DxD: The Dragon Origin System

[Status]

Blink.

Blink again.

And just to be sure, blink one more time.

But even after three quick sets of blinking, the words in front of his eyes didn't go away.

"It's not even night for me to be dreaming," he mused, trying to touch the letters with his hand. However, all it did was phase his fingers right through the words.

Seeing that the words didn't vanish and he couldn't touch them, he hurriedly rubbed his eyes, albeit a little roughly.

But even after doing all that, the words remained afloat right in front of his eyes.

"Issei Hyoudou," he mumbled, his throat growing a bit sore as a certain face flickered before his eyes. "I know that name."

Oh, he most certainly did.

It had only been a week since he last saw the dumb boy on screen. And needless to say, he did not appreciate seeing that name before his eyes.

Especially not with the implications.

"It's a joke, right?" he asked himself, but he had a very bad feeling that it wasn't a simple hallucination.

Yet before he could clarify, he needed to get rid of the words in front of his eyes.

"Status vanish?" he muttered, but nothing happened.

"Status disappear?" he said, and once again, the words remained before his eyes.

"Status… close?"

Surprisingly, on the third try, the words vanished—leaving him with quite an unhappy expression.

"Don't tell me that even this is hard-coded to respond to accurate commands." His eyes twitched in annoyance.

He wasn't stupid; he was aware of what it was that he was seeing, and he even had a suspicion of what was going on.

But in order to confirm, he decided to get out of the chair and walk towards the cloudy full-body mirror kept toward the messy, half-open wardrobe.

"Of course," he sighed as he saw the reflection in the mirror. 'Around 5'6" or 5'7", brown eyes, brown hair, and not so bad of a physique.'

He took a swirl, not hating what he was seeing but certainly not loving it either.

"Yup, this is Issei Hyoudou, alright."

Yes, the boy he was looking at in the mirror was Issei Hyoudou. One of the most perverted creatures in all of fiction, a guy with filthy good luck with women, and a magnet for trouble.

And yes, the boy couldn't help but twitch his lips at the realization that he was now Issei, the same perverted boy that he watched on his screen just a week ago.

"Let's think," he told himself. "How did this even happen?"

He recalled having a decently good weekend. Finishing the last available episode of Highschool DxD, completing his revision for the upcoming exam, getting rejected by the girl he had a crush on, and practicing for the state swimming championships.

"Ah, yes." He remembered. "I drowned."

The fault was his own. He wasn't swimming in the pool, nor was there anyone to spot him in case he messed up.

What happened was that his club's pool was being renovated, cleaned up, and improved for champion qualifiers. And since he couldn't wait for the renovation to finish, he decided to go swimming at the nearby river—all while recovering from a thigh injury that he had suffered not long ago.

And it didn't take a genius to guess what happened next.

The injury led to a cramp, the cramp led to him being unable to push his body, and that led to him drowning multiple feet into the river body.

"Yeah, no chance my body survives that."

He wasn't even going to keep the hope that he might suddenly wake up and find himself in his original body. The water current was far too strong for a river of the size he swam in, and there were far too many fish that would not waste a second munching on his drowned body.

If he went back to his body, he knew it would most likely be as a half-eaten zombie.

"But why am I here?" He genuinely couldn't find an answer to that, not even an illogical one.

He had seen enough movies and shows to know that his soul somehow ended up inside the body of Issei Hyoudou. But what he couldn't figure out was why it had to be Issei.

"Out of all the different fiction stories I have read and watched, why this world? Why this guy?"

He honestly didn't know.

But one thing was certain: he was stuck as one of the most hated anime protagonists, and he couldn't find a reason to like that.

"Let's see…" He once again returned to his thoughts. "My older brothers will take care of my parents; they will cry, but they won't be left alone. My friends will be sad, but they will move on. As for a girlfriend… I don't have one."

His mouth soured at the last part, but he didn't want to make up fake scenarios or give himself false hope.

There was no chance he was returning to the previous world after dying.

Even if he could, he didn't want to. At least, not with a mutilated body.

And unlike most others who would cry and panic in a situation such as his—he was surprisingly calm.

Not because he didn't have feelings or because something like this had happened to him before, but simply because he was the fifth son in a family of seven boys.

His father had wanted a daughter. They kept trying, but his Y gene was far too strong, so they ended up with seven sons and not a single daughter.

