Chapter 2: Reborn in the Fantasy World

Two decades ago...

Southern region, Velkrath Empire, Draven Dukedom.

The sky above the Draven mansion was thick with dark clouds. A raging storm battered the estate, completely hiding the warm moonlight behind it.

Inside the room, the air hung heavy with the metallic scent of blood, mixed with sweat and burning incense. At the center of the massive bed lay Duchess Sylvia Draven.

Her long silver hair clung to her face, sweat dripping from her skin. Her striking blue eyes were blown wide, clouded with sheer agony.

"Just a little more, Duchess! Please, push a little harder!"

"Just one more strong push! The baby is almost here!"

"AHHHHHHHH!"

The senior maid gasped, her hands moving expertly, and a collective breath of relief swept through the attending servants.

Sylvia collapsed back against the pillows, entirely spent. Her chest rose and fell in shallow gasps. Her pale face was shadowed by dark circles under her eyes, but as she stared at the ceiling, the tight lines of pain began to soften into a weary peace. It was finally over. Her baby was here.

At the foot of the bed, the senior maid carefully lifted the fragile newborn. The boy had a tuft of silver hair, just like his mother. The maids worked quickly, wiping him down with a warm towel and wrapping him securely in a blanket embroidered with the Draven crest.

But as the seconds ticked by, the relief in the room began to curdle into something cold.

There was no sound.

Newborns were supposed to scream. They were supposed to fill their lungs with air and announce their arrival to the world. But the room was dead silent, save for the rain pounding against the windows.

The senior maid froze, the towel slipping slightly from her grasp. She stared down at the bundle in her arms, her eyes widening in horror. She nudged the baby. She rubbed his chest.

Nothing.

"S-Something is wrong," the maid choked out, completely shattering the brief peace. Panic spiked in her tone. "The baby... the baby isn’t responding!"

The words hit the room like a physical blow. The younger maids gasped, hands flying to their mouths. The temperature in the bedroom seemed to plummet.

Sylvia, who had looked half-dead a second ago, jolted upright. Her exhaustion vanished, instantly replaced by a blinding terror. Her face drained of whatever color was left, turning as pale as bone.

"Give him to me," Sylvia ordered. Her voice was hoarse, stripping away her usual regal poise to reveal only the frantic demand of a mother whose world was collapsing. "Give me my baby. Now!"

Hands trembling violently, the maid rushed to the side of the bed and placed the motionless bundle into the Duchess’s arms.

Sylvia pulled the baby against her chest. He was so small, so unbelievably fragile. His skin was pale, and his little chest was perfectly still.

"No, no, no," Sylvia whispered, her voice breaking. Her hands shook as she cradled his cheek. It was warm, but there was no life in his movements. "Wake up. Please, my sweet boy, wake up."

She rubbed his tiny back, her frantic fingers moving over the thick blanket.

"Please," she begged, her voice rising in pitch.

"Please, don’t leave me. Open your eyes. Open your eyes for your mother!"

The room felt suffocating. The maids watched with tears welling in their own eyes, paralyzed by the tragedy unfolding before them. The heir to the Draven Dukedom... stillborn? In that moment, nobody cared about the political implications. They only saw a grieving mother holding her child.

Tears spilled over Sylvia’s eyelashes, dropping fast and hot onto the baby’s pale cheeks. She clutched the tiny boy to her chest, burying her face into his soft silver hair, letting out a shattered sob. She held him so tightly it was as if she could force her own beating heart to jump-start his.

Then, Sylvia froze.

Her breath hitched in her throat. She hesitantly pulled her head back, looking down at the bundle.

’Did I imagine it?’

Then, she felt it again. A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch against her palm.

Agonizingly slowly, the baby’s small hand shifted. His tiny fingers curled inward. And then, his eyelids fluttered.

Sylvia stopped breathing entirely. The maids leaned in, the silence in the room stretching so tight it felt like it would snap.

The baby’s eyes opened.

They weren’t the cloudy, unfocused eyes of a newborn. They were striking, vivid, and impossibly deep. It was the exact shade of blue that she possessed, a brilliant color her husband had proudly called the ’deep sea’.

He blinked up at the ceiling, then his gaze lazily drifted up to meet Sylvia’s. He shared her delicate features, observing her quietly with those mesmerizing eyes.

A choked gasp escaped Sylvia’s lips. She let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob, wiping the tears from her cheeks as a radiant smile bloomed across her tired face.

"Oh, thank the heavens," she whispered fiercely.

She brought him to her face, pressing a lingering kiss to his forehead. She held him protectively, wrapping her arms around him as if she never wanted to let go. The overwhelming relief crashing through her was intoxicating. He was alive.

The maids let out a collective sigh of relief, wiping away their own tears of joy. The disaster had been averted. But as the senior maid watched the mother and son, a small frown creased her forehead.

"Your Grace... forgive me," the maid said softly. "But... why is the baby not crying?"

It was true. Even now, wide awake and observing the room, the infant hadn’t let out a single wail. He was completely silent.

Sylvia paused, studying her son’s calm, almost analytical expression. The question lingered in the air, but her smile returned with a hint of melancholic longing.

