Chapter 1: Awakening [Volume 1: There’s No Way a Girl Like Me Can Handle This Much Burden]

This sleep was truly long.
It felt a bit like a dream.
He experienced many fragmented visions.

In these scattered “dreams,” he seemed to become someone else—an observer, like a bystander—watching everything that unfolded before his eyes with almost complete indifference.
Even the most incredible sights failed to stir his heart, including the “people” who frequently appeared in his field of view.

Although their forms closely resembled humans, they were clearly of a higher order of existence.
They could command the vast powers of the universe with a mere thought.
Their appearances and figures were more flawless than any human he had ever seen.

Yet even these lofty beings, when their gazes fell upon him, revealed expressions of astonishment, admiration, and a complex emotion that defied explanation.

Of course, in his role as a mere “observer,” he felt utterly indifferent to all of it.
He had no thoughts or emotions—only the capacity to record these surreal phenomena and trivial details, like a camera.

And yet, one question after another began to arise.
Where exactly was this place that kept appearing in his dreams?
What kind of beings were those “people”?
Why did they look at him with such expressions?
And—most crucially—why were these things showing up in his dreams to begin with?

But just as he began to feel utterly helpless, a terrifying realization struck him—
He should have been dead.

That’s right.
Before falling into this endless dream, he had already died.
After graduating from university, he had boarded a Boeing flight heading south.

For reasons unknown, the plane lost control mid-flight and plummeted…
Everyone on board perished.

So, if his memory served him right, he had either entered the so-called “afterlife,” or by some miracle, his soul had been preserved and drifted into this strange dimension.

As an otaku well-versed in stories of reincarnation and otherworldly events, he was good at divergent thinking—or what others might call filling in the blanks.
Based on the fragments of knowledge he had, he quickly formed a bold hypothesis about his current situation.

Of course, the theory didn’t explain everything.
For example—what was that mysterious place he kept seeing in his dreams?
And what exactly was the entity he had been observing as?

These questions were beyond what he could deduce for now.
Still, he felt his general assumption was probably correct.

However, as time passed, he began to sense something wrong with his own self-assessment—
There was no way he could have been that lucky.
Not in this life.

Even in death, he couldn’t escape his cursed fate.

He discovered that, over time, the intervals spent inside those strange dreams were growing longer and longer.
And because he could only serve as an emotionless “observer” within them, it meant the time he could actually think—like a real person—was getting shorter.

What’s more, in this realm, he had no “physical body”—only a “soul,” or rather, a “consciousness.”
He couldn’t leave this place.
He was trapped here.

Maybe… this too was just part of the dream.

Under such conditions, either madness or the death of his consciousness would be the inevitable end.

In the midst of this long, silent, and terrifying wait, Luo Yan’s mind gradually began to fray.
In his final moment of clarity, he realized he was about to face true “death.”

Indeed, humans do have their limits, he thought.
But if there were a next life, he still hoped to be human.

Luo Yan truly believed he was going to die this time.

Until—

He saw an extremely narrow sliver of light.
Immediately after, a “crack” echoed beside his ear.
He felt a solid, powerful impact, followed by a cool, soaking sensation.

His first thought was that he had fallen onto some kind of cushioned surface, but the dampness spreading across his skin told him he had landed in water.

Where is this?

This long-lost sensation of breathing…
This feeling of being “alive”…
Could it be that he had really reincarnated…?

No…

The moment he “landed,” countless thoughts raced through Luo Yan’s mind.
Having just awakened from an endless dream, his consciousness was still muddled, and his thoughts scattered wildly like an untamed horse.

He slowly sat up, rubbing his head instinctively.
For some reason, his hair felt finer and smoother than before.
Even the skin on his face seemed more delicate and supple.

The sensation—soft, smooth, and oddly tender—made one particular word flash across his mind: maiden.

But the thought passed quickly, failing to fully register in his scrambled state.
What did hold his attention was the world that unfolded before him.

As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he was finally able to take in his surroundings.
And with a single glance, his thoughts ground to a halt.

At that moment, he suddenly realized how impoverished his vocabulary was—
He simply had no words to describe the grandeur and mystery of what lay before him.

The first thing he saw was a silvery-white space brimming with high-tech ambiance.
Beneath his feet was a vast body of water, its surface as smooth as glass, perfectly reflective.

It reminded him of Chaka Salt Lake—the famed “Sky Mirror.”
Except the water here felt far more mystical.
Though it looked like a liquid, it didn’t give way beneath him—he stood on it effortlessly.

Suspended directly above him was a massive, cocoon-like structure.
Its lower section had a narrow, twisted opening, densely lined with folds.
Judging from his position relative to it, Luo Yan guessed he had just fallen from that cocoon.

The top of the cocoon connected to hundreds of black tubes, their ends disappearing into the vast heavens above—

Into a real, boundless starry sky.

Not the kind of starry sky one sees on a clear night, but an authentic cosmic expanse.
It was vast, deep, and filled with radiant stars, forming a breathtaking galaxy.

This galaxy was mirrored perfectly in the water below, the two merging at the horizon to create an even grander and more otherworldly space.

“Where… just where is this place?”

The more majestic the view, the more Luo Yan panicked.
He was certain now—he had “transmigrated.”
And not just a regular transmigration, but a rather niche one—emerging from a cocoon, no less.

That meant… he might not be “human” anymore.
Perhaps he had become some other kind of intelligent life form.

After all, he had emerged from a cocoon—
And a particularly sleek one, at that.

Could he have turned into something bizarre, like a Reaper…?

No. That couldn’t be right.

Recalling the sensation when he rubbed his head just now, Luo Yan dismissed the more extreme possibilities.
There was really no need for too much speculation.

In this kind of environment, verifying what he was should be pretty simple.
He just had to lower his head and look at his reflection in the water.
If all went well, he should still be a regular human—or at least humanoid in appearance—

Wait…
What’s this big white thing blocking my view?