Six Years Ago
I sat alone in that silent room, the emptiness pressing in like a second skin.
From the moment I was born into this world, I was destined to be a shadow—the forgotten twin. I never even got to see my mother's face. She died bringing me into this world, leaving me nothing but a name: Shin V. Rock.
While my brother was chosen by the Gods as this world's Hero, I received no blessings. No divine favor.
It wasn't that my family neglected me. They treated me with kindness, as if my existence wasn't a burden. But I couldn't help it—that seed of jealousy took root anyway.
And unlike my brother, I was never good with people. He was everything: kind, diligent, the perfect heir to our father's legacy.
And I?
I was just the boy who lived in his shadow.
Even in my loneliness, I was never truly alone.
There was her—Siris , my arranged fiancée. Kind. Radiant. Blessed by the gods themselves.
I often watched her from afar, mesmerized by the way her snow-white hair caught the sunlight, how her sapphire eyes crinkled when she smiled at me. Every glance sent heat rushing to my cheeks—yet I could never muster the courage to speak, even as she patiently tried to bridge the distance between us.
But shadows like me weren't meant to linger.
"The hero's shadow always dies young."
Every night, my body betrayed this truth. Agony like forty swords piercing my flesh left me writhing, sleepless, until dawn.
Then came the night fate's clock ran out.
As I gasped my final breaths alone in that dark room, he appeared—a figure draped in black, watching from my bedside with hollow eyes.
Waiting.
For me to die.
My soul was ripped from that body—an agony beyond words. One moment, I was clinging to life; the next, I stood severed, staring at my own lifeless shell.
The black-robed man vanished without explanation. I reached for my corpse, but my fingers passed through it like mist. To die so young... so alone... The bitterness clung to me like frost.
If only I'd never been born like this... But fate had spoken. I wandered the mansion all night—a ghost haunting the living.
I watched them: my brother's steady breathing, my father's furrowed brow even in sleep, Siris's tear-stained pillow. Tomorrow, they'll find me. Tomorrow, they'll mourn.
A grim relief settled over me. At least they won't have to tiptoe around me anymore.
Dawn crept in. Normally, the maids would arrive to wake me—today, they'd find a corpse.
But then—
My body sat up.
It clutched its chest, frantic, then stumbled to the mirror. Stared.
The first words it spoke sent chills through my spectral form:
"Where... am I?"
Who the hell is this boy wearing my skin?
Time slipped by—a year of watching *him* live my life better than I ever could.
The soul who stole my body was **everything I wasn't**: diligent, kind, effortlessly brilliant. He repaired the fractures in my family, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with my brother at the academy, and wiped the worry from Father's brow.
No one suspected a thing.
"Shin's changed for the better!" they'd say, their smiles radiant.
And I... I let him. Because for the first time, the people I loved were happy.
Even Siris.
The way she looked at him—those sapphire eyes soft with love—stung like a blade to the heart. But when they shared their first kiss under the willow tree, I couldn't hate him. Not when her joy was so real.
He grew stronger too. A prodigy: fifth-circle magic at seventeen , mastering six attributes—a feat no mage in history had achieved.
I was just a whisper in the mirror now, smiling as he lived the life I was meant to have.
Time flowed like a relentless river. They formed the Hero's Party—five legends, including him wearing my face, each a pillar of strength with their own role.
Together, they became the world's mightiest. Five continents, five rival heroes... yet our party never knew defeat.
But as a homeless soul , I witnessed what the living never could:
The dead.
Spirits of war—hero and villain alike—drifted through the void, their stories etched in sorrow. I learned a cruel truth: even monsters had families. Even tyrants wept for lost chances. Fate simply hadn't given them the strength to be better.
The living mourn only those they know. A stranger's death? A hollow "sorry," empty as the tears shed for them.
But if they could see these souls—hear their pleas—they'd understand.
"Let me live again," the dead beg.
Yet destiny whispers: You'd repeat the same mistakes.
Driven by reckless curiosity, the Hero Party ventured into the Demon Continent—only to find themselves outmatched by four Demon Commanders.
Youth meant nothing against ancient demons who'd spent centuries weaving traps.
"Go back! I'll hold them off!" the impostor in my body shouted, activating the teleportation circle.
"Bullshit! That's my body!" I raged as a ghost. "What about Siris?! Why play the hero now?!"*
But his gaze as he looked at her—so full of a love I'd never dared to feel—silenced me.
Siris screamed, lunging for him, but my brother held her back.
Maybe... this is goodbye. I waved at her, my spectral hand passing through her tears. *Sorry I couldn't be the one who loved you like he did.
For the first time, I wept as a soul.
Then—light swallowed them.
Only he remained, standing amidst the demons.
"You idiot! That spell will—!"
But he'd already woven it: 8th-Circle Magic, fused from six attributes, manifesting as a colossal rainbow sphere.
The impostor met my eyes one last time.
"Sorry... for borrowing your life."
BOOOOOOM—!
The explosion erased half the Demon Continent—and him with it.
Thus died "Shin the Archmage" , his name etched into history.
Tia and Noki clapped.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Noki hugged Edrew, snot dripping as he bawled.
Tia tilted her head. "But how did you get your body back?"
"I don't remember." Edrew's fingers tightened on the reins. "One moment I was a ghost, the next—I woke up in my own flesh. An old man was there... but when I came to, he was gone."
Three years had passed since then. Three years of hauling corpses, burying secrets, and wearing the name "Edrew" like a mask.
"I won't tarnish 'Shin's' legacy. Let them remember him as the hero who died gloriously." He glanced at his palms—now scarred from labor, not magic. "And thanks to that I see souls like you. So I'll stay forgotten. If I reappear... it'll only reopen their wounds."
Just as Tia opened her mouth to reply—
WHOOSH!
A figure in flowing white robes materialized before the carriage, forcing the horses to rear up.