Wu~~
'It's so cold!'
The sharp BAM of a gunshot tore through his memory waking him up straight. What followed was quick and shallow breaths that formed fogs of smoke. Beads of sweat trickled down his body, soaking into the fur-made quilt clenched tightly in his trembling hands.
He immediately assumed that he was in some kind of hospital. What other thing could be a more reasonable explanation?
But as his eyes refocused on the thick fur quilt covering him, the grittiness beneath his skin, and pungent animal smell, were jarring contrasts to what he had assumed. Certainty now began faltering.
"What happened to my arms?" He muttered, looking at his bony, pale white arms. And just beneath that skin like a tree's roots and world's rivers pulsed a faint bluish-green leight coursing through his veins.
As he stared down at his unfamiliar limbs the confusion grew, as well as a hint of curiosity. His eyes quickly scanned the area he was in, searching for something familiar to anchor him yet he found only uneasiness from that.
However, he noticed something familiar, the clothing. Unlike the casual or tailored modern attire he had grown accustomed to was an old fashioned western dressing.
He froze, trying to piece it together. "Aren't I dead?" He pinched his cheek, the faint sting grounding him just enough to confirm what he already feared. He wasn't dreaming. But how could he be alive? That gunshot—it had killed him.
He resolved to stand, drawn to the window that let in the icy breath through its gaps. But the instant he tried to rise, his legs buckled beneath him, trembling as with a palsy, like the legs of a new-born mammal. His every act was all awkwardness and effort, for his muscles ached and were strange to him, faintly remembering their duty to obey.
The chill was unstoppable in the room, tearing into the flimsy material of his clothes and into his very soul. He bit into his teeth in fixed determination to move his way up to the window again, and yet his body appeared to have other plans.
Thud.
He fell back upon the bed with a dull thud of his feet upon the wooden floor. The chill of the floor-boards came up through the soles of his feet, sending a tingling sensation running along his back like liquid cold.
He sat for a while panting and beaten, overwhelmingly aware of the weakness of his body and the bitter cold.
'I move like an old man near death's door… What is wrong with my body? Maybe the bullet is inside me and I'm hallucinating all of this. While in fact I'm still walking on the tower's rooftop. What happened to others? To Lia?'
Drawing from the little strength in his body, Asher tried to get up again. This time he succeeded, but in the most ungracious manner possible: like some kind of wounded troll struggling out of some old fantasy movie or game. The unnaturally sideways-inclined body was supported by a hunched back whose legs buckled under the weight of the body.
As he reached the window, a cold breeze met him, as though something cut at his face. Then came a curious crawling feeling on his shoulders-a blundering, strawy touch, soft, yet grating as it moved over the skin.
He remained quite still, his breathing stopped, his fingers, of their own accord, curved clockwise to guard his head, his hands following the hasty movement on their own volition over his bristled hair, down his back, across his shoulders to his shoulder-blades.
It wasn't just long; it was too long. Texturally, it was like raw hay a cow chewed on every morning then threw out to lick clean in the night. Asher's fingers got tangled in the dry, alien mass.
"This isn't mine," he stammered; the word stumbled over his mouth.
Determined on enlightenment, he pushed on till he came to the window. Steam was on the panes; but a partial clearing showed him something within which caused him to start back.
It wasn't him staring back in the mirror.
His breathing quickened while his trembling fingers rose to his sunken cheeks to trace deep lines, and his parted lips led his mirrored reflection to do the same. Silvery white hair, faintly shining softly in dim light.
Then he frantically searched for the bullet wound he knew should have been there. But it wasn't. No scar, no mark-nothing bore witness that he had ever taken a bullet.
Hard, he focused, trying to piece together just how all these things had come to be, but he couldn't find the answers. But one thought stuck in his brain and swirled inside his skull like some bird of prey. The clothes-they looked too familiar, what he remembered wearing in Boundless.
The acknowledgement had him feeling his chest tighten, and then in less than a second, he dismissed it. 'No. It was impossible.'
