He woke up again.
But this time… the sensation was alien.
Familiar, but foreign. Like slipping into a childhood dream halfway through someone else's nightmare.
There was no floor. No bed. No warmth. Just the feeling of floating in air — or rather, in the absence of it. Like drifting through a void that had forgotten what gravity was. A cold, gnawing nothingness that didn't bite, but whispered. No contact. No pressure. Not even air brushing against his skin. "Ah.. the time with the shark"
His eyes adjusted to the surreal, and there — in the middle of the void — he saw it.
Himself.
Avin's body, or what now counted as "his," sat cross-legged in the center of a circle etched into the ground With some sort of red paint… Hopefully not blood. The pattern beneath him was precise, carved like a surgeon's signature. An eight-vertex star stretched outward, sharp line. On each vertex, a candle. Eight in total. Four were lit— and each burning one sat next to a sibling that remained cold and dark.
Avin's hands were placed together, palm-to-palm, flat and horizontal, resting over his lap like a monk meditating at the gates of hell. His body was covered in ritualistic drawings…'Runes' — inked or scarred, it was hard to tell. Spirals, glyphs, circular marks that crawled across his flesh and converged in three places: the stomach, the heart, and the spine.
He was chanting. "O magne, ostende mihi praesentiam tuam."
Over and over, the same phrase fell from his lips — guttural. He repeated it with the calm of someone possessed, until, without warning, he went still.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Then his face twisted into rage.
-SPILL-
"THIS ISN'T WORKING!"
He snapped upward, fury spilling out of him as he kicked the candles away with enough force to scatter the lit ones into the shadows. Wax sprayed across the ritual circle. The silence that followed felt heavier than his scream.
Watching all this from outside himself — detached like a ghost locked behind glass — he tilted his head.
He studied the livid version of his current self. The broken ritual. The symmetry of failure.
"Well... this world doesn't have magic, right?" he muttered to himself, though his voice didn't echo in this space. "So... he can't hear me even if I talk."
Still, he couldn't help staring at the scene, curious and unsettled. "What were you even trying to do?" he murmured.
And then it hit him. A thread of memory yanked taut.
"Ah. The book."
Images returned in fragments. Avin — hunched in dim torchlight — flipping through a strange, breathing tome. Then the sudden obsession. The candles. The secrecy. And the way he always hid the book right after. But where?
He dug into the fog of memory.
"Where did you put it, Avin…?"
Nothing. A blank.
"Fuck, I don't remember—"
Everything collapsed.
The void snapped shut like a slamming door.
He was yanked back.
Back into the body. Back into the pain. The warmth. The sensation of lungs inhaling stale air.
Avin's eyes were still closed, but he could feel it. His nerves had returned. The soft fabric of sheets under his fingertips. The lingering scent of antiseptic herbs. A room. A bed. A body that didn't quite belong to him — but responded like it did.
"Wait."
His thoughts came rushing back. The tent. The conversation. The voices. The betrayal.
His mouth opened before his eyes did.
"PLEASE DON'T CHOP ME UP!"
A pause.
Silence.
Then a voice answered.
Feminine. Dry with amusement.
"…What?"
He blinked.
"…Uhh, what?"
His eyes opened, adjusting to the soft light in the room. It wasn't a battlefield. It wasn't a tent. It wasn't death.
It was... a bedroom?
A group of women stood around him, all dressed in black-and-white maid uniforms. One sat on the edge of the bed, gently placing a towel on his forehead — damp, warm. Her face… familiar.
His breath caught. "Miranda?"
She stared down at him, impassive, then slowly inhaled.
"Nah," she said with a straight face. "They call me the Butcher now. In charge of chopping people up. Apparently."
He blinked again.
That dry sarcasm. That tone.
Yep. Still Miranda.
Miranda had been one of the very few who never treated Avin like he was rot. Her, and her mother Gloria — the head maid. They were the only ones who didn't pretend not to see him.
"Funny," he muttered, slowly sitting upright in bed. Odd. The pain was gone. Not dulled — gone.
"Not as funny as what you screamed," Miranda smirked. "Nightmare?"
He grunted.
"Was the abyss abysmal?"
A maid in the back snorted — too loud. His eyes shot toward her like gunfire. She flinched.
"S-Sorry, Young Lord!"
He exhaled. Turned back to Miranda.
"No," he replied. "Didn't dream anything."
"Sure." She sauntered over to the coat hanger, plucked one of his royal robes — casual, but still expensive — and returned.
She swung it over his shoulders.
"The abyss must've changed you," she said softly. "You're acting… different."
He squinted at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, first of all… you wouldn't like all these maids."
His breath caught.
Right.
This wasn't his body.
And he wasn't supposed to be acting like himself. He had to reach inside — dig through the fractured leftovers of Avin's memories. Learn the script. Play the part.
Keep suspicion low.
"Well," he said, shrugging, "I'm not exactly in a state to clean up by myself, so…"
She gave him a look. "Also… you don't talk to me. At all."
