Warm.
That's the first thing he noticed when he woke up again. Not the fake hospital warm from heating vents. Not the scratchy electric blanket warm. This was real warmth, soft, heavy sheets and a gentle chest rising and falling beneath him. Skin against skin, like being hugged by safety itself.
'I'm not attached to a bunch of beeping machines?'
His tiny fingers wiggled, grabbing onto something soft. Cloth, maybe? Or just really nice fabric that cost more than his old hospital bills.
Then came the sounds.
Someone humming softly. A fire crackling like popcorn in the distance. Footsteps somewhere far away. And his own breathing, steady and strong. Too strong for someone who used to wheeze like a broken accordion.
'This really happened... I'm still here? This isn't some weird dying dream?'
His eyes cracked open slowly. Everything was blurry and enormous, like looking at the world through a fishbowl. Colors swirled together: gold and cream painted across a fancy ceiling, sunlight streaming through tall windows that looked like they belonged in a castle.
A shape hovered above him, warm eyes, messy golden hair, skin that glowed like she'd been kissed by sunshine. The woman from before.
He didn't know her name yet, but something about her felt right. Safe. She whispered something in a language that sounded like music and rocked him back and forth like he was precious cargo.
'So I'm definitely still a baby. Not a dream. Not some weird side effect from all those pain meds.'
'A real baby. With lungs that work, a heart that beats like it's supposed to, and a mom who looks at me like I'm the best thing since sliced bread.'
The thought hit him harder than a punch to the gut.
Back in the hospital, nobody had time for him. Nurses came and went like shift changes at a factory. The only thing that stayed the same was the quiet... and the loneliness that sat on his chest like a heavy cat. But here?
He was wrapped up in love like a warm blanket.
Even though his baby brain felt like it was running on dial-up internet, something deep inside him started to wake up. A quiet storm brewing in his chest.
---
The days and nights melted together like ice cream in summer.
He woke up, he slept. He ate. He cried sometimes, mostly by accident when his new baby reflexes kicked in.
But his mind, his grown-up, seventeen-year-old mind, stayed sharp as a tack.
And piece by piece, he started putting the puzzle together.
The woman holding him was definitely the nice type. The room screamed "expensive." Every sound that drifted into the chamber was respectful and hushed, like people were afraid to wake up someone important.
He caught words floating around. Names. Sounds that his baby ears could barely catch, but somehow his brain translated anyway.
'Beatrix.'
'Ares.'
'Sixteenth son.'
'Eisenklinge.'
That last one hit him like a lightning bolt to the brain.
'Hold up. Hold the phone. No freaking way.'
'This can't be happening.'
'The Eisenklinge family? THE Eisenklinge family?'
His memory kicked into high gear. The webnovel. Chronicles of an Empire. Ten thousand chapters of pure addiction. Fifteen sons of the legendary warlord. Five crazy story arcs. The massive war. The final betrayal that made him cry into his hospital pillow.
Fifteen sons.
'I remember all their names. Their powers. Their stories. The ice guy. The one who died in the rebellion. The tenth son with four different elements. The third son who lost his arm and became some kind of magical experiment.'
But not him.
'There was no sixteenth son.'
'There was no Ares in the story.'
---
That's when the panic hit him like a freight train.
He wasn't just reborn into some fantasy world.
He was completely off the map.
He didn't belong in this story.
'I'm like a typo in the universe. A character who was never supposed to exist. I'm not part of the plot. I don't have some grand destiny or a dramatic death scene. I'm just... extra.'
The thought made his tiny body shiver. It made his breath catch in his throat. The room suddenly felt huge and scary, like the whole world might notice he didn't belong and squash him like a bug.
'Am I just going to be thrown away?'
'Or…'
'Is this actually freedom?'
---
Later that night, as his mother (because that's what she was now, wasn't she?) rocked him gently, his body got warm again. But this time, it wasn't from the fire or the fancy blankets.
It came from inside him.
A slow, swirling feeling behind his belly button. A tingling in his stubby little fingers. Something old and powerful humming under his ribs like a hidden engine.
'Mana? Is this what mana feels like?'
He'd never felt real mana before, only read about it in thousands of chapters. But this? This was like nothing he'd ever imagined.
It pulsed like a heartbeat. It stirred like a sleeping dragon. It tasted like lightning and steel and storm clouds all mixed together.
'This body isn't just healthy. It's gifted.'
'More than gifted... it's dangerous.'
He couldn't control it yet. His baby hands could barely grab his own nose. But he could feel the power there, waiting. And that was enough for now.
He closed his eyes with a tiny, lopsided smile.
'I'm not just some random extra character. I'm the wild card.'
'Let's see what happens when someone who knows the ending gets to rewrite the beginning.'