Chapter 1: Babylon Berlin
The October wind swept through Berlin like a restless ghost, rattling the hospital window until the glass creaked against its frame.
On the narrow bed, a handsome young man with short blond hair slowly opened his deep blue eyes.
For several seconds, he simply stared upward, his dazed gaze fixed on the mottled ceiling above him. It was not a classroom. It was not his apartment. It was not any place he recognized. The unfamiliar sight made Raymond instinctively want to suck in a sharp breath, but the moment he tried, the dryness in his throat seized him. All that came out were a few ragged coughs.
Cough, cough, cough.
Have I been kidnapped?
Bracing one hand against the mattress, he forced himself upright. He had barely managed to sit before another instinct took over, stronger than confusion, stronger than panic. Like a man crossing a desert, he turned his head in search of water.
"Master Roman... thank God you're finally awake!"
A glass of water appeared in front of him.
A young Westerner with heavy dark circles under his eyes leaned into view, his expression bright with relief. Raymond's mind was still a fog, and in that muddled state, he barely registered that the other man had spoken in fluent German.
Out of habit, he answered in Japanese.
"Cardolan... was I kidnapped?"
The young man froze, visibly startled.
"Master? What did you say?"
The warm water slid over Raymond's tongue and down his throat. In that instant, it was as if some hidden gate inside his mind burst open. A torrent of memories, memories that were not his own, came crashing in.
The owner of this body was named Jörg von Roman.
In his previous life, Raymond had been nothing more than a leisurely scholar, a researcher of European history and a librarian by trade. Jörg von Roman, however, had been born into something far more troublesome than a quiet life among books. He came from a family of distinction, or rather, a family that had once possessed distinction.
His grandfather had fought in the Franco-Prussian War under Wilhelm I and entered Berlin in triumph, earning the family its military nobility and the precious "von" in its name. That single syllable marked the Romans as Junkers, men of the old Prussian order.
The old Roman family had courage in abundance. They had bravery, pride, and an almost foolish loyalty to crown and country. What they lacked was everything else.
When it came to commerce, wealth, and political survival, the family might as well have been blind. Worse still, the line was thin. His grandfather had only one son. His father had only him.
Two generations had served their monarch with near-religious devotion. His grandfather had gone to war. His father had rushed to the front the moment the Great War began. Yet unlike the old man, Jörg's father had not returned in glory. He had died commanding a blocking action before Wilhelm II had even abdicated.
As for the family's fortunes, they were little better than a hollow shell. By his father's generation, the Romans no longer possessed broad lands or prosperous estates. All that remained were a few wineries and factories, just enough to preserve the appearance of nobility. That, more than anything, was why his father had chased military merit so desperately. War had seemed the only path left to restore the family's standing.
In the end, his father had indeed gained equality with dukes and counts alike.
Because now, the entire old noble system had been shattered.
As for Jörg himself, the family's education had not been poor. Through old influence and lingering connections, they had managed to place him in the Berlin Police Department, hoping it would serve as a stepping stone toward military school and a proper career.
Unfortunately, Jörg had inherited the Roman family gift for failure in any field that required subtlety.
He was competent enough when it came to carrying out orders. More than competent, in fact. But beyond that, he was a blunt instrument. As head of a gang and riot affairs unit in the police department, he led from the front in every operation, charging straight into danger with more courage than sense. He bled, he fought, and he took the risks. In return, he gained nothing. All the credit had been snatched away by his former subordinate, the man who was now head of the Public Security Police Department, Shiloh Enns.
Then came the family tragedies in quick succession.
His father dead. His mother gone. Germany defeated.
After that, the original Jörg von Roman had collapsed into vice with astonishing speed. Gambling, drinking, debauchery, self-destruction, he embraced them all with the dedication of a man trying to outrun ruin by hurling himself deeper into it. He had mortgaged the family's remaining businesses to criminal gangs for gambling money. Liquor and revelry had become daily necessities.
Most likely, the man had drunk himself to death.
The young man standing before him, still holding the water glass, was named Cardolan. He was the son of one of Jörg's father's adopted comrades in arms. The two had grown up together, studied together, and passed through boyhood side by side. Though Cardolan called himself a servant, in Jörg's heart he had never truly been one. He was family. A brother in all but blood.
Raymond drained half the glass. The shattered fragments of memory churned within him, collided, and slowly settled. Piece by piece, the foreign life fused with his own.
