If nothing goes wrong, I should be the protagonist this time.
My mom gave me this name because she hoped I’d grow up to be as accomplished as a duke.
My dad wanted to name me Dukang, saying Dukang was the God of Wine and would be even more promising.
Mom smacked him across the head and said, “Dukang’s just a drunkard. What’s so promising about that?” So in the end, I became Duke.
Sometimes I wonder—if I’d really been named Dukang, would I have actually become successful?
After drifting through life for half of it…
Today, I finally managed to do something worthwhile.
I jumped off the seventh floor to save a girl I’d never even met.
Well, to be precise—
I’m still in the middle of falling.
At least I finally got to be the hero for once.
I just hope that when the newspapers report this, they’ll use a flattering photo of me.
And I hope that girl remembers me.
I only caught a quick glimpse of her, but she seemed pretty cute.
I should hit the ground any second now.
Yet at the very last moment of my life, the only thing on my mind is—
“Please don’t let my face get smashed too badly.”
Unfortunately, that last wish probably isn’t coming true.
Because I’m falling headfirst…
???
…This feels a little strange.
My physics grades weren’t exactly great, but even I know it only takes a few seconds to fall from the seventh floor.
So why does it feel like I’ve been falling for an entire century?
My eyelids are incredibly heavy.
I can’t open them at all.
Then—
Splash!
A huge mouthful of water rushed into my mouth.
Fishy.
Salty.
Astringent.
Bitter.
My first reaction was:
Damn it…
I fell into the ocean!
I’d fallen off a fishing boat before.
It felt exactly like this.
My second reaction was:
How the hell could there possibly be an ocean beneath a building?!
My third reaction…
An overwhelming wave of dizziness.
The tremendous impact of the seawater, the icy feeling of suffocation, and the mouthful of seawater I’d swallowed left my mind drifting in and out of consciousness.
I knew I couldn’t fall asleep now…
But…
I really didn’t have any strength left.
Half-conscious, half-awake, through my blurry vision, I thought I saw a mermaid swimming toward me.
The next instant…
Everything went black.
Just before I completely lost consciousness, I felt something soft and warm press gently against my lips.
…
“Warning! Warning! Host, your life is currently in grave danger.”
A cold mechanical voice echoed inside my head.
Mixed into it were all sorts of noises…
The mournful blare of horns.
The thunder of galloping hooves.
The shrill neighing of horses.
Gunfire…
And countless whooshing sounds from things I couldn’t identify.
Damn it.
Why is it so noisy?
Can’t a man even sleep in peace?
“Electrical stimulation will commence in ten seconds. Countdown begins. Ten… nine…”
Electrical stimulation your ass.
“…Three… Two… One… Zero!”
Bzzzzt!
It felt like I’d just been struck by lightning!
“AAAHHH—! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!”
Like a dying man suddenly sitting bolt upright from his sickbed, Duke jolted awake.
Then…
Looking at the epic battlefield before him, his mind went blank.
Three philosophical questions instinctively surfaced:
Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I doing?
“Congratulations, Host. You have successfully crossed countless light-years and dimensional barriers, arriving in the parallel-universe Marvel World. As one of the one-in-a-billion lucky survivors, you have been granted technical support from the ‘Strongest Talent System.'”
Marvel?
Duke froze for a moment.
Then he pointed toward the breathtakingly beautiful Gal Gadot, who was fighting invaders in a bloody battle on the distant beach, and shouted,
“System, can you be even a little more reliable?! Marvel world? Then who the hell is that?!”
I’ve transmigrated?
Forget about that for now!
The Talent System?
That can wait too!
I just want to know—
Since when does Wonder Woman show up in the Marvel Universe?!
And the scene before him…
Was clearly the beach defense battle from Wonder Woman (2017).
The same beach.
The same massive rocks.
A group of women dressed like Spartans—
(Please forgive the protagonist. He couldn’t tell the difference between Spartan armor and Amazon armor. As far as he was concerned, they were both from somewhere around the Aegean Sea.)
—fighting against foreign soldiers dressed in old military uniforms and armed with bolt-action rifles.
Then he spotted a familiar figure.
Wasn’t that Gal Gadot?
That flawless, 360-degree beauty?
Unlike many other transmigration protagonists, his first thought wasn’t that this was a movie set.
After all…
He’d fallen from the seventh floor.
There was no way he could somehow fall across countries and land perfectly on the set of Wonder Woman.
Besides, by the time he’d fallen, the movie had already been out for several years.
So…
Either he’d transmigrated.
Or he was dreaming.
He slapped himself across the face.
It hurt.
It hurt a lot.
Very, very much.
No doubt about it.
He’d transmigrated.
Apparently into the DC movie universe.
Why couldn’t it have been Marvel?
I barely know anything about DC!
Well…
I only really watched the Marvel movies too…
And this damn System still insisted this was Marvel.
Was it messing with him?
“The System has detected a memory fragment within the Host that closely resembles this world’s setting… Analyzing… Analyzing…”
“Preliminary analysis complete.”
“This world shares approximately 30% overlap with the Host’s remembered DC Movie Universe, and approximately 60% overlap with the Marvel Universe.”
“Therefore, this System designates this world as the Marvel World.”
“Further details are left for the Host to explore.”
Duke blinked blankly.
“…Fine. You’re the System. Whatever you say.”
You could’ve just said this world is a Marvel + DC crossover universe.
Why waste so many words?
…Wait a minute.
Thirty plus sixty only equals ninety.
Where did the remaining ten percent go?
But now wasn’t the time to worry about that.
“So… What kind of system are you?”
“‘The Strongest Talent System.'”
“Mind explaining what that actually does?”
“The Host’s life is currently in grave danger. Please prioritize activating the Beginner’s Gift Pack.”
A Beginner’s Gift Pack, huh?
Duke didn’t immediately agree.
Instead, he cautiously poked his head out from behind the rocks and glanced toward the fierce battle on the beach.
Then he immediately ducked back down.
Arrows flew through the air—
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Bullets whizzed past—
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
On the cliff behind him, the corpse of a fallen female warrior dangled from a rope, swaying back and forth in the wind.
It looked oddly comical.
This…
Was a battlefield.
This…
Was death.
Duke was seriously panicking.