THE REALM THAT WAS NEVER MINE

Ryūgami Takeru wakes up knowing two impossible truths:
he is a child again, and he has already lived thirty years.
His past life lingers in fragments-regret, routine, adulthood's quiet ache-but one memory is missing. His death. No pain. No end. Just absence.
Years pass. By nine, patience hardens into resolve. His death had a reason. So did his rebirth.
He finds the answer beneath the earth-an unmapped cave, ancient and breathing, hiding a silent, living portal. It feels familiar. Wrong. Irresistible.
Takeru steps through.
The world shatters.
When he awakens, he is in a land that rejects his name, his memories, his very existence. Caught between who he was and who he is becoming, Takeru must move forward-not guided by fate, but by consequence.
Whether this second life will grant him peace or drag him into something far darker remains unknown.
After all, some doors are not meant to be opened.
And some rebirths are not acts of mercy.