Prologue

[India]

The streets of Hyderabad bustled with life, but to Rama, it felt distant, like a world moving too fast for him to catch up. He walked along the side of the road, his steps heavy, his mind in a fog of defeat. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the city, but Rama barely noticed. All he could think about was *failure*.

"Sixteen tries… sixteen failures."

The number repeated in his head like a broken record. Today marked his sixteenth attempt at securing a job, and like all the other times, he had walked out with nothing but a polite rejection. The feeling of hopelessness wrapped around him like a suffocating blanket, and each step he took felt like he was dragging the weight of his failures with him.

"Why can't I just get one thing right?"

His voice was barely a whisper, drowned out by the noise of traffic. Cars zoomed past on the road, and people hurried along the sidewalks, but Rama felt completely alone in the sea of movement. His mind wandered back to home, where his parents' disapproving looks were waiting for him. He had tried so hard to prove them wrong—to show them that he wasn't the failure they believed him to be—but no matter how hard he tried, luck was never on his side.

He could still hear his father's voice echoing in his head. "What will you ever accomplish, Rama? Sixteen interviews and not a single job?" His siblings, too, were no different, treating him like the odd one out. His achievements, or lack thereof, were just another point of embarrassment for the family.

His heart clenched at the thought. He wasn't just tired physically—he was tired mentally, emotionally. His social awkwardness made things worse. He had no friends, and those he had never truly understood him. Conversations were always strained, full of awkward pauses and missed cues. He could never fit in. He felt like an outsider in his own life.

He stopped walking, standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up at the dimming sky. In that moment, Rama felt empty. Tired of the endless cycle of failure and disappointment.

"God…" he muttered, his voice shaky. "If you're out there, how about sending me a system? You know, like in those novels…"

His words hung in the air, almost mocking him. It was a stupid thing to say, he knew that. But desperation drove him. Maybe, just maybe, something miraculous would happen.

His voice grew louder, tinged with frustration. "System! Come on! Show up already!"

People on the street slowed, turning to look at him. A few of them snickered, while others gave him concerned glances. Rama's face flushed with embarrassment. He could feel their judgment, their silent accusations that he was a lunatic standing in the middle of the road, shouting about systems like a character in a fantasy novel.

He swallowed hard and lowered his head, embarrassed. "Of course not," he muttered to himself, forcing his feet to move again. "There's no such thing as systems in real life."

But as he began to walk, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. A truck that had been cruising smoothly down the road suddenly veered off course. It came speeding toward the sidewalk—toward him.

For a split second, time seemed to freeze. The screeching tires, the honking horns, the horrified gasps of onlookers—all of it blurred into a single moment of terrifying clarity.

Before Rama could even react, the truck slammed into him.

The impact was swift, brutal. His body crumpled under the force, and the world around him went dark.

---

[Capital: Lionsreach, Great Avalon Academy]

Rama opened his eyes, feeling a dull throbbing in his head. For a moment, everything was a blur—his surroundings, his thoughts, his very sense of self. Slowly, his vision cleared, and he found himself staring at a ceiling he didn't recognize. It wasn't the ceiling of his room back home, and it definitely wasn't a hospital room.

He blinked, trying to shake off the dizziness that clung to him like a thick fog. His body felt different too—lighter, somehow. "Where am I?" he muttered under his breath, forcing himself to sit up.

The room he was in was small but well-furnished. A cozy one-bedroom, complete with simple wooden furniture and sunlight streaming through the window. It was peaceful, calm even. For a second, he wondered if he had somehow survived the truck accident—if he had been rescued and was lying in some recovery room.

But no. This wasn't a hospital. There were no machines, no nurses, no beeping heart monitors. His surroundings were too homey, too normal.

Rama scanned the room carefully. "Did someone play a prank on me?"

His thoughts flashed back to a video he had once watched on YouTube. Some guy had been drugged and made to believe he was in a coma for ten years. It was an elaborate prank, one that left the victim confused and panicked when he woke up. Rama frowned. Could that be what was happening to him?

Anger flared in his chest. "Someone's trying to mess with me," he muttered, clenching his fists. "If this is some twisted joke, they're gonna pay for it."

Ready to confront whoever was behind this, he swung his legs off the bed and stood up, still feeling a bit unsteady. The dizziness hadn't fully left him yet. But first, he needed to clear his head, freshen up. He scanned the room again, spotting a small door off to the side. "Bathroom?"

He walked over and pushed the door open, stepping inside.

The bathroom was as simple as the rest of the apartment—clean, neat, with a mirror hanging over the sink. Rama approached it, splashing cold water on his face to snap himself out of his confusion. He looked up, expecting to see his own familiar reflection staring back at him.

But what he saw made his blood run cold.

The face in the mirror was… not his.

He stumbled backward, his heart pounding in his chest. His hands flew up to touch his face, as if that would somehow make the reflection change back to normal. "W-what… the hell?" His voice trembled with shock, his brain refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing.

The person in the mirror looked nothing like the man he had been before. His face was more… average, for lack of a better word. The sharp lines and distinct features he had once carried were gone, replaced by a softer, plainer appearance. His skin was still fair, but his overall look was much less striking than the face he'd grown used to in his past life.

"This can't be happening…" Rama whispered, a surge of panic rising in his chest. "This isn't me. This isn't my face. And This is a teenager."

He stumbled back to the sink, gripping the edge as his reflection seemed to mock him. His thoughts swirled in confusion, disbelief mixing with anger. "What's going on here? What the fuck is this?"

But then, without warning, a sharp pain exploded in his head. He clutched his temples, groaning as the dizziness from earlier came rushing back, this time with a vengeance. His vision blurred, the world spinning as if someone had yanked the floor out from under him.

Images—flashes of memories he didn't recognize—began to flood his mind. People, places, events that he had no recollection of surged through his thoughts like a tidal wave. The more he tried to make sense of them, the more intense the pain grew.

After what felt like an eternity, the pain began to subside. His breathing was ragged, his body trembling as he tried to process what had just happened. He felt disconnected from himself, like a stranger in his own body.

And then, as he looked back into the mirror, a terrifying realization washed over him.

This wasn't his world but a novel world or his new world.

---

**To be continued...**