The end was near.
Close enough for the servants to start circulating gossip regarding the dying heir. Close enough for the healers to stop visiting. Even the patrolling knights of the keep had muted their voices and avoided the east wing third-floor chamber where the duke's heir had been lying still and pale for three days straight.
After what felt like an eternity lying in bed waiting for death to come, Lucen finally woke up and sat down, feeling as if he had just breached the water, breathless.
The cold air hit his lungs like knives. His skin was clammy, his breath shallow, but his mind burned with sudden, terrifying clarity. The stone ceiling above him was unfamiliar. The sheets, the wooden bedframe, the thick mountain silence. Memories of an old life came flooding in.
'What the hell...?'
A flood of memories surged, of another life, another world. They were his, but at the same time weren't, yet they settled into his mind with terrifying clarity.
The memories didn't belong to the boy he was now. They belonged to a completely different life. In those memories, this world was nothing but a game, a world he'd played but never imagined he would actually live in. The pieces of his former existence had overwhelmed his current self.
Aerok.
The name echoed through his skull like a war drum.
'I'm in Aerok, the RPG I used to play.'
He breathed in and out, trying to calm himself down.
He remembered Aerok from his past life, It was an intense single-player RPG known for its branching storylines, brutal difficulty, choices that could lead to dire consequences, and multiple hidden endings. Every choice mattered, and a single misstep could result in a bad ending.
Aerok wasn't an RPG with respawns; it was a game where death meant restarting the entire game, it was something that made you think you were truly living in this world, and back then, he'd played it religiously.
And now… He was truly inside the game.
As he moved, he felt something familiar, a subtle energy humming beneath his skin. It was not the Aura a knight uses. It should be something similar to the mana that the mages use, but for some reason, Lucen thought it was not entirely the same.
As he was still thinking about things, he suddenly remembered a very important thing. He wasn't just in Aerok. He was in the body of Lucen Thornehart, the eldest son of the Iron Duke. A minor NPC in the original game, one that was only mentioned a few times, a weak, talentless loser that was doomed to die before the plot truly began.
Silver-haired and red-eyed, he remembered that his face didn't look anything like the original Lucen Thornehart from the game; instead, he looked like the default image of the gun mage from a different game, a game called Last Fantasy.
It was a hybrid class that used mana to form bullets and guns, and Aura to enhance one's physical abilities. In the later stages, the combination of Mana and Aura would result in creating stronger guns and bullets.
This was a class that shouldn't exist in this world since no one in this world had ever seen a gun.
While he was thinking about what was happening to him, he suddenly heard a soft chime echo in his mind.
[STATUS INTERFACE UNLOCKED]
The second he heard those words, a glowing blue text shimmered into view before his eyes.
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Lucen Thornehart
Age: 12
Class: Gun Mage
Health: 47 / 100
Mana: 42 / 80
Aura: Locked
Mana Core: First Circle
Skills:
• Bullet Creation – Active (Novice)
• Gun Creation – Active (Novice)
• Gun Knowledge – Passive (Novice)
Traits:
• Thornehart Lineage (Dormant)
• Foreign Soul (Unique)
'I really did become a gun mage.'
Lucen looked at the glowing screen in silence. While he was taking it all in, he noticed that there was one skill that wasn't part of the original gun mage skill set. While Lucen was wondering why there was a skill called gun knowledge, a sudden flow of information came to him.
It was similar to when he gained his past life memories, but this time, what he gained was knowledge about guns.
Schematics, black powder recipes, and battle reports from a world that had long since learned how to kill with fire and iron. From tenth-century fire lances to fifteenth-century arquebuses. He knew them all.
'This must be from the Gun Knowledge passive skill. I wonder, how about the active skills? Let's test it out.'
Lucen concentrated on using one of his skills.
Bullet Creation.
Something within him was stirring; this should be the mana within him. It was thick and heavy. It resisted his command like an untamed horse. It truly was quite hard to control, but still, it moved.
A pulse of heat coiled in his chest, slid down his arm, and with a hiss of light.
Thud.
Something had solidified in his hand, smooth, glowing faintly, it was another thing that didn't exist in this world, a bullet
'It worked.'
