Chapter 1: An Extra Who Should Have Died
I realized something was wrong the moment I opened my eyes.
The ceiling above me wasn't white.
It wasn't cracked concrete, nor was it the familiar sight of a fan spinning lazily, threatening to fall at any moment. Instead, carved stone arches stretched overhead, embedded with faintly glowing runes that pulsed like a slow heartbeat. The air smelled different too—clean, sharp, almost metallic, as if lightning had recently passed through it.
For a few seconds, I simply lay there, unmoving.
My mind was strangely calm.
Too calm.
I should have panicked. Anyone would have. Waking up in an unfamiliar place, in an unfamiliar body, with unfamiliar sensations crawling beneath their skin—it should have triggered fear, confusion, denial.
But none of that came.
Instead, a single thought surfaced, cold and precise.
So this is how it begins.
I slowly raised my hand.
It moved exactly as I intended—smooth, controlled, without hesitation. The fingers were longer than I remembered. Stronger. The skin unblemished, pale, untouched by the countless small scars I used to carry from a life that involved far too much commuting and far too little sleep.
I clenched my fist.
There was power there. Not the vague, imagined kind born from adrenaline, but something real—contained, compressed, obedient.
I exhaled quietly.
"This isn't my body."
The voice that came out was unfamiliar. Lower. Calmer. There was a steadiness to it that made the words sound more like an observation than a question.
I sat up.
The bed beneath me was large, layered with dark sheets stitched with silver thread—noble craftsmanship. The room itself was spacious, minimal, elegant. A sword rested on a stand near the window. Not decoration. I could tell that much instinctively.
Beyond the tall glass panes, spires pierced the sky.
A city of stone and magic unfolded in silence, bathed in early morning light.
My gaze froze.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
This place—
I knew it.
Not because I had seen it in real life.
But because I had read about it.
The memories didn't come all at once.
They seeped in slowly, like ink spreading through water. Names. Places. Relationships. A life that wasn't mine, yet now sat in my head with uncomfortable clarity.
This body belonged to a boy of sixteen.
A low-ranking noble from a forgotten branch family. No influence. No talent worth mentioning. No future.
A character so insignificant that, in the novel—
He didn't even have a name worth remembering.
An extra.
The kind that exists only to populate scenes. To die in background events. To remind the reader that the world has stakes.
And I remembered exactly how he died.
During the academy's first major incident.
Crushed by debris when a magical containment failure triggered chaos in the lower training halls. No last words. No heroic sacrifice. Just… gone.
A footnote.
My fingers tightened against the sheets.
"…So that's it."
I let out a small, humorless laugh.
Of all the people I could have become.
Of all the roles.
I had to land in the body of someone whose sole narrative purpose was to die quietly.
Yet—
There was no fear in my chest.
No desperation.
Instead, a strange sense of detachment settled over me, as if some part of my mind was already stepping back, observing the situation from above.
Perhaps that was when it happened.
Or perhaps it had already been there from the moment I woke up.
" SYSTEM INITIALIZING "
The words appeared before my eyes without sound.
Not projected. Not hallucinated.
They simply existed, layered over reality itself.
I didn't blink.
I didn't flinch.
"…A system," I murmured.
Of course.
If this were truly the kind of story I thought it was, then this development was almost inevitable.
" HOST CONFIRMED "
" IDENTITY: EXTRA — STATUS VERIFIED "
" ERROR: EXISTENCE DEVIATION DETECTED "
My lips curved slightly.
Deviation.
Yes. That sounded about right.
" SUPREME AUTHORITY DETECTED "
" ASTRAL LAW EYES — PARTIAL AWAKENING "
The moment the message completed—
The world changed.
It wasn't dramatic.
There was no explosion of light, no pain, no divine proclamation.
Instead, everything slowed.
I could see the way dust particles drifted through the air. The subtle distortion in the mana flowing through the runes etched into the walls. The structural stress points in the stone pillars supporting the ceiling.
Even my own breathing—
I could see the path the air took through my lungs.
"…So this is perception beyond perception."
I stood.
The floor felt solid beneath my feet, yet every step carried a weight that had nothing to do with mass. My reflection stared back at me from the polished surface of a nearby mirror.
Silver-gray hair. Calm eyes. Sharp features.
Handsome.
Not ostentatiously so.
The kind of face that didn't beg for attention—
but took it anyway.
There was something else too.
Something intangible.
Presence.
I didn't radiate hostility. I didn't exert pressure.
And yet, as I stood there, I had the strange feeling that if someone else were in this room, they would hesitate before speaking. That their instincts would warn them, quietly, be careful.
A monarch's presence.
I frowned slightly.
"…This is dangerous."
Not the power.
The implications.
An extra was not supposed to have this.
The world itself would notice.
Correction forces. Narrative inertia. Fate.
I knew how these stories worked.
Which meant there was only one sensible course of action.
"Stay unnoticed," I said softly.
I looked out the window once more, toward the towering silhouette of the Imperial Academy in the distance.
The stage of the original story.
The place where heroes were born.
Where monsters revealed themselves.
Where—
I was supposed to die.
My eyes narrowed.
"Well," I said quietly, a faint smile touching my lips,
"that won't do."
The system interface flickered once more, unobtrusive, obedient.
And somewhere, far beyond this room, the world adjusted itself—
unaware that an extra had already stepped beyond its control.