"You're worthless."
Those words never really left. Even now they were still sitting somewhere in the back of his head, quiet but heavy.
"Are you even worthy of being called an Ironhart?"
His brother had looked at him like he was nothing. Not with anger. Not even with disappointment. Just... nothing. Like looking at a stranger on the street. Someone who doesn't matter.
Lucas had been on the ground that day, sword dropped, hands shaking, the other kids laughing behind him. The sun was brutal. The dirt was hot. And his brother just stood there over him, arms crossed, waiting for an answer Lucas didn't have.
He never did find one.
****
Lucas snapped out of it.
He was sitting on a bench. Some random bench on some road he didn't recognize. Both hands pressed against his head like that would somehow help.
It didn't help.
"Where in the world am I!?"
He said it out loud. Nobody around him reacted. He probably looked insane.
He took a breath. "Okay. Think." Last thing he remembered was his room. That tiny, falling apart excuse for a room where the walls were thin and the floor creaked and he fell asleep hungry more nights than not. He had lain down because he had nothing left in him. Closed his eyes.
And then woke up here. That was it. That was all he had to work with.
He opened his eyes properly and looked around.
Normal street. Busy. People everywhere. He almost felt relieved.
Then a man floated past him.
Not walked. Floated. Feet completely off the ground, totally calm about it, going about his day like this was nothing.
A woman nearby raised her hand and a small flame appeared in her palm. She looked at it for a second, then closed her hand. Gone. Like she was just checking the time.
Then someone crossed the street on the other side and they moved so fast their body actually blurred, there one second and gone the next.
He stared. He kept staring.
"...Not again," he muttered.
Not panic. Not screaming. Just that hollow feeling in his chest when reality stops making sense and his brain hasn't caught up yet.
He looked down at his hands. Turned them over. Normal. Still just hands. He pressed them together and felt the resistance.
Can I do that too?
He had no idea. He didn't even know where he was, so.
Then the headache hit.
Not a normal headache. It was like something slamming into the inside of his skull without warning, sudden and sharp enough that he doubled forward on the bench and made an embarrassing noise.
His vision went weird. His whole body tensed up. It felt like someone had grabbed the inside of his head and started forcing things in like memories, images, names, faces. None of them were his, all of them arriving at once and not caring that there was no space for them.
"Lucas... Ironhart..."
The name came out of his mouth. He didn't decide to say it. It was just there.
And the moment it was out, everything else followed.
The memories settled like pieces snapping into place. A whole life, someone else's life, suddenly sitting inside him like it had always been there. He could feel it. The weight of it.
Lucas Ironhart. Fourteen years old. Born into one of those families everybody knows the name of. The kind of family where strength is just expected, where you either keep up or you become a problem.
Lucas had been a problem.
Not because he didn't try. That was the thing that stung the most about these memories — he had tried. Every single day, out there in the training ground under that awful sun, picking up swords that felt too heavy, doing drills that everyone else flew through. Trying and falling. Trying and falling. Getting laughed at. Getting looked at by his brother with that expression that said everything without saying anything.
"Worthless."
"Not worthy of the Ironhart name."
They had given up on him. Quietly at first, then officially. One day they just packed his things, opened the estate doors, and that was it. No argument. No second chance. His own family looked at him and decided he was more embarrassing to keep than to throw away.
He breathed out slowly. So that was this body's story.
A merchant crossed the street ahead of him, cargo floating lazily behind in a big cluster. Crates, bags, random stuff. And right in the middle of it, slowly rotating as it drifted along, a large mirror.
It swung his way for just a second as the merchant passed.
White hair. Sharp red eyes. A face that was genuinely striking. The kind of face people notice. The kind that doesn't belong on someone sitting confused and alone on a roadside bench.
The mirror kept going.
He raised his hands slowly and touched his face. His cheeks. His hair. White, all of it, real, solid, his now.
"I'm not Reji anymore."
Quiet. Just him and the street.
Then something appeared in front of his face.
A screen. Floating in the air, transparent, impossible, very much there. Text on it that had absolutely no business existing.
[System activating]
He went still.
Stared at it.
"...System?"
More lines appeared, one after another.
________________________
[Player successfully Transmigrated]
[Player – Lucas Ironhart]
[Level – 1]
[Health – 100]
[Mana – 10]
[Strength – 4]
[Agility – 3]
[Defense – 5]
[Stamina – 7]
[Unallocated Stat – 0]
[Magic – not awakened yet]
[Age – 14]
[Skills – null]
_______________________
He read it all. Twice.
He knocked his knuckles against the bench "Ow! OW! That hurts!" The sun on the back of his neck was real. The hunger sitting in his stomach was real.
"Am I in a game?" He shook his head before he even finished saying it. "No. This isn't a game."
Games didn't feel like this. Games didn't have splinters in the bench and the ghost of someone else's pain still sitting in his chest.
This was real. All of it.
The screen updated one more time.
[Task: Immediately head to Silvas Magic Academy]
[Failure to complete the task will result in enforced penalties.]