I swiped my finger across the phone screen. The sentences scrolled by, white and smooth against the black background of the app. Another chapter. The same damn thing again.
— "…He turned his gaze away from her lips…" I read aloud, before growling.
— "Seriously?! She's offering you her heart on a silver platter and you're staring at the floor?"
I snorted in contempt and kept scrolling.
— "…The priestess gently took his hand."
— "A hand? Fucking hell, a hand! Look at her, you idiot! She's trembling for you and you don't see it?!"
My breath quickened in spite of myself. Each line hit me like a slap. The heroines were beautiful, not just physically: they had gazes, scars, fragments of soul anyone would have cherished. Anyone… except him.
— "The hero, the chosen one, the reincarnation of courage… and he can't even kiss a woman who's dying for him. What trash!"
I clicked my tongue, tossing the phone onto the crumpled sheet. The bluish glow lit up the folds of the blanket for a moment, then vanished.
I lay there, chest burning with frustration, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
— "They're beautiful, strong, loyal… and he turns away like a virgin. Seriously, if I were in his place…"
I never got any further. A sudden vertigo struck me, brutal, as if the ground split beneath me. The room blurred, the outlines of the furniture dissolving into thick darkness.
My heart pounded in my temples. I tried to call out, to scream, but no sound came.
And then… it resounded.
A voice. Neither masculine nor feminine. Deep and soft, burning like a secret.
— "Then show me… you who criticize."
~
I regained consciousness slowly, as if dragged up from the depths of a heavy dream. Then, the warmth. It wrapped around me, humid, trembling, saturated with a sweet scent that stung my nostrils. It wasn't the smell of a place… but of a body.
I opened my eyes, still veiled in haze, and shock cut through me like lightning. I was lying on top of a woman. Naked.
Her skin burned beneath mine, damp, trembling. Her thick hair spilled across the pillow, her flushed face turned toward me. Her heavy breasts pressed against my chest in a slow motion, and her swollen belly quivered under my hip. She moaned, a broken whimper escaping her throat, and her hand slid onto my shoulder, clutching my skin as if she were holding on for dear life.
— "Aahh… Elios…" she breathed in a feverish moan, her parted lips trembling with longing. "Take me… again…"
I froze for a second, breathless. My whole body screamed that this was unreal. A gorgeous MILF in her thirties, offered beneath me as if I were her only reason to live. Her thick thighs were already wrapped around me, squeezing to keep me in place, and every shiver in her flesh vibrated straight into my loins.
A disbelieving laugh bubbled up in my throat. This is unreal… but if it's a dream, then…
I didn't wait any longer. My hands clamped onto her hips, yanking her hard against me. She cried out, her voice breaking into a hoarse moan:
— "Aaahhh…! Yes… yes, Elios… again…!"
I thrust into her in one brutal motion, the humid heat of her body swallowing me whole. She screamed, her nails digging into my back, her face twisting between pain and pleasure.
— "Hhhhaaahhh…! Elios… you're tearing me apart…!" Her voice shook, but her hips were already rolling to drag me deeper.
I lost control. My breath turned ragged, every push driving me further, faster, her breasts bouncing against my chest in a violent dance. She moaned without restraint, each cry bursting from her throat like an echo inside mine.
— "Aaaahhh… yes… fill me…! I'm burning… burning…!"
Her legs squeezed tighter, her sweaty thighs slapping against my sides, and her voice climbed to a near-hysterical scream. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth spilling broken whimpers.
— "Hhhhnnn… aaahhh… harder…! Fill my womb…!"
I growled, lost, panting. My hand clamped down on her breast, crushing her damp flesh under my palm, and she cried out louder, her hard nipples scraping my skin.
Her body clenched violently around me, her hips jerking in an uncontrollable spasm, and her scream cracked into sobs.
— "Yes… Elios… I… I'm cumming…! Aaaahhh…!"
I couldn't hold back. A guttural roar tore out of me as I came inside her, each burning pulse filling her convulsing belly. She screamed with me, spasms shaking her, her back arched, her breasts bouncing in a savage trance.
Then, silence.
She collapsed onto the pillow, panting, her lips parted in broken moans. Her body still trembled under my hands, but her half-lidded eyes glimmered with a languid smile. She drifted to sleep almost instantly, her heavy chest rising and falling softly with my breath tangled into hers.
I stayed still for a moment, chest dripping, muscles still twitching. My hands clutched her fleshy hips without realizing, as if I feared she would vanish if I let go. But soon, the adrenaline ebbed, and another fever rose: curiosity.
