Royally Fucked

Arael's POV:

Sighs.

With a weary sigh, the young man gazed around the room once more. Moments earlier, he had nearly lost consciousness as he tried to force himself upright, a decision he now regretted deeply. The pain that surged through his body was overwhelming, far beyond anything he had ever experienced.

'Let's see what I look like,' he thought, his mind immediately seeking out the one thing every transmigrated individual instinctively searches for—a mirror. But as he scanned the room, it became clear there was none. The space was so dilapidated, so rundown, that it barely seemed fit for habitation. 

"How does anyone live in this place?" he muttered, grimacing as the acrid stench of sweat and waste assaulted his senses. His gaze swept over his surroundings again, taking in the sparse furnishings: a stool, a bed, and a wooden box that might have once served as a wardrobe. There was no window, no sign of any life or comfort.

'Well, this is something…' he mused, catching sight of a door in the far-right corner of the room. He steeled himself, telling his body that he could do this, and swung his legs to the edge of the bed. 

"Damn it…" he cursed through clenched teeth as a wave of unbearable pain coursed through him, making him feel as though every fiber of his being was ablaze. With great effort, he managed to sit up, his breath escaping in short, ragged gasps. 

'That was intense…' he thought, looking down at his palms. They were sickly—far too sickly for anyone to be alive, let alone capable of movement. It was shocking that he could even muster the strength to do anything at all. 'Maybe it has something to do with that agility increase…' he recalled the malfunctioning system's notification, wondering if that was what allowed him to move even this much.

He knew he had to take the next step: walking. "I can do this," he told himself, determination hardening his gaze. He gripped the bedspread tightly, took a deep breath, and…

"FUCK!" 

The world tilted on its axis as he collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud. "Damn it!" he yelled, cursing himself for thinking he could do it. The pain made no sense. Sure, his body was frail and unhealthy, but was that really enough to justify this level of agony? It was as though he hadn't moved in months, confined to a bed, yet he knew that should have killed him. 

"Haah!" He exhaled deeply, his gaze fixed on the door that still seemed impossibly far away. He began to pull himself forward, crawling with painstaking effort—one hand, one foot at a time—driven by sheer willpower. After what felt like an eternity, he finally reached the door.

'Well, fuck!' he cursed internally, staring up at the wooden barrier. Though it loomed right before him, it felt as distant as ever. "This is sick… Am I going to die in this room…?" he hissed bitterly, his thoughts a swirling turmoil of fragmented memories. He still didn't fully understand what had happened. How did he really die? All he remembered was fading away in the arms of the one he called 'mother.' But that didn't explain anything—it didn't feel like death.

And what of his mother? Was she still alive? He doubted it. 'No… I can't give up… I can't…' he resolved, gritting his teeth. With trembling arms, he leaned against the door, using it as support as he painstakingly climbed upwards until he finally grasped the doorknob.

-Squeak!

The door creaked open, and he stumbled forward, collapsing to the ground with another thud. He clicked his tongue in frustration, his head turning left and right as he surveyed the dim corridor before him. There were no doors to the left, but to his right, just adjacent to the room he had just escaped, he spotted another one.

"This feels kind of creepy…" he muttered, clenching his fists as he summoned the strength to move once more. His eyes locked onto the door, and he began to crawl towards it.

-Squeak!

The door opened just like the last one, and he found himself falling into another room. This time, however, the air was cold, the floor smooth as though it were tiled with some kind of ceramic. His eyes caught sight of a toilet in one corner, and just above the faucet, he found what he had been searching for—a mirror.

With immense effort, he pulled himself towards it, grasping onto the faucet for support as he finally managed to look into the mirror. But what he saw there sent a shock through his entire being.

"No… no… no… Haha, hahahaha…. It… it can't be…"

The reflection that stared back at him was beyond anything he could have imagined, even in his wildest nightmares. Tangled white hair, lusterless amethyst eyes, the sickly body of a teenager no older than fifteen or sixteen, and skin so pale it was almost translucent.

It wasn't the unhealthy appearance that terrified him—it was the sudden, horrifying realization that he knew this person all too well. In the fragmented memories of Samael, he recalled a certain game: *Saga of Elysium*.

If his suspicions were correct, then he was in deep shit.

Royally fucked, to be exact.