He was 28 years old. His height was 164 cm. His hair, jet black and slightly messy. And one thing that had never changed since the day he was born: he had never once been in a relationship.

In other words… an eternal bachelor.

“Ahh… morning already, huh…” Rio muttered hoarsely, letting out a long yawn.

“Guess I’ll take a shower first…”

In front of the mirror, he stared at his own reflection. A weary face. Dull skin. Eyes so tired, as if they had already given up on the world.

He rubbed his cheek, then pinched it lightly.

“Ahh… my face looks like some old uncle’s now…” he sighed bitterly.

“No wonder… I’m still single until now… damn.”

He quickly threw on his work clothes. A wrinkled shirt, black trousers, and his favorite shoes—already peeling, yet still faithfully carrying him through the days.

The house felt silent. No sound. No presence. Only emptiness.

“I’m leaving!” he shouted, though there was no one there to hear him.

He smiled. Bitterly.

“Haha… even though I live alone…”

At the office, Rio’s steps were heavy. Dark circles were obvious beneath his eyes. Every movement of his body looked like someone who had already lost the will to live.

But then, a friend smacked his shoulder hard.

“HEY… RIO!” shouted Mika, his loudest friend and coworker.

“You okay, man? Your face looks like a zombie.”

Rio turned, his face crumpled like a piece of paper that had already been crushed.

“Damn it… you think I wanna die single?!” he snapped, half joking, half… genuinely tired.

Mika burst out laughing, slapping Rio’s back.

“Haha! Well, fair point! But… why not find yourself a girl, huh?”

Rio exhaled deeply, his eyes drifting to his desk piled high with endless documents.

“A girl, huh… I can’t even finish this work… how am I supposed to handle someone else’s heart…”

Night began to fall.

The office lights turned off one by one, leaving only the dim glow of Rio’s monitor.

His coworkers bid farewell as they left.

“Rio… we’re heading out first!” one of them called.

“Oh… sure,” Rio replied without looking up, his fingers still dancing across the keyboard.

Not long after, Mika approached him again, stretching his arms above his head.

“Bro, you’re still not done?”

Rio kept typing, his expression flat.

“Not yet. I still have to finish this tonight. You go on ahead.”

Mika simply nodded, then grinned.

“Alright then, I’m out. Gonna binge my favorite anime tonight!”

Rio glanced at him, managing a faint smile.

“You damn weeb…”

Mika stopped mid-step, then turned with the serious expression of an anime hero.

“Not a weeb, bro. But… a lover of animation.”

With exaggerated steps, he walked away.

Rio chuckled, then sank back into silence and work.

But that night… would be his last.

The monitor still glowed. Rio’s fingers still moved.

“It’s so quiet… and I’m… so tired,” he murmured weakly.

“Just a little more and I’d be done…”

His body grew heavy. His vision blurred. The world slipped away.

Inside his heart, a thought surfaced.

“If I… die here…

I want to live again…

in a world without this insane work…”

Then—thud!

His head fell onto the keyboard.

Darkness.

Silence.

Warmth.

His consciousness slowly rose into a glowing dimension—formless, boundless. The “Altherion Realm.”

A sacred place between worlds.

A place where souls were purified before being reborn.

But… Rio’s soul was broken.

Shattered by the weight of his life, by emptiness, by his tragic death.

The reincarnation system could not cleanse him.

At the brink of ruin, a light appeared… an entity without a name, only known as the “Fragment of the Primordial Light.”

Its voice was gentle, yet shook his soul.

“You did not die because you were weak…

but because the world was rotten.

Take my eyes… and see this world with true light.”

The light merged into Rio’s soul…

and granted him a pair of glowing silver eyes—The Eyes of Light.

A curse… and a blessing.

The truth… and a new suffering.

Then everything… vanished.

When Rio opened his eyes again, he did not realize he had already been reincarnated.

His body was small. His hands tiny.

And the voice from his mouth was nothing but… a baby’s cry.

“Ughh… w-where is this?” he thought, for his lips could not form words.

A woman held him lovingly in her arms.

Her face was gentle. Her smile, sincere. Her eyes glistened with tears of joy.

“Ahh… our child is so adorable, dear!”

Her name was… Akagami Arleya.

Beside her stood a man..calm, authoritative, yet cold and sharp in aura. His eyes were empty, as if carrying the world’s hidden truths.

“I hope our child will carry on my work… as an Assassin.”

Rio froze in panic.

“A-Assassin?! What kind of world is this?!”

The man stepped closer, gazing at the tiny baby in his wife’s arms with piercing eyes.

“Rio… no. From this day forward, you are Akagami Rio.

I am your father. And I want you to grow… to become like me.”

His name was… Akagami Zero.

Still trapped in a baby’s body, Rio could only laugh bitterly within his heart.

“So I reincarnated… yet my old name sticks with me… huh… haha…”

A new world…

A new body…

A new fate…

had begun.