Chapter 1: The Trash Man and the Star's Kiss
The air in the apartment was thick enough to chew. It was a suffocating cocktail of stale cigarette smoke, week-old instant ramen steam, and the faint, sweet decay of a life being thoroughly wasted. Ethan, all thirty-one years of him, didn't notice. He was a connoisseur of neglect, and this was his masterpiece.
He peeled himself off the sagging mattress, the synthetic fleece blanket clinging to his skin like a cheap second skin. Another day, another profound realization that he was still, impossibly, alive.
Thirty-one. Four years after finishing a glorified high school course, four years of sitting on a perfectly average brain, and four years of staring at the ceiling waiting for the cosmic intervention that never came.
"Idiot," he muttered, the word tasting metallic on his tongue. He had read thousands of fantasy novels.
Thousands of narratives where the main character, down on his luck, finds an ancient ring, inherits a mythical system, or gets run over by a truck and reborn as a duke.
He had waited. He had genuinely, stupidly waited. He'd even tested the system, once walking across a busy intersection without looking, convinced the universe would slam on the brakes to save its next protagonist. Nope. Just a very angry taxi driver and a very near-death experience that did nothing for his latent magical abilities.
The shortcut he'd chased had only led him in a slow, miserable circle, right back to where he started: an orphan with no name, no family, and now, no purpose. The thought of his teenage dream—becoming a doctor, of all things—felt like a cruel, dark joke. He was the kind of person doctors treated, not the kind who wore a white coat.
He needed groceries. That was the extent of his grand plan for the day. He pulled on a stained t-shirt and loose sweatpants, grabbed his wallet (light as a feather), and shuffled out the door. The sunlight outside was offensively bright, mocking his subterranean existence.
The small local market was cramped, smelling of overripe fruit and cheap incense. Ethan navigated the aisles on autopilot, his mind already drifting back to the epic fantasy he'd been reading, mentally dissecting why the hero was so much less annoying than he was.
He was reaching for the generic brand of noodles when he saw her.
The air seemed to compress, squeezing the noise out of the market. Everything went silent, save for the sudden, rapid thump of his own heart.
Sarah.
His Sarah. The one who had endured his laziness for three years before the sheer weight of his inertia crushed their relationship. He remembered her voice, strained but firm: "Ethan, I can't build a life with someone who is waiting for a miracle to happen."
He hadn't fought her. Fighting required energy, and energy was for people who had goals. He'd just watched her walk away, confident he'd meet a System and return to sweep her off her feet with his newfound power.
Now, she stood by the dairy cooler. She looked good. Not just healthy or happy, but luminous, settled. Her dark hair was styled in a practical, elegant way he hadn't seen before.
And then he saw them🙂
A small boy, perhaps four years old, with Sarah's eyes and a slightly mischievous grin, was pulling on her skirt, babbling about ice cream. Beside her, a man—tall, sharply dressed, and possessing a kind of easy confidence that Ethan had never owned—gently placed a hand on Sarah's back, a gesture of comfortable, unquestioned ownership.
The man leaned down, his voice low and warm, and Sarah laughed—a full, unrestricted sound that Ethan hadn't heard in years.
A single, crushing thought hit Ethan: I missed the bus.💔
There was no sudden surge of magical energy, no notification telling him he was the protagonist. There was just the cold, hard reality that his sloth had cost him the only real connection he ever had. Sarah had moved on, built the life she wanted, not waiting for a goddamn shortcut.
He didn't approach. He couldn't. His throat felt like sandpaper. He didn't want the polite, strained pity in her eyes, nor the casual, dismissive nod from the man who was now standing in his abandoned spot. He simply turned, dropped the cheap noodles, and walked out, leaving the market air for the suffocating gloom of his own self-hatred.
Back in the apartment, the depression wasn't a shadow; it was a physical weight, pressing on his chest, making every breath a chore. He didn't turn on the light. The room felt like a coffin, and tonight, he was ready to lie down in it.
He lit a cigarette. The smoke was a momentary comfort, a flimsy shield against the torrent of self-recrimination. He walked to the tiny, grime-caked window and stared up.
