By my fifth week at the academy, I had developed a routine.
This was concerning.
I hadn't crossed the boundary between life and death to become a man who knew which dining-hall queue moved fastest on Thursdays. Yet there I was, arranging my morning around the availability of honeyed bread and congratulating myself on efficient scheduling.
My second life contained magic, monsters, and a weapon that could become a rocket launcher. It also contained laundry, homework, and a history instructor who considered "because the king was an idiot" an insufficient explanation for a failed military campaign.
Even when I was right.
Especially when I was right.
I sat beside my dormitory window with an unfinished essay on the desk and watched students crossing the courtyard below. Somewhere beyond the eastern buildings, a practice spell struck a ward with a distant crack. Nobody looked up.
Five weeks ago, I would have rushed to see it.
Now I hoped they finished before supper.
That was the trouble with getting everything you wanted. Eventually, you had to decide what to do on an ordinary afternoon.
I leaned back and studied my reflection in the glass. Fifteen. Blond hair that refused to settle properly after training. A face still changing in small, inconvenient ways. No wrinkles. No scar above my left eyebrow from the night a perfectly respectable evening became an argument involving broken bottles.
I touched the place where that scar should have been.
For a moment, I could remember the sting of disinfectant and my wife calling me an idiot while she cleaned it. Then the courtyard came back into focus, and I lowered my hand.
I didn't think about her every day.
Sometimes that felt worse than missing her.
There were mornings when I woke with an urgent academy problem already occupying my head. A practical assessment. An overdue assignment. Whether Tomas had figured out why his barrier kept slipping when he tried to move it uphill. Hours would pass before anything reminded me that I had already lived an entire life.
Then something small would do it. A woman laughing with her head tilted back. The smell of onions cooking. Someone folding a blanket with the corners tucked under.
Memory rarely arrived with permission.
In the beginning, I had treated this world as proof. Proof that I had believed correctly. Proof that every ridiculous argument I'd made on old discussion boards had been worth it.
Animated universe? Check.
Reincarnation? Absolutely.
System? Delayed delivery, but eventually received.
I had spent so long expecting an afterlife built around my wishes that I hadn't considered how much of my old life I would bring into it.
Apparently, the universe didn't offer selective packing.
The old bastard came along with everything else.
I remembered being eighteen and signing papers with the private excitement of someone who thought danger was a shortcut. I remembered discovering that danger also involved wet socks, terrible food, and people explaining perfectly obvious instructions at unreasonable volume.
I remembered being very good at surviving.
At the time, I considered that a design flaw.
Later came the work nobody respectable asked too many questions about. The money. The woman who should have been a passing chapter and somehow stayed long enough to become most of the book.
Then children. School events. Arguments about money we technically had but apparently weren't supposed to spend like lunatics. A daughter who could defeat me by folding her arms exactly like her mother. A son who once climbed into my lap and fell asleep while I was trying to read.
I had wanted to be the strongest man in another world.
Instead, for a while, being the safest place in the room had been enough.
That was the part I hadn't planned for.
My essay waited beneath my elbow. I moved it aside and opened the little drawer where I kept Milo and Lottie's birthday drawing.
Dantalion looked suspiciously like a large dog. My weapon appeared capable of destroying a small nation. Everyone was smiling.
I hadn't corrected a single detail.
A knock interrupted me.
"Come in."
Tomas pushed the door open with two books under one arm. "You finished the campaign essay?"
"Emotionally, yes."
"So no."
"Correct."
He sat in the chair opposite my desk and opened his notes. We had reached the stage of friendship where he no longer asked whether visiting was convenient. I liked that more than I expected.
For the next half hour, we argued about supply lines, river crossings, and whether a commander who ignored three separate warnings deserved a more scholarly insult.
Then Tomas noticed the drawing.
"Your family?"
"Some of them."
He looked at it, smiled, and went back to his notes without asking me to explain.
Another thing I liked.
When he left for his barrier workshop, the room felt quieter than before. I watched him cross the courtyard and wondered when he had stopped being the common boy from the bullying incident and become Tomas.
Probably somewhere between laughing at my training stories and telling me my ward looked like a badly hung door.
That happened quickly with people, if you let it.
They escaped the roles you assigned them.
Cedric, for example, had proven annoyingly difficult to keep filed under Arrogant Noble Bastard. He hadn't apologized again, but he also hadn't bothered Tomas. Last week, I'd watched him spend several patient minutes explaining an assignment to one of his companions.
Not redemption. Not friendship.
Just a reminder that he existed when I wasn't looking.
Inconvenient behavior from a supporting character.
I grinned at the thought, then let the grin fade.
I loved thinking of myself as the protagonist. I wasn't about to lie about that. The first time I'd summoned my rifle, I had nearly vibrated out of my skin. Discovering the rocket configuration remained one of the finest moments of either lifetime.
I wanted dungeons. Ancient ruins. Impossibly beautiful cities hidden beyond mountains. Friendly rivalries that became legendary friendships. A tournament where everybody underestimated me right up until they regretted it.
Eventually, when I was older, I wanted romance too. The kind with ridiculous misunderstandings and a festival beneath glowing lanterns.
I wanted the whole damned package.
But I also knew what blood smelled like after the excitement passed. I knew injuries didn't become less frightening because someone called them character development. And I knew a rescued boy could spend weeks learning how to set out a uniform because being useful felt safer than simply being wanted.
My wishes hadn't disappeared.
They had acquired complications.
Milo arrived before supper carrying my clean cuffs and a folded academy notice. He placed both on the desk, then checked the lamp oil.
"How were lessons?" I asked.
"We practiced inventory records."
"Any casualties?"
"One missing towel."
"A dangerous profession."
He smiled while adjusting the lamp wick. His movements had become surer. He no longer watched my face after every task, waiting to find out whether he'd done something wrong.
"Lottie wrote," he added.
"Oh?"
"She says the housekeeper let her help arrange flowers. She drew them."
"Recognizable flowers?"
"Mostly."
He sounded so fond that I laughed.
After he left for his own meal, I finally finished the essay. I even removed the sentence about the king's intelligence.
Growth. Maturity. Academic cowardice.
Whatever worked.
That evening, I went to the training yard alone. I summoned the carbine and checked its reservoir, then practiced movements Veronica had drilled into me until thought gave way to habit. No firing. No notifications. Just foot placement, balance, and the familiar comfort of a weapon held correctly.
I didn't need to pretend the ordinary parts were disappointing.
I had spent one life treating the future as the place where everything worthwhile waited. Somehow, worthwhile things had kept happening while I was looking past them.
I wasn't making that mistake again.
I still wanted the adventure. Gods, I wanted it. I wanted to step into a dungeon with Tomas beside me and discover something neither of us had imagined. I wanted to become powerful enough to choose where I went instead of waiting for permission.
But I wanted to come back afterward.
To letters on my desk. To Milo complaining about muddy boots. To family dinners where Mother asked whether I was eating enough and Father pretended not to enjoy my stories.
I dismissed the rifle and headed inside.
I had built a small beginning here: a friendship, a household I cared about, a place at the academy, and enough trust that people expected me to return.
Now I was building the strength to go farther.
Not because another life might be better.
Because I wanted to find out how much I could enjoy this one.