Without another word, I stood up, leaving behind the suitcase, the ring, and my old life. The walk toward the stairs was slow. Instead of heading down to the street, I went up—all the way to the roof.
Standing at the edge, I composed a final message to Isabella. It was a repetitive, desperate summary of their betrayal—a goodbye I wasn't even sure she deserved. Perhaps I hoped for a police investigation, or perhaps I just needed the truth to exist somewhere outside my own head. Once the message was sent, the phone slipped from my fingers, and I followed it into the air, plummeting toward the crowded street below.
As I was falling, my whole life ran in front of my eyes. The only good thing in my life had been Isabella—at least, I thought so. Now I knew better; my whole life was shit. Upon coming to this conclusion, I hit the ground.
There was no pain, no light, nothing fancy—just darkness. I was just floating in darkness. I could not move or speak. In fact, I could not even feel my body. It was maddening, just being in the middle of dark nothingness for what felt like aeons.
That was when it happened. After what felt like an eternity of absolute silence, a voice broke the silence—a female, mechanical emotionless voice.
“Soul of Victor Shrier, correct?”
I wanted to answer “Yes!” but there was no way for me to speak. But before I could get worried, the voice sounded once again.
“Good. No need to worry; I can hear your thoughts. You were chosen for direct reincarnation since you floated in here, without being processed, for much longer than you were supposed to. I will scan your memories and find for you a world you are going to be familiar with.”
Before I could think of anything, I started to feel nauseous, creeped out, and extremely violated. It was awful and took several minutes, during which I was not able to form a single cohesive thought. Then, from nowhere, it all stopped.
“I found a perfect world for you: the world of Galaniel from a novel you read several times, ‘The Rise of the Bloody Monarch’!”
Just the thought of living inside of that novel filled me with dread. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that novel very much, but I sure as hell didn’t want to live there. The world had millions of portals with monsters, threatening to overflow and release them into the world at any moment.
“My apologies; once the world is chosen, it can’t be changed,” spoke the voice again. “But feeling your concerns, I will give you a few bonuses!”
A thought, ‘What kind of bonuses?’, sparked inside of my mind practically instantly.
“Firstly, a warning. I will have to remove all your memories that are not related to the novel or your conversation with me! Due to the way your life ended and the fact that you floated here for several centuries, we need to make sure you are somewhat sane. I’ll also make a few minor tweaks to your character. Don’t worry, it's nothing major—just making sure you fit in better. You’ll still be yourself, but this will let you skip the 'What the fuck is this world?' phase.”
Hearing this, I relaxed a little. I really didn’t want any of my previous life’s memories, nor the memories from floating in silent darkness.
“But I will refresh all the memories about the novel. You will remember every little detail about it: dates, times, everything—even the wiki entries, if you ever read them. Plus, you will get a complete, perfect memory of the body you will be placed into.”
If I had a body, I would be nodding my head, listening to her words carefully. Without it, I was just looking forward to her every word.
“And as far as the bonuses go, I can give you a few things: one Lucky Coin, one Soul Tether Reroll Token, and five Mundane Ability Tokens. That’s the maximum I can do for you! What do you say?”
A single thought crossed my mind: ‘I was hoping for a system, with an inventory and everything.’
“You will get a system, like everybody does in that world. I didn’t think I needed to tell you that since everybody gets one. But I can throw a Dimensional Storage skill into the mix as one last bonus.”
Listening to her, I thought, ‘She told me that she can’t do more and ended up giving me a skill anyway. Maybe I will be able to get more out of her!’
The reaction from the female voice was swift. “Don’t push your luck! I can take the storage skill away as fast as I gave it to you!”
‘Understood!’ and ‘My apologies!’ quickly became the only two things popping up in my mind.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“That’s better. Now that everything is clear, it’s time to send you out of here.”
Before I could react in any way, cracks started appearing around me in the void. At first just small ones, then they grew bigger and started connecting. Ultimately, a radiant light started to shine through the cracks. Soon I got enveloped in the light, and the moment I did, I lost consciousness.
When my consciousness returned, I was inside what looked like a small office. I was sitting on a wooden chair at a large wooden table. Across from me sat three people. To the left was a woman, very good-looking, in her late twenties. Next to her sat a man, about the same age as she was, rather handsome. Both were quite well-dressed, holding hands and looking at me. Next to the pair sat an old man in a black, well-fitted tuxedo, preparing some papers.
Before I could recover properly from the fact that I had almost no memories, the old man pushed two stacks of papers towards me.
