The 34th-floor corner office was a cage of glass and ambition. Ethan Blackwood stared out at the sprawling cityscape, the neon lights of Tokyo painting the night in streaks of artificial color. On his tablet, the screen displayed the latest chapter of a trashy web novel, "Chronicles of the Storm Monarch." He skimmed through it with a practiced, cynical eye.
"Pathetic," he muttered, the word a soft exhale in the sterile office air. "Kaelen, the 'Storm Monarch,' stumbles into another dungeon, gets a free legendary artifact because he tripped over a rock, and another girl falls for his 'unassuming charm.' A 'charm' that's just him being dense and accidentally groping her. And these villains... rich young masters with the intelligence of a lobotomized squirrel. They exist just to be humiliated and fund his growth."
He closed the app, a sour taste in his mouth. In his world, success wasn't a gift. It was a war. Ethan had clawed his way up from nothing—an orphanage in a forgotten part of the city—to the executive board of a multinational conglomerate. He'd used every trick in the book: corporate espionage, hostile takeovers, blackmail, and strategic seduction. He knew how to read people, exploit weaknesses, and turn allies into pawns. He built his empire on the ruins of others' dreams.
"Trust me," he said to the silent, empty office, his voice laced with a lifetime of weary contempt. "If I ever got dropped into a world like that, I'd show them what real achievement looks like. No plot armor, no cheat codes. Just pure, ruthless strategy. I wouldn't be the hero. I'd be the one who owns the hero."
The air in the office thickened. The hum of the central air conditioning died, replaced by a low, resonant thrum that seemed to vibrate from the very atoms of reality. The glass wall before him shimmered, not reflecting the city, but a swirling, chaotic void of darkness and impossible colors.
"What the—?"
A black vortex, silent and terrifying, erupted in the center of the room. It didn't make a sound, but Ethan felt its pull in his bones, a terrifying suction that threatened to unravel him. His expensive ergonomic chair was ripped from under him and disintegrated against the event horizon.
"Hey! I was joking!" he screamed, his voice raw with a fear he hadn't felt since his days on the streets. He scrambled backward, his designer shoes slipping on the polished floor. "I don't want to go anywhere! Shit! I have everything here! My company, my reputation, my money... my life! I REFUSE!"
He was a strategist, not a fighter. His struggles were futile. The vortex ignored his protests, his denials, his raw terror. It lifted him like a doll, his body contorting in a pain that was beyond physical. The last thing he saw was his panoramic view of Tokyo stretching, distorting, and then snapping away into a pinprick of light before being swallowed by the infinite black.
Then came the fall through chaos. He wasn't moving; reality was moving around him, through him. Galaxies spun past in impossible blurs of light and color. He felt his consciousness, the very core of who he was, being pulled, stretched, and remolded. His mind, trained to process complex data and market trends, short-circuited. The sheer, overwhelming absurdity of it all was the final straw. Darkness, warm and merciful, claimed him.
Consciousness returned not with a jolt, but with a slow, painful throbbing in his head. A sharp impact, followed by a sting on his forehead.
"Ouch! What the hell?"
He blinked, his vision swimming into focus. He wasn't in a void. He was in a... classroom?
Wooden desks, worn smooth by generations of students. Sunlight streamed through large, arched windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. And in front of him, a furious man in robes, his face a mask of exasperation, was holding a piece of chalk.
"Theron!" the man barked, his voice echoing in the suddenly silent room. "By the gods, boy, I know it's the last day of the Adventurer's Academy, but can you please spare us the daydreaming? We have mere minutes before you all graduate and choose the path that will define your futures!"
The teacher's voice was like a key turning in a rusty lock. A floodgate burst open in Ethan's—no, Theron's—mind.
My name is Theron. I am 17 years old. This is the Adventurer's Academy of Aethelgard. We are graduating today to form parties and register with the guilds. The teacher's name is Magister Brom. I am a support mage, specializing in minor enhancement magic. My parents are dead. I am an orphan with no backing...
The information wasn't a memory; it was an invasive upload, a data dump that seared itself into his synapses. He grunted, clutching his head. The corporate takeover, the vortex, the fall... and this. He had been kidnapped. Magister Brom's advice was a day late and a dollar short.
"So," Theron thought, his internal voice now a chaotic blend of Ethan's cynicism and the boy's native thoughts. "I took over a body with the same tired orphan backstory. And I'm back to being a graduate? After decades of building an empire from the ground up? This is the universe's idea of a cruel joke."
He was just a normal person. No secret royal bloodline, no hidden power. He was starting from zero. Again. But this time, in a world that ran on video game logic.
"Wait... system," he thought, a spark of hope igniting. Every trashy novel had one. "System? Status screen? Inventory? ...Hey, whatever god is listening, open the goddamn menu!"
He sat there, mentally shouting every variation of the command for three solid minutes. The only response was the growing itch from the cheap wool of his academy tunic and Magister Brom's continued droning.
"So, no system," Theron concluded, a cold knot of resignation tightening in his gut. "Shit. I'm really on my own. No cheat codes, no divine blessings." A wave of despair threatened to overwhelm him, but then the old Ethan, the strategist, reasserted himself. "But... I have thirty years of experience. I have a mind that bankrupted rivals and seduced targets. That's my cheat. My mind."
He finally took a proper look around the classroom. His analytical gaze swept the room. The ratio was... interesting. Significantly more girls than boys. Many of them were strikingly beautiful, even in their standard-issue robes. His new memories supplied names, but he was more interested in the dynamics.
He sorted through the downloaded data. This world, Aethelgard, was a blend of high medieval fantasy and modern adventuring guild structures. Kingdoms, swords, magic, monsters. Mages were a thing, but the information on magic in his head was a jumbled mess, a legacy of the original Theron's mediocre talents.
