"get up you leech." The voice dragged him out of his sleep like a grumpy alarm clock with attitude. It sounded familiar—annoyingly familiar. It stirred sothing in him, like a mory he wasn’t quite ready to deal with. He wanted to hate it, really, but it was just too sweet to truly despise. It belonged to a woman, that much he was sure of. And judging by the tone, probably a beautiful one—though clearly not in the best mood right now.
He slowly opened his eyes, only to be t with the glare of an angry face staring right at him. That expression hit him like a slap of déjà vu. Suddenly, mories ca rushing in, crashing down like a wave, and he realized sothing important—the slightly wrinkled face, the streaks of grey in her dark hair, the sharp fox-like features that still sohow radiated elegance...
This was his grandmother. Or, well, technically his step-grandmother. And just like that—step one unlocked. The mories flooded in, and with them ca a hard truth: he’d been reborn into a family that was... let’s say, far from your typical wholeso sitcom crew. Oh, and his na now? Maximus Falkner, though everyone just called him Max.
And standing right behind the older woman was a younger version of her—his stepmother. Sa dark hair, sa fair skin, but with softer features and a ridiculously well-proportioned figure. Like soone copy-pasted her mom and just smoothed out the edges. She didn’t look any less annoyed, though.
With her arms crossed and that ever-sharp glare fixed on him, she muttered, "It’s a miracle the school’s covering your hospital bills. You almost made us sell my kidney, you brat..."
Without missing a beat, she snatched a few fruits from the basket beside his bed—his fruits, mind you—and casually stuffed them into a bag. "Now just lie here for a few days, milk the school for all it’s worth. We need to save every coin for Karina’s tuition next sester..."
Karina. His stepsister. The daughter of Annalisa—aka the woman currently looting his fruit like a bandit in broad daylight. Max sat there, a bit dazed. His mories were still syncing up, giving him a general idea of who these people were, but it didn’t tell him how the hell he was supposed to act around them. So, like any freshly-reborn weeb in a hostile household, he just nodded along.
It didn’t take a genius to feel the lack of warmth in the room. They didn’t care much for him, that much was obvious. And the reason? His late father—who married Annalisa and then promptly died, leaving them in a mountain of debt. A debt they had to repay by selling nearly everything they owned. The only real investnt left was in Annalisa’s daughters, Selene and Karina, who both had the rare chance to study magic seriously—especially Karina, who was already on that path.
"Now stay here and don’t do anything stupid like last ti... climbing a mountain, seriously, who the hell does that?" Zerena, his step-grandmother, huffed, still clearly irritated. She kept going, "And what the hell were you even doing up there?"
Max tried to dig through his mories, but no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t recall what he was doing on that mountain before he... well, before he died. It was like his entire life up to that point had been shoved into his head, every little detail about the Max person, except for those last few hours. Those were a complete blank.
anwhile, Anna, with her ever-present smile, was happily stuffing wet tissue packets into a bag as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Don’t waste your breath, Mother," she chid in. "It doesn’t matter what he was doing. We got so freebies because of his stupidity. It’s enough."
Max, stuck in this awkward mix of confusion and annoyance, just sat there as they went about their business, barely noticing him. Because, apparently, that’s what family does—scold you for nearly dying and turn your near-death experience into a bargain.
"You wretched thing, get up already...."
The new Max didn’t care much about the situation, though he could still feel a twinge of sadness from the body’s past emotions, brought on by their behavior. But for now, he just wanted to escape their constant stream of lectures.
He spoke up for the first ti since waking, "I’ll ask the nurse for more of this stuff. Can you two go now? My head is starting to feel like it’s about to explode..."
The two won, busy sorting through the hospital supplies, looked at him in surprise but nodded. Anna was the first to respond, "Yeah, do that. And ask for more fruits. Their prices keep going up. Let’s send so to your sister."
"I’ll do that..." Max replied, already feeling a little relief as the two of them nodded and finally left him alone.
The first thing he did was poke around the mories of the body’s previous tenant—and wow, talk about a tragic backstory. Born from an affair, mom died during childbirth, and dad noped out, leaving him with the woman he cheated on—his charming stepmother, who basically hated his guts. She only kept him because the governnt made her, which pretty much guaranteed a childhood straight out of a sad indie film.
It was enough to make anyone feel bad. But funny enough, the real Max didn’t seem to want revenge or so dramatic soap opera arc. He just wanted a little breathing room. You know, maybe a life where he wasn’t treated like expired milk.
But the new Max? Oh, he had a different outlook entirely. Diagnosed—or more like self-diagnosed—with a severe case of Main Character Delusion Disorder, he was convinced everyone else might just be NPCs. Sure, the world didn’t revolve around him... probably. But as he smirked to himself, already plotting his next move, one thing was clear: he may not have lived through all the pain firsthand, but he had the mories like he did. And that was enough.
Main character payback arc? It was coming. At least in the world of webnovels—and he was pretty damn sure he was in one of those too.
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