Alex felt pain all over his body, as if every bone were broken. He screamed in agony for a while, and eventually, the pain subsided.
'What happened?' he thought, slowly getting up. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was, but this place was unfamiliar to him.
'Where am I?' he asked himself, and then he began to piece together his last memories before waking up in this strange room.
'I was going to work and decided to pass the time by reading a novel while walking, as I always do' Alex remembered. Then, he recalled what had happened to him.
He started sweating profusely, scanning the room once again. "A car crashed into me," he thought.
'But why am I not in the hospital? Why am I not injured?' he asked himself, desperately searching for an answer other than the one he knew deep down.
He began to deny it, saying, 'No, no, it can't be.'
Alex started pacing around the room, which appeared to be a bedroom.
'What is this smell?' From the moment he woke up, there was a repulsive odor in the room.
He tried to locate the source of the smell, and after looking on the other side of the bed, he noticed the floor stained with black fluid.
Confirming that the disgusting smell originated from the black liquid, he stepped back and attempted to calm himself down.
'Am I in a coma?' He searched for an explanation as to why he was in this unfamiliar place and why he had woken up here.
'Maybe I died in that car accident, and this is the afterlife,' he came up with another idea that could explain his situation.
Suddenly, he heard several beeping sounds and snapped back to reality. He realized that the beeping was coming from his right arm.
He looked at his right arm and saw a device resembling a smartwatch.
He touched the device, and a holographic screen appeared before him. It looked like a website, and a notification welcomed him.
[Mission]
[Report the result of the duel between Damien Ashcroft and Frank Ashcroft]
[Reward: 1 CP (Contribution Point)]
[Mission Failure: None]
'What is this? Has technology developed holographic screens?' Alex lost focus and tried to think if something like this had recently emerged.
He started to touch the hologram to see if it was responsive design, but just before touching it, he read the notification carefully this time.
'Wait, Damien Ashcroft and Frank Ashcroft' he read again to be sure.
'Aren't they the characters from Tides Of Chaos (TOC)?' After realizing this, Alex suddenly had a new idea that could explain his situation.
'Am I transmigrated to TOC?' Alex couldn't believe his own deduction.
'This is absurd. Why would I transmigrate into a novel some guy wrote?' Alex thought.
Alex still couldn't believe it. He got up and headed to the window, looking up at the sky. He saw three moons in the night sky.
'Just like described in the novel, three moons.' Alex couldn't confirm if he had transmigrated just from this, so he tried to remember the novel. But everything he could think of was hard to test.
His gaze fell on the hologram again, and he remembered that if he was in the novel's world, he could use the smartwatch to confirm.
Alex started delving into the smartwatch, and after a while, he found out that he had really transmigrated to the world of TOC.
'Who did I become in this world?' Alex pondered, his thoughts interrupted by another beep from his smartwatch. Mindlessly, he tapped it.
[BlightWeavers (BW)]
[Code Name: Silas]
[Rank: Novice]
[Your rank will upgrade when you complete your first mission]
'Silas, isn't this the guy who appeared at the end of volume two?' After remembering this, he suddenly had an epiphany.
"The last paragraph I read before the accident mentioned an 'Alex' and told him to stop reading books while walking. I thought it was just a gimmick in the chapter" Alex thought out loud.
Alex struggled to believe that he was the Silas from the novel and that he had even warned his past self through the book.
'And why did I not warn myself sooner?' Alex thought, but he knew that even if he had seen that paragraph sooner, he wasn't sure he would take that warning seriously.
He checked the hologram again and saw that his code name was still Silas, but his rank was different from the novel; he was only a novice right now.
Alex felt too many things happening at the same moment, and with the disgusting smell from the black liquid, his head started to hurt.
He left the bedroom and tried to find the kitchen to get himself a cup of water to calm himself down.
After drinking some water, he sat on the sofa at the entrance of the room and started to massage his temples.
'If I was Silas, why did I do all those things that Silas said?' Alex couldn't comprehend his future self's actions.
He didn't even have any grudge against Frank or Lisa. Racking his brain, he couldn't think of any reason for harming others.
Alex wasn't a psychopath; he was just a normal person like anyone else who lived day to day, making ends meet. Apart from work, his only hobby was reading web novels.
Alex thought carefully and considered if he had any trauma or any other reasons that would make him want to hurt others, but he couldn't find anything.
'I know I don't have any maniacal, crazy personality beneath my subconscious' and Alex also knew he wasn't the type of person to change himself just because he transmigrated to a new world.
People generally won't change after a certain phase in life, and Alex wholeheartedly believed this. That's why he couldn't understand his future self's actions.