He had killed Boundless by his hand: every server was gone, the memories wiped out, and the data gone, while he personally secured the drive, holding petabytes of information beyond the reach of a third party. He had made certain that nobody could ever revive Boundless.
And yet, there he was, in a body not his own, in clothes that could not exist, staring full into the face of a reflection that screamed otherwise.
Now a weak beam of light danced across the frosted windowpane and snared Asher's attention. Whirling around, startled, his body went instinctively rigid, prepared for defense.
But what he saw was anything but an attacker.
"Is that a mural?" he whispered, his voice barely above audible.
A mural filled the prominent occupation of the wall above the bed from which he'd just awoken. There had been no frame for it, simply the painting done on the stone wall, and it was of a gray-haired man seated upon a throne cut from rough stone.
A great animal, its fur white as fresh snow, lay beside him. The beast was asleep, yet even so, it seemed to radiate an aura of such incredible power that its very size was almost beyond comprehension.
It was a sight too intensive. Asher's legs went into trembling; he moved backwards, shallow and quick breaths catching in his throat. One hand reached for his temple, as if holding in the sudden, sharp pain coursing through his brain. The other reached out blindly for support, touching hard, cold wall.
"Ah!"
A blood-curdling shriek tore from his lips as he buckled to his knees, and farther down, his body shaking violently with a pain so searing it had scorched all reason from his mind.
It wasn't only physical torment. Waves of emotions crashed over him, pulling him under like a riptide. Sadness, sharp and suffocating.
Then came anger, hot and volatile. Fleeting glimpses of happiness were bittersweet and fragile before an unrelenting tide of despair overwhelmed him-with regret and helplessness.
The room began a mad whirl around him; his sight blurred even further and swirled as though he were caught in some drunken maelstrom. There was a vessel that was his mind, suddenly filled with other people's memories, not of his own.
Those memories brought vivid scenes, each merging into the other in quick succession. Each memory carried a special meaning, different pain, and a different story altogether. The heavy downpour threatened to swallow him whole as Asher gasped for breath, seeking relief amidst the onrush of emotions and experiences he was helpless to stop or fathom.
When the onslaught finally ebbed give or take a few hours of unconsciousness, Asher gained his senses back. He opened his eyes, sprawled on the cold floor, gasping for air. His body trembled, his mind reeling from the overwhelming influx.
Fragments of a life he hadn't lived pieced themselves fully now together in his mind. This body belonged to Asher Ashbourne, the bastard son of Baron James Ashbourne; a notorious figure whose scandalous death in a brothel had become the stuff of legend. Dying on top of a service-woman.
The baron's legitimate heirs had fared no better. Fredrick, the first son, ruled for less than a year before being poisoned by his younger brother, Thomas.
Thomas's reign was even shorter; he met his end on a hunting trip, slain by a beast. But before his death, Thomas ensured Asher Ashbourne's demise by orchestrating his slow poisoning. The frail body that now housed Asher's soul had withered away, its final moments spent in isolation and misery.
Asher felt all Asher Ashbourne felt. His life had been confined to this very room, his days punctuated by bowls of thin vegetable soup and black moldy bread. His body had grown too weak to even leave the bed, and so he had wasted away and rotted.
The weight of these memories pressed heavily on Asher's chest. His eyes trembled as he processed the sheer tragedy of the life he had inherited.
This was the backstory of the most pitiful lord in Boundless! A throwaway character, created by another programmer, designed to add depth to the virtual world's lore. He wasn't even a proper side character—just a tragic figure meant to fill the gaps of realism.
Never in his wildest dreams had Asher thought he would wake up inside his own creation. The thought of it being a nightmare crossed his mind.
But, he had no choice but to accept it and become Lord Asher, Ashbourne.
He had reincarnated into the real-life world of Boundless, a place of wonder and terror, only to find himself inhabiting the body of a pitiful lord—a fragile figure who could be overthrown by his own subordinates without so much as a fight.
