Chapter 1: A Stranger in William’s Skin

“Find a job yet?”

William had just gotten back from another aimless circuit around town. He looked at his girlfriend, who was standing over the stove cooking dinner, and shook his head with a trace of guilt.

She wasn’t disappointed. She barely reacted at all, as if failing to find a job was the most ordinary thing in the world.

William did his best to avoid talking any more than necessary. He was afraid the woman who slept beside him every night might notice something was off.

Carrying a slightly warped frying pan, his girlfriend walked over to a rickety wooden table with peeling paint. She slid a fried egg onto a plate of minced meat, then sat down.

“Don’t worry about it so much. I’ve still got a little money left. Maybe you’ll find something tomorrow. Eat first.”

William nodded and began working on a dinner that was far from appetizing.

His fork broke through the thin skin that had formed over the egg. Thick yolk spilled across the chunks of meat like a natural sauce, instantly making them look more appealing.

He ate mechanically while his mind wandered elsewhere.

He had transmigrated.

He had no idea what scientific principle, cosmic accident, or other explanation might account for it, but the fact remained: he had crossed into another world.

Before that happened, he had done all kinds of jobs. Courier. Insurance salesman. Waiter. Half-trained cook. A little of everything.

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

As he liked to describe it later, he had spent thirty years accumulating experience, only to explode onto the scene all at once. One passionate, emotionally charged speech had successfully moved a judge...

Then, after spending his first night in a cramped little room, already imagining the autobiography he would someday write about his legendary life, he drifted off to sleep.

And woke up here.

The moment he arrived, he found himself in this apartment. The original owner of the body happened to be named William as well, but that was where the similarities ended. This was a completely different world, one with no connection whatsoever to his previous life.

Aside from a girlfriend, he had nothing.

At the moment, he resembled the most hopeless kind of social deadbeat. He lived off his girlfriend, ate her food, stayed under her roof. Other than helping her deal with certain frustrations at night, he contributed almost nothing.