Darkness.
Well, that was ominous.
The first thing he noticed was the absolute lack of light.
Not dimness. Not shadow.
Just... nothing.
Like the universe had misplaced the concept of sight entirely.
'Brilliant. Dead, blind, or buried. Maybe all three!'
'Perfect.'
The silence wasn't peace.
It wasn't even dramatic.
It was heavy.
He tried to move.
His limbs disagreed.
In fact, they staged a small but decisive rebellion.
Everything felt... wrong.
'Okay, maybe I just need a minute to reboot.'
'Or a slap.'
'Either works...'
And then—because apparently the void had a sense of dramatic timing—came the memories.
He died.
In a car accident.
Then... radio silence.
No tunnel of light.
No life flashing before his eyes.
Not even a single ghostly "boo."
'Seriously? No reaper? Not even the budget kind?'
He might've laughed, if his throat didn't feel like it had been lined with sandpaper and self-pity.
'So, coma? Afterlife?
'.....Experimental cryo-nap gone terribly wrong?'
He attempted to open his eyes, which was brave, considering he wasn't sure he had any.
Something shifted.
A flicker.
Not quite light, more like the idea of it—muted, gray, and apologetic.
Kael blinked.
It felt like lifting dumbbells with his eyelids.
Slowly, the world melted into shape.
Blurry at the edges, like reality hadn't quite rendered in yet.
Ceiling.
Not hospital tile.
Stone—arched and oddly elegant, with just enough gloom to scream "Welcome to the gothic fever dream."
A dying fire gave the walls a lazy orange glow.
Shadows tiptoed across drapes stitched with suspiciously aristocratic flourishes.
A window yawned open nearby, letting in moonlight.
Kael shifted under the covers—soft, luxurious, and suspiciously excessive.
The bed felt fit for royalty or a very high-maintenance cult leader.
Nothing was familiar.
His body felt sore in that special way reserved for people who've either run a marathon or been unconscious for a decade.
He sat up, arms trembling like wet spaghetti.
Panic knocked politely—but confusion was still hogging the front door.
Hands—
...weren't his.
Too slim. Too smooth.
No nicks.
No old scars or broken knuckles.
These hands hadn't punched a wall in frustration or held a controller for twelve straight hours.
They didn't even look like they knew what a blister was.
Oh, this just keeps getting better.
And then, out of nowhere, the memories came.
Not his.
Like a strange tide rising in his skull—quiet, steady, and uninvited.
A name.
Kaelion Drenlor.
Apparently that was his new name.
Kael blinked.
Kael. Kaelion.
"Oh come on," he muttered.
"Is that why I got this body? Because our names match on a cosmic Wordle?"
He shook his head, tried not to think too hard about it.
Focus.
Kaelion Drenlor.
The third son of Duke Thelran Drenlor, lord of the western province in the Kingdom of Velmora.....
Kael sat in stillness, trying to breathe through the rush of alien memories crowding his mind.
They came not as sharp flashes, but as a quiet tide rising within him—familiar and foreign all at once.
A slow flood of birthdays he'd never had, grudges he'd never earned, and horseback lessons that sounded way too vivid for someone who'd never been within five feet of a real horse.
He stared ahead, unblinking, the crackle of dying embers the only thing anchoring him to sanity.
Then he muttered, voice dry and hoarse:
"Well ...I'm fucked."
Not poetically. Not dramatically. Just... clinically.
Because now, without a doubt, he believed it—he'd been transmigrated.
Soul yeeted into a noble fantasy body like a rejected isekai protagonist, minus the overpowered cheat skill or hot magical girlfriend.
Just anxiety, confusion, and a pair of suspiciously moisturized hands.
He swung his legs off the bed, grimacing as bare skin met cold stone.
"Lovely," he muttered.
"First thing I feel in this world and it's hypothermia."
Standing was a process—one his body clearly resented.
His muscles complained like underpaid interns after a fourteen-hour shift, and he half expected one of his knees to just quit and file for early retirement.
Moonlight dripped through the window like spilled milk, ghostly and cold.
The fire was mostly dead, sulking in its hearth, reduced to a few stubborn embers pulsing like the last beats of a dying heart.