That hit harder than it should've.
"…In fact," she added, "you don't talk to anyone."
He stared at the floor for a moment.
"Avin was really this kind of person?" he thought. "So isolated… no wonder. I don't even blame him."
His throat tightened.
"If I'd gone through what he had... I'd go quiet too. Probably did, in my own way. Maybe this whole transmigration thing is good for him. A new chance. A family that might actually love him."
A bitter thought rose uninvited.
"And maybe I deserve this hell. For never appreciating mine. My family. My world."
-Flick.-
"Ow."
His forehead throbbed.
Miranda's finger hovered in front of his face.
"You zoned out again," she said with raised brows.
He rubbed the spot. "Disrespectful."
"It was okay," he replied, forcing out a smile.
"You sure?" she said, eyes narrowing. "I hear—"
The door swung open.
Instant change.
All the maids stood straighter than soldiers. Miranda included. Every single one bowed in eerie synchronicity.
The room's atmosphere dropped like the temperature just got yanked down by a blizzard.
He didn't need to see the man's face. The aura was enough.
Ashborn.
Sword sheathed. Steps heavy. Eyes unreadable.
His breath hitched. The words from the tent looped again and again in his head. His heart pounded so hard it felt like it was trying to run without him.
Ashborn approached.
Raised a hand.
The maids exited silently, leaving Avin alone.
And then the real fear began.
Ashborn's presence hung in the air like a guillotine waiting to drop. He stopped a few feet away from the bed, face unreadable, posture relaxed — too relaxed. That was the worst kind of threat.
He stared at Avin. Said nothing. Just watched.
Then, finally, he spoke.
"How are you?"
Simple. Harmless. Polite even.
But Avin's blood froze.
He didn't hear the question as a question. He heard it as a test.
A trap.
His brain jumped instantly to the only thing it could think of — the tent. The conversation. The words. The joke about chopping him up. Selling his parts. The fear bubbled up like acid.
He didn't pause to interpret the question.
Didn't breathe.
"Checking if I'm in perfect condition to be cut into pieces and sold?" he snapped, eyes burning, jaw tight. The words came out faster than thought — reckless, raw. The fear wrapped itself in anger. Fight or flight, and this time he foolishly chose to fight.
Ashborn blinked at him, visibly confused. No rage. No anger. Just mild confusion.
"…What?"
Avin pressed on, voice shaking.
"In the tent… I heard."
Ashborn's body language changed instantly.
He leaned forward, slow and deliberate, closing the distance with terrifying precision. His eyes didn't widen — they narrowed.
He didn't speak at first.
Then he asked, voice quieter now, but laced with cold steel:
"Who did you tell?"
The room's pressure tripled. The walls might as well have collapsed inward. The air grew heavy, like it had been soaked in oil and lit with threat. Avin felt his tongue go dry. His limbs refused to move.
Ashborn didn't yell. Didn't raise his sword. He didn't have to.
His presence demanded obedience.
Avin's throat clenched. "I—I didn't tell anyone… But maybe the maids heard... I don't know."
Silence.
Then — a sigh. The aura dropped. Just enough for Avin to breathe.
Ashborn facepalmed. Slowly. Tiredly.
"Why," he said, voice dripping with disdain, "would I want to sell you?"
His glare returned, sharp enough to draw blood on its own. "You're worthless."
The insult slapped harder than expected. But the confusion slapped harder.
Avin blinked. "What?"
"I was talking about the abyss scorpion," Ashborn clarified, tone dry. "The one that skewered you."
Scorpion.
The memory cracked open like an old scar.
The mandibles. The stinger. The horror-show mouth.
"Ah," he muttered. "Right."
He tried to catch his breath, calm himself, but the relief was short-lived.
"You said something about the Lord—"
He didn't finish.
Because the cold steel of a blade was now pressed against his throat.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The sword had moved so fast he didn't even see it leave the sheath. It was just there. The edge kissed his skin. A slow pressure began to press into his neck — not enough to slice, but enough to break skin. A thin line of blood slithered down and kissed the metal.
He froze.
Ashborn's eyes bore into him, unblinking.
Then, the words came.
Menacing. Calm. Slow.
"Who. Are. You."
The question didn't just land. It exploded in his chest.
It wasn't rhetorical. It wasn't casual. It wasn't empty.
Ashborn knew.
He didn't know what he was, maybe, but he sensed it — the wrongness. The shift. The cracks in the mirror. And now, that question… it was the final blow. The sword was already tasting blood. All it needed was one bad answer.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't think.
His thoughts screamed.
How?
Why now?
What did I do wrong?
Was it the tone? The way he responded? The fear? Did Avin normally not make eye contact? Was he too alert, too reactive? Did he forget to act weak enough?
The sword dug slightly deeper.
Not a slash — just enough to introduce pain into the conversation.
His throat tightened around the truth he couldn't say.
He had been found out.
And there was no second chance.
Not with Ashborn.
Not with that blade.
Not in this world.
— To be continued. —