"Ahh! Damn you, Isabella! Olivia and Leon!"
"I trusted you all! How could you!"
"If there is another life, I swear I’ll kill all of you!"
Waking up with a face full of sweat and veins bulging on the sides of his head, a handsome young man touched his face in panic, his fingers trembling with fear and bloodlust.
However, after opening his eyes, this panic was soon replaced with confusion as he couldn’t understand what was going on.
"What happened? Wasn’t I just betrayed by my teammates after eating the fruit of fate?"
"Where am I, and what happened?"
Calming down, Ethan began to survey his surroundings.
Right now, he was in a luxurious bedroom, surrounded by all kinds of paintings, with a chandelier over his head, lying on an all-white queen-sized bed.
A level of luxury he hadn’t seen in more than ten years.
"This painting, this bed..."
Standing up with a dazed expression, a thought suddenly came to his mind; however, reason told him it shouldn’t be possible.
With doubts in mind, he stood up from the bed and went to a nearby mirror.
"Sure enough, it’s me! And not only that, but no scars? Such fair skin?"
"Isn’t this my appearance from ten years ago?"
Looking at the blue eyes which seemed to mirror the morning skies, otherworldly silver hair that reached his waist and a face so handsome that even the most devout of nuns would have second thoughts.
This was undeniably his face from the past, but how could it be?
In the year 2027, he clearly remembered the apocalypse descending and all kinds of monsters coming into the world.
In that year, he failed to awaken an ability and was reduced to the dregs of society, a world where he could only beg, grovel and hide.
It wasn’t until he heard that there was an item called a fate fruit that could let other people awaken that he, his girlfriend at the time, Olivia, together with their other friends Isabella and Leon, decided to try and get it form
As he was the only one among them who hadn’t awakened.
"However, those bastards, I should have known they were never my friends after all; who would want to date an unawakened in that godforsaken world, much less be friends with them."
"Perhaps it was my own foolishness that led to my end."
Remembering how they had used him as bait to lure the zombie king who guarded the fruit away and even surrounded him after he managed to get the fruit, he couldn’t help but clench his fist in anger.
The left side of his chest still hurt from being pierced with Leon’s sword.
"Back then, to get back at them, even if I was dying, I forcefully swallowed the fruit whole so they wouldn’t have a chance to get it."
"Who would have thought that instead of awakening an ability, it allowed me to be reborn before the apocalypse started!"
Although he said this, Ethan wasn’t that confident he would survive in the apocalypse.
Right now, on the Blue Star, he was extremely wealthy, called the prodigy of the Smith house and worth hundreds of millions.
He knew once the apocalypse started, all that would become invalid, as without power, everything else was worthless.
’Sigh... if only I could awaken. According to what I heard from other awakeners, it seemed every awakener had a system which descended at the same time of the apocalypse.’
’With it, they could see their abilities and stats.’
’If I really did awaken, then I should have my own system, shouldn’t I?’
Thinking of this, although he didn’t have much hope, Ethan still decided to give it a try.
"System, come out!" Yelling out loud, he couldn’t help but blush in shame as nothing happened.
In his previous life, he was thirty-three by the time he died; he had fought hundreds, if not thousands, of battles in that time, struggling for his life.
He had learnt to hide in every nook and cranny possible; with such a mental state, he couldn’t help but feel ashamed that he believed he could awaken.
"Haha, look at me, an old man like me talking to myself in the middle of the night."
"Fortunately, I live alone, or anyone outside hearing me would have thought I was crazy."
Laughing at himself, he reached out for his phone beside his bedside lamp.
After putting in his familiar password, he checked the date.
"1st December 2026."
"So, one month before the apocalypse."
Sighing some more, he stretched his hand in front of his bed, trying to make it disappear. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
"It seems I’m not one of those protagonists who get reborn with a space ability and hoard billions of supplies."
Smiling wryly, Ethan was unwilling.
He was finally reborn in the past after struggling for ten years in that hellscape of an apocalypse.
Was he truly going to repeat the same path as before and be a dreg who failed to awaken?
As someone who survived the ability, he knew that without awakening, there was no point in hoarding supplies or building a safe house; anything he did would ultimately become a wedding dress for stronger awakeners.
If that’s the case, he might as well enjoy his life for one month and end himself before the apocalypse started.
"Haaa~"
Sitting on the bed, his ten years of life in the apocalypse began to replay through his mind.
How he lost his family one by one, fell in love with Olivia, found companionship in the harsh world, and was ultimately betrayed.
In a trance, tears seemed to come from the corners of his eyes as he was lost.
Wasn’t he meant to be the protagonist?
Didn’t he come to the past to change his fate?
He had to!
He didn’t believe the Fate Fruit, a fruit labelled to have the ability to change the heavens, could only have this ability.
And sure enough, just as he was complaining, a strange translucent screen appeared in front of him.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, Ethan Smith! You have awakened!]