God, it hurts.
My head was throbbing like someone was swinging a sledgehammer inside it — steady, no mercy whatsoever. The world around me was spinning, blurry, then slowly coming into focus like a camera lens finding its shot.
Where the hell am I...?
Half-conscious, I stared up.
There was a canopy.
A gorgeous canopy made of cream-gold silk, with delicate lace hanging down from every corner. I blinked a few times, making sure my eyes weren't screwing with me. But no — it was still there, real and ridiculously expensive-looking, hanging above a bed that was easily three times the size of the cramped mattress I normally slept on.
My body wouldn't move. Not like I was tied down or anything — more like every ounce of energy had been completely drained out of me, leaving just enough to open my eyes and breathe. Even lifting my hand felt like trying to lift a sack of cement.
Then I saw her.
A girl was sitting right next to my bed. Neat black-and-white uniform — knee-length skirt, crisp white apron, small headpiece clipped perfectly into her hair. She was staring at me with anxious eyes, lips slightly parted like she'd been holding her breath for a while.
Wait.
A maid?
I looked around again. Silk canopy. Massive fancy bed. Gorgeous maid sitting right next to me.
I'm dreaming.
Had to be. There's no other explanation. Me — a corporate slave whose entire life got eaten up by document piles and a screaming boss — does not just wake up somewhere like this.
Alright then. Enjoy it.
My whole life I'd never had a dream this good. Usually when I dreamed, I dreamed about missing a deadline or the office printer blowing up in my face. This was so much better. Way better.
I tried to sit up.
The pounding in my head suddenly just... drained away. Gone. Like someone pulled a plug. I actually winced from the confusion. No pain. Not even a trace of it.
That's weird.
"Please don't push yourself, Young Master."
The girl moved fast — both hands pressing gently but firmly against my shoulders. Her fingers felt real against me. Warm. Solid.
I looked at her up close.
Damn. She's really beautiful.
Her face looked almost sculpted — straight nose, slightly flushed cheeks, eyes shining with what looked like genuine worry. Her blonde hair was perfectly tucked under that little white headpiece.
This is definitely a dream.
I'd already started thinking — God I hope I don't have to wake up for work tomorrow.
Then, one second later, I realized how stupid that thought was.
Why am I still thinking about work?
Damn it. Even in a dream my brain couldn't just chill out. So thoroughly conditioned that my subconscious was still remembering deadlines in the middle of silk canopies and pretty maids.
The girl slowly let go of my shoulders, raised one hand, and pressed the back of her fingers against my forehead — checking my temperature. Automatic movement, like she'd done it a hundred times before.
Heh.
In between the dizziness that still hadn't fully cleared, I caught something shift across her face — something that looked like relief she was trying to hold back, or maybe worry that hadn't fully let go yet.
Kinda funny watching her get flustered like that.
And then —
Everything collapsed.
The pain came back, but not from my head this time. It came from inside — not physical pain, something way weirder than that. Like someone shoved an entire thick stack of documents directly into my brain. Information flooded in — names, faces, places, dates. All of it foreign. None of it mine.
What the—
I went completely still.
My mind tried to process everything at once, like a computer being forced to run too many programs at the same time, overheating, struggling to keep up.
I got hit by a truck.
That was real. Not a dream. The asphalt slamming into my back, the pale blue sky tilting sideways, the voices dissolving into muffled noise — all of that was real. And that woman in the white dress standing far at the edge of the crowd, smiling like she already knew something I didn't.
Screw you.
But I didn't die. Or — maybe I did die, but something happened after.
And all this information flooding my brain was saying one thing loud and clear:
My name isn't just the name I've carried my whole life.
I am Richard C. Raybak.
The maid eased me back down with careful hands, and I didn't fight it. A weight far heavier than anything I'd felt before pressed down on my entire body, pulling me under, into a darkness that this time felt a lot calmer.
Tomorrow, I thought, barely conscious. I'll figure it out tomorrow.
***
A week passed.
I was standing in front of a large mirror in the corner of the room — mirror with a gold carved frame that was probably worth three months of a corporate slave's salary. The guy I knew so well.
The man staring back at me wasn't someone I recognized.
