Smash.
Leo slammed his fist onto the chipped wooden desk, making the cheap energy drink shake next to his laptop.
"Are you absolutely kidding me?!" he muttered, staring wide-eyed at the screen. The final lines of the web novel, The Crimson Knight and the Azure Princess, were a punch to the gut.
...Her beautiful, sky-blue eyes went blank, turning the dull color of ancient stone. The last bit of strength left her hand, and it fell away from his face. Lyra was dead. In that moment, Kaelen felt a loss so massive, that it ripped through more than just his soul...
Leo groaned, dragging his hands through his hair. This was the fifth time he had tried to accept this ending, but the frustration just grew sharper.
"Hundreds of chapters of build-up for that?" he ranted to the empty room. "Sir Kaelen, you monumental idiot! You had three years! Three years as the sole guardian of Princess Lyra the Azure Princess! You watched her sacrifice herself for a fake peace, let her marry the trash King Valerius, and then you just stood there like a stone statue of loyalty until the bitter end?"
He scrolled back to the character profile: Sir Kaelen. Raven-black hair, intense red eyes, stoic, fiercely protective, loyal to a fault.
"'Loyal to a fault' is right! BULLSHIT!" Leo yelled, startling himself. "You were too busy polishing your ethics to actually do anything! You had superhuman strength, a unique Crimson power no one else could touch, and you let the only person you loved die right in your arms because you respected 'The Duty.' The tragedy isn't heartbreaking, it's just stupid!"
Leo adored Princess Lyra. Her white hair, her blue eyes—she was the perfect, selfless hero trapped in a world of darkness, constantly let down by everyone, especially her own passive knight.
He sighed, leaning back in his creaking chair. "If I were Kaelen, I wouldn't care about the throne, the King, or the idiotic politics. I would grab Lyra, expose Valerius early, and run off to start a new life somewhere warm."
He looked down at his own hands, soft and clumsy, only good for keyboards. He imagined the feel of Kaelen's heavy armor, the weight of his guilt, the heat in those red eyes. He muttered a desperate wish under his breath:
"I wish I was Kaelen".
"I should turn off the screen," he decided, reaching out to finally close the tab.
The second his finger touched the screen, a bizarre static jolted through him. It was deep, metallic, and cold. The energy drink flew off the desk, spilling sticky crimson liquid everywhere.
The laptop screen exploded in a horrifying, blood-red color that killed all the light in the room. The sound wasn't a static pop, but a deafening rip the sound of reality being violently shredded.
Leo felt a massive, burning pressure on his chest, a searing heat that felt like his soul was being ripped out of his modern body and hammered into something else. He gasped, the familiar air of his apartment vanishing. He was being pulled apart, screaming silently through a tunnel of light and noise.
The screaming stopped. The blinding light was replaced by dim, cool shadow.
Leo tried to breathe, finding the air thick with the smell of old leather and oiled steel. He was standing, but his body felt impossibly heavy, strong, and stiff.
He blinked. The ceiling was high, vaulted stone. The walls were covered in heavy, dark tapestries bearing the crest of the Kingdom of Twilight.
Where... am I?
He looked down. Instead of his pajamas, he saw dark, scarred plate armor. A heavy crimson scarf was wrapped around his neck, resting on the chest piece. His hands, huge and powerful, were encased in thick, black gauntlets.
He raised a hand, his movements smooth and terrifyingly automatic. He caught his reflection in the dark shoulder plate.
Messy black hair. A chiseled, stoic face. And eyes.
His eyes were not brown. They were a vivid, burning, intense red.
"That son of a bitch… Kaelen," he whispered.
He was in the body of the failure, the man whose had doomed Lyra.
A sharp, demanding knock came at the heavy oak door.
"Sir Kaelen," a deep voice requested from the other side. "His Majesty the King requires your presence immediately. Princess Lyra has arrived at the capital, and your duties as her personal knight begin now."
Leo, now Kaelen, felt his blood run cold. He knew that line. This was the absolute starting line of the novel, the moment before the public announcement of the betrothal to Valerius.
He hadn't been sent back to the tragedy; he had been given a new game file. He had time.
His original mission—to criticize Kaelen for failing Lyra—now became his terrifying, exhilarating reality.
With his heart hammering against the rigid steel of his armor, Leo-Kaelen straightened his massive frame. He had called the original knight passive. Now, he would be the knight of action.
"Understood," he called out, his voice deeper, rougher, and more commanding than he could have ever imagined. "I am coming."