"Did you remember everything I told you?"
Shaken, he finally came back to his senses. Shido looked at everything before him with confusion. Just a moment ago in his memory, he had been helping a close friend handle funeral arrangements. In the next instant, he had arrived here.
This was a bedroom—definitely not one from the twenty-first century.
The dim, warm yellow light inside the room wasn't particularly bright. The darkened wooden floor was fairly clean, though the walls had begun to yellow with age. In one corner, a crooked stack of books leaned precariously as though it might topple over at any moment. Beside it stood a bookshelf, holding metal kettles and picture frames as decoration.
All the photographs were black and white.
Aside from an oil painting, two metal pipes ran along the wall. Their joints were faintly rusted, and one thinner pipe branched off near the desk. The brown wooden desk was cluttered with loose papers, its drawers half-open to reveal files and documents inside.
A desk lamp connected to a brass-colored pipe was still glowing. Its heavy, flared lampshade had an unfamiliar design—
"Hm? This isn't an electric lamp? A gas lamp?"
It was difficult to tell at a glance, but the pipes crawling along the walls and the wall-mounted lamps connected to them clearly weren't electrical. The warm yellow glow wasn't strong, illuminating only the desk area, yet it made Shido feel inexplicably comforted.
By that light, he could see the oil painting on the wall, the black-and-white portrait on the desk, and a newspaper spread out in the shadows on the floor. The text on the newspaper was illegible, but he could tell it wasn't written in square characters—it used letters.
No matter where this place was, this sense of age alone made one thing clear: this was no longer his homeland.
The air carried a faint scent of decay, similar to that of a morgue. Shido recognized the smell well—after all, just moments earlier, he had been helping arrange his friend's funeral—
"Did you remember everything I told you?"
The voice rang out again, snapping Shido fully back to awareness. Instinctively, he realized someone was gripping his right wrist. Only now, with mind and body fully aligned, did he think to look down.
He was standing beside a bed in what seemed to be a nineteenth-century man's bedroom. It was a four-poster bed, though curtains hung on only three sides. The bedframe and headboard gleamed faintly with metallic luster under the gas lamp at the bedside.
The lamp itself was shaped like a small angel holding it aloft, and Shido was briefly captivated by its exquisite craftsmanship.
The person gripping his hand was the man lying on the bed.
The middle-aged man—presumably the owner of the room—wore dark checkered pajamas. Everything except his head and right hand was hidden beneath the covers.
He had unmistakably Caucasian features, but his eyes were deeply sunken, his cheeks sagging, and the hand gripping Shido's wrist was frighteningly thin. He looked like someone on the verge of starvation. Shido could easily believe that if he spoke too loudly, he might have to beg the man not to die.
Shido knew nothing about his situation. He needed answers—from this man.
"So… I've been reincarnated?"
The thought surfaced naturally, helping him grasp his circumstances.
Fortunately, though the man was weak, there were no signs of livor mortis. Otherwise, Shido would truly have had reason to panic.
"Did you remember everything I told you?"
For the third time, the dying man asked. His brown eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, stared unblinkingly at Shido.
Though confused about his sudden transmigration, Shido knew better than to expose himself now. The best course was to play along, understand the situation, and plan accordingly.
He opened his mouth to reply—only to realize that the man wasn't speaking Chinese, nor any language he had ever learned. And yet, somehow, Shido understood him perfectly.
He tried to answer in the same language, but when he parted his lips, nothing came out.
"Don't tell me… I can understand it, but I can't speak it?"
A ringing filled his ears, his back itching from tension. Being unable to speak the local language was the worst possible development—one he hadn't anticipated at all.
His head buzzed, and then he realized something strange: the sound wasn't caused by anxiety.
He heard a voice inside his mind.
A woman's voice.
Soft, murmuring, almost like a whisper:
[In the Sixth Epoch, Year 1853 of the Common Calendar.
In summer, on the day the Silver Moon shone.
You have arrived in this darkened world.
You understand that you require an identity,
and so you must inherit everything belonging to this unfamiliar body.
Now begins the first step—prove yourself.
Prove that you may enter this world.]
"Sy—"
His first instinct was to think of a "system," but he immediately dismissed the idea.
This was no system.
The woman's voice was elegant and soothing, like poetry recited in a whisper, mesmerizing to the soul. But the language she spoke was neither Chinese nor the language of the dying man.
It was older. Deeper. More arcane.
Like a wind from a forgotten age, passing through the veil of time to brush against the present. Language itself became tangible mystery; simply comprehending it made Shido feel as though he were gazing into boundless darkness.
Though he understood this second language as well, the act of understanding alone made his head throb violently. His new body's stomach churned in nausea.
This was spiritual pressure—the language itself carried extraordinary power.
"This is the language of this world. The voice in my head isn't a system… it's something that already existed within this body."
His pupils constricted as a terrifying realization took shape:
"This new world—this Victorian, steam-age world—is one of the occult and the supernatural."
He wasn't someone who rejected reality. If transmigration was possible, then the existence of the supernatural wasn't hard to accept.
But his priority right now was clear: understand the situation, answer the man's question, and determine who he was supposed to be.
So Shido attempted to communicate with the voice in his mind, using his own language:
"Whoever you are, please listen. I want to accept everything belonging to this body, but I have none of its memories—nor its language habits."
[Now you do.]
It felt as though a brick had been forcibly shoved into the crown of his skull and viciously stirred around. The fact that Shido didn't lose consciousness was nothing short of miraculous.
He didn't receive the body's memories.
Instead, knowledge was forced into him—knowledge of the Northern Kingdom's Common Human Language: Delarian Royal Tongue.
The knowledge existed, but it wasn't fully integrated. Like a translation device, it allowed understanding, but not mastery. Slang, dialects, religion, culture, idioms—all of that remained foreign.
"I'm sorry, sir. I'm not feeling very well. Could you please repeat what you wanted me to remember?"
Using this knowledge, he slowly translated his thoughts into the local language and deliberately spoke with a stiff, unnatural tone.
The dying man's grip suddenly tightened. It was hard to imagine such strength coming from such a frail wrist.
"You're still the same… slow in the head. Very well. I'll say it again."
It seemed the original owner of the body wasn't particularly bright, which conveniently prevented suspicion.
"Shido."
The pronunciation was nearly identical.
"I am about to die. I learned of my death three months in advance. That is why I chose you—from among the vagrants. I changed your life, gave you a new name, taught you basic literacy and common sense.
After I die, you will inherit everything I own—my detective agency, all my property.
But in exchange, you must do one thing. Just one simple thing—"
Though his voice was weak, his eyes were terrifying, like a lone wolf on the verge of death. The fear they inspired made Shido's heart tremble.
Shido kept his breathing steady but avoided meeting the man's gaze.
Not out of fear—but because he now understood the role he was meant to play.
Given what he'd learned, he absolutely should not meet the man's eyes. He should look away in fear. That was what fit the identity he was inheriting.
"Inherit my detective agency. No matter what you choose to do with it, you must keep it operating.
Until three months later—September 5th, 1853.
On that day, you will receive a letter. Retrieve it. Burn it.
That is the price of my entire inheritance."
The man's grip was unrelenting. Even when Shido feigned a slight struggle, he knew escape was impossible. The man's strength was frightening.
"This is the only request of Spar
row Hamilton—
to you, Shido Hamilton,
the sole heir to my estate."
End of Chapter