer sofa, but for three months, the original Orion hadn't warmed the carpet—Peregrine refused him entry.
Today was different.
The moment Orion reached the door, it slid open, and the stench of blood hit him like a wall.
"Enter."
The voice came from within—low, rasping, sandpaper against metal. Nothing like the cold, regal tones of the Crown Prince in game cinematics.
He stepped across the threshold and froze.
The reception room was wreckage. The solid wood table shattered in three pieces, the holographic projector smoking, a fist-sized crater punched into the wall. Blood everywhere—floor, sofa, even ceiling. Dark splatters against cold white light.
And the blood's source leaned against the bedroom doorframe.
Peregrine Cinder.
Silver-white hair tangled over his shoulders. Golden eyes narrowed to vertical slits, some great predatory cat. His uniform jacket discarded on the floor, white shirtsleeves rolled to elbows. His forearms laced with claw marks—some deep enough to show bone, still weeping.
Self-inflicted. Classic Cinder Plague symptom—using pain to suppress the madness.
"You're the one House Jordan sent?" Peregrine tilted his head, movements possessing an inhuman, eerie grace. "Come here."
Orion didn't move.
Game settings: Peregrine, 188cm, S+ physical stats, double-S mental power. The Empire's once-in-a-century perfect heir. But no player knew the price of that "perfection"—the Cinder Plague. Low emotional threshold, rage granting explosive power at the cost of reason, followed by memory blackouts and extreme physical frailty.
Current Peregrine: post-frenzy frailty period. But "frail" was relative; crushing a "Defective" attendant would be no harder than crushing an ant.
"I said, come here." Peregrine's golden eyes narrowed further.
The prelude to impatience. Orion had written this in design documents: Peregrine narrows eyes = Danger level +30%. Players advised to save immediately.
But he had no save points.
Orion advanced two steps, maintaining distance. "Your Highness, what do you require?"
"Remove your clothes."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Your pheromones." Peregrine's voice softened, almost to himself. "The Jordans called you Defective, but your scent..." He inhaled, throat working. "It's clean."
Orion's skin crawled.
He had forgotten. In the Interstellar Era, Pureblood Nobles identified status through pheromones; each person carried a unique "scent." The original Orion's pheromones were judged "Defective" for their lack of aggression—gentle and bland as plain water, shame in noble circles.
But the game's hidden settings revealed the truth: this "non-aggressive" pheromone held a secret attribute—Ember's Grace. It could soothe Cinder Plague madness. One of the few stabilizers compatible with Peregrine.
House Jordan had hidden this secret, sending Orion as a "gift," gambling that Peregrine would unconsciously become dependent on this "Defective," binding the houses closer.
The original Orion knew none of this. He only knew Peregrine despised him, three months locked outside, barely glimpsing the Prince's face.
But the current Orion knew everything.
"Your Highness," he kept his voice steady, "my pheromones are truly unremarkable. If you require a stabilizer, the medical bay offers synthetic—"
"Synthetics don't function." Peregrine interrupted, suddenly smiling. Beautiful and terrifying—curved lips, no warmth in those golden eyes. "I've tried. Only yours works."
He extended his hand, pale fingers still stained with blood. "Come. Let me scent you."
The scene was grotesque. The Empire's Crown Prince, like some great predator, inviting him near simply to "smell" him.
Orion recalled a game detail: Peregrine's olfactory sensitivity—seventeen times human standard, forty times post-frenzy. He could read emotional states from pheromones—fear, anger, or...
Orion breathed deep, suppressed his trembling, and advanced three steps.
One meter from Peregrine now. At this distance, if the other lunged, he might retreat in time.
"Closer."
Orion took one more step.
Peregrine moved like lightning, seizing Orion's wrist. Strength staggering—Orion felt his bones groan. The next instant, he was yanked forward—
His cheek struck something warm.
Peregrine buried his face in the hollow of Orion's neck.
"Don't move." A rasped command, breath hot against skin, sending shivers down his spine. "Let me..."
Orion froze. He felt Peregrine's nose brush his carotid artery, felt the rise and fall of the other's chest, could even feel... Peregrine's heartbeat, slowing from frantic 120 beats per minute to 90, 80, 70...
It truly worked.
His pheromones—Ember's Grace—truly calmed Peregrine.
"What is your name?" Peregrine's voice was muffled against his collarbone, regaining some cold, aristocratic texture.
"...Orion Ember."
"Orion." Peregrine repeated it, as if tasting. "House Jordan didn't give you that name."
Orion blinked. The original name had indeed come from his mother. "Ember" meant hope, but House Jordan never legally recognized it, referring to him only as "the Jordan bastard."
