Gu Mickey

Ever since eighth grade, Mickey had cherished his life, seeking every possible means to prolong it. On Earth where immortality was a distant dream, he had attempted to transform himself into a cyborg to extend his lifespan.

This would allow him to continue enjoying, music, video games, anime, manhua, and novels that would be released.

Even now, that dream still lingered inside him.

As Mickey navigated the streets, reminiscent of the early 2000s, he exercised caution. Every turn he took, he would always ran into a group of humans being attacked by a pack of blind hyenas.

'I think, I have a cerebral hemorrhage.' Mickey muttered to himself, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

His new body was alarmingly pale and frail, and the heatwave made his body sweat profusely.

He halted at a corner, to rest, and also use the shadows to hide from the eyeless hyenas chewing a man alive across the street.

Waiting for hyenas to leave, he silently checked the items in the pockets of his blue school trousers. There was a pencil, a razor that resembling a pencil sharpener, and a student identification card.

The letters on the card were a mixture of various Asian symbols, but there was one part he could read.

"Mickey, Gu Mickey…"

Mickey was originally his name; it was an old-fashioned name barely used in today's world. It also didn't carry any particular meaning, but its plainness and humor had grown on him.

He often joked that his parents had been too lazy to name him Michael, settling for it as his middle name instead.

However, this time he felt something more to this new name, 'Gu Mickey, where have I heard that name before?'

The combination of "Gu" and "Mickey" seemed odd, and he thought it would have flowed better as "Gu Mi Ki" or something similar.

His brows knitted into a frown as he recalled something he saw during his last year in high school. 'Could it be that… 'Gu Mickey'…'

He shook his head, dismissing the absurd thoughts. What were the chances of him dying and waking up in a popular anime 500 years before the main story as a stepping stone in for the protagonist's grandparents? Impossible.

Yet, the more he tried to deny it, the deeper the feeling grew. It was a lump in his heart that needed to be carefully examined.

Mickey decided to ignore the feeling and focus on surviving.

He looked at the man surrounded by five eyeless hyenas. Two gnawed his hands, another two held his legs, and the only white hyena feasted on the flesh between his legs.

The white hyena proved merciful, tearing apart the man's flesh swiftly. However, the man's stubbornness prolonged his suffering, and his blood-curdling screams echoed across the street like a haunting melody.

The good times lasted several minutes, until the hyenas started taking turns devouring the man's flesh, leaving only a skeleton behind.

The five hyenas began walking in Mickey's direction, and the young man jumped to hide in a garbage bin. The rotten stench emanating from it suggested the presence of baby diapers.

Nevertheless, Mickey had figured out that these creatures relied heavily on their sense of smell.

There was also a hypothesis he wanted to find out; it was risky, but beneficial to him at this moment, even though it would be more perilous in the future.

Looking through a small opening in the garbage bin's lid, Mickey watched as the five hyenas walked past, oblivious to his presence. They didn't even sniff in his direction, as if he had become one with the trash.

Mickey's heart sank. 'I am indeed Gu Mickey.'

He was torn between laughter and tears, having been reborn as a super-weak half-vampire fated to die at the hands of the protagonist's grandfather in the popular apocalyptic anime "Immortal Wizard Warlord".

To make matters worse, the anime had concluded six years ago, and it wasn't even his favorite.

'I don't even know what to feel…'

Mickey felt a little blue, but that was it. He knew his future was as dark as the nights at Atcama Desert, but that also made him smile as he jumped out of the garbage bin. (1)

"Being a 'true immortal' is not a hopeless dream."

There was also another reason for his smile: "I am a 'half-vampire,' giving me an advantage in this situation."

As a half-vampire, Mickey was odorless in both flesh and blood. However, this came with a downside: once a profound beast tasted his blood, it would crave more.

Weighing his pros and cons, Mickey moved to a boutique on the main street. The workers there were all bones.

After changing his clothes and ensuring he didn't reek like a dead rat, Mickey climbed to the top of the boutique to get a perfect view of the only place with science in this world: Acoustic City.

'If I remember correctly, the Book Lords live in the inner city, and mortals live on the outskirts, close to the forest, where they are used as the first line of defense against the profound beast tides.'

"At the moment, I am a mortal." Mickey sighed as he looked at the hyenas walking around the boutique.

'Besides having no smell, being a half-vampire is practically useless.'

The black-haired boy continued to watch the movements of the eyeless hyenas with an icy gaze. Soon enough, the boutique was surrounded, and the hyenas burst in.

Mickey heard a woman's terrified cries and inwardly cursed his luck.

A few seconds later, a disheveled woman with ragged clothes that exposed parts of her body rushed in, her eyes locking onto Mickey's.

Hope flickered in her gaze. "Mister! Please save me! I'll do anything you want!"

Thanks to his new height of at least 6 feet 5 inches and his average face, it was only normal for the woman to mistake Mickey for an adult, not a 17-year-old, and calling her over, despite not understanding what she said was the icing on the cake.

The woman rushed over, embracing Mickey tightly, her ample chest pressed against him as she caressed his back. "Thank you, Mister! I'll never forget this!"

Mickey's cold gaze remained fixed on the white hyenas closing in on the rooftop.

Before the hyenas could advance any further, he pushed the woman toward them. She cursed vehemently, but she was the one who had brought the group of hyenas in his direction in the first place.

The hyenas took pity on the woman, making good use of her body and leaving her blood flying around.

One hyena broke away, charging toward Mickey, and his expression darkened, "She left her perfume on me!"

Mickey began rushing toward the nearby rooftop. In his past life, he used to jump longer distances between rooftops—something like this should be easy!

He wished.

Bam—!

Mickey's forehead crashed against the brick wall of the neighboring building, leaving a flesh wound. What he attempted was not even comparable to a jump; even ten-year-olds could do better.

He fell to the ground with a heavy thud, and his luck seemed to hold as he landed against a white hyena, which cushioned his fall from making direct contact with the asphalt pavement—if you disregarded the fact that the surrounding beast had tasted his blood from his bleeding head.

The white hyenas formed a circle around where Mickey had fallen, leaving him no chance t o escape. Despite feeling dizzy, Mickey tried to formulate an escape plan, but he couldn't find any.

***

Atcama Desert - the Place with the darkest nights on earth found in Chili.