Before the glowing blue interface could even finish minimizing into the corner of his vision, Kaylen forced himself to look down.
The heavy, protective iron armor he had lived in for years was entirely gone. His body felt impossibly light, exposed, and dangerously vulnerable. He was trapped in the body of a nineteen-year-old youth named Rian. According to his reflection, the boy stood around 5'9" tall, weighing a lean 70 kg—a physically average Long, unkempt black hair tumbled down his face, long enough to graze his mouth, framing a pair of wide, dark brown eyes that lacked any of a soldier's hard, weathered edge.
Instead of a warrior's gear, he was wearing ordinary civilian clothes: a plain white shirt, sharp black pants, and dark blue shoes. He gripped the fabric of his shirt, testing its thickness. It wasn't leather; it wasn't chainmail. It offered absolutely zero defense against a blade.
Suddenly, the screen flickered violently as the official rules interface expanded directly in front of his eyes, burning its meaning into his mind:
> ### **Law I: The Universal Variance**
> *The Soul Roulette does not recognize borders, dimensions, or celestial limits. Your soul can be cast into any individual, in any universe, across any galaxy. Every living vessel is a slot on the wheel.*
***[PROTOCOL CLARIFICATION]:***
"The 'Switch' does not recognize the threads of destiny or the weight of merit; it is governed entirely by the cold calculus of possibility. Your soul can be cast into any vessel, in any universe, across any galaxy, on any world.
There is no pattern to the selection. You may inhabit a warrior gasping his final breath, a newborn drawing its first, or a common man in the peak of his happiness. The Roulette does not care for the life you steal; it only cares that the seat is filled.
The Cost of Entry: The displacement is a perfect exchange. The individual whose body you seize will, in that same instant, be torn from their world and cast into your abandoned vessel back on Earth. To live their life, you have condemned them to yours.
> ### **Law II: The Rule of One**
> *The Timer selects its own duration. The cycle of your stay manifests as the 'One': 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 month, 1 year, 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years.*
> ###**Law III: RESTRICTED INFORMATION PROTOCOL**
> * **Classification:** All higher-tier system functions, origin metrics, and cosmic background data remain strictly classified.
> * **Access:** Information restriction cannot be bypassed without explicit, direct permission from **The Creator of Roulette**.
As the rules closed, a secondary system prompt flashed across his line of sight:
**[SOUL ROULETTE DIRECTIVE: LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION INITIALIZED]**
**[NOTICE: THE USER IS GRANTED AUTOMATIC COMPREHENSION OF THE NATIVE SPOKEN LANGUAGE. WARNING: LITERACY IS RESTRICTED. USER CANNOT READ OR WRITE NATIVE SCRIPT.]**
Kaylen stared at the floating words, his mind racing. He could hear the meaning of the words directly in his head, but when he glanced over at the strange geometric symbols, glowing digits, and labels stamped on the walls of the room, they remained a jumbled, completely unreadable mess.
Yet, looking at the sheer fluid nature of the glowing interface itself, a moment of raw amazement broke through his rising panic.
*"Damn... the magic in this world is on an entirely another level,"* Kaylen muttered, his voice shaking as he stared at his soft, unscarred hands. There were no runes, no chanting, and no mana residue—just pure, disembodied light floating in empty air.
Then, the terrifying, cold logic of his situation settled deep into his chest.
"So I really got into someone else's body," he whispered, tracing the soft fabric of his white shirt. "A body belonging to someone who tried to use this insane magic. We exchanged our bodies. But... isn't it bad for me? If I'm over on that world right now, in my original body, I already will be dead on that battlefield."
A suffocating wave of despair crashed over him, making his knees buckle. He dropped his head into his hands, the terrifying image of his original body collapsing in the mud filling his mind.
"But what about my friend?" Kaylen's breath turned shallow as he fell deep into despair. "I didn't thought... who will protect him? I promised someone. I need to go back to my world somehow."
Stumbling blindly through the unfamiliar room to clear his head, his hand accidentally brushed against a sleek, pressure-sensitive panel on the wall.
By mistake, he suddenly opened the TV. A massive glass screen on the wall burst to life with blinding light and high-fidelity sound, instantly gripping his attention as a news anchor broadcasted an urgent, red-alert bulletin.
*"Breaking news tonight. In TV today, one of the biggest banks of our country almost got robbed. However, the elite SPS squad intervened and protected the bank. Still, the casualty rate is severe. Many peoples got killed in this incident, specially the executive of one of the ruling political parties. Officers were killed on-site, and the public is demanding answers..."*
Kaylen watched the chaotic footage of the flashing sirens, the smoke rising from a heavily fortified building, and the clinical, heavily armed figures of the security forces moving through the debris.
"The chaos and magic is insane here too, but something is extremely wrong in this news," Kaylen murmured, his brown eyes narrowing as he analyzed the screen. "That SPS squad doesn't look like a team of normal peoples. It looks like something else entirely." Their movements were too precise, too rigid, and completely lacking any human hesitation.
Turning away from the television, his eyes caught a small glass frame resting on a nearby counter. He picked it up. Inside was a digital picture of Rian and his parents, standing together near a sunlit ocean-side area. Rian looked incredibly happy in the photograph, holding a degree or a certificate, completely unbothered by the darkness of the world outside.
Kaylen stared at the smiling faces kaylen smiles seeing him looking happy with his family and thinking about his own then he realized. "Is this his home? If that is his parents, then where they are now?"
The suffocating silence of the empty house offered no answers. There were no signs of a struggle, but the complete absence of life felt ominous. Feeling a layer of cold sweat on his skin, Kaylen shook his head. "I want to go to the bathroom."
He ran towards the back of the house, throwing open doors until he found the bathroom door. Stepping inside, Kaylen froze in absolute shock.
"What the heck is this type of bathroom?" he yelled, staring at the high-tech, glowing chrome fixtures, automated panels, and strange glass stalls that looked more like laboratory chambers than a place to wash. "Where am I? Let me figure it out."
He began frantically twisting valves and hitting buttons blindly. Water sprayed from unexpected angles, lights changed color from stark white to a calming blue, and though he managed to wash up and even take a bath, his rough, panicked handling caused a loud, mechanical *crack* from one of the concealed consoles.
"Uh... I did everything, I even bath, but maybe I broke a switch inside," Kaylen muttered, backing away as a warning light began to pulse rhythmically on the wall. "It's not working. I don't know about this place much."
*DING-DONG.*
The sudden, sharp chime of a doorbell startled him, echoing loudly through the quiet apartment.
Kaylen's soldier instincts kicked in instantly, his muscles locking up. He stood paralyzed in the hallway, his heart hammering against his ribs. *Someone is outside my door finding me. Let me see.*
Stepping silently in his dark blue shoes, he crept toward the front entrance, keeping his center of gravity low just in case he needed to dodge an ambush. Beside the door frame, a small digital monitor flickered to life, showing a live video feed of the porch outside.
Kaylen leaned in, his dark brown eyes locking onto the figure standing on the threshold. He stared from the screen and said, "Who are you?"