"My mother," he said.
Peregrine was silent several seconds, then suddenly released him and stepped back. His golden pupils had rounded to normal circles. Still bloodshot, but that inhuman slit-quality had vanished.
"From today," he turned toward the bedroom, silver hair trailing in a graceful arc, "you sleep on the outer sofa. You enter the inner rooms only by my permission. You leave this dormitory only by my summons. Is this understood?"
Orion rubbed his numbed wrist. "Understood..."
"And," Peregrine paused at the bedroom door, not turning, "your pheromones... they are for me alone. If I discover you've allowed another to touch you..."
He didn't finish. Orion understood.
Possessiveness. Pathological, nascent possessiveness rooted in physiological dependence.
In the game, Peregrine never had this storyline. In the original, the "Jordan bastard" never came within three meters of Peregrine before death, so the "Stabilizer" hidden quest never triggered.
But now, fate's threads had shifted.
"Understood, Your Highness." Orion lowered his head in submission. "I am yours."
Peregrine turned slightly, peripheral vision sweeping over him. Complex—scrutinizing, suspicious, something else Orion couldn't read.
"Clean this," he said, then vanished behind the door.
Orion spent twenty minutes on basic cleanup. He dragged the broken table to a corner, wiped away blood with cleaning agents, ignored the smoking projector for now.
Finished, he collapsed onto the sofa and stared at the ceiling.
Soft leather, some material he didn't recognize, faint cedar scent. The same scent clinging to Peregrine.
He lifted his wrist, examined the red marks. Bruises forming already, fingerprints clear as stamps.
"This is fucking ridiculous," he muttered.
Before transmigrating, he was lead designer, creator of this world. He knew all Peregrine's data: 188cm, 76kg, born March 15, New Era 262. Favorite food: black coffee and synthetic protein blocks. Hated sweets. Frenzy threshold: emotional value 90/100. Post-frenzy frailty: 6-8 hours average...
He knew Peregrine would die. In eighty-seven days, amid the fires of the Seventh Sector, this man who had just pressed his face into Orion's neck would become wreckage that wouldn't leave a whole corpse.
And now, he was Peregrine's "property."
Survive first, he thought, lips twitching in a fleeting smile before tightening. Just survive.
Beyond the window lay the Seventh Sector's night sky. Three artificial suns orbited the planet, pouring eternal daylight onto this interstellar fortress. Orion watched that false brightness and recalled a game detail:
When the Starfall Campaign erupted, the Seventh Sector's stellar defense system would be obscured by Zerg spore clouds. The entire sector would fall into seventy-two hours of absolute darkness. In those seventy-two hours, Peregrine's flagship, the Celestial, would be the only lighthouse—and the only target.
He closed his eyes, pulled up the battle map in his mind. Zerg attack routes, fleet defensive vulnerabilities, bottlenecks in civilian evacuation corridors... every data point clear as yesterday.
Change it.
He could change it.
Not for Peregrine—for himself. He didn't want to die. Didn't want to be an anonymous corpse eighty-seven days from now. Didn't want this world he designed with his own hands to follow the tragic script he'd written.
"Orion."
The bedroom door opened suddenly, Peregrine's voice drifting out. He'd changed into clean clothes, silver hair tied back, the perfect heir once more. Only the bloodshot veins in his eyes betrayed his earlier state.
"Your Highness?"
"Can you cook?" Peregrine asked.
Orion was taken aback. "...Somewhat?"
"Then cook." Peregrine tossed something over; Orion caught it instinctively. A clearance chip. "Kitchen is downstairs. Use my account. I want something hot. No synthetics."
Orion looked at the chip, then at Peregrine.
Game settings: Peregrine's kitchen clearance, S-rank, usable only by himself and three trusted confidants. And now he'd tossed it to a "study attendant" he'd known ten minutes?
"Problem?" Peregrine raised an eyebrow.
"No." Orion clenched the chip, lowered his head. "I'll go immediately."
He turned toward the door, and from behind came Peregrine's voice, soft as a whisper to himself:
"Your pheromones... they smell like snow."
Orion's steps faltered a fraction. He didn't look back, pulled the door open, walked out.
In the corridor, he leaned against the wall and breathed deep.
Like snow. In the game lore, Peregrine's mother died in a Seventh Sector blizzard—his only memory from age five. Afterward, he was raised by AI in the palace, never seeing real snow again.
Orion's pheromones were judged "Defective" for being "scentless." But Peregrine smelled snow.
This was good. It meant that in the Crown Prince's heart, Orion was already linked to a hidden, primal memory of his mother.
"Eighty-seven days," he said to empty air, voice light but determined. "It's enough."