Whoooosh—
The white gauze curtains fluttered as the sea breeze, tinged faintly with the smell of blood and salt, poured into the room, brushing across everything like an invisible hand.
A whiteboard covered in photographs and crisscrossed with dense red lines. A cluttered desk. And on the desk, a black leather ID case flipped open in the wind, revealing a stamped photograph and the information beneath it:
Izu University, School of Medicine, First Year — Sorajima Yuuki.
Tap.
A hand came down and pinned the student ID in place. The boy—black-haired, red-eyed, just like the photo—pulled open a drawer and tossed the card inside. Rubbing at his head, he picked up a pen and hurriedly wrote on a scrap of paper he had torn off at random:
"My eighteenth birthday has already passed, and nothing strange has happened. Did I really hit the jackpot and end up in the world I always dreamed of? Was that sentence I saw back then just a hallucination right after I transmigrated?"
The pen paused.
He turned his head toward the mirror hanging on the wall of the rental apartment. The boy reflected in it had black hair, crimson eyes, and a sharply defined face that, by any standard, counted as handsome.
But there was little excitement in his eyes. He had been looking at that handsome face for nearly ten years now. Any thrill he might have felt had long since worn off.
Ten years ago, he had taken over this body—the sole survivor of a car crash. Good looks, a bit of savings, dead parents. A textbook protagonist template. Just when he had been preparing to enjoy his new life to the fullest after his initial shock, he found a sentence in Sorajima Yuuki's diary that scared the cold sweat out of him.
Even now, he remembered it clearly.
It had been written in simplified Chinese, a line of blood-red characters:
Live.
"So I spent ages waiting for monsters to invade, the apocalypse to begin, spiritual energy to awaken, a system to activate, some kind of urban legend rule-horror to descend..."
The boy rubbed his chin and turned his gaze toward the photo-covered board. There were pictures of men and women, military bases, bizarre buildings, and all sorts of urban legends. At the very center was a huge red question mark.
"A question mark I drew? Why don't I remember that?"
Yuuki clutched his head and thought hard, but got nowhere. In the end, he brought over a metal bucket, set the scrap of paper he had just scribbled on alight, and tossed in the photos and documents from the board as well.
The weak flame swayed in the sea breeze coming through the window, lighting up the side of his face. He stared absentmindedly as the photographs curled and blackened in the fire—pictures of a cold-faced black-haired girl, of a boy with naturally dead fish eyes. The more he watched them burn, the more expressive his own blank face became.
"No inexplicable gas explosions. No Avengers. No Men in Black organization either. Sure, there are conflicts and wars in the world, but overall it's peaceful—pretty much the same as Earth in my previous life. If there's any difference—"
He looked at the nearly-ash photographs and a series of names passed through his mind.
Grand Blue, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Hyouka, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou... and a few people and events he still hadn't managed to verify. But fundamentally, they all shared one thing in common:
This was a normal world of youthful slice-of-life stories, where the main plot was the school lives of boys and girls. The worst injury one should have to worry about was heartbreak. Nothing that required violence to solve.
"And then I never found that diary again. Maybe I just read too many web novels in my last life and ended up with a persecution complex."
Yuuki's mouth twitched. That one line had left him paranoid for years. He had lived a thoroughly exhausting life because of it.
Waiting for the end of the world was the most agonizing part.
Little by little, he had grown lax. Especially in the last two years, he had started putting more of his attention into real life.
"So I decided to hedge my bets. Keep preparing on one hand, and enroll at Izu University on the other."
At that thought, a smile rose to his face without him even noticing.
Azusa-senpai with her easygoing personality. Nanaka with that explosively curvy figure. At any moment, he could begin a sparkling youth-and-romance storyline of his own.
He would enjoy the happiest days of campus life. After graduation, he'd become a literary plagiarist and build up some wealth. He'd start a family with the person he loved, and have a few idiot friends who would stick with him for life.
It was an ordinary life.
And a happy one.
Maybe not grand enough to live up to words like transmigration or rebirth, but honestly—what did that have to do with him?
Put simply, he hadn't asked to come here. The fact that he had spent all these years being so cautious was impressive enough already. Put this on any average transmigrator and they'd probably have started hanging around Shuchiin Academy at age eight, charming girls until they all turned into childhood friends.
