In my dreams, everything was burning.

A voice was calling out for me.

[Someone calm, collected, and quick-witted.]

I ignored it at first. I didn’t want to hear it; I’d already done everything that I wanted to do. If there was anything more to be done, Chen Xiarui could take care of the rest. I had no intention of waking up again.

[Someone capable of acting and deceiving anyone.]

But the voice grew louder and louder in my ears, ringing clear as a bell.

[Someone who would be happy just living an ordinary life.]

Fine. Maybe I’d open my eyes just one moment to make this guy shut up.

[Someone… who is brave.]

As that thought crossed my mind, an intense dizziness struck me, as if I was being pulled down into a deep dream.

[Come forth and be bound by my name!]

I struggled to open my eyes and saw before me a grand library, great oaken shelves stretching away into the distance over finely marbled floor. The chandelier hanging from the high-vaulted ceiling cast a warm and gentle glow over the person standing before me. He looked around my age, with tanned skin, rosy hair, and a refined, aristocratic suit. There were mystical circles drawn on the marble beneath him and beneath me, with faint scripts connecting them both.

Was I still dreaming?

“I called a pretty normal-looking existence…” the young man muttered, scanning my form with his sharp amber eyes. “But this is still far more suitable than the original story.”

What the hell was he talking about?

Before I could speak, the hairs on my neck rose on end. I jumped to the side just as the mystic circles began to glow.

The young man clicked his tongue. “Couldn’t have done this the easy way, huh?” he said, narrowing his eyes and holding out his hand. A wicked black knife materialized in his grasp.

Great, now he was armed and I wasn’t. I kicked off the ground and rushed at him. My speed seemed to take him by surprise. He swung the knife in a shaky form. I blocked the movement and snaked my arm over his, catching it under my grip and breaking it over my knee. Phew. It sure was nice that this maneuver was so easy to pull off in a dream, huh?

But despite letting out a cry of pain, he didn’t let go of the knife, even when I grappled to get it out of his control. He gritted his teeth and grabbed me tight with his free hand.

“I declare this title to be true,” he gasped. “[Executor of the Sacrifice’s Last Will].”

What?

He finally twisted the knife far enough to cut my skin, but at the cost of his stable grip. I seized the opportunity to wrench the knife away from him and stab him in the torso. Then I stabbed him a few more times just to be sure.

A golden chain materialized around me, wrapping itself around my chest before sinking beneath my skin.

Huh? What kind of setting was this?

I quickly pushed the young man away and backed up a few steps. He groaned as he sat up. There was a golden dust seeping out of his stab wounds in place of blood, like scattering sand. He stretched his uninjured arm out. “[Caller], come back to me!”

Nothing happened. I glanced around just to be sure. The young man’s expression twisted.

“What the hell are you?” he said.

I attacked him instead of answering. We had a short scuffle where he shouted a lot of strange things, and a lot of even stranger things appeared and passed me by.

There was a cage that didn’t hold me, and thorns that didn’t bind me. There was a lantern that did not shine on me, and shadows that did not touch me. I didn’t understand anything except that he meant me harm, and he was panicking.

So of course, I beat him up.

As he lost his composure, the things he said became even more incomprehensible to me. It was a tragic instance where sharing the same language couldn’t penetrate the barrier of mutual understanding at all.

It was very clear that he hadn’t intended anything good for me, though, so after working him over, I tossed him into the mystic circle I’d been standing on before and went to stand on his.

He tried to get to his feet, but it was too late. The circles beneath us lit up, encircling us with golden barriers. He slammed his palms against the barrier a few times before sliding down to his knees. His expression was quite bad. In my opinion, his situation could only be described as, “Serves him right.”

The young man’s body began to dissolve into golden light. He closed his eyes, quickly calming down. When he opened them again, he was full of firm resolve.

“Hey,” he said. “Remember this. You are now Acacius Duval, so you must bear the weight of the name.”

His body completely scattered apart.

The golden light came flooding towards me like a river of stars, sinking into my body with a strange warmth, and then a sensation of vertigo overtook me once again. My vision blurred and went dark.