Kaelion Drenlor—whoever the hell that was—had clearly not left things in good working order...
He moved slowly toward the window, one cautious step at a time.
Each footfall echoed in the kind of silence that suggested the house might be haunted by emotional repression.
He pulled back the drapes, half-expecting to find a monster, or maybe a butler with a tragic backstory.
Instead, the world hit him like a punch in the lungs.
Below, the courtyard bloomed with pale blue nightlilies—glowing gently, like they were powered by moonlight and self-importance.
Above, not one but two moons drifted across the sky: one silver and elegant, the other red and vaguely threatening.
Because of course there were two.
One moon would've been too subtle.
Outside the window, the night revealed a world too strange to be real—towers twisted like illusions, glowing with stolen starlight.
Beyond the walls, forests burned with green fire, and mountains glittered like dream scenery polished to perfection.
A world of magic.
A world of wonders.
And, clearly, a world that wanted to kill you with style.
Kaelion Drenlor had grown up here.
Kael had not.
And now the name sat in his head like an unwanted tattoo.
With every breath, more of Kaelion's memories slid in—uninvited and annoyingly vivid.
No magic.
That part hit hardest.
In a society built entirely on spellcraft, pacts, and sparkly power nonsense, Kaelion had been born with all the magical aptitude of a ...damp sponge.
Naturally, he was adored.
Mocked by noble heirs, ignored by tutors, politely exiled at family dinners.
His brothers, of course, were brilliant.
Dangerous.
Handsome in that punchable, sculpted sort of way.
Veyran, the golden heir, already leading troops and likely monologuing about destiny.
Aerik, the middle son, whose hobbies included blood magic, passive aggression, and casual murder.
Kaelion had taken the thrilling route: Books. Diplomacy. Law.
A walking academic footnote.
And then came the sudden illness.
The maid—soft-spoken, gentle-handed—who brought his tea.
The one Aerik had recommended, with all the sincerity of a crocodile offering swimming lessons.
He remembered the sickness creeping in like frostbite.
The sluggishness. The weight in his limbs. The slurring of his voice.
And finally, that night—when he realized he could no longer speak.
He had known that his beautiful maid had poisoned him.
But by then—it was too late, of course.
Because poison, like politics, worked best when it didn't rush.
Kael leaned on the stone frame, his new heart thudding under ribs that weren't really his.
He shouldn't be here.
But he was.
The universe had apparently decided to take one dead guy and shove him into the life of another, as if that solved anything.
He inhaled deeply.
The air smelled strange—like night flowers, metal, and unresolved trauma.
"So this is it," he muttered.
"No magic. No allies.
Just inherited trauma and a face that probably has enemies."
His reflection in the warped glass stared back at him—Kaelion's face, pale and pretty and utterly miserable.
Black eyes, and hair like spilled ink, framed a look that had forgotten how to hope.
He blinked at himself.
"Your life was somehow worse than mine," he said softly, with a hint of reluctant admiration.
He smirked.
"Nobility, no power, hated by your family, and murdered by your own brother.
You really went for the full tragic fantasy bingo card, huh?"
A sigh.
"Guess this is my life now."
Another pause.
"…Still better than a 9-to-5, I suppose."
The words lingered in the air like the last wisps of smoke after a fire.
Not hope.
Not despair.
Just… acceptance. The flavorless kind, like biting into ash.
Then came the sound.
Shattering glass.
Porcelain met stone with all the delicacy of a hammer to a mirror.
It echoed—loud, inappropriate, and rude against the stillness of night.
Kael didn't flinch.
Didn't even blink.
He stood there, spine straight, eyes dull, as though the crash belonged to another world entirely.
He let a slow breath escape, his expression darkening, sharpened by something that had been dormant far too long.
'So it's starting', he thought.
His lips curled—not in fear, not in surprise, but in a smile that didn't belong on the face of a sickly noble son.
It was the kind of smile that belonged in alleyways at midnight, in the eyes of someone with nothing left to lose.
Demonic.
If someone had seen him then—bathed in moonlight, half-shadow, half-smirk—they might've dropped dead from sheer unease.
