Chapter 1

“Find a job?”

William had just gotten back from wandering the streets. He looked at his girlfriend at the stove and shook his head, a trace of guilt in the motion.

She showed no disappointment, no real shift in mood, as if failing to find work was simply ... normal.

William avoided talking as much as he could. He was afraid the woman who slept beside him every night might notice something off about him.

She carried over a slightly warped frying pan, set it down on the rickety, paint-flaking wooden table, slid a fried egg onto a plate of minced meat, then sat.

“Don’t overthink it. I’ve still got some money. Maybe you’ll find something tomorrow. Eat first.”

William nodded and began working through a dinner that was, at best, tolerable.

His fork pierced the thin, half-set surface of the egg. Thick yolk spilled out, coating the minced meat like a natural sauce, making the scraps look almost appetizing.

He ate mechanically, his mind elsewhere.

He had crossed over. He had no idea what principle or mechanism lay behind it, science or something else, but the fact remained, he had crossed into another world.

Before that, he had done all kinds of work, courier, insurance salesman, waiter, half-trained cook.

For the first thirty years of his life, he drifted from one insignificant job to another. Then, after he turned thirty, everything changed.

As he later put it, he spent those thirty years accumulating experience, then cashed it in all at once. A stirring, well-delivered speech, and he successfully moved the judge.

And then, the very first night he lay in that cramped room, already planning to write a memoir about his so-called legendary life, he drifted into a hazy sleep ... and crossed over.

The moment he crossed, he appeared in this house. The body’s owner happened to be named William as well, but this was already another world entirely, one with no connection to his “previous life.”

He had nothing here except a girlfriend.

As things stood, he looked exactly like the worst kind of societal refuse, living off his girlfriend, staying under her roof. Aside from helping her deal with certain nightly frustrations, he was little more than a parasite.