When I woke up, my head was aching, and my body was sore. I got myself out of bed and immediately faced the mirror, which was weirdly in front of where I slept. Once I saw my reflection, a feeling of realization and fear ran through my body. That was not my face…

I didn’t remember how I used to look, but I could tell it wasn’t like this, which only made the situation even more horrifying. This new body of mine was way older and had long, blond hair and a face covered in a blond beard.

Once the fear slowly faded away, I started analyzing the room around me. Again, I couldn’t tell exactly how, but I knew that wasn’t my room. I had the feeling of walking around a place I’d never seen before.

The room looked like some medieval nobleman’s room. It was spacious and had a lot of expensive-looking furniture. The bed was big, and the closet was even larger. There were also paintings hanging on the walls, and, although I’m not an art expert, I could tell these weren’t framed, printed-out paintings from furniture stores.

I walked around, confused and still a little freaked out, when a little of my memories slowly came to me.

I remember walking on the street at night, when I heard a scream in some alleyway. As I rushed to see what was happening, I saw a girl struggling against a slim man. It seemed like he was about to rip her clothes and force himself on her. Without thinking much, I ran and punched the man. The girl took advantage of the distraction and ran away. I was confident in my strength, so at the time, I wasn’t really scared until I saw he had a knife. I tried to disarm him, but as soon as I noticed, he had already stabbed me. I felt the blood pouring out of my body, my knees gave out, and I fell to the ground. The man ran away as soon as I fell, looking panicked. Lying in that alley, I started to slowly lose consciousness and feel my eyes close. And when I woke up, I was here, in this weird place.

As I walked around the room, remembering what had happened, I saw a weird-looking envelope on the bedside table. My curiosity got the best of me, and I opened it. Inside was a letter, and it seemed to be addressed directly to me, not the man whose body I was now in, but specifically me.

The letter said: “Good morning, my young man. You certainly have many questions right now, right? So, to answer some of them, and the most frequent ones, I leave you this letter. First, let’s start with the most important: where are you? You are currently in one of the many universes that exist. Most specifically the town of New Belle, the capital of the kingdom of New Eden. I believe this universe is known in your world as a video game, but that’s not important at the moment.”

Not important at the moment? That seems like a really important thing to me. But New Eden? Why does this name sound so familiar to me? And it’s also from a video game “in my world”? Oh shit! Is this that game I heard so many kids talking about in school? And I’ve never even played the damn game. Maybe if I did, I would have a better idea of what to do here…

The letter continues: “Next, you might be wondering: who am I? Well, this is a little more complex to explain. As you noticed, you are not in the same body you used to be, and your memories should be all fuzzy and confusing right now. But until now, you were just a high school student. On the way home from your soccer training, you helped a girl in danger, and as a result, you lost your life. So, as a reward for your noble sacrifice, you were given a new chance at life. However, new bodies to reincarnate are rather rare to find, so, because of that, we gave you the body of an already living person. Don’t worry too much about this, the man whose body you’re inhabiting is the king of New Eden, King Peter the fourth. He is a corrupt and vile man. I believe you’ll do a much better job in his place than he ever would.”

So, I really died? And now I’m reincarnated in some evil king? Fuck, is this some isekai anime, or what? And besides all of that, I’ll be a king from now on? How am I supposed to rule an entire kingdom? I could barely be the captain of the soccer team at school.

The letter continues: “And now you could have some other questions on your mind. Such as: who are you? To put it simply, I am the god of life. I am the one responsible for guiding the dead, creating new lives, and more importantly, making sure the balance between life and death in every universe is right. Another question on your mind might be: why me? As I said before, I am responsible for balancing life and death in every universe and guiding the dead, and your death was a big mistake in the threads of fate. It caused your original universe to be unbalanced, and your soul to be tormented. Had your soul not reincarnated anywhere, you would live the rest of eternity in suffering and anger. As for your universe, I had to make a few changes to the threads of fate to avoid a universe-wide disaster. But that’s already settled.”

God of life? Balance in the universes? This is too much to take right now… This god said they would explain everything, but I have even more questions now…

The letter finishes with: “As I’m finishing writing this, I want you to know, I’m sorry not to be present in person with you right now, but my work requires all of my attention. And lastly, the memories of your original life and that of King Peter will slowly come back to you. It has to be that way; otherwise, your brain could literally flood with all the information. If you still have any questions, search for the mage, Giulia, in Medville. She’s an old acquaintance of mine and will be able to answer most of your questions. Take care and remember to stay out of trouble.”

That’s the letter… Is all of this real? Did I really die last night and am now stuck in some medieval universe? Fuck! And all of my friends? My family? All the things I had planned in life? Did it really end? And worst of all, I can barely remember any of it…

Before I finally lose my mind, I hear a knock on the door and a soft voice says:

-Your highness, may I come in with your breakfast?

