It was just another lazy afternoon, the kind where the sun felt too warm and the breeze too light to actually matter. I was walking home from school with my friends, laughing, teasing, arguing about some dumb thing like always.
"Well, I'm telling you, Sword Slash Heaven is insane," Ren said, his voice full of passion. "The plot twists? The power system? Absolute banger."
Run nodded like her life depended on it. "And the MC's journey? Come on! From orphan to savior of the World? That's peak storytelling."
I let out a short snort. "Bullshit."
They turned to look at me.
"Seriously," I added. "The MC's naïve as hell. Like, painfully dumb. Every time I tried reading it, I had to stop because I was dying inside."
"Huh?" Wira raised an eyebrow at me. "You literally read up to volume seventeen. I saw you reading it in the library."
The others burst out laughing.
Traitors.
I shrugged, unbothered. "I read it for the world-building. The setting's actually pretty solid. If only they swapped the MC with the villain…"
"Count Leofred von Nachtstein?" Run asked, eyes lighting up.
I pointed at her. "Exactly. Now he's a character worth following."
"He's a complete monster, though," Jaka said. "Cunning, brutal, manipulative, dude betrayed his own kingdom twice."
"Yeah," I said, grinning. "And yet I still rooted for him. Too bad the MC had that god-tier plot armor or Leofred would've ended the story in volume five."
"Agreed," Wira said, adjusting his bag. "The protagonist is just... filler."
"If only he wasn't the main character," I muttered, more to myself. "He's garbage."
And that's when I heard the sound.
A low rumble, too fast and too close.
"Oi! Watch out!" Ran yelled.
I turned my head, and saw it.
The front grill of a white delivery truck. Headlights glaring. Tires screaming.
And me, standing like an idiot, my eyes still stuck halfway between fantasy and reality.
Then
Impact.
Pain.
A throbbing, dull pressure right at the back of my skull, as if a truck had slammed into me.
Oh… wait.
I groaned and blinked slowly, eyes struggling to adjust to the dim, golden glow of chandeliers above me. The ceiling was carved wood. Ornate. Too fancy. Too… unfamiliar.
Where the hell am I?
The scent of lavender and old books filled the air. My gaze wandered around, thick velvet curtains, polished floors, antique furniture, walls lined with paintings of people who looked like they hadn't smiled since birth.
This wasn't my room.
This wasn't any room I knew.
Confused, I sat up.
Or… I tried to.
My body felt off. My limbs were heavy, like I was wearing five layers of clothes soaked in mud. And my hands, God, my hands, they looked swollen, bloated. Like they'd been stung by every bee on Earth.
"What the…?"
I scrambled off the plush bed, nearly tipping over in the process. My balance was off. My entire center of gravity was off. My body felt like it was wrapped in… extra.
I staggered across the room and spotted an old mirror by the wall. I gripped its frame, breathing hard, and looked.
I froze.
Looking back at me wasn't me.
It was… some overfed noble brat. Round like a meatball. Face bloated, skin pale. Hair jet-black, not the stylish kind, more like the void of human hope. And his eyes… red. Deep red, like freshly spilled blood. Like the last thing you see in a horror movie before the screen cuts to black.
And the stomach.
Dear God, the stomach. It jutted forward like a whole other being. A grotesque orb of flesh.
"This isn't real," I whispered. "This can't be real…"
I touched the mirror. The reflection did the same.
This had to be a dream. A freakishly vivid nightmare. Any second now, someone would shake me awake and tell me to stop drooling on my desk.
But then… the name hit me.
Adam Blackthorn.
An extra. A literal background character from Sword Slash Heaven.
One who gets mocked, bullied, and discarded in chapter four. A complete joke of a noble from a disgraced house. I remembered him because, fun fact, he gets turned into a pig in a side quest.
"No way," I muttered, heart pounding. "I… transmigrated? Into him?"
Of all the characters…
Of all the people in that story…
Why him?
Why me?
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I tried to calm down. I really did. But how the hell was I supposed to stay calm when I had just woken up in the body of a bloated pig?
"This can't be happening," I muttered, clenching my fat fingers. "Seriously? Why not some handsome protagonist with plot armor and a harem the size of a kingdom?"
Nope. Not me.
I had to end up as Adam Blackthorn, a walking insult. A noble joke. The kind of background character you forget existed until he gets killed off in the most pathetic way possible.
But maybe… just maybe this was a blessing in disguise.
Because if memory served me right, the Blackthorn family, despite their current mediocrity, once held something incredible.
A cultivation method lost to history. One that could harness both mana and aura. A hybrid path that only the villain, Count Leofred von Nachtstein, was supposed to uncover later in the story.
Harmony of the Dual Spiral.
That technique… was in this house.
Or rather, buried somewhere in it, forgotten, abandoned, and declared heretical by the very idiot ancestor who once possessed it. He actually hid it away because he thought it was "unnatural" and "dangerous."
If I ever meet that fool, I swear I'll punch his ghost in the teeth.
No wonder this family fell from glory. Still wealthy, sure, but hollow, clinging to faded prestige while the world passed them by.
"Tch… useless nobility," I spat under my breath. "But it's fine. It's not all bad. I've got time. I can lose this damn fat," I muttered, poking at my oversized stomach. "And I know what's coming."
Because of course, there's the matter of the fiancée. The one who ultimately kills Adam in a humiliating, tragic end.
Oh, I'll deal with her.
But not yet.
First, I need to build strength. Lay low. Secure the method. And rewrite everything.
Artifacts meant for the MC? I couldn't care less.
Why let him have them?
What's the point of having knowledge if I'm too scared to use it?
Those dumbass extras in other novels always made me puke. "Oh no, I might ruin the plot! I don't know what happens if I interfere!" Grow a spine.
I'm not like them.
I'll grab every advantage I can get.
I'll take what should've been his.
And anyone who dared to mock me in this life, anyone who looked down on Adam Blackthorn—
Will kneel.