Lucen grew excited, but the effort left him winded. His heart raced. His arms trembled.
He looked back at the status window.
Mana: 32 / 80
That took me ten MP to use?
Lucen sighed as he placed the bullet onto the table beside him.
Now for the hard part.
Gun Creation.
He closed his eyes, forcing his thoughts into shape.
In Last Fantasy, Gun Creation was simply done with a click of a button, but here in real life, it seemed to require a rather intimate understanding of the weapon one wanted to create. You couldn't just wish for a gun, you had to know quite a bit about the gun.
Many of his past life memories were a blur, and in the first place, he wasn't that knowledgeable about guns. The most he knew about guns came from the games he had played and the movies he had seen. With the Gun knowledge skill, he had extensive knowledge about guns, but only up to the fifteenth century ones. Still, he did know about one gun that didn't come from the Gun Knowledge skill; it was the Smith & Wesson revolver.
It was a gun that had been used in a variety of games, and even in many movies, especially old western ones.
He pictured every detail he could remember, the heavy barrel, the six-round chamber, the handle, and everything else.
Mana surged, and it hurt a little bit. Like something inside him was being squeezed out like a wet cloth.
Then, with a crack of light, something was starting to materialize before him.
Clunk.
The revolver appeared in his hand.
It was a silver revolver, it was something alien, something not of this world
His young arms nearly dropped it as it was quite heavy, especially for someone who had just been in bed sick for the past few days.
The metal parts gleamed in the pale light. He had only seen such weapons in games and movies. This was the first time he had actually held a gun. The grip was shaped for his hand, it actually felt comfortable to hold.
Lucen smiled, and immediately felt his head aching.
Mana: 4 / 80
He sucked in breath through clenched teeth.
I can barely use any of my skills with this body…
He looked down at the weapon and let it go. The gun vanished the moment it left his hand. Lucen was surprised for a bit but quickly understood what had just happened. The guns he creates using his skill could only exist when he's holding onto them. He wanted to experiment some more, but he was very tired.
It would be better if he simply made the guns, and with the Gun knowledge he could do so, but the best gun he could produce using this knowledge was the arquebuses. Still, it was the best he could make at the moment.
'I guess it's better than nothing.'
...
After resting for a bit, Lucen dragged himself to the window and braced against the frame.
Snow fell gently across the darkened keep. Torches flickered in the outer yard. Beyond the walls stretched the endless white wasteland of the northern frontier.
And far out there, he knew, were the seeds of a story meant to unfold without him.
'In the original game, Lucen Thornehart was supposed to die here.'
A weak noble boy, talentless and considered worthless, would die from an unknown sickness.
The person who would replace him as heir of the noble duke's household was none other than his younger brother, Cael, a genius swordsman. Right now, his younger brother was five years old and had not yet held a sword, but unlike Lucen, the second Cael held a sword; his talent would quickly shine.
Cael was the one meant to fight alongside Alexander, the game's protagonist, and his party during the massive monster wave event that would happen twelve years from now.
'I remember that even through the screen of my computer, it was in the beginning chapters of the story. Cael and Alexander, alongside the other members of Alexander's party, were fighting together side by side against the largest monster wave to hit the North. A few years before that, the North, the house of Thornehart, had already fallen due to the territorial war initiated by the nearby nobility; they timed their attack after one devastating monster wave hit the North. That territorial war was when the Iron Duke fell, fortunately, Cael was in the Academy when the war hit, and his life was spared. It was there he met the protagonist and would later return to the North to save it. That's how the story was supposed to go.'
He looked at his pale reflection in the glass.
But now I'm still alive in a body meant to be forgotten. With powers this world's never seen.
He raised his hand again with difficulty, but despite all that, Lucen could not help but be excited as he clenched his fist weakly, feeling the power of mana within his hand. In his past life, he was simply a random nobody and had achieved nothing, and in the end, he ended up with nothing, but in this life, he decided to enjoy it more. To be able to do that, he first needed to survive.
"A world of sword and magic," Lucen smiled faintly. "Let's see how far me and my guns can go."
It was then that Lucen decided that if fate were to get in his way, he would destroy fate with overwhelming firepower.