A groan escaped his lips as consciousness returned, his body feeling familiar but different.
Ethan's eyes fluttered open to see tree branches swaying above him.
"I'm still alive? Where am I?" he muttered, pushing himself up slowly.
Looking around to figure out where he was, Ethan found himself in a forest, abnormally dense with thick, girthy trees.
This wasn't the riverbank where he'd made his final choice. This wasn't anywhere he recognized at all.
Then the memories hit him all at once, making him double over with a groan.
"Argh."
But these weren't his memories—or rather, they weren't the memories of Ethan Brandon, the bullied high school student who'd chosen revenge. These were the memories of another Ethan Brandon, one who lived in a world far different from his own.
The assimilation of memories was somewhat painful, each new piece of information sending spikes of pain through his skull.
'It's like my brain is being stabbed by small needles'
This body, the other Ethan Brandon, had been what they called "talentless" in this world. In a society where supernatural abilities were the norm, being talentless was a death sentence of a different kind.
Instead of school bullies, this world's Ethan had faced something worse.
The military used those who were considered talentless as cannon fodder.
"I-I Transmigrated into a cannon fodder..." Ethan muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
The terrible training Ethan had received was barely enough to ensure a decent chance of survival against the beasts that threatened their city at all times.
The way some of the talented people looked down on him, not even bothering to learn his name because he wasn't expected to survive long enough to matter.
His eyes swept across the area, taking in the carnage around him.
Four bodies lay scattered nearby, his former teammates.
Their uniforms were torn and bloodied, faces frozen in expressions of terror and pain.
Nearby lay the massive corpse of what he now recognized as a Shadowfang Wolf, a Mid-Iron rank beast, its grey fur matted with blood from the multiple wounds it had received from Ethan and his teammates.
"Even my other self managed to take revenge before dying," Ethan smiled wryly, noting the spear still lodged in the wolf's throat.
His mind drifted back to his previous life.
The endless torment at school had followed him like a shadow, persisting even after his family's desperate attempt to start fresh in a new town. Their savings had bled away with that move, leaving no chance for another escape.
But it had ended at the riverbank, hadn't it?
The moment when Jack and his friends had cornered him.
The beating he had endured, the fall into the water—whether pushed or pulled, it hardly mattered anymore.
What mattered was his choice when Jack reached for him, after Ethan had fallen into the water.
Ethan had chosen to pull him in, to let the river's cold embrace claim them both.
"Mom... Dad..." his voice cracked.
"I wonder how you're doing without me. Mom, you won't have to work double shifts anymore to feed an extra mouth. Dad, maybe you can finally rest those worn-out hands of yours. I'm sorry I couldn't be a better son. I'm sorry I couldn't be stronger."
A haunting howl shattered his thoughts, making him come back to his senses.
The sound was closer than he would have wanted, scarier than anything he'd heard in his previous life.
Panic seized him, this wasn't the riverbank anymore, this was a world where death was as common as cabbage.
He scrambled to his feet, trying to run, but his foot caught on an exposed root.
'Shit! How could I be so careless.' He thought, afraid of making any sound that the wolf could hear.
He fell hard, his hand instinctively reaching out to catch himself. His palm pressed against the corpse, the blood-dyed fur of the dead Shadowfang Wolf.
Then his eyes widened.
"Wasn't Ethan meant to be talentless?" He expressed in shock, as he stared at the holographic screen.