Albrecht had always been a good student. He was mostly quiet but focused and disciplined, the kind of boy teachers remembered for his perfect notes.

  Before being pulled into another world, he had been attending St. Aldwyn Academy on a scholarship. One of the best schools in the country. He'd earned his place there.

  Back when his parents were alive, life had been... normal. Not extravagant, but stable. They weren't rich, but they lived comfortably.

  Upper-middle class, probably. Each parent had their own car. Their apartment was spacious, nestled in a bustling part of the city with big windows.

  His father was a doctor, and his mother a nurse. That's also how they met. They had saved people for a living.

  Then everything changed.

  Albrecht was eight when it happened, and his sister, Nora, was six. It was the last day of school before the holidays, and their parents had promised them a surprise: an amusement park trip.

  Albrecht remembered waiting outside the school gates, backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes scanning the street in anticipation. His father's car pulled up. His mother smiled at him from the front seat.

  They never made it to pick up Nora.

  At an intersection only a few blocks from her preschool, an ambulance ran a red light, rushing to an accident, sirens blaring. Albrecht's father had the green.

  Their car moved into the intersection, and the ambulance slammed into the passenger side.

  The impact was devastating.

  Albrecht, seated behind his father on the left side, was jostled violently but miraculously unharmed. His mother, sitting in the front passenger seat, took the full force of the blow. She died instantly.

  But fate wasn't done.

  The crash shoved their vehicle sideways, right into the lane beside them. There, a small sedan had been driving.

  Long metal rods protruded from the rolled-down rear window, sticking out like a trap waiting for the wrong moment.

  That moment came.

  The wrecked car struck at just the right angle. One of the rods pierced through the driver's side window like a javelin, impaling Albrecht's father through the neck.

  He and his little sister had been put into an orphanage by government officials. They had never told Nora what happened to her parents. Whether out of negligence or cowardice, no one said the words aloud.

  That burden fell to an eight-year-old boy still soaked in shock and trauma.

  Now, that boy, nearly grown, was sprinting through the winding streets of Vaelmont, struggling to find the bridge that led to the other side of town.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Maybe that past was the reason he could withstand the pain of Mirrorbound.

  Or maybe it was something genetic. A quirk of biology. Or maybe… he was just weird.

  Because at this moment, heart pounding, mind fraying, and body aching from strain, Albrecht felt something he shouldn't have.

  Excitement.

  He was in a completely foreign, magical world. He had nearly been killed by drunken thugs but was saved by a swordsman who decapitated people without hesitation.

  He'd cleaned up three corpses and burned them in a fireplace, afraid that the Central Continents Special Affairs Division might search his inn for a wanted criminal that very well could have been Thereon.

  For the first time in his life, he stole something, and at that, without any hesitation. Only a travel guide, but he nearly got caught by city guards.

  He had to dive into a canal to escape, injured half his body, and was rescued by a mysterious woman who may have been the very one who injured him... and possibly tampered with his memories.

  He also discovered that he had an absurdly powerful ability that made him nearly immortal. He made a reckless Divine Vow and then broke it without any fear.

  Now, he was hunted, if not by Heinz, a mage with unknown strength, then possibly by Orithiel, a celestial being bound to enforce the vow.

  And Selene? She was almost certainly pissed. Maybe enough to come after him herself. Her agenda was also completely unknown.

  And to top it all off, he might be wanted for the theft of the guidebook, or worse, for involvement in the use of Chronos Watch, a high-tier magical artifact with the power to forward time.

  Everything should have felt like too much.

  But it didn't.

  He was actually excited. Albrecht didn't feel any fear.

  What did he even have to lose?

  If he was being honest with himself, the chances of ever returning to Earth and seeing Nora again were close to zero. Clinging to hope now felt like delusion. There was no point in comforting lies or naive dreams. Not anymore.

  He had accepted it. This world. This reality. But acceptance didn't mean surrender.

  If anything, it meant the opposite.

  'Wasn't life on Earth kind of boring, anyway?' he thought.

  Nothing but textbooks, exams, polite conversations, and classmates who always smiled upon seeing each other.

  He never considered them friends.

  To Albrecht, they were just background noise, fleeting distractions. Ordinary people, good for passing time but nothing else.

  His future was certain. He would have no trouble attending a prestigious university, finding a well-paid job, and leading a quiet and structured life.

  On paper, it was perfect.

  But when had he started to hate it?

  People would have envied him for his good grades, scholarship, "friends," and safe path forward.

  But wasn't it all just... hollow?

  Where was the danger? The uncertainty? The part of life that made it feel real?

  Most people would think that he was definitely crazy. They would assume that he was a spoiled teenager who didn't understand life and was not grateful for what he had.

  But was he actually crazy for thinking this way? Well, maybe he actually was. Not that he cared about what other people thought.

  There were also many people who considered him a genius, but what did that truly mean? Scoring a certain number of points on an IQ test didn't mean anything. You could prepare for that.

  Then, was it being good at school? Maybe skipping a certain amount of grades?

  No… to Albrecht, it meant being someone who would do the impossible, someone who would be considered crazy until he proved everyone wrong. That was a genius.

  Mastering swordsmanship, magic, whatever it took. He would prove that he was not crazy but a genius. And he had set himself a goal to do so:

  Conquering the world.