I gently slipped out of her embrace. She whimpered faintly, rolled onto her side, her thick thighs rustling the sheets, then sank deeper into sleep. Naked, staggering, I pushed myself upright. The room seemed to sway around me, saturated with the sugary stench of sweat and sex, every breath scorching my lungs. I stepped once, twice, staggering like a convalescent—and then I saw it.
The mirror.
Tall, massive, framed in tarnished gold, leaning against the wall. Its surface caught the wavering candlelight, and in that reflection, it wasn't my face I saw.
I froze.
It wasn't me. Not my tired gamer's features, not my patchy beard or hollow eyes. No. In the glass, another man stared back: elegant, almost aristocratic, a fine jawline, smooth skin, silky brown hair. His almond-shaped eyes gleamed with a haughty light. And when my lips trembled, it was his reflection that moved.
— "…What?" I whispered, stunned.
My heart lurched. I knew that face. Damn it, I knew it. The name she had moaned surfaced: Elios. Not the hero. Not a rival. A nobody. An extra. That damn side character who only appeared in two lines of the novel I had just been reading. A forgotten shadow, a statistic in the background.
I staggered back, but the mirror pulled me in. And then the flood hit.
A torrent of memories exploded in my skull: the education of a noble's son, strict lessons, the sting of the cane. Then, more intimate—the nights spent with an all-too-close tutor, that same woman now sleeping behind me, who had "prepared" him for the academy. Images of parties, sighs, lifted skirts, the stink of wine and sweat. A reputation as a womanizer, an addict, a shameful son—too insignificant to shine, too privileged to vanish. And finally… the canonical fate. I saw it, clear, merciless: to die off-screen, useless, forgotten.
Pain drilled through my head.
I doubled over, hands clutching my temples, gasping. Each foreign memory seared into my flesh like fire. His inner voice became mine, his desires already coursing in my veins. The overload was unbearable: two lives, two memories colliding in one skull.
— "Fuck…" I rasped, throat raw. "I transmigrated… into an extra…"
My breath broke, my knees gave way. The mirror blurred, warped into a flash of white light. The room pitched around me, and I collapsed, naked, body racked with shivers.
The world vanished into thick blackness.
~
When my eyes opened again, the room was bathed in pale light, filtered through half-drawn curtains. For a moment I thought I had dreamed it all. But the sticky warmth between my thighs and the sugary scent clinging to the sheets told me otherwise.
She was there.
Not naked this time, not offered like a lover, but standing by the bed, already dressed in a strict, dark gown cinched at the waist.
Her hair was neatly tied back, baring the line of her neck, and the fine glasses perched on her nose gave her eyes a colder, more untouchable gleam.
She looked once more like what she had always been: a governess, a teacher. And yet… I had never noticed how breathtaking she was. The austerity of her outfit only heightened the burning memory of her bare body, her moans, her fever.
I pushed myself halfway up, still sluggish. She looked at me without smile or reproach. Her face was calm, but her hands trembled faintly on the book she held pressed to her chest.
— "That was the last lesson, Elios," she said in a steady, slightly husky voice. "And surely the last time we'll see each other."
I tried to speak, but no sound came. She stepped closer, sat briefly at the edge of the bed. Her fingers brushed my cheek, then her lips pressed a quick kiss there, almost chaste, yet laden with a tenderness that cut straight through me.
She rose at once, smoothed her gown, adjusted her glasses. Behind the lenses, her eyes glimmered with emotion she barely contained.
— "Farewell, young master."
She turned away, clutching her book to her chest, and crossed the threshold. The door closed softly behind her.
Silence fell.
A silence so heavy I thought it would choke me. My heart pounded too hard—not for her, not for the farewell, but for what I knew. For what I had seen in the mirror. For the fate that wasn't mine yet already weighed on me like a stone.
I nearly leapt from the bed, stumbling on the sheets, naked, my body still aching. I fumbled at the desk, feverish hands rifling through drawers. A quill, a half-full inkwell, a stack of blank pages. I slammed one flat and began writing, scribbling, the quill scratching furiously across the paper.
Every memory. Every fragment. Everything I knew of the novel, this world, this damn scenario. Names, places, battles to come. The death promised to this body. The heroines, their tragedies, their betrayals. Everything that could one day give me an edge.
Ink splattered, my fingers stained black, but I didn't stop. My breath rasped, my loins still aching from the act, but my hand never faltered. It was this or die like the forgotten extra I had become.
Don't let it slip. Don't forget anything.
I scribbled until my vision blurred, until my fingers cramped into claws. The pages piled up, covered in hasty words, half-legible sentences, but each bore a shard of memory, a key to survival.
When at last I dropped the quill, my chest was soaked with sweat. The blackened sheets of paper sprawled across the desk like fragments of a future torn from the void.
I raised my eyes to the window. The morning sky was already bleeding red. Time was running out.