Chapter 4: System

"I survived the fatal incident. I possessed a dead body that was already supposed to be written out of the story. I’m living on borrowed time in a body that has no plot relevance whatsoever."

He lay there, letting the reality wash over him.

There was no grand prophecy. No ancient god had appeared in a dream to bestow upon him a sacred quest to vanquish the Demon King. No tragic vengeance burned in his veins.

Lucien’s family was wonderful, loving, wealthy, and politically untouchable. He had no abusive stepmothers, no traitorous fiancées who had publicly broken an engagement, and no secret bloodline debt that required him to butcher three neighboring empires to clear his family’s name.

He was just... here.

"Why was I dragged into this?" he muttered, throwing his arm over his eyes. "What am I supposed to do? Go hunt down the Hero and say, ’Hey man, no hard feelings about the tactical oversight, by the way could you please not trigger the apocalyptic seal beneath the capital in Arc 65?’ He’d have me committed to an asylum before lunchtime."

A sense of existential liberation suddenly washed over him.

In his previous life, he had lived under the crushing, suffocating weight of endless expectations.

Good grades, top-tier university, high-paying engineering job, seventy-hour work weeks, competitive algorithmic rankings, rent, taxes, networking, productivity optimization, and the perpetual, grinding terror of falling behind his peers. He had worked himself to literal death before the age of thirty.

And now?

Now he was the second son of a fabulously wealthy Duke in a high-fantasy world. His family adored him precisely because he wasn’t an ambitious, bloodthirsty combat genius.

His father had literally told him before the expedition: "Your brother will inherit the military duties, your sister will master the high elements. You simply live well, Ethan. That is all our house requires of you."

"Live well," he whispered to himself, a faint, genuine smirk forming on his lips. "You know what? That sounds fantastic. That sounds like the greatest retirement package in the history of human existence."

He didn’t need to save the world.

The Hero Party, the ridiculously talented, hyper-competent, freakishly lucky Astra Party, was going to save the world anyway.

That was literally the entire premise of the eight-hundred-Chapter novel!

Cassian Valemont and his weird little crew of traumatized prodigies would grind the dungeons, defeat the Eclipsed Hand, slay the ancient horrors, and seal the cosmic entity beneath the crust of the earth.

All he had to do was stay out of their way.

His new life plan crystallized in his mind with absolute, mathematical clarity:

Avoid the Main Plot like the bubonic plague. If Cassian Valemont walks down the street, cross to the other side. If the Hero Party reserves a table at a tavern, eat somewhere else. If a mysterious dungeon opens near the academy, feign a sudden and violent case of gastrointestinal distress!

Protect Lucien’s family and friends.

Ensure Rowan doesn’t do anything recklessly stupid, make sure Duke Darius stays healthy, and let his older brother and sister handle the glorious combat achievements.

Enjoy the unimaginable perks of high-tier nobility. Sleep twelve hours a day. Eat artisanal pastries prepared by Michelin-grade royal chefs. Read ancient fantasy novels in sunlit libraries. Stroll through manicured gardens. Fund quirky local artists. Buy an aggressively comfortable carriage.

"I am going to be the most relaxed, unbothered, spectacularly useless background noble this empire has ever seen," he declared proudly to the empty bedroom. "No wars. No grinding. No stress. Just vibes, high-end charcuterie boards, and afternoon naps."

As if on cue, the universe decided to violently object.

DING!

A sharp, crystalline chime, resembling the high-resolution ping of an ultra-modern digital interface, rang out directly inside the center of his consciousness.

He froze.

Before his eyes, the ambient amber light of the bedroom seemed to freeze, the dust motes suspended mid-air in the soft illumination.

A semi-translucent, pitch-black holographic rectangle with sharp, glowing silver borders unfurled itself directly in his line of sight, hovering silently against the backdrop of the mahogany ceiling.

[SOUL SYSTEM]

Host Identification: Confirmed

Soul Origin: Foreign Entity / Transmigrator

Vessel Status: Synchronized (100%)

[Analyzing Host Spiritual Lattice...]

[Warning: Abnormal Soul Geometry Detected.]

[System Initialization Complete.]

He stared at the floating box.

He closed his left eye.

The box remained.

He closed his right eye.

The box remained.

He pulled the velvet blanket completely over his head, plunging himself into pitch-black darkness.

The glowing silver letters hovered comfortably two inches from his nose, radiating with pristine, high-definition clarity.

"...Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he groaned into the pillow. "A System? Really? I specifically just outlined my retirement manifesto, and you show up with UI elements?"

Another soft PING echoed in his ears.

[Status]

[Name: Lucien Alaric Everhart

Age: 20

Race: Human

Class: None

Level: 1

Strength: 8

Agility: 9

Vitality: 8

Intelligence: 14

Mana: 18

Spirit: 27

Mana Affinity: None

Soul Affinity: Extremely High]

[Traits:

Unknown Soul Trait

Status: Dormant

Analysis: Failed]

[Skills: None]

[Undead:

Bound: 0

Capacity: 0]

He pushed the blanket off his face and sat up, rubbing his temples as he studied the glowing lines of text.

"Lucien Alaric Everhart..." he murmured, testing the name on his tongue. It was his real name from his past life, Lucien, fused seamlessly into the lineage of this world.

He looked at the stats.

"Strength eight, Vitality eight. Outstanding. An aggressive gust of wind could probably hospitalize me. Mana Capacity eighteen, basically enough to power a novelty desk lamp for four minutes. But Spirit twenty-seven?"

He narrowed his eyes.

The baseline for an average unawakened human in this world was around ten across all attributes. A Spirit score of twenty-seven before formal awakening was borderline absurd, a direct consequence, no doubt, of cramming a fully matured, second soul into an existing human body.

And then there was that ominous line at the bottom:

[Undead Bound: 0 / 0]

He paused.

He stared at the word Undead.

"Hold on..."