Kane had spent eighteen years perfecting the art of being utterly unremarkable to everyone except himself, earning top grades without ever needing to struggle and never bothering to collect friends because solitude was far less exhausting than forced conversation, and the only thing that truly mattered to him was *Eternal Chronicles* — the sprawling webnovel he had dissected, memorized, and mentally annotated until he could recite entire arcs backward while half-asleep and still find new flaws to pick apart with quiet, satisfied disdain.
He often muttered to himself while reading, leaning back in his creaky chair with the screen glow lighting his face in pale blue. "Look at Leon Valtor again," he would say with a dry chuckle that never quite reached his eyes. "Another chapter of 'I forgive you because kindness is the real power.' If I had half his plot armor, I'd have used it to buy better snacks instead of rotting in this room." He would shake his head at the screen, voice low and mocking. "And that ending—everyone lives happily ever after except the extras who get stepped on like bugs. Classic. The author really thinks we won't notice how many nameless bodies he piled up just to make the hero look noble. Pathetic."
He treated the story like a personal puzzle he had solved long ago, smirking at every predictable twist the author thought clever, rolling his eyes at the protagonist's endless, almost nauseating kindness that somehow always saved the day, and quietly judging the writer for wasting chapter after chapter on side characters doomed to die unnoticed in the background without ever leaving a ripple in the grand narrative. In his mind, the entire cast was beneath him — puppets dancing on strings he had memorized — and he understood the rules of their world better than any of them ever could, better than the author himself, perhaps.
That particular night he pushed too far.
Thirty-something hours blurred together in a haze of exam revision alternating with fresh chapter drops, his eyes burning from the screen's unrelenting glow while a dull pressure built steadily behind his ribs, a slow, insistent tightness he refused to acknowledge because stopping would have felt like admitting defeat to something as trivial and irritating as biology.
The pressure grew slowly at first, a vague discomfort he dismissed as hunger or poor posture, then turned sharp and insistent, coiling around his heart like a tightening wire; his breathing became shallow and labored, each inhale shorter than the last, but he muttered stubbornly to the empty room, "Just one more chapter. You're not stopping me now, body. Not when the next twist is so close." He tried to push through, fingers still hovering over the keyboard, telling himself it was nothing — just fatigue, just another all-nighter like the dozens before it.
Then it struck.
A vise clamped down on his heart without warning, sudden and vicious, stealing his breath entirely in a single brutal instant; the room tilted violently, his vision narrowed to a dark tunnel, and he clutched at his chest with fingers digging deep into fabric and skin as though he could physically force the pain back out. *Of course it ends like this,* he thought with a bitter, almost amused edge that surprised even him in the moment. *Cardiac arrest. How utterly, predictably cliché. No dramatic last stand, no heroic sacrifice. Just a kid in a cheap apartment who read too much.*
He slumped forward, forehead striking the desk with a dull thud that echoed in his skull; the screen remained lit — the last chapter still open, cursor blinking patiently as though waiting for him to continue reading, mocking him with its indifference — while his heart stuttered in erratic, weakening beats followed by shallow, desperate gasps that grew quieter with every passing second. The pain peaked in a blinding white-hot surge that made his vision flash white, then slowly faded into a strange spreading numbness that crept through his limbs like cold water seeping into cracks; he felt his body grow impossibly heavy, the chair creaking beneath him as his hand slipped from the desk and dangled uselessly at his side, fingers twitching once, twice, then stilling.
"Well… this is it," he whispered hoarsely to the empty room, voice barely audible over the pounding in his ears. "No grand finale. No second chance. Just… quiet. At least it was quick. No lingering. No pain that lasts." The words felt strange on his tongue, almost like he was narrating his own end to an audience of one. "Guess the story ends here. No epilogue for the reader who finished it first."
