"Truth is not what you want it to be. It is what it is, and you must bend to its power, or live a lie."
—Miyamoto Musashi
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Back to the present.
No matter how much I stare at my own reflection, it doesn't change the reality of the situation I'm in.
Did I just get reincarnated?
No—transmigration feels like the more appropriate word.
Reincarnation means being born again. A fresh start. A second chance. Usually with no memories, no baggage, no scars from the life before. You're born a baby, you grow up again, blissfully unaware of the person you once were.
But this… this isn't that. I didn't emerge from a womb, didn't learn to crawl or speak or walk with toddler legs. I didn't grow up in this body. I simply… woke up one day, already sixteen, already someone else. My memories intact. My mind unchanged.
Transmigration.
The transfer of a soul into another body after death—unexpected, unexplained, and most of all, unwanted. A complete consciousness, ripped from one reality and placed into another, forced to live a life not its own. A soul displaced, not reborn.
That's what this is.
A stranger's life… with my mind trapped inside it.
But how? And more importantly, why?
It's not like I asked for this. I didn't pray for another chance. I didn't cry out for salvation with my dying breath.
I don't remember making a wish for a second chance.
I didn't stumble upon a glowing book, make a deal with a shady god, or find myself chosen by fate with some grand purpose in mind.
So why the hell am I here?
Fuu... Calm down. Don't panic. Don't spiral. Think. Piece it together.
I'm in a different world—clearly. The architecture, the fashion, the way mana hums faintly in the air like background radiation... It's all wrong. This isn't Earth.
I'm in a completely different world, inside the body of a completely different person.
The boy I now inhabit is named Edward Brightwill.
He belongs to one of the Five Great Families of the Empire of Lumania. The Brightwill family governs the northern territory—a cold, powerful land steeped in tradition, wealth, and political weight.
A noble by blood. But not by spirit.
Edward was a loveless child, born not from affection, but from desperation.
His mother had once fallen in love with his father during their days at the Royal Academy. But that love was never returned. His father loved another—a woman he could never have. And when tragedy struck, when the previous Brightwill head died young and left the house in shambles, Edward's mother saw an opportunity.
She offered him a political marriage. Her family's wealth for his family's title. She hoped that love would follow obligation. That time and shared duty would melt his heart.
But it never did.
When Edward was born, his mother poured every drop of her fragile hope into him. She believed that their child might finally bridge the gap. That her husband might, just maybe, look at her with something other than cold civility.
But even then, he remained distant. Detached. The man she married became more of a ghost than a partner.
Her dreams, one by one, withered. And the love that once lit her eyes turned brittle and hollow.
And Edward… he watched it all.
He saw the way she looked at his father. The way her smiles faded with each passing season. Still, he wanted to be enough. He wanted her to smile—at him. He thought if he could earn his father's praise, she might love him for it.
So he tried. God, he tried.
He studied harder than anyone. Excelled in his education. Moved with flawless etiquette. Played the piano like he could pour his heart into the keys. And when it came to swordsmanship, he trained until his hands bled, just to hear a word—any word—of approval.
But it never came.
His father remained indifferent. And his mother—perhaps because he reminded her too much of the life she had sacrificed—grew colder as well.
And then, she fell ill.
Mana Deficiency Syndrome.
A slow, cruel death. As the mana in her body faded, so did her strength, her warmth, her will to live.
Edward took care of her. He never left her side. He brewed her tea, read her books, sat silently by her bed just to be near. But all he ever received in return were sharp glances and colder words.
As if his very presence was a wound she couldn't bear to look at.
She died without a kind word for him.
Her final breath left a deeper scar than any blade ever could. And Edward… he broke. Quietly, like a mirror cracking from within.
But the real fracture didn't happen until his father brought her into the mansion.
The mistress.
And her daughter.
His father's illegitimate child—a girl just a year older than Edward.
His half-sister was soft-spoken. Kind. Beautiful in the way noble girls were groomed to be, but her heart seemed genuine.
The house changed after she arrived. The staff smiled more. The halls were warmer. Laughter returned to a place where silence had lived for years.
His father—stoic and cold all his life—actually laughed in her presence. A small, quiet sound. But enough to burn.
She received the affection Edward had spent his life chasing.
Even worse—she tried.
She approached Edward with a gentle smile and open hands. She didn't gloat. She didn't act superior. She treated him like a real brother.
And her kindness hurt more than any insult.
Because he wanted to resent her—for taking the love he was never given. For filling the space he used to dream of calling his own.
But how could he?
She had done nothing wrong.
She had taken nothing. She was just… loved.
That made it worse.
So he withdrew.
His footsteps grew quieter. His gaze more hollow. The hopeful fire that once burned in him flickered out, leaving behind only smoke.
He became a ghost. Present in body, absent in everything else.
"Sometimes, it's hard to accept the truth in reality," he once thought.
"But if you keep living in a lie, it eats away at you until there's nothing left."
When Edward turned sixteen, he made his decision.
He would leave.
There was nothing left for him there. No love. No legacy. No reason to stay.
He didn't make a dramatic exit. No tearful declarations. Just a quiet, calculated departure.
His sister cried. Pleaded. Her hands trembled as she reached out, begging him to stay. But he had already made peace with his choice. Or maybe, he had just run out of anything left to fight for.
Her words didn't reach him—not because they weren't sincere, but because his heart no longer had room for hope.
And when she realized that—truly, deeply realized it—she stepped back.
And let him go.
She respected his wishes.
And Edward Brightwill—boy of quiet brilliance, born from a one-sided dream—walked away from his home…
…with nothing but silence behind him, and a future that never belonged to him in the first place.