The blue light from my monitor painted harsh shadows across the cramped dorm room. Empty energy drink cans formed a small fortress around my laptop, and the clock in the corner read 2:47 AM. Sleep was a luxury for those who didn't have deeply-held convictions about narratively bankrupt webnovels.
The comments section of Heirs of the Azure Orb, Chapter 247, was a digital bloodbath. I scrolled, watching the sharks circle the latest plot development. Most were praising the golden boy protagonist Leo for his "heroic restraint" in dealing with the story's designated punching bag.
Heroic restraint my ass.
My fingers moved across the keyboard, crafting what I considered my masterpiece of literary criticism:
"Kaelen Leone is a narrative black hole, a character so fundamentally flawed he threatens to collapse the entire story under the weight of his own pathetic villainy. A perverted coward who preys on servants and commoners? Really? And now we're supposed to feel satisfied watching Leo 'discipline' him tomorrow? This isn't character development—it's just lazy writing that uses a strawman villain to make the protagonist look good. If I were this pathetic waste of space, I'd have thrown myself off a cliff by now rather than embarrass my family name any further."
I hit enter and leaned back in my chair, satisfied. The comment would probably get buried, but at least I'd said my piece about—
The screen flickered.
The pixels twisted, spiraling inward like water down a drain. Colors bled together, forming patterns that hurt to look at directly. I squeezed my eyes shut, the gritty burn of sleeplessness protesting. A hallucination. It had to be. My brain was finally staging a coup.
The spiral grew larger, pulling at the edges of my vision. My dorm room began to tilt, walls stretching like taffy. The energy drink cans scattered across my desk started floating, defying gravity as they drifted toward the monitor.
"What the hell—"
My voice cut off as reality folded in on itself. The last thing I saw was my comment, glowing brighter than the rest of the screen, before everything went black.
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Then... coolness. A liquid smoothness against my skin.
That was my first coherent thought... I shifted, and the fabric whispered over me, impossibly light. This wasn't the scratchy polyester of my dorm; this was silk, the kind that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
I kept my eyes closed, clinging to the desperate hope that this was just a very vivid dream. Maybe I'd finally passed out at my desk and my brain was processing the webnovel I'd been reading. That had to be it. People didn't just get sucked into computer screens—that was fiction, and bad fiction at that.
I clenched a fist, and the response was sluggish, pathetic. The muscles felt… hollowed out, a cheap suit of flesh I was forced to wear. My command to tense a bicep resulted in a weak tremor. My mind, the pilot, was screaming orders, but the machine below was a cheap, unresponsive rental.
Okay, Alex. Just open your eyes and prove you're still in your shitty dorm room.
I cracked one eyelid open and immediately wanted to slam it shut again.
Vaulted ceiling. Actual honest-to-god stone vaulting with carved details that probably cost more than my entire college tuition. Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting scenes of knights and magical creatures that looked suspiciously familiar. A massive window dominated one wall, letting in golden morning light that illuminated dust motes dancing in the air.
This was not my dorm room.
The air felt different here—cooler, carrying the faint, clean scent of lavender and old stone. I stared at my arms, resting on impossibly white sheets. They were pale, stick-thin, and utterly alien. I willed my fingers to clench into a fist. They twitched, a slow, clumsy curl that felt like it was happening a room away. There was a horrifying half-second of lag between command and execution.
A mirror stood across the room, ornate and gilded like something from a museum. Each step on the cold stone floor was a gamble.
My legs felt like foreign limbs, disconnected and clumsy. A cold knot tightened in my gut; I didn't want to look, but I had to.
Black hair fell across my face—not my usual brown. Light grey eyes stared back at me instead of dark blue. The face was younger, softer, with the kind of aristocratic features that belonged in a period drama.
A face I'd seen rendered in countless webnovel illustrations. A face I had just spent an hour eviscerating online.
No. No, no, no.
The mirror was relentless. Kaelen Leone's reflection stared back, wearing my own terror like a mask.
A soft knock echoed through the room. "Young Master Kaelen?"
I spun toward the door, nearly tripping over my own feet. A maid entered without waiting for permission—middle-aged, with graying hair pulled back in a severe bun and the kind of neutral expression servants wore when they'd rather be anywhere else.
"Young Master Kaelen," she repeated, her tone carrying just enough respect to be proper while making it clear she thought I was beneath her notice. "I trust you slept well?"
My jaw worked, but no sound came out. The connection between my brain and my tongue had been severed. or I tried to speak, but my throat locked up. All I could manage was a useless click of the tongue.
What was I supposed to say? Actually, I'm not Kaelen, I'm a college student from another world who thinks your young master is a pathetic waste of oxygen?
"I..." The voice that came out was not my own. It was higher, smoother, laced with an aristocratic softness I despised. "...fine. I slept fine."
The maid's expression didn't change, but I caught a flicker of something in her eyes. Disappointment? Contempt? Both?
"Your morning attire has been prepared," she continued, gesturing toward a chair where clothes had been laid out. Dark, simple garments that looked expensive but understated—the kind of thing a minor noble might wear when trying not to draw attention. "Young Master Leo von Valerius awaits you in the courtyard for your... scheduled discipline."
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