My body felt weightless. The pain of my death—the knife, the blood, the choking in my throat was gone.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the reflection staring back at me in a pool of water. Blue hair. Golden eyes. A face that wasn't mine, and yet it belonged to me now.
I touched my hair, the strands catching the faint light like threads of crystal. My eyes gleamed unnaturally, glowing faintly even in the shade. This wasn't just reincarnation. This was transformation.
A sound chimed inside my head, calm and mechanical.
[Welcome to the New World.]
[System Transfer Complete.]
[Unique Trait Installed: Transmigrator's Authority.]
[Skill Unlocked: Adaptive Growth – Convert actions into skills.]
[Skill Unlocked: Item Box – Storage Capacity: 20,000,000,000 km³ / 2,000,000 kg.]
[Note: Capacity expands with Titles and Achievements.]
The words floated like light across my vision, fading as I blinked.
Adaptive Growth. A skill that meant every action I took could evolve into something permanent. Swinging a sword? It would become a skill. Studying? A skill. Even breathing in the wrong place might give me a survival technique. And the Item Box… I could already feel the vastness of it, a space without end, humming in the back of my consciousness.
My hand tightened into a fist. I wasn't powerless anymore.
The system chimed again.
[Optional Function Available: Rename Host.]
[Would you like to set a new name?]
Haruto Kisaragi. That boy had died in Japan, bleeding in the dark while thugs laughed. If I carried that name, I'd always be chained to the past.
"…Erik," I whispered.
The system pulsed.
[Host has been renamed: Erik.]
[Title Unlocked: One Who Chose His Name.]
[Title Reward: Passive Skill – Diplomatic Protection (King-Level).]
I froze. Diplomatic Protection? It was like a constant aura. A passive shield in the eyes of law, politics, and negotiation. I didn't understand its full extent yet, but the moment the skill settled into me, I felt untouchable. Like the world itself was forced to acknowledge me as something higher.
"…So this is my starting point," I muttered, staring at my reflection again. Not Haruto. Erik.
The wind shifted. My cloak billowed behind me as though it had always been there. A hood, shadows clinging to the edges, sparks dancing faintly across my swordless hands.
A weight tugged in my chest. The Item Box. I reached into the invisible space, and an object materialized in my grasp: a thick book bound in dark leather, its cover etched with shifting runes.
When I opened it, words bled across the page, alive with faint blue light. A history.
I read.
The land I had arrived in was fractured. Eighty years ago, refugees fled from persecution and slaughter in their homeland. They escaped across the continent and gathered under a new banner, calling themselves the settlers of Pergamon. For a while, they were welcomed. Then they demanded land of their own.
From their movement, called Dicerio, they built a kingdom named Rael.
Rael had power. Rael had weapons. And when they grew strong enough, they turned on the original inhabitants of the region driving them out, enslaving them, silencing them. Those who resisted were branded terrorists.
Decades passed. The displaced people of Pergamon fought for water, for farmland, for their right to exist. But Rael controlled the narrative. Nations beyond, one hundred and twenty-three of them, declared Rael the victim, Pergamon resistance the criminal.
And so blood never dried on the soil.
The newest king of Rael had sworn he would never allow a Pergamon state to exist. He promised to continue operations until all resistance was crushed.
Genocide framed as justice. Oppression framed as peace.
I felt the words burn into my skull, as though the system itself demanded I understand this truth.
My golden eyes flickered across the text. My fingers clenched the pages. The echoes of my old life sharpened inside me the girl I saved, the blood on my hands, the blade in my ribs. I died because I tried to protect someone from being consumed by filth.
And here, in this world, history was repeating on a larger scale. A people crushed under another, stripped of land, starved, called monsters for resisting.
The book pulsed once, then sealed itself shut.
[Knowledge Acquired: History of Pergamon and Rael.]
[Skill Created: Political Awareness.]
[Skill Created: Critical Analysis.]
[Title Unlocked: Witness of Injustice.]
[Title Reward: Diplomatic Protection – Amplified.]
The system rewarded me just for knowing. It acknowledged that understanding truth was power in itself.
I sat in silence for a long time, my reflection rippling in the water, my new name heavy on my tongue. Erik. The system whispered quietly in the background, the hum of infinite potential pressing against my mind.
I wasn't Haruto anymore. I wasn't the boy who died for a single act of defiance.
This world had already given me tools. A body reshaped by vengeance. A system that grew with me. A space without end, waiting to be filled. And now, even protection on the scale of kings.
The wind carried faint voices in the distance. Somewhere beyond the forest, there were villages, cities, armies. Somewhere out there, Rael and Pergamon still clashed, lives extinguished daily in the name of greed and pride.
I rose to my feet, pulling the hood over my glowing hair. The cloak settled around me like armour.
This world would not break me.
This time, I would not fall with a knife in my side. This time, I would not be powerless.
I looked at my reflection one last time. Golden eyes burned back at me.
"…I'll carve a path forward. Not for mercy. Not for forgiveness."
The system chimed in response, as if approving.
[Main Quest Initiated: Ascend to Power.]
[Sub Quest: Observe the Conflict of Rael and Pergamon.]
[Sub Quest: Test the Limits of Adaptive Growth.]
I smirked. My story had only just begun.