Chapter 1: Catastrophic Transmigration

『Life is a mysterious journey of change. It takes us places and puts us in situations we never imagined.』

Leo never thought he would be in a situation where he would desperately want this quote to be false.

Because even with his eyes closed, he realized that he was in an unfamiliar bed with an unknown woman.

He slowly opened his eyes as a sudden wave of anxiety regarding the circumstances swept over him.

"Huh?!"

Wow!!

In front of him appeared the sleeping face of the most beautiful woman in the world.

A girl, seemingly in her twenties, who was so beautiful that words could not do her justice.

Leo's heart raced as he looked again at the breathtaking beauty he had seen for the first time.

"She seems familiar."

Even so, he felt he had seen her before but couldn't recall where.

At that time,

"Ahh!... Ugh!"

Leo felt a sudden, intense pain in his head, but he restrained himself from screaming for fear of waking the girl before he could assess the situation and devise a plan of action.

So he held his head, gritted his teeth, and endured the pain.

Even though it only lasted five minutes, the excruciating pain made him feel like he had been bedridden for five days.

But as soon as he got himself together again, memories that had come to him out of nowhere made him lose touch with reality.

Rustle!

In a hurry, he removed the plush velvet quilt from over him and jumped out of bed.

'A plush velvet quilt?'

Gulp!

Subconsciously, Leo swallowed the dry saliva that had come as a result of his nervousness after realizing the truth, but he didn't turn his head to once again experience that feeling because he was doing his best to deny the possibility.

Instead, he scantily scanned the room he was in.

"This must be a dream."

It was a luxurious, large room with grayish-white walls, but since there wasn't much furniture, it felt modern, tidy, and helped clear the mind.

Unfortunately, Leo didn't have time at this particular moment to allow the beauty of this room to enrapture him.

"There's the mirror."

On the other side of the bed, just a short distance away, he discovered the large mirror with relative ease.

And without wasting any time, he quickly ran towards it and checked his face.

However, instead of his own average looking face which Leo was familiar with, there was someone else reflected in the mirror.

"Adrian Vaiself!"

Involuntarily, he muttered a name and touched his own face, then noticed that his mirror image was doing the same thing.

He was a handsome man whose appearance could make even the most attractive celebrities lower their heads in shame.

A face that could seduce even the most haughty of women with just a glance, and those piercing golden eyes that might even cause any lesbian to switch her orientation just for him.

'NO!!'

Realizing that this was not a dream, Leo almost had a mental breakdown at the new reality he was in.

* * * * *

Leo's POV :

2 minutes later.

It took me precisely two minutes to come to terms with reality, and it was not because I possessed the mental capacity to adapt my mind at a moment's notice to the change in situation.

Instead, it was this new body that kept my mind calm.

Somehow, I had transmigrated into the body of a billionaire's son, and I had no idea how this nonsensical, fantasy-like thing had happened to me.

'Unfortunately, nonsensical things didn't seem to stop there.'

Because the world I transmigrated into was a modern fantasy world— it was the world of the novel I was writing yesterday before heading out for drinks with my girlfriend Seo-Ah.

Which was also the last thing about my original world that I could recall.

"Let's look at this situation first."

I spoke calmly this time, unlike two minutes earlier, when I almost had a mental breakdown due to the absurd reality.

Thinking back on the events of the last night, I sat on the side of the bed and stared at the sleeping woman next to me.

It was early morning at the moment, but I hadn't transmigrated just now.

Instead, I possessed this body yesterday night, when Adrian and I were supposedly both drunk in our own worlds.

And now that I had calmed down, it was time to reflect back on the situation from yesterday.

— Seo-ah, why are you running? Let me hug you.

After drinking to the point of unconsciousness, I remembered thinking of her as my girlfriend and tried to have a lovely time with her.

"Luckily, nothing happened between us. I was able to control myself when I realized that she wasn't my girlfriend, and we just fell asleep because of too much alcohol."

