'Thud-'

..

The dull, heavy sound vibrated inside his head, dragging him back to consciousness. 

'Ugh....!' 

He groaned, but no sound came out. The sound only thundered inside his mind, making him feel dizzy. He tried to remember his last memory, but the dizziness didn't help.

Before he recalled a single memory, his hearing returned slowly as he listened to someone speaking.

"--he..ar ..any..thing?"

The words were muffled. But he focused, straining against the disorientation, as the voice cleared slowly.

"Are y.. done already, trash? We still have many pointers to teach,"

The voice had that arrogant tone, like a young man smirking.

The taunt stirred something inside him as a name came to his mind. Maximus. His name. There were no more memories, but the name evoked pride inside him.

'When was the last time someone was foolish enough to call me trash...!?' he seethed in his mind, a flicker of defiance burning, even though he really couldn't remember why.

"Oi trash, stand up," the young man said again, sharper this time, accompanied by a nudge that he felt in his legs. His legs. It was the first time he felt a sensation in his body.

Another kick came against his legs from the young man, a jolt this time that sparked the sensation back into his limbs.

The feeling in his body started to creep back. Tingling at first, then flooding his mind with awareness. 

The hardness of the ground pressed against his back, though he couldn't move his body when he tried. 

"Pfft, pathetic. Couldn't even handle five hits," another voice chimed in, rough and mocking. The tone reminded him of a musclehead, so he decided to call him Man.

"Seems like he got a little dazed with the hit to his head. Really trash!" the young man said as if being dazed was the fault of this trash.

 'Just wait!' Maximus thought as he lay there without a movement. More of his sensations were returning, and he felt he would soon gain complete control of his body.

After the third kick, there were no more for some time. The young man stopped when he got no reaction. 

"You guys pick him up. Hmm... Maybe we should take it to our place..." the Young Man said as he started to move away, and his voice muted at the end.

'Seems they are more likely to take me to their hideout or whatever,' he pondered, but he still couldn't move his body. 

"Yeah, let's teach him more, brother. You know how dense he is," a younger, sneering voice suggested. Maximus labeled him Brat as the voice sounded like someone in his teens, but the words made him want to beat the shit out of him.

'Shut up, bastard!' he shouted in his mind as he raged, hearing a child wanting to beat him up. 'Did his parents not teach him manners?'

He could understand what was happening. 'I am being trashed...' he realized as his mind pieced together the most likely scenario.

As hands grabbed him, lifting his still uncooperative body, Maximus felt the last vestiges of paralysis fade. He cracked his eyes open, allowing him a hazy view of the world around him. Though the view was unclear, he made out his immediate surroundings.

It was nighttime, casting everything into shadow. Somebody was walking ahead, but he was not sure. His vision was getting clear but not enough to make a clear picture; the night also didn't help. At least he can see that he was carried by two boys along a well-worn path. 

'Where the heck is this!?'

Frankly, it should be his first time seeing these guys, but he could tell who they were. Or more like it was on the tip of his lips, but he can't remember. 

But they felt like they were his enemy. Hate for them swept as an overwhelming feeling in his mind, but he forced to ignore it.

As the two strangers carried him, he focused on the boy ahead as he heard him speaking. 

"Asher, Future Vice Councilor of Rosewood Orphanage. What a Joke... Ha ha ha... Nothing more than a punching bag!" he heard the voice, the same as the Young Man he had heard earlier.

The strangers carrying him laughed alongside the Young Man. The man on the left laughed with his rough voice, and the right had the younger tone.

But he focused on the name that he heard. Asher. That's not his name. 'My name is Maximus, not Asher.' 

The mention of the name 'Asher' struck a chord, conflicting with his identity. Without his memories, the names were clashing in his mind. 

'Maximus... Ashe.. Max... As... M... A...!' 

An internal crisis started as he thought about his name. 

 'Who am I truly?' He knew one was true and one was not. 'Yet, Both felt wrong.. But also right.' He was getting confused by those conflicting thoughts. 

As he felt overwhelmed by the internal crisis, a blue screen flashed across his hazy eyes.

He stared at it blankly for a full minute. He would have continued for longer, but a prickling sensation made him feel like something popped into his mind.

A flood of information appeared in his mind. It was like a dam had burst within his mind, releasing a torrent of forgotten moments, faces, and feelings too fast for him to make sense.

He sifted through the sudden influx of memories. Concentrating on the essential parts. First, his name. Asher. 

He waited for the internal crisis from before, but it didn't come, though unease grew in his mind. 

'Asher.. But what about Maximus? Why did I think my name was Maximus?' 

With no answer coming to his mind, he moved on as he wanted to take control of his situation more. 'Guess I will just stick to being Asher for now...'

