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In the mottled, mercury-bright mirror before him stood the reflection of a young man in his early twenties.
Dark circles hung beneath his unfocused black eyes, the result of a wrecked sleep schedule and too many sleepless nights.
His hair, long overdue for a trim, fell in messy strands over his head. His skin was pale and dry, stripped of the vitality that should have belonged to someone his age.
Yet what startled Dio was not the miserable state of his body.
It was something else, Something far stranger.
A person's understanding of themselves deepens with time. Familiar memories are worn down by the current of years, buried in the depths of the mind, fading into fragments, preserved only as fleeting impressions in the vast hall of recollection.
Dio's gaze tightened on the mirror. He raised both hands and ran them lightly over his pale cheeks.
The skin beneath his fingers felt cold.
Dry.
"That's not right…"
"What is it?"
His eyes were still his own. His nose was unchanged. Everything looked exactly as it had before he'd gone to sleep.
And yet a faint, persistent sensation circled in his mind, whispering that something about him had shifted.
"Did I… get younger?"
The thought burst into his head absurd and impossible.
Dio. Male. Twenty-eight years old. Living alone in a quiet, out-of-the-way town.
His parents had passed away when he was young, but his life had been far from dramatic, No hidden destinies. No tragic twists worthy of a novel.
He was introverted, with few friends. His grades had been average at best. After graduating from an unremarkable high school ten years ago, he had settled into a comfortable, aimless existence supported by the inheritance his parents left behind.
In recent years, property values have soared. The handful of rental houses they'd left him had quietly appreciated to an impressive sum.
By the time he hit his late twenties, he was, by most standards, a multimillionaire.
He leased out the properties, collected rent each month, and lived without financial worry. For a traditional shut-in like him, it was more than enough. Food on the table. Heat in the winter. A life that demanded nothing.
For him, that had been good enough.
A sharp gust of icy wind slipped in through the window, making him shiver.
The ridiculous thought from moments ago took root and spread like wildfire.
It felt insane but he couldn't ignore it.
Driven by something he couldn't name, Dio hurried out of the bathroom.
His eyes darted across the bedroom, scanning frantically as if searching for proof of something he already feared.
Then he saw it.
On the bedside table sat a sleek silver device, impossibly thin, its metallic surface gleaming with a futuristic sheen.
It lay flush against the wood, its semi-transparent screen blank save for a string of glowing numbers ticking quietly in the corner.
If someone from a century ago had stood in this room, they would have had no idea what those symbols meant.
But Dio did.
They displayed the time.
And yet the numbers themselves were not what made his breath catch.
It was the device.
The Galaxy Wyvern XI released in 2093 by global tech giant NorTech had once been hailed as the pinnacle of personal communication. With its razor-thin build and cutting-edge design, it had become an instant global sensation. For a time, it seemed everyone owned one.
Dio had bought one too, paying a small fortune at the time to stay on trend.
But—
His right hand trembled as he picked it up.
In his memory, production of the Galaxy Wyvern XI had ended six years ago, replaced entirely by neural-integrated personal terminals. Devices like this had become obsolete collectors' pieces left to gather dust in storage.
He swallowed.
His left hand reached back, fingers tracing up along his spine toward the base of his skull.
"Just as I thought."
His face went rigid.
The neural implant that had once rested there was gone.
In its place was smooth, unbroken skin.
His fingers fumbled awkwardly across the Wyvern's screen. After a few tense seconds, he pulled up the proof he needed.
Calendar.
His eyes locked onto the display.
A single tap.
March 17, 2095.
Saturday. Sunny, turning cloudy.
The device slipped from his grasp.
It hit the floor with a sharp metallic crack that echoed through the room.
Dio collapsed backward onto the cold tiles, staring ahead in disbelief.
"I… went back?"
Two hours later, he sat on the living room sofa, scrolling through the Wyvern, combing through news feeds and archived data.
After testing and rechecking everything he could think of, the conclusion was unavoidable.
He had returned.
Ten years in the past.
In the year he had just graduated from high school.
"What am I supposed to do now?"
He let out a long breath.
He had consumed enough novels and anime over the years to be thoroughly familiar with stories of rebirth and time travel. If anything, he had grown tired of the trope.
In countless sleepless nights spent lost in digital worlds, he had imagined what he might do if he ever found himself in a protagonist's shoes.
But now that the impossible had happened—
He felt completely lost.
He had never been particularly driven by money. With his inheritance secure, the idea of leveraging future knowledge to gamble in business held little appeal.
And even if he tried, he knew himself well enough. He didn't have the sharp instincts or ruthless cunning needed to survive among seasoned sharks in the corporate world. If he sold off his properties to chase opportunity, he'd likely be devoured whole within a few years.
As for other lucrative industries?
In his previous life, he had been little more than a shut-in. His expertise was limited to the digital worlds he escaped into.
There was only one thing he had ever truly studied in depth.
Suddenly—
A sharp light flashed in Dio's eyes.
He had remembered something.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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