Chapter 1: Is it ending?

"Please let it end…don't make it happen again..."

A bloodied man was muttering to himself wretchedly, hoping whatever higher deity was watching him would be benevolent to him this time. He looked as if he would collapse in despair, walking towards a gigantic gate with two doors that were so heavy they emitted an aura that seemed to compress the space around them.

The young man glanced around wearily with his red eyes that seemed to have lost their shine, drops of blood leaking out of them and disturbing his sight. But he didn't seem to notice as he continued limping towards the massive gate.

"Please..please…please!! Let me out of here!!"

With each scream, he seemed to get more momentum, getting closer and closer until he was right in front of the two doors. Slamming both hands on each door, his triceps suddenly doubled in size, with veins bulging out of them and wriggling in an unrealistic manner.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!"

With a last desperate shout that vibrated the surroundings, he pushed with all his might, his body releasing unbelievable amounts of searing hot steam. The heat and pressure emanating from him were so intense they started melting the cave walls all around.

And then, an impossible scene was created… a human being, the size of an ant, succeeded in opening the Void Gate!

"haah…haah…haah…"

After achieving such a feat, the young man collapsed breathlessly on the ground, trying to recover whatever energy his broken body could absorb. After a short pause, he had recovered enough to get back on his feet and resumed limping, this time dragging himself to what was beyond the Void Gate…an infinite black void. Passing the gate, he threw himself with all his might at the empty void in a free fall that no sane being would try replicating, falling for an uncountable amount of time.

"Let me out..I don't want to repeat it all…please have mercy- hic!"

The young man repeated to no one in particular, sobbing uncontrollably in between, his already red eyes reddening even more while glistening in tears.

After what felt like centuries to his waning perception, he finally noticed a white dot in the deep distance that was gradually enlarging until it was big enough to make the Void Gate look smaller than a rat in comparison. The young man was baffled by the white portal he had never seen in the hundreds of times he fell in this cursed void.

"No way, no way, no way, no way..No way!!"

Repeating this exclamation like a possessed madman, a fire was gradually lit in his eyes, his face regaining color as if he had been blessed 10 times over and his muscles trembling in excitement.

"I CAN GET OUT!!"

Waaaahhhhhhh!

Screaming one last time with all his might, Cassius was finally swallowed by the colossal white portal.

***

"Honey, wake up!"

A woman wearing an apron was shaking her sleeping son to wake him up. He was supposed to have woken up 2 hours ago, but the mother was too doting on him.

"...Huh, what, who!?"

"!!!"

Jumping up from his bed, the teenager immediately grasped his mother's neck and gripped it with such force that her cheeks bulged.

"Who are you, and why am I here!?"

"urk..huc..!!"

The teenager with an infuriated face that would've scared demons away suddenly held his head in pain, a surge of information not there before getting transferred directly. He immediately let go of his mother whose head was turning blue from suffocation as she collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath with a terrified look.

"haah...cough!… S-son, it's me, your m-mother...cough!"

"...What the fuck?"

The teenager, or rather Cassius, scanned his surroundings and rested his sight on the coughing woman, his mother.

Had he already fucked up his new life? Hell no!

"I'm sorry, but I have to do this!"

"cough!...Son..?"

Thwack!

A swift blow to the neck made the woman sink to unconsciousness, Cassius speedily carrying her to his parents' bedroom then laying her down on the bed.

The grip mark on her neck was worrying, as anyone seeing it would question her for the source of it, and he didn't know if he should trust his 'Mother' to keep her silence. Also, he didn't want to sour his relationship with his parents, or rather with the old owner of this body, as that would unnecessarily complicate things.

After racking his brains for an idea, Cassius concluded that the only solution was to cast a healing spell on her neck and hope she would be convinced that what she experienced was a nightmare.

The problem was that his current body was so..weak! How lazy was the owner of this body? It disgusted him to think that he was weaker than his former body's little finger! It had almost no energy circulating in the veins, and the energy core was pitifully small, so he had no idea how to muster up enough to cast a healing spell without falling unconscious from energy overuse..

He could attempt to absorb the energy in his mother's body, but he was not sure if that was a safe choice considering the state she was in, which might worsen with the slightest mistake.

Then he had to absorb someone else's energy, and quickly! Cassius hurriedly went downstairs, wore some shoes he assumed to be his after finding them strewn about, then opened the door and sprinted outside with all the power he could muster. His home was pretty isolated, the nearest encampment being around 1 km away, so he made his way to the village while relying on his new memories to keep himself on the right path.

Minutes of running after, he had finally arrived at the village while sweating, already despising his weak body. The village was as standard as it could get, modestly built houses with smoking chimneys atop, a bakery emitting the appetizing scent of bread cooked on wood, a blacksmith, a…brothel?

'Really? In the middle of the village?'

Having concluded his observation of the village, he racked his memory for any villagers that he was close enough to to have physical contact with, but concluded that the only person that would be willing to have contact with him was…

"Fucking hell.."

The local grocery shop owner.

A man known for his 'fondness' of…children.