As soon as he decided, a new screen flashed across his eyes.

He was surprised to see the new screen. It was on the same blue background, but the words were golden. 'What's this?' 

He tried to continue reading the memories but felt the block. 

'What the hell is this?! I just got some clues, but now those are blocked!! Is the world against me or what!' he shouted before forcing himself to calm down. 

He remembered the two screens, but both gave two distinctive feelings. There was an instinctive trust when he saw the golden screen. But there were no more answers. 'Is the memories detrimental to him? How can that be!?'

After thinking a bit, with no answer coming, he shrugged inwardly at the end as he didn't have time to waste on a name.

'Not like it will help me much,' he thought. 'It's better if I take stock of my situation.'

He looked around again and was able to make out the surrounding trees. His eyes have cleared, and he can sense more.

He also felt the biting cold of the night that seemed to seep through every layer of clothing, chilling him a little.

The air around him carried a sharpness; each breath felt like a frosty mist that stung his lungs. Which made him look down at his body a little.

When he noticed that his body was bruised, he wanted to spit blood. 'Maybe it's a good thing I can't feel my body...' he considered without realizing that he had just triggered a red flag.

As soon as he thought, the sensation of pain swept through his mind, which made him close his eyes. 'Is this the famous Ignorance is Bliss effect?? F**k! I'm going to pay this bastard twice.'

His back hurts, his whole body feels like stone, many parts in his body throbbing in pain. It appears like he has been fighting. And losing. 

He didn't know why, but it reminded him of death. 'Wait... am I being killed? No... the boy spoke like it was a lesson. Do these guys have some strange taste to do it in a dark forest?'

Suspicion started to tug at him. Stopping to think clearly for the first time, he replayed the recent events in his mind, reinterpreting them in a new light.

Now that he thought more about it, he was sure he was not Asher. It came from the screen or whatever that memory capsule was. Though these people also called him Asher, the fact remains that something tried to give him memories of Asher.

As soon as he was sure he was not Asher, the golden screen appeared again.

There was the same prickling sensation as he felt something popping in his mind. Slowly, new memories and information appeared in his mind, but these were more familiar. Like he was intimately familiar with these, he instinctively knew those were his memories.

He started remembering who he was as his memories began returning to him. Maximus. An orphan boy hopping from one foster home to another. Growing up with no skills or education. Earning minimum wage. 

Searching for an escape from his dull life in novels. He was lucky enough that he didn't get into drugs.

But his life was not smooth. When he was twenty-five, the world was engulfed in a war. He was forcefully conscripted. The many years he took to become a General. The last thing he remembers was the attack when he was transferred to a war zone and the small snippets of being taken to the nearby hospital.

As soon as the memory ended, his mind started to race as he thought about the situation. Various scenarios, thoughts, and doubts flashed through his mind.

Maximus was still confused about what was going on right now. 'Am I in the afterlife or a coma and dreaming?' No, the pain felt too real, and he was sure his mind could not construct something this complex.

After getting no real answers, his mind started to construct a far-fetched scenario, which he couldn't discount as it took root, and he became a little surprised.

'Wait, wait, wait, shit! Did I transmigrate to a different world?!' he thought, remembering his otaku days. 'Maybe one of those where a Young Master bullies someone lower? That was his opinion in his current situation after glancing at the Young Man walking ahead. 

He looked at his body again. He didn't want to believe that, but he was sure. There should be no correlation between his old body and the body of the young man he saw when he checked himself.

'At least I got here by helicopter-kun, rather than truck-kun. That would have been embarrassing,' he thought with a snicker, but he soon stopped as a sudden realization flashed across his face. 

'Why the hell did that feel like something my eighteen-year-old self would have said!?' he shouted in surprise.

He remembered that he became emotionless due to the continuous loss of friends around him by the time he became General. 

 

---

 

( A few moments earlier. Outside the Universal Boundary )

The alert roused Morningstar from his meditative work. He was revising all the information and details of his scheme to achieve more Dominion over the Uni... Another signal made him entirely focus on the alert.

Surrounded by the lush trees in his Immortality Garden, he opened his crimson eyes, looking at the new alert.

Glancing through the data the System sent, a smile flickered across his face. "Ha ha.. Really good, brat,"

But soon, the smile lessened as a contemplative look took its place, "Seems like I will have to forward the meeting... Mess with me so I will mess with you..."

After calculating all the possibilities the brat might make, he opened the Universal System v.0 and changed the settings.

He watched as the update progressed and was sent back to the destination, "I would have been disappointed if you didn't have some ace..." 

"Let's hope that the old bitch is not paying her full atten..." He thought, returning to his meditative work and waiting for the man to choose.