The room dimmed gradually, colors bleeding out until only the faint blue glow of the monitor remained, casting long shadows across the cluttered desk and the bare walls; his thoughts slowed, fragments drifting like leaves on still water — the smell of instant noodles from earlier, the faint hum of the fan, the knowledge that no one would miss him for days, maybe weeks. One last thought drifted through the haze — *At least it was quick… at least I finished the novel…* — before silence settled completely, broken only by the soft, indifferent hum of the computer fan and the slow, final exhale that marked the end.
Kane died alone in the dim light of his small apartment, exactly as unremarkably as he had lived.
Everything went black.
When awareness returned, it came slowly and reluctantly, first as a faint ache that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, then as the cold press of stone against his cheek and the sharp, coppery scent of blood filling his nostrils with every shallow breath. Wetness soaked through his tunic from a deep gash across his ribs that still leaked sluggishly, warm at first, then cooling against his skin; the body felt wrong — smaller, leaner, hardened by calluses in places his old hands had never known — yet the memories slotted in quietly and without resistance: parents lost to a demon rift outbreak five years earlier, a ten-year-old sister named Mira waiting in their shack at the edge of the slums, a life spent scraping together odd jobs and skipping meals so she could eat, so she could sleep without hunger gnawing at her stomach.
And the death that had just happened here — a bandit's blade sinking deep and final, ending an extra who was never scripted to survive past chapter three, whose name would never appear in the story again.
He tried to move, to roll onto his side, but the pain flared brighter and forced him still; he lay there breathing shallow, letting the cold seep into his skin while distant sounds drifted in from the slums — muffled voices arguing over a spilled crate, creaking carts rolling over uneven stones, the low hum of night life in Valoria's outer districts continuing as though nothing had changed.
He stayed like that for what felt like minutes, though it might have been only seconds, simply existing in the pain and the cold and the smell of blood and refuse, letting his mind catch up to his body. The alley was quiet around him, shadows thick between the leaning buildings, the faint glow of distant lanterns barely reaching this narrow gap between walls.
A faint chime rang inside his skull, soft but unmistakable, cutting through the haze like a needle.
A simple blue window appeared in his vision, plain and unadorned, hovering just above his line of sight as though the world had decided to interrupt his dying thoughts with paperwork.
```
[Status Window]
Name: Aurieth Dragonbane
Age: 16
Rank: F
Class: none
Talent: [Accelerated Adaptation] (Greatly increased learning speed, intuition, and ability to adapt to new situations, techniques, and environments)
Anomaly Trait: [Narrative Rejection] (You are not recognized by the world's narrative/script/fate. This grants resistance to predetermined events and allows growth from "erasure" attempts)
Strength: F
Agility: F+
Endurance: F-
Mana: F
Mana Capacity: F+
Will: B
Charm: A
Luck: ???
Skills:
• Basic Swordsmanship (F)
• Basic Mana Control (F)
• Evasion (F)
```
He stared at it for several long heartbeats, blinked slowly, then stared again as though expecting the words to rearrange themselves into something less insulting, something that made sense in the context of a slum alley and a bleeding wound.
A short, dry laugh escaped him — the sound weak and ragged, pulling painfully at his wound — and he muttered to the empty air, "Rank F. Perfect. Bottom of the barrel, just like the rest of this body. At least it's honest."
He tilted his head slightly, eyes tracing the rest of the panel with a mixture of amusement and irritation. "Accelerated Adaptation. Narrative Rejection. Cute. So the world's basically saying 'you don't belong here' after stabbing me in the gut and leaving me to bleed out in an alley. Real welcoming committee. Very hospitable."
His smirk sharpened despite the fresh trickle of blood down his side, the pain now a steady throb rather than a scream.
"Well, too bad for the script," he whispered, voice hoarse but steady. "I'm staying. And if this little box wants to keep score, fine — I'll make sure the numbers stop looking like garbage sooner rather than later. You'll see."
He willed the window away; it vanished without protest or fanfare, leaving only the darkness and the cold and the slow drip of his blood on stone.
Only then did the full weight settle over him like a heavy cloak he could not shrug off.
The blood still warm on his skin.
The wound still throbbing with every heartbeat.
The memories of a bandit blade sinking in — quick, brutal, final, the shock of it more surprising than painful in the moment.