"This class is for top-tier students only," he realized, a smirk touching his lips. "So, the original me was talented enough to be here. Hah! How could the boy who topped the national corporate ladder fail a mere academy test?"
The graduation process was simple: get your certificate, form a party of five, register at a guild, and start taking quests. Rise through the ranks from Bronze to... well, presumably to some legendary level. High-rank adventurers were like the CEOs of this world—powerful, respected, able to bend nations to their will.
The sheer potential, the raw opportunity of it all, hit him like a tidal wave. The despair vanished, replaced by a familiar, intoxicating hunger. He could build a new empire here. A real one, with power that wasn't just financial, but personal, magical, absolute.
He was so consumed by this vision that he stood up without thinking, slamming his fist on the wooden desk with a loud crack.
"Bring it on!" he shouted, his voice ringing with Ethan's ambition. "I will be the strongest adventurer this world has ever seen!"
Silence.
Deafening, absolute silence.
Every head in the classroom turned to stare at him. Dozens of pairs of eyes, wide with surprise, amusement, and second-hand embarrassment, were locked on him. The girls in the front row, a trio of particularly stunning beauties he would later identify as Lyra, Isabelle, and Cyrene, were looking at him as if he'd just sprouted a second head.
Theron felt a heat rush to his face that had nothing to do with the room's temperature. This was not the smooth, controlled entrance he had envisioned. He hurriedly sat down, slumping in his chair.
"My apologies, Magister," he mumbled, his voice barely audible. "Please, carry on. I... I was just overcome with emotion at the prospect of our new journey."
A giggle rippled through the classroom, starting with the trio of girls. It was a light, musical sound, but to Theron, it was the sound of his new persona's first, critical failure.
"How adorable!" one of them, Lyra, the one with cascading silver hair, whispered to her friends.
"Uwuuu~ Such enthusiasm!" added Isabelle, the brunette with a figure that was already promising devastating curves.
The boys just rolled their eyes, dismissing him as another over-eager rookie who didn't understand the grind ahead.
Magister Brom sighed, a long-suffering sound. "Enough! Seeing how... excited you all are, let's end it here. Collect your graduation certificates and get out. Finally, this batch of little troublemakers is leaving." He muttered the last part to himself, a man seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel.
Theron collected his parchment certificate, his name written in elegant script. It felt flimsy, worthless. But it was a start. He followed the stream of students outside, his mind already racing, plotting, discarding the persona of the embarrassed student and fully embracing the soul of Ethan Blackwood, corporate predator.
His sharp, dark eyes scanned the courtyard, immediately locking onto a scene straight out of the novels he despised. A boy, shorter than average with a mop of unruly chestnut hair, was at the center of a constellation of beauty. Lyra, Isabelle, and Cyrine—the three school flowers—were clustered around him, their body language a mix of affection, possessiveness, and mild bickering.
His memories supplied the details. The boy was Caden. His family ran the largest merchant consortium on the continent. His grades were excellent. He was strong, secretly so. And these three girls? Lyra was his childhood friend, Isabelle his officially betrothed, and Cyrene a distant cousin who blushed every time she looked at him.
One was the innocent Lolita, one the budding seductress, and one the perfect, balanced beauty—the ideal wife.
Theron felt a jolt, not of jealousy, but of recognition. This was it. The protagonist. The package was all there: the background, the harem, the hidden strength, the destiny.
A dark, possessive hunger uncoiled within him. He had missed out on real connections, on passion, in his previous life. He'd been too busy building his empire. This world had taken everything from him, but it had also given him a new playground.
"Maybe this is what I was missing," he mused, a predatory smile gracing his new, younger features. "But why choose one, when you can have them all?"
Looking at the three girls fawning over Caden, he didn't see people. He saw objectives. High-value targets. Conquering them would be a pleasure, but it would also be a strategic masterstroke. It would be the first step in dismantling the "protagonist," in plundering his luck and stealing his destiny.
His goal crystallized. He would infiltrate their group. He would become Caden's most trusted ally. And then, from the inside, he would systematically steal every girl, every opportunity, every shred of that protagonist's halo for himself.
He saw the group, now joined by a few other students, heading towards a grand building in the distance—the Aethelgard Adventurer's Guild, the largest and most powerful in the city. Without a moment's hesitation, Theron fell into step, a shadow following its prey.
The guild hall was a testament to power. Marble floors, vaulted ceilings, and guards whose muscles had muscles. Their armor gleamed, and their weapons looked lethally real. This was no starting village guild. This was a powerhouse.
"Of course," Theron thought. "The protagonist doesn't start small."
As he moved to enter, two guards crossed their spears, barring his path. Their eyes were cold, impersonal.
"Halt. No entry without a recommendation from a recognized noble or guild sponsor," one of them stated, his voice leaving no room for argument.
Theron's mind, the mind that had negotiated billion-yen deals and talked his way out of corporate espionage charges, whirred into action. He didn't flinch. He met the guard's gaze, his expression one of mild affront.
"I'm with the group that just entered," he said, his voice calm and confident. "Caden's group. We're classmates. I'm their support and a follower of Caden. If you don't believe me, go ask him yourself."
It was a bluff of pure, unadulterated brass. He leveraged the guards' inherent fear of inconveniencing someone important. They knew Caden's face, knew his family's influence. The hesitation was brief, but it was there. The spears wavered.
In that split second, Theron moved. He didn't run; he simply sidestepped with the smooth grace of a businessman entering a exclusive club, slipping between them before they could reaffirm their blockade.
"Hey! You can't—!" one guard began, but Theron was already inside, disappearing into the bustling crowd of the guild hall.
He was in. The game was on. And Ethan Blackwood, now Theron, was ready to play for keeps.