-Umm… yeah.- I said, and almost immediately scared myself with this new, much lower, voice of mine-Come in…

A short girl with dark skin opens the door and walks into the room with a silver tray with bread, cake, and a cup of milk. The girl looks young but has a surprisingly amount of wrinkles, a sign that maybe she worked harder than she should. She was also wearing a weird dress. I am not sure, but it might be one of those maid uniforms you see in TV shows, but weirdly revealing. It showed a lot of her legs but especially, most of her chest, which at that point would be as good as if she was wearing a bikini.

A maid?! – I exclaimed in surprise. But when I think about it, I shouldn’t be that surprised that a king would have a maid in his castle. It was her response that really surprised me…

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-Erm… I would like if you called me by my proper title, your highness. – she said meekly – I’m not a maid. I’m the house slave…

The house what?! So there’s slavery in this place? And I own a slave myself? What the actual fuck? How didn’t I hear about this in my world? All the things I’ve heard about this damn game and no one talked about how it takes place in a world where slavery is legalized? So this king owned slaves? The god of life was right; he really is an asshole.

-Oh yeah… the house slave… By the way… is slavery… you know… a common thing in here?

-You mean in New Eden? Well, I would say it’s fairly common among the nobility, but a common peasant would hardly ever have enough money to buy a slave.

So the nobles in here are also slave owners… Fuck, I guess this kind of bullshit comes with medieval times, but it’s not any less awful. I wasn’t really comfortable with this but I had to atleast go along with it for now to not attracted any suspicion. Right now I wanted to atleast know a little bit more about this situation.

-Umm… I’m sorry but it seems I forgot your name. Can you tell me again?

-Well… you didn’t really forgot my name your highness, you just never asked it before…

Shit! Did I already attracted suspicion?

-Erm… well, I figured that if you’re my slave, I should atleast call you by name, right?

I asked that as if it was a stupid question, but I geniuly didn’t know if that was right or not

-Well, I guess there’s no problem if you know my name, your highness, but a slave like me don’t deserve the honor of being called by you…

-That’s bullshi… I mean… that’s nonsense. You deserve to atleast have a name, right?

-Okay then… my name is Maria, your highness. Feel free to use my name as you wish

She says bowing her head. The short woman, even with her wrinkles, looked pretty young. Probably among her 20’s, ,although I wasn’t sure how people measured time in here. With that in mind, I decided to ask:

-And if you don’t mind telling me, how old are you Maria?

-I am 75 years old, your highness.

-S-S-Seventy F-Five?! Are you really that old? You look hardly older than 30!

-Well that’s because of my elven genes, your highness. – she says, pulling the hair over her ears, showing her pointy ear – I am a mix-breed afterall, so I age differently than humans. For my age, you could really say I am really a young-adult as you said.

Mix-breed, elven genes… This whole thing gets more complex every second… Maybe it was that mix-breed thing that got her into slavery. But that would mean that beyond all of the already fucked up stuff, the slavery in this place is also racially motivated. Which would certainly make this whole situation even shittier.

-I don’t want to interrupt you, your highness, but I must remember you that Lord Percy came to your meeting this morning.

-Lord Percy?Umm… could you remind me who he is again, Maria?

Even through her mostly shy and meek demeanor, Maria seems geniuly shocked by my question.

-Don’t you remember? Lord Percy is the biggest investor in the kingdom military. He came to meet you about the witch situation.

The witch situation… Here comes another information dump for me to remember…

-Oh,of course. I just had a bad night of sleep and forgot somethings. Lead me to where Lord Percy is, Maria.

Maria nodded and then lead me to the entrance of that castle. As I walked through the hallways I finally realized how big the building was. From my room to thr entrance, we walked for approximately 7 minutes, which might not sound like a lot, but this was just walking through hallways and stairways. When we finally got to the entrance we saw two men dressed nicely, one mature looking man with a thin mustache and a hat sitting on a armchair in the entrance, and the other was a older looking man that had a long goatee and no other hair in his head, he stayed on his feet by the side of the armchair that the other man was sitting. By their position I assumed that the man sitting would be Lord Percy and the one standing was a butler or something, but to not risk raising any suspicion I simply adresed the both of them like just person, and hoped the actual Lord Percy would be the only one to respond.

-Lord Percy! It’s nice to see you.

The man sitting on the armchair stood up and walked in my direction. For a moment I thought I was right in my assumption, that this was Lord Percy, until he said

-Are you serious, Peter? You were never one for jokes, especially in times like this. I’m tired of people comparing me to my father, and I won’t take this shit from anyone anymore, not even you.

Shit! So Lord Percy wasn’t even in the room? And his son came instead, it seems. My attempt to avoid suspicion just made things worse, somehow.

-Um… sorry. I just had a bad night of sleep as I told my… slave, before.