It was a clear night. Millions of distant stars, cold and indifferent, glittered across the black canvas. He took a drag and exhaled, watching the smoke drift up toward the apathy of the cosmos.
If I ever get another chance, I won't be this useless. I won't be this trash. It was a prayer, a futile, pathetic wish whispered into the void.
Then he saw it.
At first, it was just a pinprick of light, far above the city skyline. It was bright, pure white, and moved with a distinct speed that was far too fast for a plane.
Imagining things, he thought, taking another drag. Lack of sleep, nicotine poisoning, acute depression—it's a hallucination.
He looked again. The pinprick had become a marble of burning gold. It was descending rapidly, leaving a beautiful, terrifying trail of fire and fractured light across the dark sky. The golden marble grew into the size of a fist, then a dinner plate, then a car.
Ethan frowned, the beauty of the celestial event overriding his dread for a second. It looked like the end scene of a blockbuster movie.
His stomach plummeted. Blockbuster movie. He realized, with a rush of icy panic, that this burning object—this massive, incandescent, goddamn meteor—was aimed directly at his building.
Fear, raw and animalistic, jolted him awake. He didn't need a system or a legendary inheritance to know that a falling star was a poor substitute for a life coach.
"Run! Run, you idiot!" his mind screamed.
He turned toward the door, his legs heavy and unresponsive, anchored by four years of laziness. He only managed a single, clumsy step before the air was cleaved by an unbearable, whistling roar.
The last thing Ethan registered was the blinding, searing gold filling his entire vision. The heat was instantaneous, catastrophic. It wasn't pain; it was the total, violent erasure of his existence, a sudden conversion of matter into energy.
Hot.
Helpless.
I really am a trash man, I couldn't even run away.
The silent, internal scream of regret was the last thought he ever had.
Silence.
The world was muted, thick, and smelling overwhelmingly of damp earth and pine resin.
Ethan's eyes—or rather, the eyes of the body he now occupied—snapped open.
Panic was immediate, drowning. The first sensation wasn't sight or sound, but pain. It felt like a million white-hot needles were being simultaneously driven into every muscle, joint, and nerve ending. It was a fusion process, the violent, unwanted knitting of his 31-year-old soul into the fabric of a younger, foreign body.
He writhed on the forest floor, clutching his head, a pathetic, animalistic moan escaping his lips. His heart hammered a desperate rhythm against his ribs.
I didn't die?
Where am I?
What the hell is this pain?
After an eternity that was probably only five minutes, the needle-pain subsided, leaving behind a deep, exhausting ache. He pushed himself up slowly, his new limbs protesting every millimeter of movement.
He stood, swaying, and looked around. Trees. Giant, ancient-looking trees with bark the color of oxidized copper and leaves the size of dinner plates, reaching up to a sky that looked too blue, too clean. This was not a park. This was a wilderness, untouched and utterly foreign.
The meteorite… I was hit. I must have been reincarnated (reincarnated my fuck, maybe I'm in my afterlife journey)
He stumbled forward a few steps, his legs shaky. He needed water. The desperate thirst was overwhelming, a hangover from the trauma of his previous life's end.
He followed the gentle, gurgling sound until he reached a small, clear lake. The water was crystalline, reflecting the unfamiliar forest canopy above.
He knelt down, his intention simply to splash water onto his face. But as he leaned over the bank, he stopped, frozen by the reflection.
It wasn't his face. The puffy, nicotine-stained features of the trash man were gone. This face was young, perhaps 20, with sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and a scattering of freckles. It was handsome in a rugged, mountain-boy way, but fundamentally, it was wrong.
As he stared, the reflection seemed to swim, and a tidal wave of foreign memories slammed into Ethan's consciousness.
Mark Noax. Age 22. Son of Elias Noax
.
Going to the city of Port Elmswood to buy rare fever-reducing medicine for his mother, Elias.
The terrifying roar of the bear...
the sudden, crushing weight...
The sheer volume of new information—a life lived in this strange, low-tech, British-styled world called White Star, filled with kingdoms, magic, and common folk—was too much.
The mental integration caused a second, less intense, but equally terrifying wave of head pain. He collapsed, unconscious, the damp earth cool beneath his cheek.