Even though I never considered myself to be a good person, I was not a beast who would do those horrible things to a girl, especially one as innocent as her.

But, I wasn't sure if this girl would remember that nothing happened between us.

'Shit!'

The urge to sigh deeply and rub my temples came up, but my outer countenance remained expressionless in spite of my inner thoughts, and I continued to calmly look at the sleeping beauty.

"The time of my transmigration into this body was really catastrophic. Such bad luck!"

Unfortunately, my bad luck didn't end there, because I recognized this girl from the memories I had acquired from Adrian.

However, even if I hadn't gotten the memories, I still would have recognized this girl, as her storyline was one that I had invested a great deal of time in.

"Rachael Taylor."

The protagonist's sister, one of the major heroines, and the heroine with the most tragic storyline.

'Dog Shit!'

I almost opened my mouth to curse myself.

The body I transmigrated into was the body of Adrian Vaiself, a billionaire's son, a third-rate villain, and a trash character in the novel that I wrote.

"This situation was the same as what happened in the novel."

In my novel, this event served as a turning point for both the protagonist and the heroine, but nothing bad happened to Rachael.

What happened in the novel was:

Adrian persuades Rachael, who had a crush on him and was having some family issues, to go out for a drink with him so that they could talk in private and Rachael could lighten up her mood.

But because Adrian was a bastard with a loose screw in his head, he had no idea that Rachael had a crush on him.

Furthermore, he had no desire to console her or comfort her in any way.

He was only lusting after her body, and because Adrian always showed a favorable image outside, Rachael believed in his lies and got tricked by him because of her innocent character.

In order to take advantage of Rachael while she was unconscious, Adrian planned to get her heavily drunk.

But because Rachael was a heroine, it was impossible for a villain to have sexually assaulted her.

As a result, Rachael was able to get out of this predicament without Adrian touching even a single hair on her body, all thanks to some clichés, twists, and turns.

But in the book, Rachael thought Adrian had taken advantage of her while she was sleeping.

"This situation was helpful to me at that time when I was writing the novel, but now, *sigh*"

At that time, this sequence of events was used to set up a conflict between the protagonist and Adrian.

Later, after Rachel's suicide, when the truth about the events became clear, the protagonist went through a period of character development and received a great power-up.

Even though I was now Adrian Vaiself, the events were the same, and if we followed the story, Rachael would think something happened between us after waking up, even if I tried to explain it to her.

'I didn't even know at the moment that I had suddenly transmigrated.'

'How could I possibly have comprehended that she was not my girlfriend, but another woman?'

Nevertheless, an innocent girl like Rachael, whom I created myself, doesn't deserve to suffer like this, no matter what happened or why it happened.

'As a man, I will take responsibility for my actions. I will never let any harm come to her.'

In addition, my life was in grave danger, just as it had been for Adrian in the book, where the protagonist later killed him.

Nonetheless,

"Crying over spilled milk is pointless."

Contrary to the dire situation, my mind was extremely calm.

"I can no longer refer to myself as a Leo. As of right now, I am... Adrian Vaiself."

Having come to terms with Adrian's true identity, I found myself immediately immersed in introspection and planning for the future.

There was a burning desire inside me to become the strongest in this world of fantasy where magic existed, but Adrian Vaiself was a literal garbage character with no talent in anything.

And because this was a dangerous world where the protagonist was practically immortal thanks to his 'cheat' skills and was now my enemy, the most important things I had to figure out were what to do next to stay alive.

"I must first concentrate on my survival. I had to find ways to get stronger, immediately."

Being strong in this world wasn't just an ambition for me.

It was a necessity for survival because this was a world that was heading towards its impending doom.

"Haa!... I need a cigarette."

In accordance with my memories, I opened the drawer by the bed, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with a silver lighter next to the cigarette box.

Phew~!

Exhaling a dense white smoke, I thought back on the events that I had gone through, which may very well have been the reason for my transmigration.

"Because now that I think about them, everything was suspicious about this novel."