John's head throbbed as memories—some his own, some foreign—swirled and clashed in his mind.
He sat up slowly, the mattress springs creaking beneath him. The room was just as shabby in daylight, but now he could make out a warped door across from him and a rickety wardrobe, precariously close to collapse.
John pressed a palm to his chest, feeling strange in his new body—leaner, tougher, scarred from a life he hadn't lived.
Memories flickered: hunger, fights. He realized he wasn't just in another world—he had inherited the life of someone else. Here, he was Kylar, an orphan scraping for survival in a city's unforgiving slums.
He stared into the cracked, cloudy mirror and found the reflection of a nine-year-old boy gazing back. The child's face was gaunt, cheeks hollow from hunger and hardship. Dark black hair stuck out in uneven tufts, the result of hurried self-cutting or long neglect.
His skin was pale. Eyes, too large for his thin face, glinted with wary sharpness—deep-set and ringed with the shadows of countless sleepless nights. His lips, dry and cracked, pressed together in a determined line.
His shoulders were narrow, arms thin beneath a threadbare shirt far too big, its sleeves frayed and hanging loose at the wrists. Collarbones jutted visibly above the worn fabric. Hands, trembling slightly, gripped the sink's edge—fingers stained with dirt and chipped at the nails.
Despite his average appearance, something was striking in the way he held himself: the quiet resilience in his posture, the hardness in those watchful eyes, and the subtle tension of a body always braced for trouble. In his reflection, survival had etched itself into every line and shadow, marking him as ordinary in body but extraordinary in spirit.
Among Kylar's memories, he found that this world was quite different from Earth. Here, people became "awakened" at age ten—the nature of this awakening was a mystery to him, lost to lack of education and the struggles of orphanage life in the slums.
His parents had died long ago, though he could barely remember them. Life was unfair, ruled by a familiar truth: the strong took all, and the weak lost everything.
Weakness, in this new world, was a sin.
John—Kylar—understood that to live freely and never again be a slave to others' words, he had to become strong enough to bend the rules to his will. He would have to shed his past, let John fade away, and truly become Kylar.
"My dreams are worth fighting for, even if others can't see them."
In this new world, he would chase after desire—savor every feeling he'd been denied before: love, happiness, care. From today onward, there was no John. There was only Kylar.
A grin tugged at his lips as memories of Earth's novels surfaced—stories of protagonists who receive miraculous systems after reincarnation. It was worth a try. Kylar called out: "Status! Inventory!" Over and over, he tried for nearly an hour.
Finally, he sighed—the system he craved did not appear. Still, his new resolve remained unchanged. He would live this new life fully, face every challenge, and carve his own path.
"Every challenge is a chance to grow stronger."
At that moment, his will became something sharp and indomitable. Deep inside, something shifted. No one noticed—not even Kylar himself—but the first spark of something extraordinary had taken root.