ARCANE: A Mage In Runeterra

"Fuck this game!"

A young man slumped in front of his computer, the room around him awash in darkness. His eyes locked onto the cracked monitor before him, its broken screen flashing a kaleidoscope of colors, but the bold letters that said "DEFEAT" could still be seen.

Normally, he wouldn't have gotten angry over one game, considering the hundreds of hours he spent playing this dogshit game known as 'League of Legends'.

It was a game filled with toxic players who loved to abuse others, using words so offensive that the author might be canceled if they were written down. But who gives a fuck? Here are some examples: "I hope your whole family burns in hell, you dirty Ni... Neanderthal," or another insult the young man personally experienced: "49% win rate, lol."

Honestly, a 49% win rate wasn't bad. It was average.

What mattered was the context in which this so-called insult was hurled at the young man.

During a normal game of League, the young man encountered an Emerald rank player, and he was winning against him in the bot lane as ADC. This was when he was still unranked. Out of anger, the Emerald rank player started hurling insults, and "49% win rate" was one of them.

It was toxic and a little... embarrassing.

So it goes without saying that after playing hundreds of hours of League of Legends, the young man had built a tolerance to toxic players and had also learned to defend himself at times. Of course, this was achieved by being toxic himself.

However, today was different. It was the final day of the season, and he was a single win away from achieving Challenger rank, four ranks higher than the Emerald player mentioned earlier. This was a feat he had never managed to achieve in five years of playing League of Legends, something he could brag about to his friends and make them jealous... or something they could use to make fun of him.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have had the leisure to chase this rank. He had school and other typical teenage activities to manage. But the pandemic had thrown the world into disarray, giving him ample time to waste.

He was so close to achieving Challenger rank, but in the last ranked game before the season ended, he encountered a troll—a big, fat, oily green troll living under a bridge—and lost. He would have been okay if he had lost in the normal way, but when the jungler decided to choose Janna, a character meant primarily for support, and then chose to run it down the mid lane, it was no wonder he lost his mind.

At that moment, the young man wished the very worst upon the player controlling Janna. He wanted a Death Note to write the troll's name in it, imagining them dying in the worst possible way such as being eaten alive by rats.

Unfortunately, this world was not a fictional realm where death gods existed, at least not to his knowledge. Maybe there were gods or goddesses in his world, but that didn't really matter for now.

The young man was about to lose his fucking mind.

He drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly to steady himself as he murmured, "Whatever, I'll just go to bed."

He was hoping to forget his frustration by sleeping it off. But as soon as he saw the enemy player's message—'GG EZ'—flash across the screen, his eyes narrowed and his fist clenched, his knuckles cracking. Fueled by rage, he pulled the monitor from its electrical plug, lifted it over his head, and flung it against the wall. He never imagined that in destroying the screen, a shard would fly back and cut his throat.

Grasping his neck, the young man tried to stop the flow of blood. His efforts were hopeless. He started to choke on his own blood, his eyes reddening. Moments later, he crumpled to the ground as a puddle of blood spread beneath him, soaking his clothes in red.

"So this is how I die? Fuck..." he gasped, the words lost in the blood pooling in his mouth, the light in his eyes fading.

Then, his consciousness slipped into darkness—though only for a few seconds.

"It's a boy!" The shout startled him awake.

The young man opened his eyes and, with great effort, turned his head toward the voice. He was met by the blurry image of a giant figure, which terrified him. "Who are you? Where am I? What have you done to me?" he screamed in panic.

However, what came out of his mouth were the unrecognizable words of a baby. 

In shock, the young man's gaze wandered around the room, desperate for answers. The hospital room was stark and sterile, with white walls and the faint scent of antiseptic in the air. Fluorescent lights flickered softly overhead, casting a clinical glow over the sparse furnishings—a small bedside table, a couple of chairs, and the persistent beep of a heart monitor.

He took in the people around him, dressed in various shades of blue and white hospital attire, before struggling to look down at himself. As he gazed at his body, another wave of emotions overwhelmed him. 

He couldn't believe it, but he had been reincarnated. "What the fuck!" he mentally screamed, and, overwhelmed by the surprise, he lost consciousness a second later.

When he woke up again, he was clean and swaddled in a cozy white blanket. The situation remained shocking and absurd, but at least he wasn't about to faint from shock anymore.

Rather, worry filled his thoughts, as he still had many uncertainties.

This felt like one of those standard reincarnation stories, and he couldn't help but wonder if he was the main character. After all, such 'experiences' were popular tropes in novels and anime.

He was concerned about what kind of world he had entered. In many of these stories, the world was underdeveloped and based in a medieval aristocratic society. If one wasn't born into royalty or nobility, life was likely to be harsh.

"No use thinking about it right now."

The priority was to figure out where he had reincarnated. He needed to understand the kind of world he was in, and luckily, his surroundings offered some hints. 

The room's aesthetic was a mix of Industrial Revolution era design with modern and fantasy touches. It was beautiful and captivating.

Unless his parents in this life were historical enthusiasts, it was clear to him that this world was no longer the Earth he once knew. Though he wanted to panic and scream, he knew now was not the time for that.

He slowly turned to the beautiful woman carrying him, her features suggesting she was of Asian descent. She had shoulder-length black hair, sharp, luminous black eyes, and incredibly artistic black eyebrows. Below them was an elegant straight nose and syrup-sweet lips.

All these traits were framed by a graceful, youthful face.

He tried to make sense of the foreign language she was speaking but couldn't comprehend any of it. It was a language entirely unfamiliar to him.

Judging by the way she looked at him, he surmised that this woman was most likely his new mother in this life.

'Will I grow up to be handsome in the future?' he wondered, feeling a surge of delight. With such a beautiful mother, he felt his chances of being good-looking were high. This had always been a hidden wish for someone of his average appearance in his previous life, though he would never admit it.

His first smile in this new world appeared on his face, something the woman immediately noticed.

'Oh, you're awake,' she said softly, her voice like that of an angel. 'Darling, come! Art is awake. Look, he's smiling.'

The door to the room swung open as soon as she finished speaking. A man entered, and upon seeing him for the first time, he couldn't help but nod in approval—or at least attempt to. His chubby baby head and weak neck muscles made it hard to do more than turn his head.

Regardless, the man who had just walked in was undoubtedly his new father. Like his new mother, he was also extremely good-looking, with cornflower blue eyes and dark blonde hair. His face was strikingly handsome.

"This confirms it, I'm definitely going to be handsome in the future," he said out loud, confident his parents wouldn't understand a word. He was correct, but his parents misunderstood him entirely.

"Our child must be hungry," his mother said as she began to disrobe.

"Ah fuck…"