Eyes opened.
His head hurt, dizzy as if someone had just struck the back of his neck. His vision was blurry, but slowly it began to clear.
"What happened?" Edward thought.
He looked around, and everything there was completely unfamiliar. Edward froze for a few seconds. He was confused.
The last thing he remembered was sitting at home, having breakfast as usual, but then suddenly he vomited and…
Edward's eyes widened. "I was poisoned."
He instinctively wanted to stand. He tried to move his body, but the burning pain in his stomach immediately forced his breath to stop. Trembling, he sat back down.
When he lowered his head.
Blood.
It was seeping from a wound in his stomach. A dull knife was stuck deep inside. Edward was shocked at the sight, and he forced himself to stand.
"Cloth," he muttered.
He walked toward a cabinet, grabbed as much cloth as he could, and slowly pulled the knife out of his stomach.
As the blade slid free, he nearly screamed in agony. Quickly, he pressed the wound with the cloth and tied it tightly around his waist.
"…What is this?" he whispered hoarsely.
His head throbbed, blurry. The last memory he had was of being poisoned and a gunshot from outside the window, before his body collapsed to the ground.
He remembered his heart stopping. He remembered the darkness swallowing everything.
But now—he was alive and… in a completely unfamiliar place.
Edward stood. He could already control himself a little. He walked to the mirror, and at that moment his eyes widened.
"Who is this?" he muttered.
The hands, body, and face reflected in the glass were not his.
He looked about twenty-five years old. His face was smoother, no beard, his eyes full of energy, his nose slightly flatter, and his height around one hundred and eighty centimeters.
Completely different from his former self.
"What happened to me?"
Edward touched his whole body and found an identification card in the right pocket of his pants.
It said that the name of this body was Qeuun Redblood. A very strange name, like one belonging to someone from a fantasy story.
Edward walked toward the window. He looked outside. At that moment, he froze.
There, a sight stretched out that was anything but ordinary. Narrow streets paved with round cobblestones. Rows of wooden buildings with tiled roofs standing tightly together.
In the distance, he saw a massive stone clock tower rising proudly, adorned with gargoyle statues. White clouds hovered, but they looked very close.
"This isn't the modern world," Edward whispered.
People walked below. They wore long coats, tall hats, and carried strange objects in their hands.
A horse-drawn carriage rattled by. Guards with spears stood on the street corners, wearing armor, their eyes sharp.
Edward grew more confused, countless questions filling his mind. He knew what had actually happened, but deep down his heart tried to deny or reject what he himself thought.
He lifted his hand and saw a pattern similar to what some people outside also had.
"What is this?" Edward muttered.
The tattoo-like mark on his hand was unique. It resembled rune scripts found in ancient books and fantasy novels about magic. He was sure it had something to do with that, but he hadn't found any clue yet. Deep inside, he even hoped he was wrong.
Edward walked toward a small table beside the bed. As he moved, suddenly his head throbbed with pain. He nearly collapsed, but managed to support himself with his left leg and one hand. The other hand pressed against his aching head.
Edward gagged and vomited. A flood of information rushed into his mind, and what he dreaded turned out to be true. This world was not the one he had known before.
But it didn't clearly state this was a world of magic. The memories of this body did not show that, but the owner had been researching magical runes.
"He was interested in magic and mythical creatures. That explains the rune tattoo on his left hand."
Edward felt a bit better. He walked toward the bed and sat down. His brow furrowed. He stroked his chin repeatedly, thinking hard.
Edward turned toward the door and noticed it was locked from the inside. The window was also tightly shut. Strange indeed that he had been killed by strangers, and the memories he gained confirmed that the body's owner had been experimenting with runes.
Someone knocked on the door. When he opened it, two masked figures appeared and immediately stabbed his stomach. They quickly covered his eyes and mouth. Their movements were precise, like trained assassins.
Edward was sure of that because… he himself had been a professional assassin once. He had killed many people and become a fugitive.
That was also the reason why he had been poisoned and killed.
"But the door was locked from the inside, and the window wasn't broken." Edward scanned the room. Nothing was messy except for the table near the wardrobe. "As if this was staged to make it look like suicide."
Suddenly Edward realized something. He stood and walked toward the wall. He ran his hands across every part of it. From corner to corner he searched, knocking on every inch of the wooden planks. Nothing unusual.
But still suspicious. It was impossible that the body's memories were wrong. He had surely been murdered, and the killer must have staged everything to look like suicide.
"Nothing."
Edward sat in thought. His head lowered, his fingers tapped his knee, his mind spinning fast.
"If not the walls… then what—" He suddenly crouched and touched the floor.
He pulled away the old carpet covering the wooden boards. His palms searched each gap in the planks, looking for something different. Minutes passed without result, but Edward did not give up. The instincts of an assassin, trained to find hidden places, kept him focused.
At last, when he pushed aside the wooden bed he had been sleeping on, something caught his attention. A floorboard was slightly darker, with a faint line along the edge. It didn't match the rest.
"A hidden passage. I knew there had to be another way out."
He grabbed a small handle tucked in the corner of the board and pulled gently. A creak echoed as the wood lifted, revealing a dark hollow space below.
But just as Edward leaned closer to look inside—
Knock… knock…
The knocking on the door broke the silence.
Edward turned. His hand froze midair, then he closed the hidden passage. He stood and pushed the bed back to its place.
The knock came again, louder, more urgent.
"Brother, are you inside?" a woman's voice called from outside.