I die staring at a spreadsheet.
The numbers blur first, rows bleeding into each other until they stop making sense, like my brain quietly deciding it's done pretending. The office lights hum overhead, too bright, too clean, too indifferent. My chest tightens—not dramatically, not like the movies. Just a dull pressure, as if someone is slowly pressing a thumb into the center of my life and holding it there.
'Huh,' I think. 'So this is how it ends. Very on-brand.'
My name is Sky. Twenty-six. Corporate employee. No savings worth mentioning. No unfinished dreams dramatic enough to warrant regret. Just a quiet exhaustion so deep it feels structural, like it's been built into my bones.
I try to stand.
I don't.
The spreadsheet freezes. Or maybe I do.
The last thing I remember is thinking that I never even got promoted.
I wake up screaming.
Not because I'm in pain—but because my lungs burn like they've never been used before. Air tears into me, sharp and cold, scraping my throat. My body convulses, small and weak, and someone shouts nearby.
"Lyra! He's breathing—he's breathing!"
Hands grab me, rough and panicked. A woman sobs. Another voice mutters something that sounds like a prayer.
'Okay,' I think dimly. 'Either this is hell… or HR finally approved reincarnation.'
The thought makes me choke again.
My vision swims. Everything is too big. The ceiling above me is cracked stone, uneven and stained with soot. The air smells like smoke, damp wood, and something bitter—medicine, maybe.
This is not an office.
This is not Earth.
'Huh,' I think. 'That's… new.'
Time becomes strange after that.
I drift in and out, awareness flickering like a dying bulb. Voices come and go. Sometimes I'm held. Sometimes I'm left alone, wrapped in coarse cloth that scratches my skin. My body feels wrong—too small, too fragile, like I'm wearing someone else's bones.
When I finally stay awake long enough to understand words, I realize two things.
One: I'm a child.
Two: Whoever I am now is very, very poor.
Matra City doesn't introduce itself kindly.
I learn it through hunger first. Through the way my stomach twists into knots that don't go away. Through the thin porridge my mother apologizes for every morning, even though it's all she has. Through the way my father comes home limping, clothes soaked with sweat and dust, eyes dull with exhaustion that mirrors my own from another life.
His name is Darius Veylan.
My mother is Lyra.
And apparently, I'm Kairo.
'Sky to Kairo,' I think weakly. 'At least the syllable count improved.'
The room we live in is small. One window. One table. Too many people.
My younger brother Lio is sharp-eyed and restless, always watching, always listening. My sister Selene smiles at everything, even when there's nothing to smile about. Sometimes that scares me more than the hunger.
I lie on my mat and stare at the ceiling most days, my mind racing while my body struggles to keep up.
'So,' I think, 'new world. Magic. Mana. Ten continents. And I rolled poverty again.'
If reincarnation were a gacha game, I'd be demanding a refund.
I feel it before I understand it.
Something in the air. A pressure, faint but constant, like static before a storm. When I concentrate—really concentrate—I can sense threads everywhere, invisible but present, flowing through walls, through people, through me.
Mana.
It doesn't respond. Not yet. It just exists, vast and indifferent.
'Great,' I think. 'Magic exists. And I can't use it. Story of my life.'
Days pass. Weeks. I grow stronger, slowly. Enough to walk. Enough to help fetch water. Enough to get pushed around by other kids in the alley when they realize I don't fight back.
"Four-eyes," one of them laughs, knocking me into the dirt.
I don't respond.
Not because I'm afraid.
Because I'm tired.
'Relax,' I tell myself as I wipe dust from my hands. 'You survived corporate deadlines. You can survive this.'
Still… something inside me shifts.
Not power.
Resolve.
At night, when Matra goes quiet and the city's distant lights flicker like dying stars, I stare out the window and make a promise I don't say out loud.
'I won't die like that again.'
Not hunched over meaningless numbers.
Not unseen.
Not exhausted and empty.
If this world has magic… then I'll understand it.
Slowly.
Properly.
On my terms.
Somewhere deep inside me, something listens.
But it does not answer.
Not yet.