"Do you remember what I just said?"
Finally regaining consciousness, He looked around in a daze. A moment ago, he had been helping a friend with a funeral; now, without warning, he found himself here.
A bedroom.
And clearly not a bedroom from the twenty-first century. The dim yellow light barely illuminated the space. The wooden floors were old but clean, the walls faintly yellowed with age. In one corner stood a precarious stack of books, leaning as if they might collapse at any moment. Nearby, shelves held metal jugs and black-and-white photographs in simple frames.
The photographs were old. Very old.
On the walls hung oil paintings, and Shade noticed two metal pipes running along the surface. Rust clung to the connectors, and a thinner pipe branched off near a wooden desk cluttered with papers and half-open drawers stuffed with documents.
A lamp sat on that desk, connected directly to the brass-colored pipe, casting a small pool of warm light.
"Huh? Not electric? Gas lighting?"
Shade couldn't be certain, but the pipes and the faint glow made him suspect it wasn't electrical. Still, the gentle light created a strange sense of warmth.
Through the shadows, he glimpsed oil paintings, black-and-white photos, and old newspapers strewn across the floor. He couldn't read the text, but recognized alphabetic letters instead of Chinese characters.
The atmosphere, the smell—old wood, dust, and something faintly rotten.
A funeral home? Shade remembered that smell clearly.
After all, just moments ago, he had been in one.
"Shade....Do you remember what I said?"
The voice came again.
Suddenly alert, Shade felt someone gripping his right wrist. His senses returned fully, and instinctively, he looked down.
He was kneeling beside a four-poster bed, clearly styled from the nineteenth century. Curtains hung on three sides. Metal glinted at the bed's frame and headboard under the faint glow of a bedside gas lamp.
A little angel figure held up the lamp. Shade found himself momentarily distracted by the intricate craftsmanship.
The person gripping his wrist was the man lying in the bed. This middle-aged man, likely the owner of the bedroom, wore dark, checkered pajamas. Only his head and one skeletal hand emerged from beneath the quilt.
His face was sunken, skin pale, cheeks hollow, his hand disturbingly thin. Shade felt that even speaking too loudly might kill him.
Shade knew nothing about this situation. He needed answers.
[Is this.... is this time travel??] he thought grimly, beginning to grasp his predicament.
Thankfully, the man before him wasn't dead—yet.
"Do you remember what I said?"
For the third time, the man repeated the question. His deep-set brown eyes locked onto Shade.
Shade realized he had to play along for now. He needed to understand the situation before making any decisions.
Opening his mouth to respond, he paused. The man wasn't speaking Chinese. Nor was it any language Shade recognized. But—he could understand it.
Instinctively, he tried to reply in the same language. His lips moved, but no sound came.
He could understand the language.
But he couldn't speak it.
[No way… I can understand but I can't speak it?!]
Panic buzzed in his ears. His back itched with tension. He hadn't expected this. Not knowing the local language was the worst possible situation for a time traveler.
The buzzing intensified—then, he realized something else.
A woman's voice whispered inside his mind.
It wasn't nervousness. It wasn't fear. It was a voice.
A soft, elegant murmur:
[Sixth Era. Universal Calendar, 1853. Summer. Under the silver moon, you arrived in this world. You understand you need an identity. You will inherit the life tied to this body. Prove yourself. Prove that you can step into this world.]
A shiver ran down Shade's spine.
His first thought was that this was some sort of system.
But no—this wasn't a mechanical system prompt.
The woman's voice was refined, calm, almost like reciting poetry. The language wasn't Chinese, nor the local tongue. It was something far older.
Each syllable felt like it carried ancient power. As the words seeped into him, Shade felt his mind reel. His stomach churned from nausea.
Mental oppression.
The language itself held supernatural weight.
[This isn't a system. This... this voice is part of the body itself.]
Panic deepened.
[And this world... this Victorian-like, steam-era world... it's a world of supernatural power.]
Despite the shock, Shade forced himself to remain rational. Time travel was one thing. A world of the extraordinary wasn't much harder to accept now.
But first, he had to survive.
He had to understand.
So, focusing his thoughts, Shade tried to communicate with the voice in his mind using his own language:
"Whoever you are, listen. I'm willing to accept everything of this body, but I have no memory of it. I don't even know its language."
[You do now.]
Like a brick slammed into the back of his skull, knowledge flooded into him.
He nearly passed out.
It wasn't memories. Not memories of the body's life.
It was raw, structured knowledge: _"Kingdom of Delarion. Northern Human Common Language."_
The knowledge wasn't mastered, just inserted. Enough to understand and speak, but slang, dialects, and cultural nuance remained out of reach.
Breathing heavily, Shade forced himself to focus. He tested the new knowledge.
"Sorry, sir… I'm... in poor condition. Could you repeat what you told me...?"
Each word was carefully pieced together from the implanted knowledge.
The man in the bed clutched Shade's wrist tighter.
"You're still like this… your brain never works."
His eyes were those of a dying wolf—still terrifying.
Yet his words held no suspicion.
Apparently, the body's original owner had a reputation for being... slow-witted.
"Shade."
The man called him by name.
A name that sounded suspiciously like Shade.
"I knew I was dying. Three months ago, I saw it coming. So I chose you, among the homeless."
His voice was weak but steady.
"I changed your fate. Gave you a new name. Taught you a little common sense."
The man's thin lips trembled slightly.
"And when I die, you will inherit everything. My detective agency. My property. All of it."
Shade's heart skipped.
"But… you must do one thing for me. Just one simple thing."
His sunken eyes bore into Shade's.
Shade forced himself not to meet the man's gaze directly. Based on what he'd just learned, the original body was submissive to this man.
Therefore, Shade lowered his eyes in fear, playing his role.
"Inherit my detective agency. Run it however you like. But keep its doors open."
The man's grip tightened.
"Until three months from now… September 5th, 1853. You'll receive a letter. Burn it. That's the price of inheriting everything."
His hollow voice echoed faintly in the warm light.
"That's all I ask of you, Sparrow Hamilton's only heir... Shade Hamilton."
Shade felt the weight of his new name settle on his shoulders.