"Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism."
***
Maybe I got the one thing every transmigrator in every story seemed to get.
The golden finger. The cheat. The broken ability that would make this nightmare survivable.
"Status," I said to the empty room.
Nothing.
"System Menu."
Nothing.
"Stats. Character Sheet. Inventory. Interface." I was getting desperate now. "Anything. Please. Come on."
I didn't get shit. No screen, no floating window, not even a sarcastic AI offering my cryptic hints in my head. I was just a guy in a dead man's body.
Fantastic. Really great. Ten out of ten isekai experience so far.
I started grabbing the clothes left from the maid and started trying to get dressed but my hands refused to cooperate. I had to redo most of the buttons because they wouldn't stop shaking. The fabric felt nice at least.
The problem was everything about this body was like driving a rental car. Sure, in theory they should have the same components to make it function but you don't know a rental car like you know your own body. This led to there being a delay on what I wanted the body to do and the body actually doing it.
I walked over to the window on the far way that overlooked the courtyard to see Leo in the flesh for myself. There were multiple figures gathered below and two stood out from the rest. One did because she was not only a woman but an extremely curvaceous woman and the other one was him.
The one with hair the same color of a yellow highlighter.
The guy who's fist apparently had a date with my face.
The hero and protagonist of this story.
Leo Von Valerius.
At least I get to meet a main character before I die. That's something. I can put it on my tombstone. "Here lies Alex. He saw a protagonist once."
The urge to laugh was building in my chest again. The bad kind of laugh. The kind that doesn't stop.
Another knock at the door. The maid didn't bother waiting this time.
"Young Master. It's time."
Of course it was.
I nodded because I didn't trust my voice. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else as I followed her out of the room. Don't trip. Don't run. Don't collapse in a heap and refuse to move. Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other.
The corridors went on forever. Portraits lined the walls, generations of Leones staring down at me with the kind of disapproval that only dead aristocrats could manage. They looked like they were judging me. Probably were, in some spiritual sense. Sorry, great-great-grandfather. Your legacy is now being operated by a guy who got here through the power of sleep deprivation and bad life choices.
If I survive this, I'm writing such a scathing review of this world's customer service.
We reached a set of double doors. Big ones. The kind of doors that existed to make whoever walked through them feel small. Light spilled through the gap as they opened, warm and golden, the kind of weather that belonged in a romantic comedy or a travel brochure.
Birds were singing somewhere. An actual nice day. Spring morning, flowers blooming, gentle breeze.
Seemed like a weird choice of backdrop for getting beaten half to death, but what did I know about narrative aesthetics?
"Young Master," the maid said at the threshold. Her voice was quiet. "Remember what I told you about dignity."
Right. I was about to get publicly destroyed in front of an audience, but I should make sure to look good while it happened. Wouldn't want to embarrass the family name more than my existence already did.
Aristocratic life. Gotta love it.
I stepped through the doors.
The courtyard smelled like cut grass and flowers. Stone pavers covered the ground, bordered by gardens that probably cost more to maintain than my college tuition. Nice place. Very scenic. Would have made a great Instagram post if Instagram existed here.
And there, in the middle of it all, stood the golden boy himself.
The way the novel described him is exactly how he looked. He had golden hair tied back in a loose ponytail with sapphire eyes that seemed to shine brighter than anyone elses. An athleticly chisled build that when combined with the sword at his hip made him look like a greek demigod.
The poster child for the OP Protagonist. I can almost hear the OST starting to swell.
Several other students flanked him. His entourage. His witnesses. His cheering section. I recognized them from the novel, faces I'd seen in illustrations and read about in fan discussions. Marcus Aldren, the loyal best friend type. Elena Morgenthorne, silver hair and cold expression, the designated ice queen. A few others whose names I couldn't drag up through the fog in my brain.
Leo's eyes found me as I approached.
For a second, those sapphire eyes just looked. Not angry. Not contemptuous. Something worse. He was sizing me up the way you'd look at a math problem. Figuring out the simplest solution.
Then blue light started shimmering around his knuckles.
Ah, he's going to use mana infused punches it looks like.
He wasn't smiling.
Of course he's not smiling. Heroes don't smile when they're about to deliver justice. That would ruin the aesthetic.