Free Web NovelChapter 2: A dream?
I couldn’t see anything, everything was dark.
Cold crept onto my limbs, sending chills down my spine.
In that darkness, I felt myself being suffocated...as if I was deep inside a pool of water — drowning in it.
But in the darkness, I felt light hitting my eyelids. So I opened my eyes, seeing nothing but blue and fish swimming around.
What the hell?
I had found myself at the bottom of a lake and I was indeed drowning. To add to that, my body felt foreign and sluggish.
But that didn’t matter. At that moment all I wanted was to breathe air and not have water inside my lungs.
So I mustered every ounce of strength I had left and swam upwards — to the light.
My head emerged out of the water. I coughed out the water I had swallowed earlier and gasped for air.
It felt so refreshing to finally have air inside my lungs and not water.
Truly, drowning was the most painful way to die and I had just survived.
"Where am I?" I muttered, my voice sounding different than it was supposed to as I looked around.
I was floating on a small lake, about 100 meters wide with trees and plants around its edges. At the shore, with my vision now clear, I could see a woman standing on the dry ground, wearing a maid uniform with a baffled expression on her face.
Not understanding where I was, I decided to swim to the shore and ask. Though my body felt weird, I was still able to swim without a problem.
Just before I reached the shore, the maid ran towards me, splashing the water with her hurried movements.
"Young master, are you alright?" She asked, concerned.
I frowned.
Did she just call me young master?
My hand flew to my face as I suddenly got a headache. It was so painful that it felt like someone was hammering nails into my skull.
Then came the memories. The man I had met earlier, the deal and then blacking out.
But just as I thought the memories would end there, new ones came — memories that didn’t belong to me.
"Young master, are you feeling alright?" The maid called out.
After what felt like minutes, the pain finally subsided and I could now think clearly, understanding what kind of situation I was currently in.
Through the gaps of my fingers, I could see my reflection on the water.
Shoulder-length white hair, now wet and sticking to my pale skin, crowned my head. Deep purple eyes with an inexplicable amount of tiredness in them, set in a face far too handsome compared to my previous one, stared back at me.
A stranger stared back at me.
Well, not a stranger anymore, because I now knew who I was.
I was currently in the body of the youngest son of a Duke family. A child who was deemed worthless and scrutinized by his own family.
A boy who had been drowned inside the lake behind his very own home.
"Haha." I chuckled as I ran both my wet hands down my face and looked up at the sunny sky.
"Thank goodness that you are alright, we need to take you to a doctor—"
The maid spoke again but I ignored her.
Somehow, and I don’t know how, that man had managed to put me inside my own book, possessing the body of a character I didn’t even remember creating.
What kind of situation was this?
I genuinely thought he was a lunatic, because things like transmigration didn’t exist outside of books. But here I was, inside the body of a character from my own story.
I couldn’t believe it. So there was only one answer.
"This is a dream." I muttered.
A very lucid dream.
Because hear me out, there was no way this was real. That man in yellow probably used some kind of powder to put me to sleep and make me dream this. There was just no way.
Even though I was in denial, a part of me was slightly leaning towards this actually being real.
I mean, the woman in front of me looked very real to me.
My attention finally moved to the maid who had been speaking to me with concern.
Concern for the boy she had just tried to kill.
It was a pity — she was really pretty, but I had to kill her.
"Young master, can you hear me?" The maid said as she touched my shoulder.
My eyes met hers and I tried to give the most normal smile I could.
"Yes. I can hear the voice of a dead woman." I said, looking at her.
The maid’s eyebrows quivered in confusion at the ominous words. And when she looked into my purple eyes, where the smile on my lips never reached, she suddenly felt fear.
But just before she could ask what I meant, my hand flew towards her neck, grabbed it and slammed her down into the water.
"Y-Young master! What are you doing—!" she tried to scream but I pushed her head under, drowning her words.
She screamed and screamed but only bubbles came out of her mouth.
I then pulled her head out.
She coughed out water, her eyes all red.
"AHH, have mercy young master! Why did you try to kill me?" She begged.
I leaned in and whispered in her ear. "You tried to kill me first. Why wouldn’t I kill you?"
The color drained from her face at those words.
"No, please—"
I pushed her head under the water again, my fingers wrapped tightly around her neck.
Splash! Splash!
Her body thrashed around, splashing water over me.
Her hands slapped me on the face and chest while her feet kicked continuously, trying to push me away, but I didn’t budge. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Her fingernails scratched my skin but failed to tear it and broke.
I watched silently as her movements slowed down bit by bit, until she stopped resisting altogether.
Her hands fell lifelessly, splashing into the water.
She was dead.
I let go of her bruised neck and stood up.
This was the least I could do for the previous owner of this body.
The maid had pushed him into the lake knowing he couldn’t swim at all, and he had drowned.
Drowning had to be up there among the worst ways to die.
I had killed the one who killed him, giving her the same taste of death and avenging him in kind.
"May you rest in peace." I said a small prayer for the dead boy.
As if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, my body felt light.
Whether that was the boy’s soul finally leaving or not, I didn’t know.
Nor could I be bothered to care.
"I seem so calm despite just killing someone." I said to myself.
Well, technically it wasn’t a real person since this was a dream, so I didn’t feel any remorse. And she deserved it.
I started gathering my thoughts.
I was currently in the body of the youngest son of the Laurent family. A boy who was called trash because he had failed to awaken a Main Story.
I know you might be confused, so let me explain.
A Main Story was the power an Awakener unlocks when they go through a tough or dangerous situation.
Through it, you could use mana and unlock abilities based on one’s soul.
Anyone could awaken as long as they met the requirements.
And the owner of this body hadn’t been able to awaken no matter how hard he tried. So he was considered a failure and an outcast in his own family.
That would have been fine if he were part of a normal family.
But he wasn’t.
He was part of one of the strongest families in the Empire — a Duke-ranked family.
Not awakening meant death in a family where the strong were appreciated and the weak were discarded.
But the kid they called worthless was able to awaken. In death.
Whether it was because of me taking over or not, I didn’t know.
Unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t be here to witness it.
Oh right, there’s one thing I almost forgot to tell you.
In my book, Awakeners use systems! Very amazing, right?!
Something that you, the reader, would definitely enjoy — but those bastards from the publishing company called it trash, so yeah.
So I called out my system.
"Story System."
A black screen popped up inside my head.