The paper scraps burned to nothing. Yuuki lifted the metal bucket, dumped the ashes into the drain, then grabbed a brush and wiped the writing from the whiteboard clean. When the bristles passed over the blood-red question mark, he paused for a split second before scrubbing it away too.
"What a waste of all the suffering I went through all these years. But looking on the bright side, everything I learned can still be used to protect myself and my home. Worst case, if I want to be a player, having a superior body helps too, right?"
He tossed the brush aside and rolled his shoulders. His mind was already busy planning a brand-new life when his gaze drifted to the coffee table in front of the single sofa.
There was an idol magazine there.
On the cover was a beautiful girl with waist-length black hair and pale violet eyes. A pink bunny hairclip sat in her hair, and on her face was an almost perfect smile.
Sakurajima Mai.
A young idol taking Japan by storm.
And aside from the fact that she was yet another "familiar face," there was something else Yuuki cared about even more:
Of all the information he had gathered so far, this was probably the only work that contained supernatural elements. And yet after lying low for all these years, even after repeatedly visiting Kanagawa Prefecture, he had never discovered anything unusual.
"By my calculations, the timing should be about right. If there's still nothing wrong this time, then I can finally stop worrying. I'll join the diving club and spend every day blissfully drunk on oolong tea."
Just imagining it made his heart beat faster. It felt as though emotions he had kept repressed for so long were finally about to break through the restraints of reason. At last, he could enjoy life without fear.
He hurriedly put on his coat, went to the entryway to change his shoes, then hesitated just as he was about to open the door. Turning around, he reached into the hidden compartment of the shoe cabinet and pulled out several gleaming scalpels.
Their mirror-bright blades reflected the smile on his face, and in that instant a flood of memories flashed through his mind.
The kendo dojo.
The octagon cage.
The gym.
The racetrack.
The dissection room...
"I can't believe I was this afraid of dying. All that blood and sweat for some crisis that might never come, and the only reward is that my body developed pretty well?"
Yuuki sighed, feeling more than ever that he really did have a persecution complex. Back then, why hadn't he considered the possibility that all those dangerous activities might kill him even faster if something went wrong?
"Forget it. It's all in the past. At least it'll make for good bragging material."
The blades disappeared into his pocket, like killing intent returning to its sheath.
Then came the click of the latch.
Yuuki twisted the handle and took one step forward—only for the smile on his face to freeze instantly, his crimson pupils shrinking.
There was no warm afternoon sunlight outside.
No sun-heated sea breeze.
Even the floor beneath his feet felt strangely soft.
What lay before him was a corridor—a corridor that absolutely should not have existed in a cheap apartment building that rented for twenty thousand yen a month.
It was dim, utterly devoid of sunlight, with a thick gray carpet underfoot. The pale green walls carried the scent of age and antiquity. In that instant, Yuuki felt his excited heart stop beating. Even his neck seemed to stiffen like rotting wood. Several full seconds passed before he managed to turn, inch by inch.
There was still no sign of the familiar staircase, nor the noisy brat who usually ran around the building. The only light came from the black wall lamps, casting a faint glow. The corridor stretched on in monotonous, old-fashioned silence, disappearing into darkness too deep to see the end.
Did I wake up wrong?
For a moment, Yuuki thought he must still be dreaming.
Then, like someone had stabbed him in the ass with a knife, he spun around at top speed. His hand quickly found something cold—the shape of a doorknob.
Ah... this...
He didn't turn it.
His narrowed eyes blinked several times in rapid succession, because reflected in them was no longer the sixty-centimeter-wide apartment door plastered with flyers.
Instead, it had become a towering oak door taller than a man and several meters wide.
There were no unnecessary carvings on its surface, yet just like the walls and the carpet, it radiated the feel of an antique. The smell of old wood drifted into his nose.
Yuuki's hand rested on the doorknob, motionless.
Then, amidst his uncertainty and disbelief, he heard a strange voice.
It had no discernible gender, no traceable source. It was more like countless men, women, children, and elders speaking at once—laughing, crying, growling, sighing. The sounds were chaotic, yet every single word came through with terrifying clarity.
[Welcome to the Reincarnation Game.]
[As one of the fortunate few who have risen above the common masses, you will experience the supernatural, and become the supernatural.]
[Now—open the door.]
So it spoke.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 126)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter134)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 87
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 79
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 73
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 49
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 45
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 45
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 31
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 27
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 26
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