"What the hell?"
"Where am I?"
"What just happened?"
"Why does my entire body hurt so much?"
My consciousness clawed its way to the surface, greeted by a throbbing, full-body ache. I forced my eyes open, inspecting my surroundings. I was in a narrow, cramped room. A single bed consumed nearly seventy percent of the space. The walls were plain stone, the air musty with the scent of old wood and dust.
Slowly, I pushed myself up, wincing at the sharp protest from my muscles. I looked at my hands. They were small. A child's hands. My body felt... tiny. And it was covered in ugly, purple bruises. Someone had beaten a child. Savagely.
But the more pressing question hammered in my skull: What is happening?
My last memory was clear. I had dragged myself home from a brutal overtime shift—covering for a lazy coworker, as usual. I'd managed to eat some cold rice while scrolling through my usual diet of manga, manhwa, and webnovels on my phone. I remembered settling into the couch, a story called "Rise of the Five Heroes" glowing on my screen... and then nothing. Sleep.
This couldn't be a dream. The pain was too visceral, too real. Time travel? Possession? The room looked like something from a medieval fantasy.
The terrible, clichéd truth settled in my gut. Rebirth. Reincarnation. Transmigration. Just like the stories I consumed.
A wave of dizziness hit me. On a small wooden table beside the bed, I spotted a chipped, silver-handled mirror. I grabbed it, my small hands trembling, and raised it to my face.
A stranger stared back. A boy, maybe ten years old, with a shock of messy brown hair and startlingly green eyes. He was handsome, beneath the layer of dirt and fresh bruises marring his cheeks. As I stared, a sudden, violent pain exploded behind my eyes.
"Ahh—!"
The mirror clattered to the stone floor. I collapsed back onto the thin mattress, clutching my skull as it felt like it was being split by an axe. Fireworks of light, and then… a flood.
Memories. Not my own, but his. A decade of a life I never lived poured into my mind. It wasn't like watching a movie; it was like remembering. The cold loneliness, the whispered insults, the feeling of being less than nothing.
Ten minutes later, the agony subsided, leaving me gasping and drenched in cold sweat.
"So," I whispered to the silent, oppressive room. "This is real."
The boy's name was Roy White. Illegitimate son of Boron Mark White. His mother was a wood half-elf maid who worked in the estate, a runaway who vanished the moment Roy was born, leaving no reason, no trace, not even a name for him to curse or cherish. Roy never knew her face.
And Boron, the father? A B-rank Adventurer turned minor noble, granted the title 'Baron' and the surname 'White' after slaying a rampaging White Wyvern for the Holy Empire. A hero to the realm, a ghost to his bastard son. In this world—Amazia—of magic, aura, dragons, and empires, Roy was less than a footnote.
But the true horror dawned on me slowly, chilling the blood in my new veins.
Roy White.
Holy Empire.
Red Dragon Empire.
These names… They weren't just random fantasy tags. I knew them. Intimately.
"This is… Rise of the Five Heroes," I breathed, the words tasting like ash.
The number one bestselling novel. The multi-award-winning epic that spawned a manga, a manhwa, and an upcoming anime. The last story I'd been reading before I died in my old life.
And I hadn't been reborn as the hero. Or the cool mentor. Or even the plucky comic relief.
I was Roy White. A trashy side character so insignificant he appeared in maybe two chapters. My glorious, novel-accurate fate? To die miserably—screaming and forgotten—in the very first major battle between the future heroes and a villain's minions. Cannon fodder for the opening act.
A hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat, but it died, strangled by sheer, primal terror.
This wasn't just any fantasy world. Rise of the Five Heroes was a deathtrap. Its protagonists weren't charming underdogs; they were five eventual monsters of power, forged in relentless trauma. And the villains… My mind flashed to the half-completed novel's most infamous threat: an SSS-rank Necromancer with an undead dragon and an army that scoured half the continent. That was just the first major arc.
I have to survive. The thought was a desperate drumbeat in my chest. No matter what.
But how? Roy's natural talent was pathetic—a low-tier supportive type, useless for solo survival. I couldn't steal the protagonists' destined opportunities; the world needed them to become the monsters who might, just might, save it. Stealing from the villains was a faster ticket to a gruesome death.
My new family? Powerless. Penniless. I was an illegitimate stain on a minor noble's record, ignored and unloved.
A crushing weight settled on me. The main plot began in four years, at the legendary Dragon Academy. That was my deadline. Four years to go from a bruised, talentless child to someone who could defy a written fate.
"First things first," I muttered, steeling myself. Panic was a luxury I couldn't afford. "I need to know exactly what I'm working with."
I focused inward, thinking of the system that governed this world, the one every character could access. The command felt instinctive, born of Roy's memories and my own meta-knowledge.
"[Status]."
A transparent, blue screen shimmered into existence before my eyes