Tall. Built. Platinum blonde hair falling neatly across his forehead. Eyes colored lavender — pale purple that straight up doesn't exist back where I came from. Sharp jaw. High cheekbones. The kind of face that if it ended up on a magazine cover, nobody would question why.
Sixteen years old.
I rubbed my chin, studying the reflection with feelings I couldn't quite sort out — a mix of awe, disbelief, and a vague sense of unfairness that had nowhere to go.
Damn. This guy got so lucky.
The identity of this body's original owner was a lot clearer now after seven days of digesting everything that had flooded into my head. Richard C. Raybak — eldest son of Duke Austin Raybak, lord of the Maltar territory under the Kingdom of Alvan. A world of swords and magic. Royal academy. A nobleman with a big name and an inheritance he'd never had to chase.
Exactly what I'd scribbled down on that cult questionnaire.
A rich nobleman who doesn't have to work.
I stopped moving my hand.
Wait.
I thought back. That form. Those absurd questions I'd answered carelessly because I didn't care. Dream job — a rich nobleman who doesn't have to work. Heaven after death — a heaven where I can do whatever I want.
And now I woke up as a duke's kid in a fantasy world.
That's too specific to be a coincidence.
I filed that thought away for later. There was something else I needed to check.
Slowly, I started undoing my shirt buttons one by one. The fabric — way more expensive-feeling than any office shirt I'd ever worn — slid off my shoulders. Facing the mirror, I turned slightly, looking for what I already knew was there from the memories left behind in this head.
The scar was on the left side of my abdomen — not huge, but the edges were uneven, like something that had been left to heal without fast enough treatment.
From Richard's memories, the cause was clear: an explosion.
The academy's annual party. Hundreds of students packed into a grand hall. Then — without any warning, without anyone knowing where it came from — a mysterious explosion hit the middle of the event. A lot of people got hurt. Some didn't make it. Richard was one of the worst — thrown back, buried under rubble, unconscious for almost three weeks before I finally woke up inside his body.
Not exactly a great start.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Young Master, I request permission to enter."
I quickly buttoned my shirt back up, straightened it slightly, then turned away from the mirror.
"One moment."
My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Deeper. Cleaner. Not the voice of a guy who'd had way too much coffee and way too little sleep for years on end.
"Come in."
The door opened and Lisa Howard stepped inside with practiced steps — no rush, no hesitation. Richard's personal attendant. Same age as Richard, sixteen, but the way she moved through this room reflected someone who'd been doing it far longer than she should have had to.
Her blonde hair was neatly arranged. Her emerald green eyes went straight to my face the moment she entered — a habit I suspected had formed from the very start of her service, always checking on her master's condition before saying a word.
"Is there something?" I asked.
"The Great Master will be coming to check on you shortly."
I gave a short nod.
Great Master.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside — heavy, even, with the same pause between each step. The walk of someone who never rushed because they never had to. The walk of someone who knew the world would wait for them, not the other way around.
The figure appeared in the doorway.
A middle-aged man. Platinum blonde hair that had started giving way to grey at his temples — but not the kind of grey that made him look old. More like metal that time had compressed and hardened. Square jaw. Broad shoulders. The Raybak family emblem on his civilian uniform, worn like someone who couldn't remember ever not wearing it.
From Richard's memories, I already knew exactly who this was.
Duke Austin Raybak.
The biological father of the body I was currently living in.
He walked in without waiting to be invited — this was his house after all, or at least a room inside it — and his eyes went straight to me with an expression that was hard to read. Not the warm look of a father whose son had just woken up from a long coma. But not cold either. More like a commander assessing the condition of one of his soldiers.
"How are you feeling, Richard?"
Short question. Straight to the point. No small talk.
"No more pain," I answered.
Duke Austin studied me for a few seconds — long enough for me to realize he was measuring something. Not just my physical condition. There was something deeper behind that gaze, something I couldn't yet read from the memories that remained.
Lisa took half a step back without being told, positioning herself at the edge of the room — close enough to be called upon, far enough to stay out of the way.
So this is my new world, I thought quietly, staring at the man who was technically my father now.
Damn... but maybe it's not as bad as I thought.