I snapped awake with a jolt.

What the hell? Where was I?

I was sitting cross-legged in a small, empty room made from gray stone. A circle filled with occult-like writing had been drawn around me with a dark liquid. Candles had been placed at regular intervals around the edge. The scent of blood and incense filled the air.

More importantly, I didn’t see anyone else in the room, so I was free to investigate as I pleased.

I picked up a candle, careful not to disturb the weird ritual circle, and looked around.

There was a silver door with no handle, and on the opposite wall… I did a double take. It was a mirror, but my reflection wasn’t there. Instead, there was an indistinct, hazy mass of darkness.

A moment later—

Krrk.

The mirror cracked.

Uh… Could it be that I was trapped here with some kind of terrifying existence?

As if responding to that thought, an invisible presence formed in front of me, radiating an indescribable pressure. A chill ran through me, and I unconsciously stepped back. I felt a little bit like I was standing next to a power plant with no safeguards, or teetering at the mouth of a volcano. Something vast and powerful was descending. What the hell…?

A wisp of golden light formed into a book of light that scattered the shadows in the room. It hovered before me, opening its covers for me to see inside. A line of black ink was writing itself across the page.

I didn’t know what language this was, but somehow, just looking at it, I understood its meaning anyway.

[—And thus, Acacius Duval lost his body, titles, and World Proof to the opponent he had summoned for the Devouring Exchange.]

Hey, these were some scary words being written here. World Proof? Devouring Exchange? Putting the hints together, wasn’t this thing saying that I had taken this Acacius guy’s whole existence?

[However, to be accepted by Kosmonymia, one must first have a name.]

[Noumenon, declare thy name.]

I almost wanted to ask what being rejected by Kosmonymia would mean, but the presence emanating from this book felt so overwhelming, I didn’t want to find out.

As long as it didn’t show any malice towards me, and as long as it didn’t take anything that shouldn’t be taken, then it should be fine to comply for now.

“…My name is Jeong Eunseok.”

The book resumed its writing.

[Jeong Eunseok took Acacius’ body and absorbed the power of Acacius’ soul. But Acacius had long made preparations that bound his own soul to a heavier call. Thus, despite the binding power of the Devouring Exchange, the memories that Jeong Eunseok absorbed from Acacius’ soul were fragmented and incomplete.]

Well, I certainly didn’t feel like I’d gained any mystic knowledge or power.

The overwhelming presence from the book abruptly flared, and my knees buckled. A searing hot pain pressed down on my consciousness. A vast existence descended into my mind, and my thoughts didn’t scatter so much as collapse entirely in front of it like a house of cards, being roughly turned face-up for that existence to see. It felt like any moment I might be crushed into dust just by the weight of its gaze. It was all I could do just to breathe.

And then the feeling passed.

Gasping and drenched in a cold sweat, I raised my head to look at the shining book.

There was a new line writing itself.

[The Scribe bore witness to Jeong Eunseok’s existence.]

[The Secret-Keeper gazed upon all that he had lost.]

[The Signifier placed him within the great frame.]

[As a named being, Jeong Eunseok was also entitled to Kosmonymia’s blessings.]

An unfamiliar energy bloomed in my chest.

[According to his life, his Record of Existence was written.]

[According to his characteristics, his World Proof was crafted.]

[According to the Devouring Exchange, he was granted the titles that Acacius Duval once bore.]

[The World Proof and Record of Existence were connected to his name, and he would only need to will it forth for these things to manifest.]

[And thus did Acacius lose his existence as “Acacius Duval,” and Jeong Eunseok obtain it.]

The book flipped itself closed and faded away in a streak of light. The vast sense of power that accompanied it disappeared as well, leaving me kneeling alone in the room. The blood from the ritual circle was starting to soak my clothes.

Or rather… Acacius’ clothes.

I looked in the mirror once more. This time, there was no black haze. Instead, in the place where my reflection should have been, I saw the same young man that had appeared to me in that dream.

