[Ding. Host binding successful. Lucas Reed, you are the one-billionth laid-off loser in the world. Congratulations—you've qualified for a new life selection.]
Lucas shot upright in bed.
It was three in the morning. His tiny rental was pitch-black, the glow of his phone lighting up half his face. A translucent blue panel hovered in midair, giving off a faint neon sheen that made the water stains on the wall stand out in ugly detail.
No way. For real?
He reached out. His fingertips passed straight through it—cold, like touching a thin sheet of ice.
Not a dream.
He poked it again.
The panel didn't even wobble. When he moved, it moved with his gaze, perfectly synced, like it had been welded to his eyeballs.
Lucas swung his legs out of bed. Barefoot, he stepped onto the freezing tile and did a quick lap around the room. The panel followed the whole time, glued to his line of sight.
This kind of thing actually happened to him.
He'd gotten laid off that afternoon. Not a single cent of severance. He'd never forget HR's fake smile when they said, "If you have a problem, you can talk to a lawyer." That evening he'd slammed six beers and cursed at the ceiling until his throat went raw. After that, it just felt pointless—there wasn't even anyone around to hear him.
And then—
A system.
Wasn't this the kind of cheat you only saw in webnovels?
Lucas rubbed his hands together.
"System?"
[Yeah.]
Just—yeah.
Lucas blinked, then tested it. "What's your name? What can you do?"
A line of text popped onto the panel:
[Support Transmigration System No. 4721. Responsible for assisting the host in completing survival tasks in another world. Please experience specific functions after transfer. You are now entering the class selection phase. Complete your choice within thirty seconds.]
"Wait—thirty seconds?"
[Twenty-eight seconds.]
The panel refreshed. Three options sprang up.
[A: Servant — Start at the bottom, grow from weak to strong. Due to an overly weak start, a mysterious support ability will be granted to maintain balance.]
[B: Prince — All-around start with both intelligence and combat ability. Eldest son, first in line to the throne, but your father is a suspicious and incompetent king.]
[C: Villainous Regent — The queen's secret lover. You must develop your power in the shadows. You cannot be exposed.]
Lucas's gaze bounced back and forth between B and C.
A prince—an all-around start. Yeah, that sounded amazing. But paired with a useless, paranoid dad? That was a ticking bomb. How many eldest sons had been deposed in history? The more capable you were, the more threatened a bad king would feel. There was a decent chance his "growth phase" would end early—with his own father handing him a poisoned cup.
What about regent?
The power base would be huge, and—the queen's secret lover? That was… spicy. But the "can't be exposed" part was brutal. A blade hanging over your head 24/7. If it got out, it wouldn't just be sleeping with the queen. They'd slap "treason" on top of it, and then it wouldn't just be him—his whole family line would get dragged into the grave with him.
Compared to that, B had way more room for error. Even if his father was a problem, he'd start out with both brains and brawn. If he had to, he could push a coup. If things went sideways, he could run and live as an exiled prince. Either way, he'd have options. Maybe he'd even end up marrying some gorgeous princess.
C had a higher ceiling—but the floor was a lot lower, too. One wrong step and it was game over forever.
So—
"I pick B."
Nothing happened.
"System?"
[Please wait.]
Wait? For what?
Lucas stared at the panel. The countdown had already hit zero, but all three options were still lit. He said it again, slower this time, like the thing might be hard of hearing.
"B. I pick B. Prince."
Silence hung for about five seconds.
Then, slowly, a new line floated onto the panel:
[Off work hours.]
"…What?"
[This system operates on standard Otherworld working hours. It's five. I'm off the clock. You are currently outside the service window. Since you did not complete your selection within the allotted time, the system will automatically default to Option A.]
[Choice confirmed for you — A: Servant.]
[Have a pleasant journey.]
Lucas froze.
"No—are you kidding me? I picked! I literally said B!"
[System is off work. If you have questions, please provide feedback during business hours.]
"You motherf—"
The floor vanished.
