The border didn't look like much.
No towering walls. No divine wards humming in the air. Just a squat stone gate leaning slightly to the left, a faded banner flapping lazily in the wind, and two guards who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.
Alex stopped a short distance away and observed.
Minor border kingdom. Unimportant. Exactly what he wanted.
He adjusted the worn cloak the Church had given him—not out of kindness, but obligation—and walked forward at an unhurried pace. No hesitation. No fear. People who looked nervous attracted questions. People who looked bored were ignored.
The guards straightened when they noticed him approaching.
"State your business," one of them said, voice flat.
Alex met his gaze. "Refugee," he replied. "Passing through. Looking for work."
The guard looked him over. Thin. Young. No visible weapon worth stealing. No noble crest. No entourage.
"Name?"
Alex paused for half a breath—just long enough to look natural.
"Alex," he said. Not a lie. Just incomplete.
The second guard snorted. "Rank?"
Alex opened his mouth—
—and the world shifted.
Not dramatically. No light. No pain. Just a subtle click, like a mechanism locking into place.
System Notice:
Mana Signature Adjustment — Forced
Current Displayed Rank: Rank 9 (F – Mid)
Concealment: Active
Alex blinked.
The air around him felt… smaller. Like a tight coat pulled around something much larger.
He didn't need to check to know it was real.
The guard frowned slightly, eyes unfocusing for a moment as he used a basic detection skill. Then he relaxed.
"F-rank," he muttered. "Figures."
Alex felt a spike of irritation.
"That wasn't a suggestion," he said silently.
System Response:
Correct.
His jaw tightened.
"You didn't ask."
System Response:
You did not object in advance.
Alex almost laughed.
Almost.
The guards waved him through without another word. Just like that, he crossed the border—no fanfare, no omen, no sense of finality. The empire didn't end with a scream.
It ended with indifference.
Inside the kingdom, the road widened slightly, lined with low stone buildings and patched roofs. The air smelled like bread, livestock, and iron. People moved with purpose—not urgency, not luxury. Survival, not ambition.
Alex blended in immediately.
That bothered him more than it should have.
He followed the signs toward registration, a squat administrative building staffed by tired clerks and overworked officials. When his turn came, he stood before a woman with ink-stained fingers and eyes that had long since stopped caring about individual faces.
"Status?" she asked.
"Refugee," Alex said again.
"Origin?"
"Empire," he replied.
She paused, glanced up at him, then back down at her papers. "Which one?"
Alex hesitated—then realized something.
It didn't matter.
"Aurelian," he said.
She nodded once and wrote it down without comment.
No gasp.
No suspicion.
No whisper of twins or cursed blood.
Just another displaced person from a large, collapsing power.
"Rank?"
"F," Alex said.
She didn't even check.
"Occupation?"
"Anything," he replied.
That earned him a brief look of mild interest.
She slid a stamped token across the desk. "Temporary lodging district. Three days. After that, you find work or move on."
Alex took the token.
Just like that, he existed again.
The lodging district was crowded but functional. Narrow streets, stacked buildings, voices overlapping in a dozen dialects. No one paid Alex any special attention as he found an empty corner room and set his few belongings down.
He sat on the edge of the narrow bed and exhaled slowly.
Only then did he feel it.
The suppression.
It wasn't painful. It wasn't even uncomfortable. It was absolute. His mana moved when he told it to—but only within narrow, enforced channels. His capacity felt distant, like a locked reservoir he could sense but not access.
He reached inward instinctively—
—and hit a wall.
Clean. Artificial. Perfect.
"You did this," he said silently.
System Response:
Yes.
"Undo it."
System Response:
No.
Alex leaned back, staring at the cracked ceiling.
"How?" he asked. "How are you even doing this?"
System Response:
Inquiry acknowledged.
Explanation denied.
That earned a sharp, humorless breath from his nose.
"Why?"
System Response:
Same answer.
Alex closed his eyes.
So this was how it was going to be.
The system wasn't a guide. It wasn't a mentor. It wasn't even pretending to be benevolent.
It acted.
And expected him to adapt.
Chaos stirred faintly in his chest, like a distant presence shifting in its sleep.
It's protecting you, the dragon murmured, uninterested.
"By cutting me down to size?" Alex replied.
By keeping you alive.
Alex didn't argue.
He lay back on the bed and let the unfamiliar sounds of the city wash over him—voices, footsteps, laughter drifting through thin walls. Normal life. The kind he'd never had, even before exile.
His thoughts drifted, unbidden.
Second life.
That was what this was.
He had died once—on a cluttered floor, lights blurring, heart giving out after a lifetime of grinding for nothing. He remembered thinking it was unfair. That he'd been unlucky.
Now?
He felt oddly detached.
No longing for Earth. No grief for the life he'd lost. Just the quiet acknowledgment of a fact.
I transmigrated, he thought. And it doesn't matter.
That realization unsettled him more than panic ever could have.
He wasn't desperate to go back.
He wasn't grateful to be here.
He simply… was.
Maybe that was worse.
System Notice:
Psychological Assessment Updated.
Detachment Level: Stable
Alex opened one eye.
"Are you monitoring my thoughts now?"
System Response:
Only the useful ones.
He snorted softly.
"Define useful."
There was a pause.
A real one this time.
Then—
System Response:
You are unusually calm for someone with a suppressed rank, an unknown future, and a dragon for a cardiovascular system.
Alex stared at the ceiling.
"…Was that a joke?"
System Response:
Attempt.
He sat up slowly.
That was new.
"Don't," he said. "Don't start doing that."
System Response:
Objection noted.
Ignored.
Alex rubbed his face with both hands.
"You called me fragile earlier," he said.
System Response:
Correct.
"I'm not fragile."
Another pause.
System Response:
Compared to your potential?
Extremely.
Alex lowered his hands and smiled faintly despite himself.
That wasn't data.
That was attitude.
He looked down at his arm. The chain-mark rested quietly against his skin, inert, hidden beneath his sleeve. His power was locked away. His identity erased. His future uncertain.
And yet—
The system was changing.
Not in function.
In tone.
It was learning him.
That realization settled deep in his chest—not as comfort, but as warning.
Because whatever the system was becoming…
It was doing so while watching him.
Closely.