And then—just as quickly as it came—it vanished.
Gone.
A blink. A breath.
Like a mask slipping back into place.
The smile melted into soft uncertainty.
The gleam in his eye faded like old wine left too long open.
His shoulders sagged.
His spine curled.
Even his mouth forgot where it had been.
From Devil to Dazed in under three seconds.
Olympic-tier performance.
Behind him, the broken teacup gave a tiny, pathetic clink as a shard rolled across the floor, completely unaware of the tension it had just introduced.
He finally turned.
At the door stood the maid.
Young. Pale. Trembling.
The hand at her mouth told a story: surprise, horror, maybe regret—but let's not give her too much credit.
The moonlight caught her hair just right, making her look… softer.
Like a portrait.
The kind you'd hang in a haunted hallway to spook the guests.
Kael saw her.
Saw her the way Kaelion once had—back when he was still soft enough to mistake a gentle smile for kindness and not professional courtesy.
But memories had teeth.
This was the same girl.
The same careful hands that had steeped his tea just so.
Smoothed his sheets.
Tilted her head with that infuriating little "you poor thing" smile.
Also, the same hands that fed him poison.
Drop by drop.
With the patience of a nun and the commitment of a serial killer.
Her breath caught.
"H–how did you—" she stammered, the words tumbling out before she could catch them.
Her hand flew to her mouth, as if silence could rewind time.
Too late.
She was trembling now—not from the cold.
No, this was fear.
Raw and choking.
She knew.
Knew that he knew.
The poison hadn't been subtle.
Not over time.
And now the one she thought safely drifting toward the grave was standing, breathing, looking at her like a stranger... or worse, like a judge.
Her gaze flicked downward for a heartbeat—toward the small blade sewn into the folds of her skirt.
A final, desperate insurance.
She moved, barely—a shift of fabric, a breath.
And then—
"Do you know me?" Kael's voice broke the silence like a blade through still water.
Light. Innocent.
Almost... curious.
The question froze her in place.
Her hand stopped, suspended inches from the hidden knife.
Eyes wide, she stared at him, blinking as if trying to refocus.
"What…?" she whispered.
Kael tilted his head slightly, his expression one of gentle bewilderment.
"I just… woke up," he said softly.
"Everything's… foggy. I don't even remember my name."
A long pause.
The silence hung thick between them.
Then she blinked again—hard—and something shifted in her gaze.
Confusion, now. Cautious hope.
"Y-you don't remember m-me?" she asked, voice cracking.
He blinked back at her, eyes wide, innocent.
"Should I?"
And just like that, the tension in her shoulders eased—not completely, but enough.
The trembling dulled.
Her hand slid back from the knife.
Kael smiled again, like a candlelit angel.
"Could you… help me back to the bed?" he asked gently.
"My body still feels weak."
She blinked, hesitant, but nodded.
Her lips curled upward, just barely.
In her eyes, he was no longer the poisoned heir.
Just a dazed boy who'd forgotten everything.
Pathetic.
Easy prey.
She stepped forward.
One hand reached toward his arm.
Her fingers had barely brushed his sleeve when...
.....Kael's hand shot up and caught her wrist.
Firm. Icy.
She blinked, startled.
"Wha—"
But she didn't finish.
With a swift motion, precise and practiced—far more than a noble should've known—he turned, twisted, and pulled.
The momentum carried her weight toward the open window.
A heartbeat later, glass and wind rushed past her ears.
She fell.
Time slowed.
Her eyes locked on his, wide with disbelief.
In that fleeting descent, realization hit her harder than the wind tearing at her dress: he had played her.
"You bastarddddddddddd!" she screamed, fury and fear mixing into a single, broken cry.
Kael stood at the window, watching her fall with cold detachment.
His expression held no regret—only grim finality.
As her form shrank below, he raised one hand slowly.
Middle finger extended.
The least noble gesture imaginable.
"Dumb bitch," he muttered, like a prayer.
Then—
Thud.
Distant. Final.
A chime rang sharply in his ears, crisp and unnatural.
He froze.
[System Detected.]
[You have fulfilled the hidden condition: "Break the Chains of the Past."]
[Conqueror's System initializing…]