His stomach lurched as his body dropped fast, straight down into nothing. Wind screamed past his ears. The blue panel flashed one last time in his vision, spitting out a final line:
[Friendly reminder: The Servant class includes a mysterious support ability, which will be issued after the system returns to work. Please wait patiently.]
And then everything went black.
…
When Lucas opened his eyes again, he was lying on a pile of hay.
Everything hurt. Not the sharp pain of a fall—this was deeper, like it was leaking out of his bones. His limbs were so weak he could barely lift them. He looked down at his hands.
Small. Soft. The hands of a kid, smooth as a just-peeled egg.
A child's hands.
He struggled upright. The hay scratched his neck. Around him were rough stone walls, moldy wooden beams overhead, and a few barrels stacked in the corner. The air reeked—animal shit mixed with rotting straw.
A stable.
He was in a stable.
Yeah. Servant. Checks out.
"System?"
Nothing.
"System!"
Still nothing.
"You're off work, huh? Fine. I'll wait till you clock back in."
So he waited.
A day. A week. A month.
The system never showed up again.
That "mysterious support ability" never made a peep, either.
In his first year, a maid took him in. He tried to speak, but all that came out were baby sounds—"ah," "wah."
In his third year, he learned to talk. The first word he said was "system."
In his sixth year, they assigned him to shovel manure in the stables. Six years old, too short—his shovel was taller than he was. He shoveled and screamed for the system in his head all winter long, until it felt like his throat had gone hoarse on the inside.
No one answered.
In his eighth year, he started learning to read.
When the old butler at Ashford Manor was in a good mood, he'd call over the servants' kids and teach them a few letters. Lucas learned the fastest. Not because he was some genius. Just because—he already knew.
More like he was learning it all again.
A twenty-seven-year-old mind stuffed into a seven-year-old body, picking up a language? That wasn't exactly hard mode. While the other kids stumbled through syllables, he was already matching sounds to meaning, breaking words apart, even memorizing the next page before anyone got there.
He didn't show off. He just learned quietly.
And he pulled ahead anyway.
In his tenth year, he got promoted to caring for three old horses. A ten-year-old servant kid handling horses wasn't unusual at Ashford Manor. What was unusual was that he never got sick, and he worked like he had an extra gear. Other servant kids shook through the winter, teeth chattering. Lucas got cold too—but he could take it.
Was that "mysterious support ability" finally doing something?
Or was he just lucky?
He had no idea. The system wasn't telling him—because the system wasn't there.
In his twelfth year, the baron's second son, William Grayson, needed a personal attendant. The butler picked three boys from the servants and told William to choose for himself.
William was ten, pampered rotten, with arrogance baked into the way he walked. He strolled past the three of them and pointed at random.
"That one. He looks the least annoying."
He meant Lucas.
From that day on, Lucas was William's shadow. William wasn't the absolute worst, but he sure wasn't nice. In a good mood he called him "Lucas." In a bad mood he called him "that servant."
Lucas didn't care what he was called.
What he cared about was William's sword lessons every afternoon.
He watched for two years. He stole for two years.
William's instructor was a retired knight. The techniques weren't fancy, but the fundamentals were solid. Lucas would stand at the edge of the training ground holding a water jug, and in his head he'd take every movement apart—rebuild it, run it, replay it—hundreds of times.
In his fourteenth year, William was sent to a knight academy. By custom, a noble could bring one servant along.
Lucas went with him.
The academy didn't teach servants to fight, but servants were allowed to use the training grounds in the leftover hours after the students were done. Every night, Lucas waited until William fell asleep, then slipped out in the dark and trained until deep into the night.
He wrecked seventeen wooden posts.
No one ever found out it was him.
They all assumed some noble student was secretly grinding extra practice.
In his sixteenth year, William was attacked during a field exercise. Three gray wolves burst out of the brush. William's horse panicked and threw him. Two other trainees with them freaked out and bolted.
Lucas snatched up the sword William had dropped and chopped down two of the wolves. The third one, he kicked hard enough to snap its front leg.
"I picked up a little, watching you practice."
Later, William's sword instructor tested Lucas in private. When it was over, the man stayed quiet for a long time—then said only one thing to William:
"Your servant is stronger than you."