Alex felt like he was missing something, as if some crucial knowledge was eluding him and preventing him from comprehending the whole situation.
After enough contemplation, Alex finally found what he was missing. He didn't know who he was apart from his secret agent identity, Silas. Deciding to find his other identity, Alex searched the place for any hints.
He couldn't find anything in the living room, so he headed to another room that appeared to be a training room. There, he noticed some worn-out devices.
Alex searched every room except the bedroom, but he couldn't find anything that indicated his true identity.
Left with no other choice, he held his breath and returned to the bedroom. First, he looked through the study desk, and finally, he found a student card.
[World Hunter Academy]
[Class: 1-101]
[Name: Alex Hart]
[Rank: 354]
'Alex Hart' noticed that he had the same name as his.
'Where do I know this guy?' Alex thought, and after a while, he finally remembered who Alex Hart was.
In the early chapters of Volume One of the novel, one of the heroines' childhood friends confessed to her a month after they started the academy.
The heroine, Amelia, wasn't interested in Alex Hart, so she rejected her childhood friend and told him they would only remain childhood friends, nothing more.
Alex Hart was heartbroken, so he asked for the reason why Amelia didn't see him as boyfriend material and received the answer that Amelia had feelings for the protagonist, Damien.
Alex wasn't as talented and strong as Damien, so he thought that if he were stronger, maybe Amelia would look at him the way she looked at Damien.
Heartbroken, Alex returned to his room and was found dead the next morning due to a corruption attempt.
'Original Alex died' and now Alex knew whose identity he had taken.
Alex felt confused, 'If the original Alex died in the novel, how did Silas, his future self, take the original Alex's body?'
Alex tried to find a possible explanation, 'Is Silas from another timeline?'
Alex didn't have any evidence to indicate this, so he continued to think. Then he remembered the novel updates on Earth that readers were complaining to the author about.
Being an avid fan and reader, Alex always read the chapters as soon as they came out, even if it meant paying a higher price. He didn't care because this was his only hobby in life.
Alex thought of another possible explanation, 'Maybe the version of the novel I had read was the outdated version where the original Alex had died.'
After reaching this conclusion, Alex suddenly realized, 'If this is true, does it mean that my life right now is being broadcasted to the whole world?'
Alex suddenly felt like thousands of creeps were watching his every action and tried to cover his body without being aware that he was fully clothed.
Alex took a few deep breaths and decided to throw this thought out of his mind. He wasn't sure if he could live like this if he believed it, so he just shouted into the empty air, "What are you looking at?"
Alex waited for a while and scanned his surroundings. When he felt that there was no response, he simply stopped and looked somewhere else.
Alex looked again at the black liquid and thought, 'And that black liquid must be the leftover from the corruption process.'
Alex panicked a little and thought, 'Did I become corrupted now?'
Alex decided to check, and according to the novel's descriptions, he tried to sense his mana heart, only to be left stupefied.
He didn't have a corrupted mana heart, or you could say he didn't have any mana heart.
Alex realized he was unawakened, and thinking it over, he found the reason why. 'It must be due to the result of a failed corruption process.'
Alex tried to console himself by saying, "At least I am not corrupted."
Alex continued to search for any other useful things he could take, and soon enough, he found a black cube that had blood on its surface.
Curious, Alex touched it, and then he saw the black cube transform itself into parchment. Surprised, Alex dropped the parchment.
Backing up a little and seeing that nothing else was happening, Alex picked up the parchment and started to read.
[Acceptance into the Blight Weavers (BW)]
[The agent cannot disclose any information about the organization to third parties.]
[The agent must successfully complete the assigned mission from the organization.]
[Failure to do so will result in appropriate punishment, ranging from the deduction of CP (Contribution Points) to the possibility of death. The severity of punishment may vary depending on the mission.]
[Upon signing this blood contract, the agent will receive a corruption drug as the entry reward, and the BW application will be uploaded to his/her device.]
[Failure to sign the contract within one minute will cause this device to self-destruct.]
After reading the parchment, Alex saw blood print in the bottom right side and then cursed out loud, "Fuck it."
"Isn't this a slave contract?" Alex couldn't believe what the original owner had left for him. It was a big present indeed.
'Why would anyone agree to this? Even if you can get a corruption drug, it's not worth selling your freedom,' Alex thought.
Alex knew that according to the novel, the corruption drug was rare and had the ability to improve one's talent and strength if he or she could control the drug's side effects.
Alex just couldn't accept the fact that all this was just a result of a broken heart, and he was the one who was going to live with this.