1 Rough Timing

"Ackster! If you don't come down now, you won't get any breakfast!"

The blue-haired young man lying down on a disheveled bed groaned as he sat up and rubbed his forehead. He looked around the room, confused. It wasn't his room. And it wasn't any other room he was familiar with or had seen before. His headache quickly subsided, and his mind cleared up.

The last thing he remembered was that he crossed the street on his way home. And then everything had gone black following an alarmingly intense flash and a loud bang. If he had been in a traffic accident, logic dictated that he should have ended up in a hospital. Unless hospitals had changed drastically during the time he was unconscious, he wasn't in a hospital.

As he looked at his body, the blue-haired man noticed that he wasn't only in a strange room. He was also in a strange body.

The blue-haired young man rubbed his head in frustration. His mind, full of fantasy and useless information, reached a conclusion sooner than he would have liked if he had cared about his reputation.

His life on Earth hadn't been paradise, but he had still left it behind and transmigrated into someone else. And if the words that woke him up and the nameplate on the desk not far from the bed were any clues, his transmigration would be shortlived.

As an enjoyer of modern fantasy, he didn't have too much trouble accepting the fact that he had transmigrated. Not even if he had transmigrated into the body of a character inside a novel. He might still be dreaming or refusing to accept reality. And he might not have fully processed his own death yet. He might even be inside a dream of his own making while his body was unconscious. But for now, he decided to proceed while assuming that he had transmigrated into a character in one of the stories he had read.

But the thing that bothered him the most was the fact that he had transmigrated into the body of an antagonist that couldn't even be called a stepping stone for the main character. He had reincarnated into the almost infamously pointless roadside pebble antagonist, Ackster Phileam.

It was a character with a worryingly low number of scenes and interactions with the protagonist. It was to the point that the character had such a limited effect on the novel's story and plot progression that most of the readers' comments about him were questions about why he existed.

Ackster showed up in the early parts of the book, and even people who didn't finish the novel knew about him. The author did make a statement later about how he had plans for Ackster when he made the character, but it just didn't fit with the overall novel. After explaining, the author apologized for writing such an unnecessary character.

Fortunately, Ackster's impact on the novel was so minimal that his appearance didn't attract ire from the more casual readers. It was just the critics and people who cared too much about random details that were dissatisfied with the character. Though, the attention they brought to Ackster especially did highlight how empty his existence was.

The people commenting on the novel often left comments later on, when other characters died, about how they were so happy that Ackster died a week of novel time after his first appearance whenever they saw the protagonist kill someone else. It was quite understandable. Ackster had an annoying attitude and almost literally asked to be killed since he challenged the protagonist to a death match only moments after meeting him.

And now, he had become that snobbish, annoying, spoilt brat of a man whose only good quality was his skill. But Ackster hadn't nurtured his skill and instead let it go to his mind while he let the skill go to waste.

Ackster grabbed the hand-sized mirror from its stand on the desk and looked at himself.

The matching blue eyes and hair were a good fit with Ackster's naturally sharp features, but since the original Ackster only relied on his natural looks, there was room for improvement. Unfortunately, Ackster didn't have time to think about how surprisingly handsome he was.

Based on how old he looked to be, it wouldn't be long until the novel's original protagonist came to the city.

"Ackster, the maids got rid of the breakfast, and I know I said you wouldn't get any. But there's still some left in the kitchen if you hurry."

Ackster wasn't sure how he should respond, so he didn't say anything in response to the woman who seemed to be Ackster's mother, based on the concern and care in her voice.

After all, the original Ackster was someone even a mother would struggle to love. And the only one who had expressed some kind of sadness regarding the original Ackster's death in the original story had been his mother.

"I know you're awake. You don't have to talk to me but at least listen. It's not too late to take a step back and apologize to The Hero. You've heard the rumors, haven't you? He really will kill you, Ackster."

The woman sighed loudly enough for Ackster to hear it through the wooden door before she walked away with footsteps just as loud.

"Fuck."

If Ackster had already challenged the protagonist of the story he had reincarnated into, he had at most a week before his death date. And since his mother had mentioned breakfast, at most six days and nights.

In the original novel, Ackster challenged the world's Hero after noticing how much attention he got on the street. And then, after some subtle provocation from the protagonist, the challenge was escalated into a battle to the death.

The original Ackster completely ignored everyone warning him about The Hero and stubbornly held onto his belief of being strong even until he died after a single attack from The Hero.

However, Ackster knew it wasn't that simple. The Hero had provoked Ackster into turning the challenge into a death battle. But the readers of the original novel also knew The Hero's tendencies and what he did with his opponents.

The Hero wasn't known as a viciously merciless antihero for nothing. He was the type to kill anyone who had shown him hostility. Ackster, who had said he would kill The Hero by voluntarily challenging him to a death battle, had already signed his death sentence. Even if Ackster realized his mistake and forfeited, The Hero wouldn't let it go. It might take a while, a couple of days, weeks, or months, even. But Ackster would disappear one day.

That was the kind of situation Ackster had transmigrated into.