Elias had been a man without a family for a long time. His last memory of home was a distant, faded thing, replaced by the cold, sterile order of his work. Now, in the body of a boy named Orion, he had one again. And it was a mess.
His new family was a house of dust. The manor itself was a crumbling ruin of what it once was. The once-grand portraits on the walls were faded, their frames tarnished. Servants were few, and they moved with a kind of resigned pity. Elias' analytical mind quickly deduced the truth: this was a family on its last legs, clinging to a title that no longer held any power.
He learned the details of his new life by listening, a skill he had perfected in his old one. Orion was a weak noble, a sickly child who had been mocked and despised by his peers. He had been a soft target, and the bullying was relentless. A part of Elias, the cold, ruthless professional, felt a kind of detached disgust for the boy's weakness. The other part, the ghost of a past life, felt a flicker of something he hadn't experienced in a long time—sympathy.
The one bright spot in this new reality was his younger sister, Guin. She was a whirlwind of energy and fierce loyalty, a stark contrast to the quiet decay of their home. She was the one who brought him his meals, who checked on him when he was ill, and who stood up to the other servants on his behalf. She was the only one who didn't look at him with pity.
One afternoon, while he was practicing his newfound control over his "Points" system, he overheard Guin crying in the hallway. He left the room to investigate and found her with a torn dress and a scraped knee. She tried to hide the tears, but her shoulders shook with quiet sobs.
"They did it again, didn't they?" he said, his voice sounding strange and young to his own ears.
Guin looked up, surprised by his calm tone. "It's nothing, Orion. They just... they said you were a weakling, and I got angry, and..."
Elias felt a cold, familiar anger rise in his chest. It wasn't the boy's weakness that fueled his rage, but the sight of a pure and innocent person being targeted. This wasn't about him anymore. This was about his new family, his only anchor in this bizarre new world. The game had changed. He wasn't just collecting points for power; he was doing it to protect something.
The system chimed in his mind, a sound that was starting to feel as familiar as his own heartbeat.
Protective action. 500 Points Gained.
The number was far higher than he had expected. The system, it seemed, valued protecting the family more than petty acts of rebellion. The realization clicked into place. He wasn't just a player in this game; he was a pawn. But if he were a pawn, he would play the game better than anyone else. He would turn the board over if he had to.
He helped Guin up and looked at her torn dress. "Where are they?" he asked, his voice low and steady.
Guin looked at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. "Who?"
"The people who did this," Elias said, his new persona of Orion momentarily forgotten. "The ones who bullied you."
He hadn't felt this alive since his last hit. The game was on.