"...Where am I?" Leo murmured, glancing around in bewilderment.
Just moments ago, he had been in his apartment. Now, he stood in the middle of a desolate, abandoned city.
"Is this some kind of prank?" he muttered.
Maybe he was one of those poor souls who ended up as the victim of some twisted social media stunt.
But everything looked—and felt—too real for that.
"No... this isn't just a prank."
A dull ache pulsed through his body, quickly intensifying into something sharp and unbearable. Every second felt like his nerves were being pulled tighter.
"Damn it... what the hell is happening to me?"
Frustration welled up inside him. He looked down, inspecting himself—then froze.
"...Did I get taller?"
His body felt strange. Aching, yes—but also... different. He ran a hand down his back. No blood. No wounds. But something else caught his attention.
"Muscles? But... I don't work out."
He never had. Leo had always avoided gyms, sports, and anything that required physical effort. The only time he'd ever come close to real exercise was after his family died—forced to work grueling jobs seven hours a day just to survive.
Then, something caught his eye: a fractured side mirror on an old, rusting car parked crookedly in the street.
And he saw himself.
He froze.
A boy stared back at him—youthful, yet inhumanly striking. Hair black as polished onyx tumbled over his shoulders in unkempt waves, so dark it seemed to drink in the light around it. His eyes, a vivid and unnatural crimson, gleamed like rubies beneath the sun. His skin was pale, almost translucent, like moonlight on snow—smooth, untouched, and eerily perfect.
His features were sharp. A straight nose. High cheekbones. A face so perfectly symmetrical, so finely sculpted, it felt unreal.
Beautiful. Not in a typical sense—but in a way that demanded attention.
This wasn't his face.
"W-what the hell!? That's not me!"
His voice cracked as he stumbled back and fell to the ground.
He had brown hair.
Green eyes.
An average face.
He was—by every definition—not that.
"What the hell is going on!?"
Panic surged in his chest. His heart pounded wildly against his ribs, louder and louder until—A piercing bolt of pain shot through his head.
"AGH!"
He screamed, clutching his skull as he rolled on the ground. It felt like a dagger had been driven into his brain—and was now being twisted with every passing second.
Memories flooded in.
But they weren't his.
A mature, stunning woman with flowing blonde hair and red eyes embraced a trembling young boy after a nightmare. A different memory—him, sparring on an open grassy field with a girl his age. She had black hair like his, and the same red eyes. A younger version of the woman? His sister?
Another scene—an elegant man with deep black hair patiently teaching the boy how to wield a sword. No matter how often the boy failed, the man's expression never changed. Calm. Encouraging.
These scenes—so vivid, so filled with warmth—they weren't Leo's.
And yet, they were becoming his.
Emotions began intertwining with his own. Names. Faces. Moments.
Strangers felt like family. Foreign experiences began to feel like memories.
And then came the pain.
The final memory.
The boy, older now, stood beside his father near the border between Europe and Asia. Suddenly, several phase-3 Void Rifts opened in the sky—reality tearing like paper as monstrous creatures poured through.
Chaos.
Soldiers screamed. Civilians fled. Blood soaked the earth.
The boy stood still as the man beside him—his father—fought the horde with terrifying strength. Covered in gore, a crazed smile stretched across his face as he tore through the void creatures.
And then—
Darkness.
Silence.
When Leo came back to himself, the stabbing pain had dulled into a throbbing ache. The memories had settled. The emotions... they no longer felt foreign.
He lay there for a moment, blinking.
"…I see," he whispered.
The light from that strange book he'd been reading in his apartment.
This abandoned city.
The reflection in the car mirror.
It all made sense now.
"I'm inside the book… Path of Heroes."
He wanted to laugh at how insane it sounded. But he couldn't.
"And the body I'm in… I'm not Leo Karumi anymore."
A breath.
"I'm Azriel Crimson."
*********
Azriel Crimson.
A name that never once appeared in the novel.
A side character—so minor, he was practically nonexistent. No dialogue. No screentime. No relevance to the plot.
An extra.
Or so Leo had thought.
In truth, Azriel existed for one purpose: to justify the protagonist growing close to one of the story's heroines—Jasmine Crimson. The next head of the Crimson clan. One of the most gifted students on Earth. President of the student council at the Hero Academy.
A main heroine.
And Azriel's elder sister.
In the book, Jasmine was portrayed as cold, distant—a genius who had shut herself off emotionally after losing someone close to her. The protagonist, with his kindness and determination, helped her heal. Slowly, she opened up. Fell for him. Became part of his ever-growing harem.
The story never revealed who Jasmine had lost. Not the Crimson clan, not even Jasmine herself.
But now Leo—Azriel—knew.
It had been her little brother.
It had been him.
And just the thought of her ending up in some harem made his skin crawl.
He hated harems. He always had. To him, they were the domain of cowards—people incapable of loving someone truly, choosing instead to collect affection like trophies.
And the protagonist? The so-called hero?
A disaster magnet blessed and cursed by the gods. Every step he took left chaos in his wake.
"No way in hell I'm letting him near her," Azriel muttered, pushing himself up, rolling his shoulders.
No sane brother would want his sister constantly pulled into danger.
And this wasn't just about blood anymore.
The memories, the emotions—they were his now.
Azriel Crimson wasn't some fictional character. Not anymore.
He was him.
"I'm sorry... for everything that happened to you," he whispered. "I know this might sound pathetic—like some weak excuse to both of us—but I swear…"
He clenched his fists.
"…I'll protect our family. No matter what."
A single tear slipped from his right eye. He wiped it away, quickly, harshly.
Everyone he'd known from his past life was gone.
Forever.