I blinked, the ceiling coming into focus. It wasn't the white void, and it sure as hell wasn't the crushing weight of a granite slab.
"What the fuck?" I muttered, my voice sounding thin and reedy in the quiet air.
I sat up, my head spinning. It felt like a massive hangover, but the memories were crystal clear. The studio, the red-haired Hunter bitch, and then Eretria.
I could still feel the phantom grip of her walls milking me dry.
"I failed," I whispered, the panic rising. "She said I lost. How the fuck am I alive? Was the whole thing just some post-death hallucination?"
But I knew better. The sex had been too real, the goddess too powerful to be a brain-flicker on the way out.
Maybe she'd been bluffing? Maybe the void was just her way of making the stakes interesting?
"Hahaha!" I started laughing, a jagged, hysterical sound that filled the cramped room. "It was a joke. A cosmic fucking prank. She just wanted to see if I'd beg."
I raised a hand to wipe the cold sweat from my forehead and stopped dead.
I stared at the hand. It was pale. Narrow. The calluses from years of gym work and manual labor were gone. The skin was soft, the fingers thinner. This wasn't the hand of a man who'd spent a decade as a gym bro.
"Huh?"
I looked at the other one. Same thing. I looked like I'd never lifted anything heavier than a remote control in my life.
"WHAT THE FUCCCK!" I screamed, lunging out of the bed.
The bed wasn't mine. The room was a dump smaller than my studio apartment, smelling of stale noodles and cheap detergent. I looked down at my body and felt my stomach drop into my shoes.
The muscles I'd spent years carving out were gone. My chest was flat, my shoulders were narrow, and the rock-hard abs I used to sell scenes were replaced by the soft, doughy midsection of a teenager.
"No... no, no, no! This can't be happening!"
I felt my face with trembling fingers. My jawline felt softer, my nose a different shape. The panic was a goddamn flood.
I spotted a cracked mirror hanging on the wall near the bed. I scrambled toward it, my heart hammering against a ribcage that felt too small for my soul. I reached the glass and stared.
Staring back at me wasn't the rugged, camera-ready face of a seasoned gym bro. It was a kid. Maybe eighteen, nineteen at the absolute most. He wasn't ugly, he had sharp, high cheekbones and a pair of startling grey eyes that looked like they hadn't seen a day of trouble in their life.
But he was scrawny. A total beanpole. His black hair was a mess, and he lacked the muscle density that usually made women double-tap my profile.
"Fuck. I transmigrated?" The word felt heavy and tasted like a bad trope from one of those system webnovels.
Just when I thought Eretria had been a merciful goddess who let me keep my soul, the reality hit me like a bucket of ice water. She hadn't just let me go at all, she'd tricked me. She'd stripped me of the body I'd spent a decade sculpting and dumped my consciousness into this teenage spaghetti-man.
"She swapped my prime for this... this stick-figure," I snapped at the reflection. "Who the fuck even is this guy?"
Panic flared, and I did the only thing a man in my position would do. I fumbled with the waistband of my boxers and yanked them down.
I froze.
Staring back at me was a goddamn monster. This kid might have been lacking in the bicep department, but in the one area that actually mattered to my career, he was packing heat that made my previous body look like a warm-up act. It was heavy, thick, and looked like it belonged on an apex predator, not a high schooler.
I let out a long, shaky breath, a slow grin spreading across a face that wasn't mine.
"Well, damn," I muttered, the hysteria fading into a familiar confidence. "At least the Goddess left me with the important equipment. I can work with this."
The muscles I could build back. The face was decent enough to sell.
A sharp, digital chime echoed directly inside my skull.
DING!
A blue translucent screen flickered into existence, hovering in the stale air of the room. I froze. Only the Awakened got these, the hunters.
"A System? Did I transmigrate and trigger an Awakening at the same time?" My heart started hammering against my ribs again, but this time it wasn't panic, it was pure unfiltered adrenaline.
[WELCOME TO THE 100x BODY COUNT SYSTEM, HOST]
[Name: Duncan Heineken]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 0]
[Rank: F]
[Porn Scenes: 0]
[Active Years: 0]
[Skills: None]
"What the fuck is this?" I muttered, squinting at the floating text. "A system with a porn dashboard? The Goddess really does have a twisted sense of humor."
It was a hell of a lot to process. I'd spent my whole life watching the news about Hunters and their 'Strength' or 'Agility' stats. I'd never heard of a System that tracked your filmography.
"So, Duncan Heineken was the original owner of this stick-figure?" I scratched my head, feeling the unfamiliar texture of the hair. "What a shitty last name. Sounds like a budget beer."
Level zero. Rank F. I looked at the 'Body Count' stat: 0.
I let out a long, weary sigh. "Expected. With a twig-body like this, kid probably spent his nights soloing his own dungeon."
I scrolled down. My "Active Years" were zeroed out too. I glanced at a digital clock on the bedside table. 2036. Ten years since the mana apocalypse began. I was back at the start, in a world that was still burning but trying to pretend it was normal.
The screen flickered, shifting to a new tab with a header that felt like a personal insult.
[SYSTEM TUTORIAL: Stop Being a Sore Loser]
[Objective: Within one week, register with an Adult Talent Agency and bed at least one woman.]
[REWARDS:]
•Greater System Access
•Welcome Skill
"Register to an agency? That's the tutorial?" I barked out a laugh. "I get the 'fuck a girl' part...that's just a Tuesday....but the System is literally forcing me back into the industry? It really is a cosmic joke."
Outside, the muffled sound of cars honking and the distant, low hum of a mana-generator reached my ears. Somehow, the layout of the streets felt familiar, etched into the lizard brain of this new body.
"Fine," I growled, looking at my pale, scrawny reflection one last time. "I'll sell my soul again. I'll hit that record if it kills me, actually, it already did. This time, I'm doing it right."
I walked over to the sagging screen door and shoved it open. I was greeted by the sight of a crumbling concrete walkway and the smell of grease and stagnant water.
"Ah, fuck. I'm in Base 4."
The slums. The armpit of the city where the unawakened were left to rot. I fumbled through the pockets of a discarded jacket on a chair and found a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a cheap lighter. I sparked one up, taking a long, greedy drag and watching the smoke spiral into the smoggy air of the walkway.
"Having a rough day?"
The female voice came from my left. I turned, the cigarette still hanging from my lip.