"Once you're sent back, every being in this timeline will vanish. Everything will reset—except me. My soul won't survive the transition. There can only be one Ashen Crimson, and the world has already suffered through mine."
This haunting echo of the broken god would be his final word long after the gold-framed void started to shatter. Beneath the shock of that declaration, my spectral form flickered in an erratic and frenzied acceleration. He had demanded me to rewrite a story of his already burnt ashes, to revive a life which was a monument built of sins and regrets. Unfortunately, I was not a hero, just Kai, who had seen his story end quietly in a pathetic whimper. I wasn't even sure whether I had a life worth saving, let alone the strength to redeem a monster's life.
"It doesn't matter," he continued, as if discussing the weather, in the most relaxed tone imaginable. "We don't even know which timeline you'll land in. Fate's funny like that. But wherever you go, there's going to be time enough to change anything."
My head was alive with a phantom throbbing in a body I no longer possessed. A thousand questions screamed to be freed, all against the crumbling walls of my consciousness. Why me? What if I fail? How do I survive in an unknown world while in a body that isn't mine? Will I still be me?
But all I managed to say turned out to be one desperate question. "So... you have total control over my actions, right?"
He smiled at that moment. With the kind of cold callousness only a god could possess, and the warmth that's only the saving grace of saviors, etched into the smile was just the relentless weariness of a billion lifetimes. "Kind of. The life will be your own. I've embedded my familiar into your soul. Think of it as a system. It'll guide you, assign you missions to protect people important to this timeline. But the rest? It's yours to shape. Be a hero. Be a tyrant. Be a weirdo in a treehouse if that's what you want. I won't stop you."
I scowled at the memory. Great. A talking quest log in my head, and a dead guy's emotional trauma as luggage. The perfect start to a new life.
"All right," I muttered almost dully, "let's get this over with."
Ashen did not reply. He merely tilted his face toward the breakup of that golden sky and whispered a single word under his breath as his crimson eyes caught the final light.
"Start."
And once Ashen uttered that first word, it was as though a star exploded within my chest. Waves arching into my spectral form with searing eddies pouring molten fire into immersion with liquid ice. Pain pure and absolute stabbed itself into each inch of my being. I couldn't scream; I didn't even have the capacity to suck air. Then began the real nightmare.
The memoirs of his life.
They were not merely pictures but the crashing wave of a potential tidal wave of sensory overload that whipped itself against my soul. Faces that I have not seen but contorted in love, hate, and terror. Voices I have never heard before whispering promises and screaming curses. The sharp betrayal, the dizzying sense of victory, the cold, creeping tendrils of madness. Blood. Fire. Laughter. And shouts. Ashen's life, sins, and regrets; a meteoric rise and cataclysmic fall, all before my eyes under fast forward with maximum volume.
And then, darkness. A dark, silent, and thankfully empty abyss.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on sheets that were as soft as spun moonlight. The air was warm and scented faintly of lavender and old, expensive wood. A room so lavish that a five-star hotel suite in comparison would look like a filthy gutter. Golden trims with intricate designs lined the high ceiling. Heavy velvet curtains of midnight color shimmered in the dim light filtering through the windows. A chandelier bigger than my previous apartment hung above my head in a magnificently noisy manner.
And I understood, at that moment as the last echoes of the void had faded.
I was no longer Kai.
I was Ashen Crimson heir to the Crimson family, one among the ten most powerful noble houses in the world of Zerawell and historically one among the three ruling powers in the capital city of Nowa.
Unfortunately, an utter and complete piece of shit.
The memories of this body, the one I now inhabited, surfaced in horrifying, vivid detail. As a child, Ashen had been adored by his family—worshipped, even. His mother, the beautiful and terrifyingly devoted Lady Serena, saw him as her precious jewel. His father, the formidable Marquess Regus, saw him as a future king. And his sister, the brilliant and fierce Lucielle, would have challenged the gods themselves for his sake. Their love was a suffocating, all-consuming force. When he did terrible things—like maiming a servant for spilling wine on his new tunic—they would simply sweep it under the rug, their smiles never wavering.
There was even a time when a noble boy, jealous of Ashen's favor, had pushed him during playtime. A minor scuffle, a little childhood spat. Home, Ashen had returned with just one bruise, one bruise on his arm. To avenge that, his mother had brutally wiped the entire family out. Every. Last. One. For a bruise.
That was love in the Crimson household-violent, obsessive, and dangerously absolute.
But that was not the one to undo him. The real seismic fracture, which rent his very soul long before I ever came along, happened later.
Potential-born with an even dimension for possible shadow magic: one of the rarest and most feared elemental affinities in Zerawell. But for reasons unknown and untraceable by even the greatest mages, he could not wield it. His mana core, too wide, would not resonate with the shadows. And when the great Tournament of Noble Houses came around-an event where the heirs of the great families showcased their power-he was humiliated. Beaten. Not once, not twice-but three times in front of thousands of jeering spectators, while his younger sister, Lucielle, rose through the ranks like a blazing star.
Suddenly, the perfect, adored son became the family shame.
His father—the man who once praised his every breath—began to sneer at his failures. His once-proud eyes now held nothing but cold disappointment. The golden pedestal upon which Ashen had been placed his entire life crumbled beneath his feet, sending him crashing into a reality he was completely unprepared for.
The fall broke something deep inside him.
He started lashing out, his wounded pride twisting into a cruel, tyrannical arrogance. He abused the maids, attacked those weaker than himself, and demanded reverence like it was his birthright. The charming noble boy became a monster in the making.
His mother, desperate to save what was left of her beloved son, tried a last, desperate gamble. She reached out to her oldest and most powerful friend—none other than the Queen of Nowa—and arranged a marriage proposal. Her daughter, the beautiful and revered imperial princess herself, was offered as a bride to Ashen, in the desperate hope that love would somehow "fix" him.
Spoiler alert: it didn't.
And now, that was my life to live. His sins to correct. His destiny to rewrite.
I sat up slowly, my new body feeling both alien and intimately familiar. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my head pounding as the last fragments of his memories settled like ash in my mind.
"This is gonna suck," I muttered, running a hand through the silky, jet-black hair that now fell across my forehead. "Why couldn't I get reincarnated as the hero? Or the plucky farm boy? Or even a freaking cabbage merchant? At least cabbage merchants don't have this much baggage."
From the corner of the room, a small, golden mote of light flickered to life, hovering in the air like a curious firefly. A soft voice, smooth and infused with a faint, otherworldly echo, resonated directly in my head.
[Welcome to Zerawell, Host. I am the System, a fragment of my former master's consciousness, now bound to your soul. Please refrain from causing any mass genocides before breakfast.]
I stared at the glowing speck, my jaw slack.
'You have jokes.'
[You'll need them.]