When the dizziness finally eased, Raymond was gone.
What remained was a new Jörg von Roman.
And with that realization came another.
This world was not the world he had known.
The major historical currents were broadly familiar, and the great turning points of Europe still stood in roughly the same places, but the details had shifted. The Great War, for instance, had not begun with the Sarajevo assassination. In this world, the spark had come from another killing, one orchestrated by Austria-Hungary itself. Even now, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were still alive.
It was as though the two worlds were twin flowers born from the same stem, almost identical at a glance, yet undeniably different under close inspection.
[TL: So, This is a Parallel World with the same History but different Events]
In the past, Raymond had entertained idle fantasies about transmigration, the sort of thing that belonged in cheap fiction and late-night imagination. But now that it had truly happened, all he felt was unease and disorientation. It was like a man who adored tales of dragons suddenly finding one in his doorway. The romance vanished the moment it became real.
A quiet life among shelves and manuscripts would have suited him far better than inheriting a wreck.
Yet beneath the confusion, beneath the shock, there was also something else.
Excitement.
This was Germany.
Not the triumphant empire of old, but the collapsing Babel that had emerged from the war. A nation humiliated, hollowed out, and desperate. A battlefield of ideologies. A stage where every faction, every opportunist, every zealot and conspirator came forward in turn. A defeated state whose people had been stripped to the bone and forced to sign away their pride, all while praying for someone, anyone, to save them.
It was a graveyard.
It was a furnace.
And for men with ambition, it was also a stage.
Since fate had thrown him here, then so be it. He would shoulder the original owner's absurd dream of a thousand-year German empire and climb, step by bloody step, toward the summit of power.
He would give Germany a true millennium of strength, not another hysterical nightmare led by a madman and ending in total ruin.
But before any of that, he first had to deal with the filth the original Jörg had left behind.
If memory served, it was October 1921. The catastrophic collapse of the mark was less than a year away. If he played his cards correctly, that disaster alone might become the first rung of his ascent, from a mere police captain trapped in street-level security work to the threshold of the military and political world.
Then, just as he began to rise from the bed, a mechanical voice thundered through his mind.
[Congratulations, Host, for slightly altering Jörg von Roman's fate. Reward has been issued.]
Jörg's body stiffened.
The voice had come from nowhere, and from everywhere. He instinctively swept his gaze across the room, half expecting some hidden speaker or cruel hallucination. But before he could make sense of it, a warm current spread through his body, flowing through his organs, his muscles, his bones.
The sensation was indescribable.
It was not merely comfort. It was a deep, overwhelming restoration, as though every exhausted part of him had been immersed in hot water after years of winter. He leaned slightly to one side, and a sharp series of crackling pops ran up his spine. The sound alone was enough to make him realize how completely his body had changed.
Only moments ago, he had looked pale and worn, like a man one illness away from burial.
Now, color rushed back into his face. His skin regained its vitality. His breath grew steady. Strength returned to his limbs with almost frightening speed.
So this is the legendary System?
As the thought crossed his mind, several anxious calls pulled him back to reality.
"Master, Master, the doc..."
Seeing that there was still no response from him, Cardolan hurried closer, his concern obvious. He had just turned his head to call for a doctor when Jörg swung his legs off the bed, rose to his feet, and stopped him.
"It's fine, Cardolan. I've just figured a few things out."
His voice was calm now, steadier than before.
"Oh, right. How many days was I unconscious?"
He reached for the light blue wool overcoat hanging beside the bed, the coat of a Weimar police officer, and slipped it on. His thick leather boots scraped across the floor with a rough creak.
From his pocket, he drew out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He lit one with practiced ease, and the faint smell of tobacco swept away the last trace of stiffness in his tone.
"Two days," Cardolan replied, letting out a long breath of relief at the sound of his familiar manner. "During that time, Mr. Shiloh Enns came by several times. It seemed like he was looking for something."
Jörg's eyes narrowed slightly.
Looking for something?
So it was not only the gangs circling like vultures around his remaining land deeds and stock contracts. His old subordinate had also scented blood.
Cardolan, meanwhile, studied him with something close to reverence. This master lf his had once given him a second life. If Jörg had died as well, Cardolan would truly have had nothing left in the world but the idea of repaying more than ten years of kindness with his own death.
Jörg said nothing. He merely exhaled a thin stream of smoke and turned the thought over in silence.
Then, from behind him, came a low and measured knock at the door.
Perfectly timed.