"At least we were well off." He couldn't imagine being poor and having six siblings.

But while he didn't have to worry about money or amenities, he certainly worried about love—or at least, he once did.

As he grew up, he realized his parents just couldn't give time to all seven of their children. Over time, they only tended to the youngest one.

He blamed them at first, but then he stopped. Nothing he did mattered. Not when he scored full marks, not when he won state championships, not even when he overshadowed his brothers.

Because, in the end, they all shared the same blood. If he managed to overshadow one brother in the first month, another would take a competitive stance and overshadow him the next.

It turned into a toxic cycle, with everyone trying to outperform the other, all while hoping for their parents' love and care.

He clicked his tongue. "Oh, how stupid we all were."

In the end, if his father wanting a daughter said anything, it was that he never saw his kids the way a father was supposed to.

They were simply tools to carry the family legacy, to make his name proud—all while receiving no love or attention.

This was why he stopped caring much about his father and family and only focused on doing the things he liked. Of course, loosening his focus on studies to prioritize swimming and watching television stirred up heated arguments at home, but he knew he didn't have to live up to anyone's expectations.

He was even saving up to move out, and he knew that if he managed to win the states and qualify for the nationals, he would be set for university. Unfortunately, he ended up here—in the body of a possibly mentally challenged boy.

"Alright," he slapped his face. "This isn't the end of the world. We can make this work."

If anything, this was an opportunity.

If the status he saw earlier said anything, it was that he had something more than Issei had. He could use this new chance, this new life, to live better than both Issei and his previous self.

"Before anything, let's set some rules," he told himself.

This was a practice he followed even in his previous world: setting rules and boundaries that he wouldn't break or cross under any circumstances.

"No revealing my real identity," he thought, recalling the countless times someone revealed such a thing and the domino of hassle that followed suit. "Now, I am Issei Hyoudou, and nothing is going to change that… probably."

He knew dwelling on the past would lead him nowhere.

"I know what will happen in the future, at least the parts shown in the show."

This was something he could use to his advantage.

"But randomly doing something would probably bite me in the ass."

If he changed something drastically, he might lose track of everything that could happen in the future.

He paused for a moment. "Scratch that. I will have to change things drastically, even if it ruins my meta knowledge. Otherwise, what's the point of this life? I'll be no different from the original Issei."

He paused again. "Note to self: I am Issei."

He couldn't help but think of himself as a sociopath, trying to be rational and set rules right after waking up in a new body.

But he knew what he had to do. In a fictional world—which was now very much real for him—he knew that any action he took could have drastic consequences.

"I have more than what Issei had," he thought, glancing at the system. "I need to figure it out soon and establish a healthy relationship with Ddraig."

He didn't know much about this system thing, but he knew enough about the Boosted Gear that he possessed. And if the anime had taught him anything, it was that the gear was beyond busted.

"Humanity is bullshit."

He didn't care about human superiority, staying human, or turning into a devil. If it benefited him, he wouldn't mind leaving behind his humanity right this instant.

However, there were pros and cons to that.

"When the time comes, unlike Issei blindly joining Rias, I need to weigh my options and then make the choice."

While the idea of gaining extra years in his lifespan sounded sweet and tempting, starting from the bottom of the social ladder in the devil world was far from ideal.

'Don't jump into trouble, but don't run from it either.'

Trouble was inevitable. After all, he was Issei Hyoudou, and, as any overly comedic character would say—trouble might as well have been his middle name.

But trouble also brought opportunity, and he planned to use those opportunities to his advantage.

And then came the last two things.

'Nothing ever goes as planned.'

None of his carefully thought-out strategies were going to work all the time. Situations would require improvisation, and that was okay.

Finally, the last rule.

"Gotta live the best life I can," he chuckled, despite the chaotic situation, finding himself to have gone insane. "Not everyone gets a second chance, especially one as supernatural as mine."

That settled, he now needed to figure out the one thing that seemed to be working.

"Status… open?"

[Status]

At least opening and closing the status was something he had mastered.

"Now, if only I could figure out everything on this list…"

"Issei!" A woman's voice suddenly called out to him. "Come out for breakfast, or you'll be late for class!"

Sighing and placing a hand on his stomach—realizing he was indeed hungry—he closed the status window.

"Looks like there's something else I need to get used to," he sighed again, standing up. 'Healthy family dynamics.'

It was something he wasn't entirely confident about.

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