My name is Adam. I am twenty-three years old, an engineer by trade, and—quite obviously—a man.
It started like any other Tuesday. I was dragging my feet on the way back from work, the exhaustion of the corporate grind weighing heavy on my shoulders. What am I actually doing with my life? I wondered, staring at the grey pavement. I possessed all these skills, all this technical knowledge, yet I felt stifled. As I collapsed into bed that night, a fleeting, desperate wish crossed my mind: I wish I could be transmigrated to a new world. A place where I could actually build something. A place where I could use my skills freely.
I closed my eyes, expecting the alarm clock to wake me in a few hours. Instead, I was woken by the smell of rot and old wood.
I jolted upright. This wasn't my apartment.
I looked around frantically. The room was dim, lit only by thin shafts of light piercing through decaying wooden shutters. The architecture was archaic—rough-hewn stone and timber that looked straight out of the 14th century.
Where am I?
My gaze landed on a cracked, bronze mirror standing in the corner. I scrambled out of the bed, my legs feeling strangely heavy, and stared into the glass. The face staring back was not mine.
It was a stranger's face, pale and gaunt. But what horrified me most was the wound. The forehead was caved in, a gruesome injury that should have been fatal. I looked down at the floor and saw the aftermath—a pool of dark, coagulated blood and the heavy stone object the previous owner had used to smash his own head.
But then, I saw it.
In the reflection, the impossible was happening. Steam rose from the wound on my forehead. The flesh was knitting itself back together, bone fusing and skin sealing shut before my very eyes.
Regeneration?
Before I could process the supernatural sight, a sharp pain spiked through my skull. Memories that didn't belong to me flooded my mind, violent and sudden.
I knew this man. I was this man now. His name was Asher Grey
And he was trash.
The memories painted a pathetic picture. A good-for-nothing drunkard who had wasted his life away in a stupor. His parents had died long ago, leaving him as the head of the house. He should have been the protector. He should have been the guardian of his little sister and little brother.
Instead, he was a parasite.
The memories showed me the truth: he forced his younger siblings into labor to pay for his booze. His little sister scrubbed floors as a maid, and his young brother broke his back working as a construction laborer.
A wave of guilt—mixed with the lingering emotions of the body's previous owner—washed over me. Despite the abuse, despite the neglect, the memories held a heart-breaking truth: they still loved him. To them, this scum was the only family they had left in a cruel world.
I touched my now-healed forehead, the engineer in me analyzing the situation while the human in me raged.
"Construction laborer, huh?" I muttered, my voice raspy and unfamiliar.
I looked at my hands—the hands of a man who had never done a day's work, now inhabited by the soul of an engineer who wanted to build the world.
"Well," I whispered to the empty, blood-stained room. "That changes today."