Chapter Text
When Ron opened his eyes, the taste of the last cup of coffee from his previous life was still on his tongue.
It tasted like Earth. Cheap instant coffee, two sugar cubes, drunk at three in the morning to push through another brutal overtime shift.
But now, there was something else in his mouth.
The air smelled of metal and ozone, like rust after a thunderstorm. Or something cold and sterile he couldn’t quite name.
A hospital.
A morgue.
It took him three full seconds to understand what had happened.
This wasn’t his body.
He held his hand up in front of his face. Defined knuckles, pale blue veins beneath the skin, a few faint white scars across the fingers. He turned it over, studying the unfamiliar palm lines and the placement of the calluses.
These hands were younger than his.
Stronger.
They weren’t his.
Transmigration.
One simple word, and it meant he had to start a new life from a completely unfamiliar angle.
Worse, the memories left behind by the original owner contained far too many names he recognized.
The Viltrumite Empire.
Emperor Argall.
Grand Regent Thragg.
Ron’s hand moved to his face. His fingertips brushed the smooth skin above his lip.
No mustache.
That made him freeze.
According to the original body’s memories, adult Viltrumite men all wore neatly trimmed mustaches. A mark of status, like the ID card he had carried back on Earth, except this one grew directly on your face.
And worse than that, his coming-of-age ceremony was in three days.
Which meant that in three days, he would have to fight his parents.
If he somehow survived, he could pick up a razor and start growing the beard of an adult man.
The thought scraped around inside his skull like broken glass.
Absurd.
Unreal.
“Ron.”
Someone was calling his name.
It wasn’t English. It was a language he had never learned. But the moment the word reached him, the meaning unfolded inside his mind, as if someone had installed a translator in his brain.
He looked up.
A man stood in the doorway.
He looked about forty, with short black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache, straight and sharp, like a military order drawn across his face. His gray-white uniform was cleanly tailored, with no useless decoration. Below the waist, a matching skirt-like panel fell to just above his knees, shifting slightly with his stance.
It reminded Ron of certain ceremonial military uniforms on Earth, an extra piece of fabric meant to tell everyone exactly where the wearer stood without him saying a word.
On Earth, Ron would have assumed he was some kind of officer in an unfamiliar uniform.
But he wasn’t on Earth.
He was in the Viltrumite Empire.
Memories surged up. Not images. Not sounds. A dense block of information unpacking itself inside his mind.
He knew who the man in the doorway was.
Kerr.
His father.
A mid-level officer of the Empire. A veteran who had helped conquer more than a dozen planets.
And the enemy Ron would have to face in three days.
He also remembered two other important things.
First, Emperor Argall had been assassinated today. A few hours ago, the ruler of the Empire had been stabbed through the skull by a traitor.
Second, Regent Thragg was about to take power, and Thragg believed the Viltrumites needed a “Great Purge” to cut out any hidden weakness.
“You’re spacing out.” Kerr’s voice was flat, like he was stating a fact. His mustache shifted slightly as he spoke. “The Emperor is dead. The entire Empire is shaking, and you’re standing there spacing out.”
Ron opened his mouth.
He should say something, but he had no idea what the original owner of this body would have said. The memories had given him language, combat skills, and a basic understanding of this universe, but nothing more. He knew the Viltrumite Empire spanned dozens of star systems, but he had no idea what he’d eaten for dinner yesterday.
“I...” His voice came out rougher than he expected. “I don’t know what to say.”
Kerr stared at him for several seconds.
It wasn’t concern. It barely even felt like scrutiny. It felt like assessment, the way someone might check whether a blade was still sharp.
Ron looked away. His gaze dropped to the hem of Kerr’s uniform.
The gray-white fabric hung straight, edged with a fine line of dark gray.
He knew what it meant.
A pillar of the Empire.
Not high enough to sit in High Command, but already qualified to command a small fleet.
A position.
An identity.
A hem earned through more than a dozen campaigns.
His own uniform ended plain and empty.
No skirt.
Nothing.
A boy on the edge of adulthood, still unworthy of that hem, with a bare upper lip and nothing to show for himself.
“Then stay silent.” Kerr turned to leave, his steps steady. “Don’t go out tonight. There are too many restless people in the Empire right now. Don’t become an outlet for them.”
The door shut behind him without a sound.
The room went quiet as a tomb.
Ron stood there, looking down at his gray-white uniform, still unable to believe any of this was real.
But every breath, every rise and fall of his chest, told him he wasn’t dreaming.
In three days, he would have to fight two adult Viltrumites at his coming-of-age ceremony and earn their approval. Then he would grow a beard and put on a uniform with a skirt.
That was the path to adulthood for every Viltrumite man.
Simple.
Efficient.
Completely natural.
In his previous life, he had lived to thirty-two. College, job hunting, rent, overtime, blind dates, sleepless nights, sudden death. His life had not exactly been dramatic. It had been ordinary, even dull.
On Earth, becoming an adult usually meant senior year, counting down to the college entrance exam, sneaking glances at the girl you liked in class, and studying under the covers with a flashlight.
His own coming-of-age had been a bowl of longevity noodles from his mother and his father patting him on the shoulder, saying, “You’re an adult now.”
Here, coming of age meant a fight.
Not a metaphor.
Not a symbolic performance.
A real fight, with blood and broken bones. He had to fight his own parents hard enough to earn recognition from everyone involved.
If he wasn’t strong enough, he would die.
That was how Viltrumites celebrated adulthood.
With fists.
I’m grown now.
Ron walked slowly to the wall and leaned back against the cold alloy surface.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
It was the first thing he had said since waking up here that truly felt like his own.
The memories were still moving through his head. His brain kept feeding him information about Viltrumites, like an encyclopedia turning its own pages.
Viltrumites looked almost exactly like humans. On a street, you wouldn’t look twice. Their civilization had lasted hundreds of thousands of years and conquered dozens of galaxies. Their society ran on one absolute rule: the strong survived, and the weak were eliminated.
So to Viltrumites, an eighteenth-year coming-of-age ceremony wasn’t cruelty.
It was respect.
Ron understood the logic. In his previous life, he had read enough comics, novels, and watched enough movies to recognize the whole “warrior race” idea. Once, he had even gotten excited seeing that kind of thing on a screen, thinking the culture looked cool.
But now he was standing here in a skirtless gray-white uniform, touching his bare upper lip, knowing he would have to experience that fight himself in three days.
He wanted to drag his past self away from the screen and slap him twice.
“Cool my ass,” he said to the empty room.
That was the second honest thing he had said since arriving here.
Ron closed his eyes and tried to think.
He had read stories like this more times than he could count. Usually, the protagonist awakened some kind of cheat. A system, divine gear, a heaven-defying technique—some absurd advantage that made survival possible.
He checked his mind.
His hands.
His heartbeat.
Nothing.
He was just an ordinary teenage Viltrumite, stuck near the bottom of Imperial society, only a little better off than the kids who got thrown into squad-based battle royale matches every few days.
And Kerr could take on an entire fleet by himself.
In three days, Ron would have to face the same fists that could punch through a space warship.
He lay down on the hard bunk and stared blankly at the dead, monotonous ceiling.
“Forget it,” he muttered. “Survive today first.”
Even he didn’t believe it.