Walking down the cracked pavement of my suburban neighborhood, I scrolled mindlessly through my phone, the familiar bright glow casting shadows over my face.
The latest chapter of *Dungeon Hunter* had just dropped, and I'd been eager to see how the protagonist was going to handle the final dungeon boss. But as I reached the ending, my shoulders sagged, and I groaned audibly.
"Really? Webnovels these days are so *f***ing boring!*" I muttered under my breath, drawing the side-eye of an elderly passerby.
"What a rip-off. They killed off Yihi and replaced her with *Lyhee*? Why do authors feel the need to butcher their own plots?" I swiped back to reread the last lines, hoping I'd missed something redeeming.
Nope. It was just as bad the second time around. The protagonist's victory felt hollow, the dialogue was flat, and the emotional payoff nonexistent.
"If I ever wrote my own story, I'd never pull this crap. Yihi would stay. None of this melodramatic hero's journey nonsense either. I'd—"
A loud honk jarred me from my grumbling. I looked up just in time to see a delivery van swerve around a corner, narrowly avoiding a cyclist. The driver yelled something colorful out the window, and the cyclist responded with a middle finger.
Typical city life. Shrugging it off, I slipped my earbuds in and hit play on my favorite playlist. If the world couldn't give me satisfying stories, at least music could drown out the disappointment.
As I crossed the street, the thudding bass of my favorite track drowned out all other sounds. It didn't even register that I hadn't looked at the traffic light before stepping off the curb.
"Hey, kid—look—!"
The voice came through muffled, garbled, like a distant echo in a dream. I turned instinctively, catching a glimpse of something enormous and white bearing down on me. The blaring horn pierced through my earbuds too late, and then—
**WHAM!**
Everything stopped.
The world didn't go black right away. For a split second, I felt the impact—sharp and all-consuming. The kind of pain you'd expect if a brick wall suddenly decided to run full speed at you. Then, as quickly as it had hit me, it was gone.
I floated, weightless, suspended in an endless void. Was this death? If so, it was surprisingly...boring. No light at the end of the tunnel, no pearly gates, no fiery pits—just infinite nothingness.
"Damn. I didn't even get to finish Peakism." My disembodied thoughts echoed into the void. "And SSS-Class Novel Huntress, too. Guess I'll never know if they actually tied up those plot threads."
For a while, there was nothing but the strange comfort of my own regrets. I had died, that much was clear, but what came next? A second chance? Reincarnation? Oblivion?
And then, there was sound. A dull, rhythmic thumping that seemed to grow louder and louder until it was all I could hear.
**Thump. Thump. Thump.**
A flash of realization hit me. It wasn't just sound—it was a heartbeat.
"Wait... Is that *my* heartbeat?"
No, that didn't make sense. I wasn't breathing. I wasn't even moving. It felt like I was being...cradled? Surrounded on all sides by warmth, my body curled into a fetal position. Slowly, I became aware of my own existence again—or, more accurately, my *new* existence.
"This can't be what I think it is."
I tried to move, but my limbs barely twitched, restrained by some unseen force. My attempts to breathe through my nose failed; something soft but firm pressed against my face. The realization hit like a second truck: I was in a womb.
I groaned—or tried to. Instead, only a gurgle escaped, swallowed by the muffling warmth. "Oh, great. I'm a baby. Fantastic. This better not be one of those second-chance stories where I'm stuck as an ordinary farm boy."
But this wasn't ordinary. Not by a long shot.
Even in my limited state, I could sense...something. A strange energy coursed around me, humming through my tiny, underdeveloped body. It was warm, chaotic, and alive. It was nothing like the sterile, lifeless world I had just left behind.
"This... isn't Earth, is it?"
I didn't have long to dwell on the thought. Pressure surrounded me as my cramped space grew even tighter. Something pushed, forcing me downwards, and suddenly my world was all motion and pain.
.....
The first thing I saw when I opened my tiny, newborn eyes was not the sterile white of a hospital ceiling or the warm gaze of a mother. It was fire.
Bright, crackling flames filled the distance, casting flickering shadows across jagged rock formations. The air was thick and hot, smelling faintly of sulfur.
"There he is," a voice growled, rough and guttural. My gaze shifted to the source: a large, hulking figure with crimson skin and curling black horns. Despite the intimidating appearance, the voice was soft with wonder.
"He's perfect," said another voice, this one softer and distinctly feminine. A pair of hands scooped me up, cradling me against a chest that was far too firm to belong to a human.
"Randalph," the female voice murmured. "We'll call him Randalph."
So, this was my new life. Born not as a farm boy or noble heir, but as a demon.
...
Over the next few days—or what I assumed were days—I began piecing together the details of my new existence. My parents, despite their monstrous appearances, were loving and attentive. They weren't the bloodthirsty, evil beings I had always associated with demons. If anything, they seemed...ordinary.
Unfortunately, ordinary wasn't good enough in this world.
It didn't take long for me to realize that my family's situation was dire. Conversations between my parents revealed that we were living in the midst of a devastating war. The Demon World was ruled by four Grand Dukes, each vying for control after the throne of the Demon King had been left vacant. The common demons—like my parents—were little more than collateral damage.
"We'll leave at dawn," my father said one evening, his voice low and heavy. "The fighting is moving closer. If we stay, we'll be caught in the crossfire."
"But where will we go?" my mother asked, her tone trembling. "There's nowhere safe. The nobles... they don't care about us. We're just toys to them."
I didn't understand everything they said, but I understood enough: we were refugees. My first few weeks of life were spent on the move, carried in my mother's arms as my parents fled from one burning village to the next.
For the first time in either of my lives, I felt truly powerless.
---
Yet, even in the midst of despair, there was a spark of hope. I wasn't just a helpless baby. I was Randalph Brigsiel, a reincarnated human with knowledge of Earth. And I wasn't going to let this cruel world crush me.
I didn't know how or when, but I made a promise to myself: I would survive. I would grow stronger. And one day, I would rise above this chaos.
The Demon World wouldn't know what hit it.