"He probably takes after his father," Sylvia murmured, her thumb gently stroking his soft cheek.

"That’s why he didn’t cry. He’s already trying to be strong."

She tore her gaze away from her son and looked up at the senior maid.

"Has there been any news from the Duke? Did a messenger arrive?"

The maid bowed her head apologetically. "No reply has come yet, Your Grace. The storm has likely delayed the couriers. But His Grace will return soon. The war at the borders... it will pass. Right now, you just need to rest. Let me take care of the young master."

Sylvia hesitated. Her arms instinctively tightened around her baby. She was afraid that if she closed her eyes, the nightmare from minutes ago would become reality again. But her bone-deep exhaustion was finally catching up to her.

She finally nodded, giving the baby one last kiss on his tiny nose. "Be gentle," she whispered.

The maid carefully lifted the quiet baby from Sylvia’s arms, carrying him to the cradle. She laid him down softly on the mattress, pulling the small blanket up to his chest.

Within moments, the adrenaline left Sylvia’s body. She closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep.

The maids tiptoed around the room, cleaning up in silence and quietly stepping out to let their Duchess rest.

The room was finally peaceful.

But inside the cradle, unbeknownst to the sleeping mother and the departed maids, the baby was merely pretending.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the baby’s eyelids snapped open.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t squirm. He just lay there, perfectly still, staring blankly at the ceiling. His face was filled with innocence, which completely contrasted the raging thoughts inside his mind.

He blinked once. Twice.

So... why was he staring at a ceiling?

Why had his body suddenly shrunk from a young man to a newborn infant?

He took a silent breath, feeling the strange new sensation of air filling his lungs.

’How the f*ck did I end up here?!’

...

Just a few hours ago, in a whole different world...

Inside a dimly lit room, the hum of a computer was the only constant sound. A boy lay on a messy bed. One hand covered his face, while his other arm hung limply off the mattress, hovering over an empty, spilled bottle of poison on the floor.

The boy wasn’t dead. At least, not yet. His blurry eyes wandered, taking in the depressing state of his small apartment.

The room was practically empty of furniture, save for the bed and an old computer—a second-hand model he had bought with all his savings.

His eyes darted around and finally locked onto the monitor. More specifically, he stared at the anime playing on the screen.

Shattered Crown.

It was a massive hit, boasting an insanely high rating of 9.8. He had watched it hundreds of times. Again and again. Repeatedly.

But if someone asked him if he liked that anime? The obvious answer should have been ’yes.’ But no. He didn’t. In fact, he hated it. He despised it from the very bottom of his heart!

So why did he hate a show that almost everyone else loved? The answer was simple. There were two main reasons this story made his blood boil.

The first reason? It was a ’harem’ to its very core. He didn’t hate it just because it had a harem; he had watched some harem anime that were actually good. But this one? This one was not one of them.

The main character collected harem members the way the government collects taxes from the public. From a humble village girl to a royal princess, from the strongest assassin to a hardworking maid—every single girl he encountered got corrupted by his overwhelming "charm."

Sure, that was a common occurrence in most trashy harem anime, so what exactly made him despise this one so much?

It was the protagonist’s sheer cluelessness, his perverted nature, and the ridiculous, overpowered abilities he gained from every woman’s heart he captured.

The damn guy was so dense he would literally forget the women he had slept with. It wasn’t because he had a bad memory; the sheer number of women trailing behind him was just so large that he simply forgot they existed.

The anime would show a short, supposedly ’deep’ romantic moment, but the very next episode, he’d turn to another woman and do the exact same thing. And then with the next, and the next. He moved from one woman to another like he was speedrunning a video game. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t romance. That was the first thing that made him hate it.

So, what was the second thing? It was the ridiculous setting that a poor person who lost everything could one day effortlessly become a king.

For other people, the protagonist’s journey would have been fun, exciting, and thrilling. Watching the weakest MC rise to power, growing stronger and stronger until he became the absolute strongest person in the world, was a fantasy dream come true.

But for him? A guy who had actually worked incredibly hard in life, who did his absolute best and found none of the success he wanted? This trope made him sick.

But that sickness had driven him to watch this anime repeatedly, it was because he wanted to feel what it felt to live in such fantasy of achieving greatness.

He was born an orphan. He lived on his own for a few years before a desperate couple adopted him. But the moment they had a child of their own, he was tossed aside like old luggage. He didn’t blame them. He didn’t go to court to file a case for abandonment. Why would he? They were never really his family anyway.

He hadn’t even wanted the grand success he had chased for years. What he really wanted was the feeling of someone standing beside him. Someone who would stay with him, even during the absolute worst moments of his life.

His blurry gaze caught a new message popping up on his cracked phone screen. He didn’t even need to open it; he already knew exactly what it said.

[Let’s break up. I am done waiting!]

It was a text from his girlfriend—or, more accurately, his ex. She had promised him that she would wait until he finally find a stable job. Yet, he had already seen her out dating other guys.

’Sigh... Life has become quite tiresome... Maybe living in a fantasy is far better than living in reality.’

He closed his eyes. The poison had completely spread throughout his system, paralyzing his body. As the last vestiges of life slipped away from his eyes, the dark room was finally left in complete, unbroken silence.