For individuals living in a modern society, how much time does one have for themselves?
And the time they do have is limited to any activities that can be done without interfering with their work.
It was because of that, that the hobby he chose was one that he could enjoy from the comfort of his own home and without any interference from outside forces.
The hobby that he had found in his search was gaming—and more specifically, a dark fantasy, narrative-driven RPG that blended open-world exploration with academy progression and large-scale war campaigns.
The genre itself was not exactly what he was inclined to play, and despite his initial apprehension, he had downloaded the game... only to immediately forget about it the next day.
On one of his days of, he was bored and decided to kill time by browsing game forums to see if anything caught his eye.
As he scrolled mindlessly, a discussion about a game he vaguely remembered reading about earlier that year—Records of a Hero's Rise—caught his attention.
The main point of the thread was about how the game's newly released hero was a nightmare to play because his stats and growth plateaued before the second chapter of the story.
Intrigued—and with nothing better to do—he decided to try the game for himself, only to be pleasantly surprised to find it already installed.
What he found was far beyond his expectations.
Records of the Heroes Rise wasn't the bright, heroic power fantasy most people were used to; the game was heavier, slower, and demanded choices that carried real weight.
Political schemes that risked the lives of thousands, alliances between men and monsters claiming to be, one's own morality—everything mattered, and every decision shifted the course of the story.
He discovered this by playing through the hero he had read about in the thread—the one who was later dubbed the 'Dull Blade Hero' by the community—had quickly become his favourite.
The difficulty spike that had driven even seasoned players of Records of the Heroes Rise away from the character became the very factor that drew him in.
Though introduced as a hero, his path rarely aligned with one; stripped of the title, his role in the story would have placed him closer to a final antagonist than a saviour.
While the previously introduced heroes came from different backgrounds and held different goals and motivations, they were all, without question, acting for what they believed to be the right reasons—reasons that would later earn them the title of hero.
That was where the seventh diverged entirely, positioning himself not as a fellow traveller, but as a roadblock—one that hindered the journeys of the other six.
This contradiction made him all the more interesting.
Among a roster of unquestioned heroes, the seventh stood apart—his actions shifting between ally and obstacle, guided not by heroism, but by what best served his goals. And it was this uncertainty, more than anything else, that drew players to him.
Records of the Heroes Rise was, at its core, a story about the hero's journey—not as a guarantee, but as a trial. Through its seven playable heroes, it showed how different lives, convictions, and choices could shape someone into a symbol worthy of the title.
Yet while six of them rose to meet the world's expectations of heroism, the seventh did not rise; he existed to question what that title truly meant—and whether it was something earned, assumed, or merely assigned.
And although it took him some time, eventually, he had played through all the other heroes' stories as well.
It was a choice born of necessity—each narrative intersected with the others at key moments—but curiosity had kept him going long after that need had passed. By the time he was finished, there were no paths left unexplored, no stories left unseen.
Time moved on.
Years later, he sat in the same room, with the same computer and the same half-dead look in his eyes as he stared at the full completion bar for all the available heroes.
He leaned back in his chair, pressing two fingers briefly to his temple as a faint ache pulsed there—nothing sharp, just persistent enough to be annoying.
A small smile crept onto his face. Throughout the years, RHR, work, and taxes had been the only constants in his life. Tonight, had been the exception.
The unopened bottle resting near his desk—something he'd received after a project went well—didn't stayed unopened for long. Finishing the last story had felt like as good a reason as any to pour himself a celebratory drink… and then another.
The liquor tasted better than he had imagined, and he ended up drinking the entire bottle.
"I guess I can tick this off the list now, huh," he said to no one, glancing one more at the monitor before reaching for his phone.
03:18 a.m.
Although it was the weekend, Monday was still waiting for him.
"I'm too old to be pulling an all-nighter," he muttered. He signed off the game and stood, the dull pressure in his head flaring slightly as he did.
With a tired groan, he dragged his feet to the bed and collapsed onto it without ceremony, hoping sleep would smooth the edges off both the night and the morning waiting for him.
*****
The next morning, he stirred with a throbbing headache—one so intense that the last time he felt something like it was during his university years, when he was young, and still free from the responsibilities of an adult.
Today was supposed to be a weekend, so he pulled the covers over himself to block out the sun's bright rays; hoping sleep could numb the pain.
But the relief he craved never came as the throbbing in his temple seemed to increase by the second.
The pain had risen to the point that he was wondering if it was still just a simple hangover, so he decided to get up for some fresh air. And hopefully, he had some medication to help with it.
He made his way off his bed which felt larger than usual, but he couldn't bother to dwell on that with the pain he was feeling.
"Ugh..." he let out a pained groan in a voice too high to be his own, yet this time it was drowned out by a ringing in his ears.
He legs slowly made their way to where his bathroom should be, but on his way, he tripped over something and hit his head on something hard—the impact triggering something as his headache gave way for a searing pain in his mind.
It felt as though someone had placed a scorching branding iron directly on his brain as memories that were not his own rushed in like a tidal wave.
Information about people he had never met, places he hadn't visited nor seen, and a language that could not have existed on Earth began to settle in his mind like it belonged—as if he had lived, learnt and experienced it.
His consciousness began to fade in and out as this unfamiliar information assimilated itself into his mind, integrating itself so completely that it felt as though he had always had it.
But he hadn't. That was clear from the fact that the thirty years he had lived on Earth was still clear in his mind.
And yet these memories were undoubtedly... real. They just did not belong to him.
Knowing that, it raised an obvious question: "Whose memories are these?"
He took a moment to gather himself, then raised himself up with a shaky hand—one that was much smaller than it should have been.
The room itself held no semblance with the one he had fallen asleep in; save for also having a bed, everything else looked like it was from more than a century from the 21st century.
Yet what should have been an unfamiliar room lingered in his memory as though it had been his for years.
He shifted his attention from the rooms gilded interior and directed himself towards the full-length mirror on the other side of the room.
A weight began to settle on his shoulders as the pieces in his head began to click into place, but that idea was still being held back by a thin hope that this was all a dream.
He nearly tripped over himself several times despite the miniscule trek, his mind had yet to fully adjust to his smaller stature.
As he reached the mirror he paused just as he was about to place himself in front of it. There was a vague sense of foreboding that told him to stop, but he simply ignored it and forced himself to face his reflection.
"... Fuck."
Out of all the words he could have said upon seeing his appearance, that one felt the most fitting.
He had transmigrated.