"Wasn't it… a dream?"
For a few days the emperor had been hospitalized, he had now a roughly idea what had happened. It's wasn't a mere coincidence he woke up in the body of a high school teenager who gets into an accident after driving recklessly as his car fell down under the bridge.
Actually, it might be because the emperor had consumed the last golden fruit of eden located at the deepest part of hell, before the demon king's expedition arrived and he already snatch the golden fruit and had already consumed and absorbed it to freeze the entire hell.
The golden fruit indeed helped the emperor exterminate the demons but at the cost of his very own life, as his body starts to disintegrate, he then later cast a duplication spell to make another vessel. But as his condition keeps deteriorating, he had left no choice but to devour every last traces of the golden fruit's essence in his soul to keep his vessel from existing unfortunately he still die in the end.
As for his current body, it was a quite a miracle it still recovered after the previous owner, an arrogant popular blogger who gets into an accident while live streaming in his car was now lying in bed comatose.
Instead of prayers or sympathy, he was continuously ridiculed and ostracized by the many netizens for his reckless act. Some are even cursing Jeremiah to never wake up showing their dissatisfaction for his reckless act.
"What if he had killed someone on the road?"
"I will never watch your videos ever again."
"Never in my life would I wish for someone's downfall. Lol."
"He deserves it."
"Jeremiah! Your cooked!"
"He's only popular because of his looks and because he keeps flaunting his parents wealth."
"Thank God, karma really hit him hard big time."
The comments in Jeremiah's last video had gone viral. Some are even joining the trend of turning him into the villain by capitalizing on his controversy. Aside from his parents and young sister, he technically had no one to defend him during his life crises.
The emperor, still oblivious to the whole internet cancellation thing happening, never knew what's going on since his parents refused to tell him for the sake of his own mental health.
"Jeremiah? Wake up son." He heard his mom called this bodies owner's name out.
He then slowly walk out of his room and step downstairs.
"This boy's parents house was actually more descent than I thought, he live in a big mansion and a caring family of four." The emperor mumbled with a mixture of envy.
"Oh! There you are son. Come and join us for dinner." Mrs. Andres led the emperor to a table full of other worldly dishes.
The emperor was still processing on getting himself familiar original owners family members. Of course he's still careful not to make anyone suspicious since all of them believe that he had suffered amnesia after the accident.
Surprisingly no one bothered, looking at their faces full of longing, the emperor feel a pain in his heart. He's guilty the more he look at them, the more his conscience grew it felt like he was deceiving them.
Also, on the other hand, there is one part of him that yearned for warmth of parents. He wanted to keep deceiving them as good filial son. Unlike the real Jeremiah, he wanted to ease their suffering by acting like their son.
Since he ended up in this body, why not live the best of it by becoming the better Jeremiah. The emperor vow to himself.
'From now on Allen Goldenhart is gone, from now on I am Jeremiah Andres, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Andres.'
"Here son, try it." Diana offered her son some of her signatures dishes, from pot roast beef, chicken noodle soup, hot and spicy curry, meatballs and glorious amount of desserts.
"Hmm!" The delicious aroma was alien to him, Jeremiah tried to taste every food on the table. As an emperor himself, Jeremiah never once imagined that a mere food can taste this good, even the finest top chef in the empire can't compare to what was serve right in front of him.
"I feel full… … ." If his subjects seen him right now, they would have shook their eyes in disbelief.
It would also be ridiculous for Jeremiah not to show table manners he learned since childhood.
From the way he savored every bite of the food on the table, his noble self remained deeply ingrained, his posture and the way he put the food inside his mouth, his demeanor as an emperor still lingered.
After Jeremiah took his time devouring his fill on the table, he ask his parents to go back to his own room and then bowed elegantly.
"Mother, Father, if you'll excuse me, I would like to go back to my chambers."
Surprisingly, Diana and Benjamin oblige to his request. But there are still things that are bothering them, Jeremiah's personality seems like had undergone 180 degrees full circle.
************
"Haaay..."
Coming back into his room, Jeremiah sigh with relief. It was so awkward back there, he's still wasn't used to having parents.
"Well, I just have to keep pretending."
Now, the best thing Jeremiah could do is to learn everything in this world, Jeremiah still had some things he find it hard to understand or comprehend like the medicines, appliances, gadget, culture and many more. His curiousity over this world called earth has reach it's peak of no return.
First things first, Jeremiah tried to examine the condition of this body. "It had finally healed". For a couple of days Jeremiah waited until his condition became stabilize.
"Now let's try circulating the mana in this body." Jeremiah sat across the bed cross legged as he was trying to concentrate in finding any traces of mana that he can use to further enhance his new physique.
Minutes passed and there is still no traces of mana he could gather. "Why are there's no mana present here." The emperor was left devastated that after so many years, he had reduced to this state. He find it difficult no matter how hard he tries. "Still there's no reaction, it seems like this world is manaless."
Aside from hell full of demonic energy, Jeremiah's previous world had an abundant supply of mana present everywhere, even commoners had it.
"Maybe, in this life, I'm gonna be an ordinary man." Jeremiah had finally given up as what's the use of having powers when this world was already powerless. Except from the war machine and high radioactive nuclear bombs developed by mankind, every human here are normal.
"Bzzz! Bzzz!"
Jeremiah heard some unfamiliar sounds near the table, a tiny rectangular thing was ringing nonstop. As Jeremiah tried to touch the phone, he accidentally press the green button on the screen.
"Bro, Jeremiah? How are you bro? Thank god, you're safe. It's been couple of days when are you coming back at our school? Even your parents aren't answering my calls. Jeremiah I had many things to talk to you about."
A person at the screen pops up in an instant startling Jeremiah, the figure at the screen looks exactly like a face of a human. Is it a monster by any chance? I never knew there are weird looking monsters living in this manaless world. Jeremiah's expression contorted.
"Jeremiah? Bro why is your face looks like that?"
"Shut up, you hideous looking monster, I will crush you and will make sure to exterminate your entire race if you ever touch my family."
"...?"