The steel-toed boot didn't knock Cassidy out, it woke him up, slamming into his cheekbone like an alarm clock made of hate. The first thing he became aware of was not light, or breath, or even thought. It was the thump, a boot, slamming into his ribs with the kind of conviction usually reserved for religious martyrs and very angry horses.
He grunted. That was the extent of his rebuttal. The world responded with another kick.
"On your feet, maggot!"
Cassidy had, in fact, never seen a maggot walk. He doubted the captain had either. But the point was clear, and currently being driven into his side with all the nuance of a battering ram.
He tried to sit up.
This, unfortunately, was taken as an act of rebellion.
A gauntleted hand seized his collar and introduced his skull to the nearest wall. They got along famously. The stone was cold. His head was not. The stone remained unmoved. Cassidy's nose, on the other hand, shifted dramatically to the left and began leaking valuable internal fluids.
He didn't cry out.
Not because he was brave. But because he couldn't. Crying out requires breath, and Cassidy had lost that somewhere between kick number three and the impromptu masonry lesson.
There was shouting. Always shouting. The captain's voice grated like a cheese wheel on fire. Something about discipline. Something about disgrace. Something about "waking up late" as if Cassidy had chosen to sleep in rather than collapse at 2 a.m. after mucking the stables with a fever.
He caught words. "Lazy." "Worthless." "Pathetic."
Cassidy didn't argue. Not out loud.
He knew how the world worked. The system was the system, and you didn't fight the system when the system had a sword, and you had a concussion.
Eventually, they tired of him. The boot stopped falling. The gauntlet let go.
He slid down the wall like poorly cooked porridge and ended up on the ground, face down in the cold, packed dirt of the barracks courtyard.
His ears rang. His ribs ached in a way that suggested bones had opinions now. His vision pulsed. He tasted iron.
He closed his eyes.
And then he opened them again.
Not because of pain, this time.
But because of something else entirely.
A soundless hum, like pressure in the air. Static behind his eyes. Then, floating in the center of his vision,
[SYSTEM DETECTED.]
[Empty Vessel Located.]
[Begin Integration?]
Cassidy stared.
He blinked. The text didn't go away. It hung there, as solid as smoke, as real as memory. Bright blue. Crisp-edged. No torchlight. No parchment. Just… there.
He squinted at it.
"…What," he croaked. Or tried to. His throat mostly made a sound like paper being crumpled.
He looked around. No one else saw it. The courtyard was empty now. The captain had left, triumphant. The stable hands had looked away, as always.
He was alone.
Except for the glowing words.
[Begin Integration?]
There was no context. No explanation. Just that.
Cassidy reached out. Not with his hand,it didn't feel like that kind of thing,but with his will, a sort of hesitant mental nudge, the same way you might poke a suspicious animal to see if it bites.
Nothing happened.
Then he thought the word: Yes?
A faint click, like a lock turning somewhere far away.
And then,
[Initializing…]
[Confirming Compatibility…]
[Installing Core Permissions…]
His heart thudded.
This wasn't magic. Not exactly. Magic was noisy, rituals, chants, sparkles. This was clean. Precise. Cold. It felt… wrong. Not evil. Not even malicious. Just off.
Like the world had opened a door it didn't know it had, and Cassidy had stepped through without meaning to.
A strange stillness settled over him. The pain receded,not gone, but distant, like his body had been filed under "Miscellaneous" for the time being. He could feel his thoughts moving faster, too fast. Like something was tightening the screws on the inside.
And beneath it all, a whisper. Not a voice. A sense.
That something had just started.
And that whatever it was,
it wasn't finished with him yet.
Cassidy had heard of divine intervention.
Usually, it involved omens. Burning bushes. Glowing swords. The occasional voice from the clouds yelling at shepherds.
This… was not that.
This was interface design.
The next window floated in front of him, clean and sharp, flickering ever so faintly at the edges. A box. A prompt. Three symbols lined up in neat columns beneath the words:
[CHOOSE YOUR PRIMARY CLASS PATH:]
[WARRIOR] [MAGE] [ROGUE]
He stared.
It didn't look magical, exactly. More like a menu. Something you'd see carved into a crystal screen in a university's top-floor arcanics lab, or hastily sketched on parchment by some overexcited guild intern pitching a terrible quest system.
Cassidy's fingers twitched. Or… thought about twitching. His body wasn't really under control right now. But his mind, his will, reached toward Mage. Not because he'd ever cast a spell. Not because he fancied himself a prodigy.
Because he wanted to learn. Because knowledge was power. And Cassidy had never had much of either.
He focused on the icon. A staff crossed over an open book. Mage. That one.
The symbol glowed faintly under his attention. His heart lifted.
And then it snapped sideways.
The highlight vanished.
The cursor, the glowing blue selector, slid across the screen.
Deliberately. Smoothly. Like a hand holding a mouse. Like someone dragging the pointer across a menu.
It hovered over Warrior.
Cassidy flinched.
