Ren dreamt of whispers.
They rippled through the darkness, neither near nor far, soft yet heavy — like voices pressing against his skull. Some were calm, almost reverent; others trembled like broken strings of a harp in the storm.
"The vessel is unchosen.""The balance wanes.""He is… ordinary."
Ordinary. That word echoed the loudest.
Ren floated in the dark void, weightless and confused. Golden streaks of light curved like threads around him, weaving into half-formed silhouettes — faces — too divine to look at directly.
"Let him wander," murmured one final voice, deep and resolute. "Even commoners can change the fate of gods."
A blinding flash swallowed everything—
—and Ren Sato woke up drooling on his desk.
"—Sato!"
He jerked upright as his teacher's chalk snapped against the blackboard. "If you're going to sleep in my class," she said, glaring through her glasses, "at least do it quietly!"
The class burst into laughter.
Ren wiped his mouth and muttered, "Sorry, Miss Takeda. I was… meditating."
"During calculus?"
"Math is spiritual suffering, ma'am."
That earned a few snickers, though Takeda's glare could've melted tungsten. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Just—try to stay awake until the end of the period."
Ren nodded weakly, pretending to focus on the equations covering the board. His notes were an incomprehensible mess of doodles and fragments of dreams.
(The vessel is unchosen…? What the hell does that even mean?)
He shook his head. It wasn't the first time he'd had that strange dream — a void, voices, light — but it was getting clearer lately. Like something was waiting for him to figure it out.
When the final bell rang, Ren was the last to leave the classroom. Everyone else left in groups, chatting and laughing, while he dragged his bag behind him like a corpse.
"Another day of greatness," he muttered.
High school was supposed to be full of memories, first loves, and endless youth. Ren mostly got caffeine, exhaustion, and the constant realization that he was aggressively average. Grades? Decent. Sports? Mediocre. Social life? Nonexistent.
But he was used to it.
Outside, the sun dipped low, painting the city in warm orange. The cicadas screamed in the background — that nostalgic sound that always felt like the end of something.
He stopped by his favorite vending machine near the corner of his route home — a reliable old beast that had never failed him through rain, heat, and heartbreak. Its neon lights flickered faintly, like it had been through battles of its own.
"Guess it's just you and me again," Ren said, fishing for coins. "You never judge, you never ask for group projects… I respect that."
The machine hummed, silent but understanding.
He pressed the button for his usual can of cold coffee — Black Demon's Brew, because it was cheaper than therapy — and crouched down to grab it.
That's when he heard it.
A faint whine.
"...Huh?"
A flash of blue light rippled across the glass. The whine turned into a buzz, then a sputtering crackle. Sparks danced behind the coin slot.
"Oh crap, don't tell me—"
Before he could move, the machine made a violent POP!
Ren flinched backward, but too late — the entire vending machine lurched forward like it had been possessed by the spirit of an overfed transformer.
"WAIT, WAIT, NO—!"
He raised his arms uselessly. The last thing he saw was the blinking LED display — ERROR CODE 404: USER NOT FOUND — before a hundred kilos of metal and canned coffee flattened him.
Everything went dark.
Silence.
Then, voices.
Not the panicked voices of bystanders, but the same ones from his dreams. They echoed like a chorus in an empty cathedral.
"The vessel… has chosen itself.""Unforeseen.""Unbound."
Ren groaned. "I swear, if this is another school dream…"
"He can hear us?""Impossible.""Or perhaps… ideal."
A faint chuckle echoed in the void — calm, cold, and amused.
"Then let us see what the commoner will do."
Ren gasped.
Air — sharp, cold air — filled his lungs. He jolted upright and immediately regretted it. His head throbbed like a dying drum, and he was lying face-first in dirt.
"...What the hell?" he croaked, looking around.
Gone were the city lights, the familiar road, and the shattered vending machine. Instead, a forest stretched endlessly around him, bathed in morning mist. Trees towered like skyscrapers, their leaves glimmering faintly as though dusted with silver.
"Okay…" Ren muttered, scanning his surroundings. "So either I'm dead, dreaming, or I've stumbled into the world's most dedicated Renaissance fair."
A faint ding echoed beside him.
Ren froze. Slowly, he turned his head. A faintly glowing blue orb hovered near his shoulder, like a floating marble of light.
"Please tell me that's a hallucination from caffeine withdrawal."
The orb pulsed.
"System initializing—Error. No Blessing detected."
Ren blinked. "...System?"
"Attempting to assign Default Skillset…""Error. Subject: Ren Sato classified as Non-Blessed."
"Excuse me?"
"Congratulations! You have successfully reincarnated as: Commoner (Lv. 1)."
There was a pause.
Ren squinted. "…That's it?"
"No affinity for magic detected. No combat potential. No divine connection."
He stood there in silence for a long, painful moment.
Then he screamed into the forest.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"
Birds scattered. Somewhere in the distance, something howled back. Ren flopped onto the grass, covering his face.
"Great. Just great. I die to a vending machine, and now I'm a broke NPC in Fantasy Land. What's next? A tutorial quest to collect mushrooms?"
The orb beeped cheerfully.
"Quest received: Collect 5 Silver Mushrooms."
Ren stared at it. "…I hate this world already."
To be continued…
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