Rain struck the marble courtyard in soft waves, its rhythm broken only by the dull thud of practice swords meeting flesh.
"Again!" roared Instructor Kael, voice sharp as a drawn blade.
Damon Valtair adjusted his grip and raised his training sword. His opponent—Baron Terel's son—sneered beneath his soaked bangs and lunged with all the precision of a paperweight. Damon stepped aside with mechanical calm, struck the boy's wrist with the flat of his sword, and sent the wooden blade spinning from his grip.
Another point. Another empty victory.
Around him, noble heirs and heiresses trained under the academy's watchful eye, each with legacy steel in their hands and generational pride in their eyes. Damon wore the same tailored uniform, carried the same Valtair crest, and nodded with the same cold arrogance when acknowledged. But inside, something frayed.
The swordplay bored him. The politics bored him. Even the prestige of House Valtair—raised from barony to viscountcy through generations of loyalty—felt like wrapping rusted chains in silk.
He'd lived this life before. Or something like it.
Memories from another world—distant, blurred, but there—haunted the edges of his dreams. Cars. Screens. A life without swords, without bloodlines. A world where death didn't come from duels or family honor, but from disease, time, or neglect.
Damon stepped back into formation and waited for the next bout.
Then it happened.
A soundless pulse. A flicker behind his eyes.
And then—[Simulation Menu Unlocked] appeared in golden light across his vision.
Damon blinked. The world remained.
The words hovered faintly in the air, as though projected onto reality itself. No one else noticed. Not the instructor. Not his opponents. Not even the rain paused for it.
Simulation Anchor Point: Detected
Anchor Point: Day 44, Year 304, Sword Academy Courtyard
Access Level: Level 1 – Single-Thread Jump
Simulate alternate outcomes from this point forward.
He inhaled sharply.
"Valtair!" Kael barked.
Damon turned instinctively. "Yes, Instructor?"
"Next duel—against Thorne of House Veras. Go."
The noble line of Veras. Talented. Ambitious. Petty.
A familiar smug figure stepped into the ring. Blonde, broad-shouldered, wearing the faintest sneer. Thorne had goaded Damon into a minor political trap just last week. This would be a public revenge.
Damon gripped his blade—and hesitated.
Then he thought, Why not?
He focused on the glowing text.
▸ Simulate World
Primary Divergence Option:
You were born a commoner with no access to noble training.
You were born in a world where wordsmanship was never developed.
You never enrolled in the Sword Academy.
Damon's breath hitched. More choices awaited beneath, greyed out. For now, he selected the first.
▸ Confirm: Simulate life as a commoner from Anchor Point.
[Yes]
The courtyard blurred.
He blinked against the harsh morning sun, his skin itching under rough hemp clothes. The elegant academy was gone. In its place: cracked stones, crowded slums, shouting merchants. He turned to see a rusted iron blade at his hip—cheaply made. Calloused hands. A sore back. Hunger, ever-present.
"Oi! Damon! Yer late for training again!"
An old man waved from a wooden sparring post behind a bakery. The air smelled of flour and blood.
Damon nodded slowly, heart pounding.
He had jumped.
This was another version of him. Same world. Same day. Different life.
Here he trained under a street duelist named Mags, fought for copper coins in back alleys, dodged gang recruiters, and drank muddy water from cracked clay cups. Days passed. He learned to fight without refinement, learned how to fall, and how to grit his teeth when pain turned sharp. When his enemies weren't noble brats but knife-wielding beggars and mercs
He nearly died. Twice.
And then, the menu flickered again.
▸ Return to Anchor Point?
[Yes]
Rain. Courtyard. Thorne of House Veras raising his sword with confident arrogance.
Damon exhaled slowly.
He remembered it all. The fights. The pain. The tricks of a dirty blade. His muscles remembered.
Kael signaled. "Begin!"
Thorne lunged.
Damon stepped into the blow—not away—knocking the blade with a shoulder feint, pivoting low, and ramming the hilt into Thorne's gut before twisting behind him and tripping him by the ankle.
Thorne hit the ground with a splash and a wheeze.
Silence.
Kael's brows rose. The crowd blinked.
Damon sheathed the wooden blade.
"That's one way to do it," he said calmly, stepping back into line.
Inside, his pulse raced. He could do it again. Live a different life. Return. Take what worked. Learn what mattered. There were a thousand Damons in a thousand simulations waiting to be explored. Poorer. Richer. Wiser. Deadlier.
And he would take the best of them all.