The extra who had died here minutes ago, forgotten before the body even cooled, whose life had been worth less than a footnote in the story he had read to its end.
He had been killed.
Again.
He pressed a hand to the gash, blood welling between his fingers, the pain sharpening with every heartbeat as though reminding him he was still here, still bleeding, still breathing when he shouldn't be.
He coughed once, tasting copper, and whispered hoarsely to the shadows, "You really thought that would stick, didn't you? Two deaths in two worlds. Impressive commitment. Almost admirable. But you forgot one thing — I already know how this story ends. And you're not writing me out that easily."
The alley stayed silent around him, the distant sounds of Valoria's slums continuing as though nothing had changed, as though an extra hadn't just refused to stay dead.
He lay there a moment longer, breathing shallow and deliberate, letting the reality sink in slowly — the smell of refuse and damp stone, the faint chill of night air on wet skin, the distant clatter of life going on without him, the knowledge that Mira was waiting in a shack that suddenly felt very far away.
Mira.
The name struck him like a hook in the chest — small, fierce, trusting, the only person in either life who had ever looked at him like he mattered, like he was more than a background figure waiting to be erased. In his old world he had no one. Here, he had her. And the script — the same script he had read to its final page — wanted her brother dead tonight, wanted her left alone in a shack with no one to protect her from the slums or the larger horrors waiting beyond the city walls.
His expression hardened. Arrogance shifted into something colder, more focused, more dangerous.
"Not happening," he said quietly, the words carrying the weight of a promise he had never made before but knew he would keep.
He staggered to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall until the dizziness passed and the world steadied beneath him. Then he started limping toward the shack they shared, every step sending fresh fire through his side, but he kept moving, muttering under his breath with grim amusement that masked the fear he refused to acknowledge.
"Let's see how the great fate script handles someone who already read the ending. Spoiler alert: I'm not dying in chapter three. I'm not dying until I decide it's convenient. And right now? It's very, very inconvenient."
The slums remained quiet around him, the narrow alleys twisting and turning as though trying to confuse him, but he knew the path by heart from the memories that weren't entirely his. Distant lights from Valoria's inner districts mocked him from afar, bright and unreachable, but he didn't care. The capital, Sylvania Academy, Leon Valtor and his destined harem of princesses and nobles — they could wait.
The only thing that mattered tonight was getting home to a ten-year-old girl who was probably asleep, unaware her brother had just come back from two different deaths.
He reached the shack at last, pushed the door open with his good shoulder.
Mira lay curled on the pallet, breathing softly, small hand clutching the edge of the blanket like always, as though even in sleep she was holding on to something that might slip away.
Aurieth stood in the doorway for a long moment, blood dripping steadily onto the dirt floor, watching her sleep with an expression that softened despite himself.
The warmth that spread through his chest was unfamiliar and irritatingly soft, but he didn't fight it.
He knelt beside her — slowly, carefully — and brushed a strand of hair from her face with his clean hand.
She stirred. Eyes fluttered open. Then widened in terror at the sight of him covered in blood.
"Aurieth—!"
He raised his bloody hand before she could scream, voice low and steady.
"Shh. It's fine, Mira. Just a little… workplace accident."
A faint, crooked smirk tugged at his lips despite the pain.
"The other guy looks worse. Trust me, he does. Much worse."
Her lip trembled. Tears gathered quickly.
He sighed — softer this time — and pulled her into a careful one-armed hug, letting her bury her face against his shoulder even though it hurt like hell.
"I'm here," he said quietly, voice almost gentle.
"I'm not going anywhere. Not tonight. Not ever, if I can help it. You're stuck with me."
She clung to him, shaking, small fists bunched in his bloodied shirt.
He stared over her head into the darkness, arrogance and resolve twisted together into something unbreakable.
The world wanted him dead.
The script wanted him erased.
The system itself had rejected him.
Good.
He'd always been better at breaking rules than following them.
And this time, he had something — someone — worth breaking the entire story for.
(End of Prologue)