"No. What, ?"
Click.
[CLASS SELECTED: WARRIOR]
His stomach sank.
He didn't touch anything. He knew that. He wasn't even sure if he could.
He tried to pull back, to refocus, to grab control,but the screen was already gone.
New windows bloomed in its place like weeds sprouting through cracked pavement.
[SUBCLASS OPTIONS:]
[Gladiator] [Knight] [Juggernaut]
The cursor moved again.
Not him.
Not the system.
Someone else.
There was intention behind the motion. That's what terrified him most.
This wasn't a machine picking at random. This was someone reading through his life like a menu.
The cursor settled on Juggernaut.
Click.
[SUBCLASS SELECTED: JUGGERNAUT]
Cassidy didn't breathe.
He could feel them now, faintly Not a voice, not a presence, but a will. Somewhere, somehow, someone else was seated comfortably in the back of his skull, poking at his soul with a stick and going, "Huh. Let's try this one."
The stat screen opened.
[STAT ALLOCATION – MANUAL CONTROL DISABLED]
[Optimization Mode: ENABLED (External Operator)]
His mind reeled.
There was someone else. That was the only explanation. He was being puppeted. Not just taken over, configured. Like a character. Like a blank save file someone had found and decided to fill in while they waited for their real body to spawn.
He watched as sliders began to shift on their own:
Strength: 9
Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 3
Wisdom: 2
Charisma: 1
"Stop," Cassidy whispered, hoarse.
The system did not acknowledge him. Because it wasn't listening.
Whoever was clicking, whoever was choosing,wasn't him.
New boxes popped up. Faster now.
[TRAITS SELECTED:]
Blood for Blood – Gain +10% damage when below 50% healthMomentum Surge – Gain temporary damage resistance while sprintingBrutal Precision – 15% chance to inflict bleeding on heavy attacksSpeech Penalty: -10% effectiveness when using polysyllabic words
It wasn't a build.
It was a personality overwrite.
The kind of character you'd build if you wanted to smash things and grunt through dialogue trees.
Not him. Never him.
He opened his mouth again.
"Stop. Stop it, gods damn it, !"
[CONFIRM CHARACTER CREATION?]
He didn't get a choice.
The cursor moved.
Hovered.
Clicked.
[YES SELECTED.]
And in the silence that followed, Cassidy realized something he hadn't dared consider until now:
He wasn't in charge.
This wasn't his blessing.
It was someone else's
And he was just the Lamb being offered
[ERROR: Vessel is still conscious.]
[Signs of Self detected. Cognitive resistance exceeds acceptable thresholds.]
[Solution Found.]
Cassidy didn't have time to read the message.
It hit him anyway.
His body snapped backward,not fell, not flinched,snapped, like every tendon in his spine had just been yanked upward by a puppeteer with no concept of human anatomy. His heels scraped the stone floor as his back arched into an impossible bow. His arms flailed once,then locked. Fingers splayed. Ribs creaked. Something popped.
His jaw unhinged with a slick, meaty crack, wide enough to ruin it forever. Like it was trying to scream a sound too large for language. But it wasn't a sound that came.
It was something else.
Not air. Not light.
Something thick and pressurized, like boiling tar being force-fed through a funnel straight down his throat. It writhed,alive, furious. It wasn't heat, not exactly. It was something worse. Molten presence. The spiritual equivalent of being vomited into by a volcano with intent.
He tried to scream. Nothing.
He tried to claw at his throat. Nothing.
His mind thrashed in place, flailing like a moth in a jar as the pressure sank deeper, deeper, curling around his lungs, his stomach, his self. A sound escaped,not a scream, but something baser. A wet, bubbling sob, laced with static and bile and fear.
Then,
Stillness.
Silence.
And then… displacement.
He fell. But not physically.
No, that would've been a mercy.
He fell out of something. Out of skin. Out of breath. Out of personhood.
One moment he was Cassidy, trapped in a body.
The next, he was floating. Cold. Empty. Untethered.
A ghost with no grave.
Below, his body spasmed in the dust like a beetle on its back.
The others came running. Faces. Voices. The captain. The squires. The boy from the kitchens. Someone was holding his head like it still mattered.
Cassidy screamed.
But he had no mouth.
He blinked.
But he had no eyes.
And then, his eyes opened.
But they weren't his.
The body sat up.
Slow and unsteady. Hands flexed. Fingers wiggled, experimentally, like someone testing how meat worked. The jaw opened and closed once. Twice.
Then came the smile.
Not evil. Not gleeful.
Just… satisfied. Like a man who'd just unboxed something rare.
"Oh, nice," the voice murmured.
The body staggered to its feet. It didn't look around in panic or awe. It didn't speak to anyone. Instead, it wandered toward a fallen blade and angled the flat of it just enough to catch its reflection.
It stared at its own face for a long, quiet moment.
Then grinned.
Not at the face.
At the outcome.
"Alright," it said, voice nasal, a little too casual. "Let's go strength build."