Even worse, the Ashbourne fief was situated in the wastelands, a desolate and barren land known for being ravaged by monsters during winters. The timing couldn't have been worse. If his guess was correct, winter was only a few months away.
Asher's face grew even paler as he finally pieced together everything that happened.
"I'm doomed," he muttered under his breath, his voice laced with bitter disbelief. "Of all the characters in Boundless, I had to transmigrate into the most pathetic noble of them all!"
While Asher ruffled his hair in frustration, the wooden door swung open, revealing the figure of a tall, lean man, his face chiseled. He wore leather boots, scarred and marred from much use, that reached up almost to his knees; each step he made was a muted thud against the floorboards.
Asher's gaze sharpened upon noticing the new arrival. Instantly, he experienced a sense of recognition.
It was Kelvin.
Kelvin was sixty years old, the major-domo, and a bronze-ranked swordsman. Ordinarily, for a man in a rich barony, that would have been good enough, but in Ashbourne Fief, one of the poor baronies, Kelvin was the strongest man that the family had left-a sad example of how far the family had fallen.
Historically, the barony had enjoyed protection under the stewardship of Asher's father, a swordsman of considerable renown with a silver rank. Following his infamous death, nonetheless, the Ashbourne lineage was deemed discredited.
His older brothers, Fredrick and Thomas, had shown promise as bronze-ranked swordsmen, with the prospect of achieving a silver ranking, but both had met ignominious ends in their own time. Now, all eyes had turned to Asher.
The current lord wasn't even an iron rank swordsman, just an average man plagued with sickness and weakness.
Kelvin's eyes found Asher slumped on the floor, then a look of concern etched deeply into his face.
Kelvin had always been his one steadfast ally, considering the others showed absolute indifference towards him, and the neglect Asher had to bear. If there were stats, his loyalty stat would be maxed out, and Asher knew that all too well.
"Lord Asher!" he exclaimed, rushing forward.
In Boundless, everyone had to focus on practicing one particular technique to start training: from ordinary, iron, bronze, silver, gold, and so on. Those who specialized in close combat focused on perfecting their Battle Force; while people at a distance, such as mages, focused on the cultivation of their Magi Force.
Kelvin, despite his dedication, had only awakened a D-grade talent, capping his potential at the gold rank—the rank of knights. However, at sixty years old, he remained stuck in the bronze rank due to the barony's impoverishment that precluded any sort of support for growth.
"Lord Asher, I understand your worry for the barony's dire state, but your health must come first," Kelvin said, his tone a blend of concern and reproach.
"I am fine," Asher said in a hoarse tone, trying to dismiss Kelvin's concern.
Asher opened his mouth to respond, but Kelvin froze mid-motion, his breath catching as a realization struck him.
"You moved!" he gasped, his voice trembling with disbelief.
It had been twelve long years that Asher Ashbourne had lain in this bed, too weak for his body to function, and then, at twenty-two, he moved. The implications seemed to overwhelm the old butler, but before either could dwell on it, a loud sound broke the silence.
Grrru grrrrrru!
Asher's stomach growled, demanding attention.
…..
Asher straightened up in bed and eyed greedily the light meal Kelvin had brought in-a plate of dark bread with a bowl of hot vegetable soup.
That sight alone was an offense to the stomach. The bread was coarse in texture, and the soup was watery, odious for its thin broth. He did not eat it; at the mere thought, he felt the rising nausea.
"Kelvin," Asher said. "I'm not eating this anymore. I crave meat."
The butler blinked, taken aback by the sudden command. Asher's speech was formal, laced with the medieval eloquence that was second nature to him after years of scripting for Boundless.
Kelvin hesitated before responding, his voice low and troubled. "Milord, I've kept this from you for a long time, but you are restricted to this room and to this diet by orders I dare not disobey."
Asher's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "I am the last living son of my father, the direct heir to this fief. Who could possibly have the authority to give such orders?"
Kelvin blackened, but did not say a word; the look said it all.