When he woke, the sun was lower, painting the sky in fiery oranges and deep violets.
He lay still for a moment, tasting the fear, then slowly sat up, testing his mental and physical state. The pain was gone. The memories were settled. He was Mark Noax.
He was still Ethan inside, the cynical, lazy, regretful orphan, but he now wore the skin and carried the history of this determined mountain boy.
Right.
The body's name is Mark. My name is now Mark. The old Mark was going to save his mother. My new mother.
He cupped his hands, scooped up the lake water, and drank. The water was startlingly sweet and cold, the purest thing he had ever tasted. He drank deeply, desperately, trying to flush the grime of his former life away.
When his thirst was finally quenched, he sat back, processing his second chance.
"Brother," he whispered, addressing the consciousness of the boy whose life he had taken. A deep wave of unexpected empathy and resolve washed over him. "Don't worry. From now on, your family is my family. I'm Mark Noax now. And I swear, this time, I won't be a useless trash man."
He stood up, his eyes sharp for the first time in years. He retrieved the small, woven satchel that contained the precious medicine for Elias Noax and started walking in the direction of the village, based on the memories he now possessed.
He had walked less than fifty paces when the air directly in front of his eyes shimmered, and a low, resonant ding echoed not in his ears, but in the deepest recess of his mind.
A tiny, glowing yellow screen materialized, transparent against the backdrop of the forest. In crisp, high-tech lettering, it read:
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION: 99%]
[INSTALLING: The Wealth & Power Accumulation System]
Mark froze, stumbling back against the trunk of a copper-barked tree. His heart, already put through the wringer, tried to burst through his ribs.
No way, No,Way.
After four years of waiting for the cosmic cavalry, after being killed by a celestial object—an actual, honest-to-god meteorite—he had been reborn and now he was getting the shortcut?
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION COMPLETE: 100%]
The yellow screen vanished, replaced by a momentary, familiar spike of white-hot needle pain, quickly receding to a dull throb. Mark blinked, his breathing ragged.
A system. It was a fantasy novel like cliché, but it was real.
A calm, synthesized, slightly feminine voice sounded directly in his mind, cutting through the forest air like a radio signal.
"Hello, Host. How are you?"
Mark composed himself, running a hand over the short, rough hair of his new body. He forced a response back through his thoughts, hoping the machine could "hear" him.
"Hello. I'm… fine. How are you?
And who are you?
What's your name, and why are you speaking in my mind?"
The voice replied instantly, lacking any human inflection, yet sounding profoundly intelligent.
"I do not possess a designated name.
You may assign one, Host. I am a highly advanced, intelligent alien AI. I mean no harm to you.
Current system analysis indicates I was violently fused with your soul during a catastrophic impact event.
My primary function is to optimize life viability and resource acquisition in all environments."
Mark stared at the empty space where the screen had been, the satchel in his hand suddenly feeling heavy. He had gone from being the ultimate trash man to the host of an ultra-intelligent alien AI in a world of swords and sorcery.
This is going to be complicated, he thought, a flicker of sarcastic humor finally returning. And I still have to get this medicine to my mother before sundown.
He picked up the pace, clutching the satchel tightly, a sudden, immense focus driving his new legs toward Oakhaven Village.
"from now on you are.... Jarvis," Mark thought, giving the AI the name of his favorite novel's auxiliary helper. "Now, Jarvis. How fast can you teach me how to fight?"
A new, small icon appeared in the corner of his mind's eye, a stylized, glowing 'J'.
"Query received. Calculating optimal combat learning module… However, Host, priority must be given to the critically low energy reserves of Elias Noax. Recommendation: Resource Acquisition Module Activation."
Mark stopped dead, a genuine, cold fear replacing the self-pity of his former life.
"Wait. Jarvis, what are you talking about? Critically low? How bad is my mother?"
"Analyzing. Host, the woman designated Elias Noax has reached a viability threshold of 7%. Immediate acquisition of the Silverleaf Salve is mandatory to stabilize her condition. Proceed to the village now. Every second of delay will cost her viability."
Wait...
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[Author Note : Hlo Everyone it's my second Novel, I know my first novel was not good, but I promise this will be very good, Just write your Rev Thanks]