-That’s true, Sir Damian. – Maria said bowing her head – Please forgive King Peter’s mistake.

Damian glared at Maria and said.

-And why are you are letting this slave speak on your defense? – He said looking at her but clearly talking to me – It’s already shameful enough to even come here accompanied by a slave, but if you let her speak in your place, you’ll lose all the respect you have…

Fuck… now I really fucked up… Besides not knowing who he was I just made some mistake on their “slave-owner” etiquette… I better just play stupid to save face.

-Oh… Sorry, I didn’t even noticed this… slave… coming into the room with me. *cough* You, slave woman, leave now. Our business don’t concern you.

Maria looked down and walked up the stairs, leaving the room with just me, Damian and the old bald guy with him.

-*sigh* Honestly, Peter, you shouldn’t be too lenient with these slaves. – Damian said in a disappointed tone – I heard of all those attacks that masters suffered when one of their slave escaped, and if you keep being soft against any of them, this could happen to you. All it takes is one free slave to kill a master and then they unite a whole new group of former slaves to torment other people.

-Well, certainly not all of them would be murderers, right? What bad does it do to just talk to them like they’re normal people every now and then?

-Keep thinking like that and you’ll see just how bad that’ll end up for you. Anyway, I didn’t came here to discuss these issues. I came in my father stead. He said he had some concerns about your deals about the kingdom’s military.

A little bit o King Peter’s memories come to me, (conveniently, I know) and I remembers Lord Percy was negotiating an increasse to the military’s budget. I know fuck-all about politics or war strategy, but the budget for the military must be pretty important, right? I mean, that’s why so many countries spend so much money on it in my word. So maybe I should really get on this Percy guy good side (Or his son in this case).

-Oh, does Lord Percy have any concerns? Please feel free to tell me.

-Um… You’re a lot more aprouchable today, Peter... Last time my father came here the two of you discussed almost all night.

What now? Now I’m being too easy? Is there no right answers here?

-W-Well, I figured that if he had issues I should try listening to them. He’s must certainly have reasonable concerns before giving such a big raise to the budget, right.

-Well, I am here to see about that… Anyway, could we maybe walk around the building? I’m tired of sitting all day.

-Sure. – I then noticed the bald man, still standing in the room with us, even after Maria went away – Erm… I’m sorry but, could your butler be in the room with us right now? I mean, my slave has left already.

-Please, Peter, don’t make such foolish questions. Of course your slave is not on the same level as Gunther. He’s not a slave, but our family butler for years. As opposed to a slave he’s faithful only to us, and will remain that way until the day he dies.

Okay… maybe I spoked too much again… But what the hell does he mean? Did he suffered some kind of brainwashing or what? Man, this whole thing is getting more and more messed up every second.

-Oh, of course, sure. I am sure it’s fine if he’s with us then… Let’s go outside, shall we?

I opened the door and had to hide my surprise once I saw the outside of the castle. There was a giant garden, with a bunch of flowers and plants that I hadn’t even seen before. I was never really the type of guy to care about flowers or gardens but that was definitely different, I can’t even put it into words. Damian had to call me so I walked alongside him again, as I was just staring at the garden.

-Anyway, Peter. What my father wanted to discuss with you was regarding the marriage.

-The marriage?

-I get you don’t love the idea, but don’t make me said it out loud… How do you think this whole deal makes me feel?... You know, regarding my father asking your daughter’s hand in marriage…

When Damian said that a foggy memory from Peter came back to me. I couldn’t tell exactly why but the idea of arreging a marriage between Lord Percy and my daughter (who I found out exist) made me incredibly angry. Maybe that’s Peter’s emotions and they’re coming to me now. That must be the reason they didn’t closed the deal so far.

-Um… I’m sorry, but this is not happening, probably ever.

-Humpf… and here I thought you would be more open today… Anyway, I can’t really blame you, I myself don’t enjoy my father’s relationships with… young women. I’ll be taking my leave then. See you soon, Peter.

Damian said this and walked to a chariot with his butler. And walked back to the castle while looking at the flowers in the garden, once I got inside another memory from Peter came to me: his daughter. Her name is Eliza and she’s a bright girl with blue eyes and blond hair, just like Peter himself, and she was also… six years old… Did that mother fucker really asked for the hand of a fucking child for marriage? No wonder Peter felt so angry just thinking about this whole situation… Actually, wasn’t he supposed to be the main villan of this game? Does this means he has some skeleton in the closet I haven’t seen yet? Is every noblemen in this universe that fucked up?

It’s not even lunch time and this world already stressed up the shit out of me… And this is supposed to be my home now? What the fuck God of Life?... wait, that’s it. I need to find that Giulia person and see if they can get me out of here. Or atleast let me talk to the God of Lige so I can give him a piece of my mind… I’ll look into that but for now I should just continue with my day. God, I hope this medieval fantasy has heated baths…