“Here are the divorce papers, and here is the sale agreement for the business. Sign them, please, so that we can handle this whole situation in peace!”
Looking at the papers, I got confused. Then I glanced over at the pair sitting across the table and back to the papers. Seeing my reaction, the younger man opened his mouth, wearing a sleazy smile.
“Vic, don’t make it any harder than it needs to be. Your wife does not want to be with you; she has been in my bed for several months now, and you don’t have what it takes to lead the family business. You never even cared about it. You won’t get a better offer, trust me!”
As he spoke, he pointed to two large sacks of gold sitting between us on the table. As my eyes fell on the gold, I thought, ‘What the actual fuck is going on here?’ And that was when it all started.
At first, it was just an extreme pain. It felt like somebody was stabbing my forehead with a knife. Before I could even wince in pain, the memories of this body started flooding in. But it didn’t feel like I had lived the life of this body; it felt like I was watching somebody live their entire life from a third-person perspective.
I watched his entire life in a few seconds. The name of this body was Victor Wagner. I was the eldest son of a merchant family. I was raised to inherit the trading company, but I never really wanted it. I had an arranged marriage with the daughter of a large merchant family that I never clicked with. All the while, my brother coveted both things I had and didn’t want: my wife, the woman sitting across the table from me now, and the business, the chore I despised every single day I worked there. On top of that, for some reason, the fact that my wife was called Isabella and my brother Duncan made me feel disgusted by them. I could not tell why exactly, but I somehow knew it had something to do with my previous life.
Shortly after my parents died and I officially inherited the business, my brother started moving. First, he started courting my wife, and several months later, she stopped sleeping in my bed and started to sleep in his, not even trying to hide it. Then, he started preparing the capital to pay me off, with the backing of my wife’s family.
It took me a few seconds to calm down after I received all the memories and understood what was going on. The next step was to decide whether I was signing the papers or not.
The first thing I needed to know was where and when I was. The answer popped up in my head instantly: I was right now several hundreds of kilometers away from the capital of the Berklay Kingdom, the place where the novel unravels, three years before it starts.
I was relieved; I had plenty of time to prepare, but the distance was worrying. There were plenty of threats that would pop up during the novel, and I was sure that I was not going to rely on the main characters to take care of everything and not bring doom to this kingdom or world.
So, I needed to get to the capital, find a good position from which I would be able to monitor the story, and step up when those so-called heroes fuck up. Then, I needed to get strong enough to be able to handle the shit that was about to happen.
To do either of the two, I needed to get out of this shithole, move to the capital, and train. After I came to this conclusion, I smiled and nodded.
“Fine, let’s end this farce. I have things to do and places to be!”
The three of them—my brother, my wife, and our family lawyer—genuinely smiled. The first one to react was my brother; he nodded and spoke.
“I knew you didn’t really like either the business or your wife. All you ever wanted was to leave this city.”
I chuckled internally; somehow, I could not decide whether my brother was being an asshole or a good brother. Ignoring this dilemma, I quickly signed the papers and grabbed the two large sacks of gold, standing up from the table.
“I am going to pack my stuff, and leave the city. We won’t ever see each other again, okay?”
Both of them nodded in perfect unison.When I was about to leave the room, the old man’s voice stopped me.
“I knew that it was going to be better for everybody like this!”
Listening to him, I stopped and turned to face him.
“So, now you are trying to look like you had my interests in mind? At least man up enough to confess that they paid you off. You are pathetic!”
The old man became silent, but my brother quickly stepped up to his defense.
“Vic, don’t be so harsh on him. He is an old friend of our parents; they trusted him with everything.”
I just laughed at the audacity.
“What do you think our parents would think about him helping you take away the business and my wife from me? Understand, I am not angry that you did, I just hate that he is trying to look like a saint when he sold out both me and our parents.”
Both my brother and the lawyer stood there in silence, looking down at the ground. Not even Isabella spoke up; she just stood there in awkward silence, looking at the two. I just shrugged and turned to leave, waving to the three of them as I went.
“Take care and goodbye! Don’t look for me; I sure as hell won’t be looking for you!”
Those were the last words I had for the trio before I left the room and headed straight to the family mansion. Quickly packing everything I wanted. Starting with taking all the liquid assets I could find in the mansion and ending with grabbing all of my clothes. Since I was about to begin my new life; there was no need to hold back.
Once I was done with packing, I stored everything in my storage and tossed a long black cape with a hood over my shoulders, leaving the mansion and heading to the city gates to hire a carriage.