Like me, he had tan skin and amber-brown eyes. Unlike me, he had rose-gold hair and was wearing a rich magenta coat that looked far more expensive than anything I’d ever owned in my life. I tried a few expressions on. The sharpness of his face made even my friendliest attempts at smiling look alarming, and his slicked-back hair made me look like a real bastard on top of that, too. But Acacius was rather handsome, so really, all of that was forgivable.

He was the type of person to summon an innocent, unrelated bystander like me to kill me and absorb my soul, though, which was much less forgivable. What kind of life had this guy been leading…? Hopefully it was nothing terrible, but the prospects did not seem at all encouraging thus far.

Okay. Since I was here, I needed to assess the environment and the resources I had at hand.

That book mentioned a few important-sounding things. It seemed rather childish, but I decided to give it a try.

I held out my hand and called tentatively, “Record of Existence.”

A small black booklet gilded with gold patterns materialized before me. At my curious hand gesture, it opened to the first page.

Name: Jeong Eunseok

World Proof: [Honest Man’s Deception]

Titles:

• [Acacius Duval]
• [Caller of What Must Be True]
• [Executor of the Sacrifice’s Last Will]
• […]

Evaluation: Contradictory, hypocritical, capricious, and yet truthful and constant all the same, this being has chosen a way of life that others would find hard to match.

Hey. What kind of evaluation was this? Sure, I had my quirks, but every person did. When Acacius called me, he’d specifically summoned someone normal, right? So how could this evaluation have anything to do with me?

The world didn’t respond to my complaints.

Fine then. I flipped the Record to the next page.

World Proof: [Honest Man’s Deception]

Form: Mask

Description: The crystallization of a certain human’s unforgiving resolve to remain “himself,” even if it meant giving up everything else.

Skill: As well as allowing the user to take the appearance of a target, this World Proof can also take the form and imitate the skill of that target’s World Proof. The skill imitation grows closer in power to the original skill according to the user’s understanding of the target.

• To take the target’s appearance, the user must know their name, and to imitate their World Proof, the user must know its name.
• The skill will be forcefully dispersed when the user lies.

I felt rather helpless. Was this “World Proof” truly a representation of how Kosmonymia thought of me? Sure, the skill seemed useful, but this description really made me seem like some kind of shady liar, or at least someone who was kind of off in the head.

Still, at least the usage requirements weren’t too difficult.

I held out my hand and called out in my mind, World Proof!

Nothing happened for a long, excruciating moment.

Then, a dark, metallic mask with a gunmetal-golden sheen appeared in my hand. It had a very ordinary shape, with two eyes and a blank visage. Despite not having any patterns, it still left quite the impression. When I placed it on my face, it stuck there on its own. It didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

Wasn’t this actually pretty cool…?

I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time for that; I needed to focus. I took off the mask and looked through the rest of my Record, which seemed to be dedicated to describing my “titles.”

Title: [Acacius Duval]

Symbol: Acacia flower

Description: The heir of Cyprian Duval will surely be called by this name.

Nothing about what the title itself did… Was it just for decoration? I turned my eyes to the next title.

Title: [Caller of What Must Be True]

Symbol: Black knife

Description: Acacius Duval’s former World Proof. The power of a calculating mind that constantly evaluates others and describes others truly, even if it seems untrue. That which is hidden, or that which has not yet become true, shall surely be brought into the light.

Title Skill: The title bearer can allow whoever it cuts to borrow a title from the future. The more powerful the title, the farther the future, and the longer the duration, the more vitality the title bearer must sacrifice in return.

• If the target does not acquire the borrowed title through natural means by the time that specified future point has come to pass, they will die.

Wait a minute. A black knife?

With a bad feeling, I looked at the next page.

Title: [Executor of the Sacrifice’s Last Will]

Symbol: Golden chain

Description: A title obtained by carrying out the last will of those who died or were killed unjustly in pursuit of a greater cause. Of those you’ve met most recently, only Acacius Duval fits the conditions.

Passive Effect: You have an affinity for certain voices of the dead.

Note: This title is borrowed from the future. If you do not achieve the conditions to make it true within 3 years, you will die.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Fuck.

I should’ve beaten that bastard up more while I had the chance.

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