[You’ve awakened!]
[Your Class is..*$$+$+$+#!#]
[User has experienced death!]
[Wheel of Reincarnation Activated!]
[You’ve been reincarnated!]
....
"Rook! Oi, wake up!"
"Rook!"
’Piece of shit! Who on Earth is named Rook?! GODDAMMIT. What sort of dream is this? Wait, didn’t I just die a second ago?’
’What is the Wheel of Reincarnation?’
Kanghyun’s mind reeled as the name "Rook" kept echoing in his head non-stop.
Damn, the caller’s voice was so loud and deep.
’Extremely annoying.’
Kanghyun tried to open his eyes, but for some reason it felt difficult. After a few grunting efforts, his eyelids finally parted.
The moment he opened them, what he saw was the face of a grown man, his eyes shut while his lips were puckered into a lewd circle, ready to connect with his own.
’Faaaah.’
His instincts kicked in as he immediately rolled aside, letting the strange man’s lips kiss the dirty floor.
He immediately stood up and stared at the man in horror.
"Who are you? Where am I? What in the fucking piece of shit am I wearing?"
He studied his surroundings in haste.
He was currently in a large room with fire lamps lighting up the place, although "lighting up" was an exaggeration.
Around him were five strangers, all dressed in weird assassin uniforms. Although, they really did look cool like anime characters. Kanghyun couldn’t deny that fact.
A young woman dressed in the same black uniform, with purple hair cropped to her shoulders, stepped forward, a sword resting on her waist belt.
"What’s wrong, Rook?" she asked with sincerity.
Kanghyun took an involuntary step back and shook his head.
"I’m not Rook! I’m Kanghyun."
The man on the wooden floor stood up and dusted off his lips.
"Hey! What was that about?! I was just trying to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."
"Huh? Why would you do that? Wasn’t I supposed to awaken? Then I—"
He wasn’t allowed to finish his sentence.
"You haven’t awakened, Rook," the girl said, then turned to the man while the rest just stared at them with different expressions. "You see, you broke his brain. Now he’s acting weird. I told you it was the wrong idea to leave him with Ozymandias’ wolves. Who knows what they did to his brain?"
’Wolves? My brain?’
"Ah, he was the one who pleaded with me to let him handle the wolves!"
As the girl and the man continued arguing, Kanghyun’s mind reeled from what was happening.
’The Wheel of Reincarnation? Figures! I was reincarnated immediately after awakening. But who did I reincarnate as? I’ll take the person’s name to be Rook, but—’
Yet again, he wasn’t allowed to finish his thought, even though it was internal. A sharp pain tore through his brain, making him fall to his knees.
Memories that were unknown to him flooded into his mind.
"Are you okay? What’s wrong with him?"
He saw his birth. His parents’ faces. Memories of his village being overrun during a battle between demons. Himself being pursued by wolves. Different faces, unknown yet familiar to him.
After a while, the invasion of memories stopped.
He lay there for a moment, his chest heaving, before he slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows.
"Are you alright?" the purple-haired girl asked again, crouching beside him now, her earlier suspicion replaced with something closer to concern.
Kanghyun—no, Rook. He supposed he had to start thinking of himself that way—nodded slowly, though his mind was still sorting through everything that had just been dumped into it.
He wasn’t in his old world anymore. That much was obvious.
He’d died there—hit by a truck, or a heart attack, or something equally mundane he couldn’t quite remember and didn’t care to—and woken up here, in a body that already had years of history he hadn’t lived through firsthand but now remembered anyway.
This world had a name: Aveth. A hundred years ago, the barrier separating the mortal realm from the Demon Layer had cracked, and through it came the Demon King and his court, sweeping across Aveth’s kingdoms in a war that lasted less than a decade.
Humanity lost. What was left of it now lived under the rule of seven Demon Generals, each governing a province, all of them answering to the King, who never bothered showing his face outside his own capital.
Rook’s family had been farmers in a border village until they were caught in a demon battle and wiped out, leaving Rook as the only survivor.
After surviving, he found the rebellion, what was left of it, hiding in the mountains north of the old capital—a few hundred desperate fighters calling themselves Ashline—and joined them in hopes of seeking revenge for his village.
During a mission to take down one of the Generals, the real Rook had somehow died after escaping Ozymandias’ wolves, and Kanghyun had reincarnated into the body, only to be brought here by his fellow Ashline teammates in the hope of saving him.
"Are you feeling okay now? What happened?" the purple-haired girl, whose name was Seryn according to his memories, asked, leaning closer and helping him up.
"I just have a slight headache," he said.
"That’s why I warned you not to join a mission yet. You haven’t been given a Trait yet. Just continue training until you get one, then you can go on missions," she lamented.
Rook, on the other hand, just forced an awkward smile. The memories were still trying to settle into place, so he didn’t react much to her words. He looked at his teammates and studied them.
They all looked... cool and rogue-like.
Ashline was like a hidden academy that trained special people to slay demons and the enemies of humanity.
From his memories, it harbored many people who held resentment toward the demon hierarchy.
’Goddamn. What the hell did my predecessor get himself into?’
Seryn helped him to his feet, still frowning slightly, and Rook let her, mostly because standing on his own felt like more effort than it was worth right now.
"Come on," she said. "Baram’s the only one dumb enough to try mouth-to-mouth on someone who’s clearly breathing. The rest of us actually have work to do."
Baram, still hovering nearby, opened his mouth to protest, then apparently thought better of it.
The others drifted back to whatever they’d been doing before Rook woke up.
Rook studied the large dark room. It was assigned to him and his teammates.
’Nice.’
He flexed his hand experimentally.
"Rook."
Seryn’s voice cut through his thoughts again.
"Are you even listening?"
’She was saying something?’
"Yeah," he lied. "Rest a day. Got it."
She didn’t look convinced, but she let it go, turning to bark something at Baram.
’Bossy.’
Rook exhaled slowly and looked down at his own hands again, turning them over as though he might find some answer written on his palms.
That was when the window appeared.
[User has successfully reincarnated!]
[Proceeding with the continuation of awakening...]
[Your Class is... Elementalist]
[Upgrade Points Available: $$&#(__($($]
[Error~~~]
[You’ve been rewarded Infinite Upgrade Points]