Blood, corpses, pleas... Endless voices cursing me. Their wails sound muffled, as if reaching me through thick water. They reach for me, their hands—pale, broken, with exposed bones—grasping at my body but unable to hold on.
I step forward, though I do not know where this path leads. The darkness around me is alive, thick, writhing like snakes ready to coil around my neck. It presses against my chest, seeps into my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Each step grows heavier. My legs, as if bound by iron chains, refuse to obey. My body has weakened, my blood thickens in my veins, turning into solid lead.
But the worst part is the flames.
They are inside me. They burn not just flesh, but soul. I feel how a foreign, festering force spreads through every cell, burrows into my bones, my heart. Like a reaper standing behind me, ready to tear me apart.
It is unbearable.
Poison.
I know what it is. It rips me apart from within, searing my mind, yet I continue to feel every second of agony. Why? Why am I still alive? Or...
Am I already dead?
If this is hell, then it is pitiful. I expected more for all that I have done. Fire, screams, eternal torment — isn't that how it's supposed to be? Yet here there is only darkness.Endless, all-consuming darkness.
But then...
Something changes.
Opening my eyes, I realize that something is rushing through me. Faces, voices, moments—hundreds, thousands. Too many, yet in them, I see something familiar. They erase what I was, yet leave behind something new.
Reinhard Deira.
The name burns into my mind like a brand seared onto flesh.
Now you are me.
I open my eyes and meet darkness.
Moonlight pierces through the heavy curtains, turning the grim office into a realm of silver shadows. Thick, cold air is soaked with the scent of blood. I lie on the floor. The stone beneath me is sticky, covered in dark puddles.
A dull, searing pain stabs through my chest. I feel how everything inside burns, how my flesh slowly but surely withers away.
—"I'm alive?"
My fingers barely move, as if they are not my own. My entire body feels as if it were filled with lead, yet I slowly raise my trembling hand to my face. The skin is wet, sticky... I look at my fingers — in the dim light, they seem black, but I know it is blood. My blood.
— Ha... ha...
A quiet, hoarse chuckle escapes my parched lips.
— "I see... This isn't hell. So fate has given me a second chance?"
Irony? A coincidence? Or someone's cruel design? Whatever the case, I still draw breath. Which means it is not over yet.
With effort, I push myself up, leaning on the leather chair. My head still rings from the flood of foreign memories, but now I know the truth.
Reinhard Deira.
The second son of Duke Deira. Seventeen years old. A member of one of the three key families of the Kain Empire.A future Archmage... at least, officially.
— "A future Archmage, huh..."
How amusing. Just like in my old world, here, too, talent decides everything.Reinhard was born with an S-rank talent, but in truth, it was nothing more than a B-.A pathetic limit of the sixth rank.
But I am not him.
Fate truly enjoys its jokes. Now this body is mine. His memories, his potential, his past... and his enemies.
I lower my gaze to my bloodstained hands.
Poison.
A simple, predictable scheme. Who would have thought that someone of his standing could be killed so easily? And yet, the poison was inside me. Given by the one who had cared for this body since childhood.
— Hah...
A shadow of a smile touches my lips.
How foolish...
But if they believe that I am already dead...
It is time to prove them wrong.