Chapter 2: Lorenzo Riina

The first thing I felt was a severe headache.

It was too much that my eyes snapped open and I was gasping for breath against the silk sheets.

"Uh?"

I blinked trying to get my bearings and looked up at the ceiling.

It was unfamiliar to me, ornate with gold leaf that showed obscene wealth that even my empire could never reach.

I rubbed my head with a free hand with confusion, ’Why does the ceiling look unfamiliar? Shouldn’t I be

dead? ’ But then I looked down at my body and froze.

’Why the fuck am I naked?’

But this was nothing new compared to the next revelation of the night.

A black haired woman was laying in the bed beside me, tense, her face turned away. Even from the side I could see the tears that silently flowed down her cheeks.

She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t doing the usual things that the crying people on the streets of the city did, she just let the tears fall down her face, like her body betrayed her will.

’Crazy,’ I thought, my mind reeling at the prospect of having such night. ’Did I dream the whole thing? Did I really, in the end, have sex with this woman instead of killing myself? ’

No it couldn’t have been a dream.

I tried to move my body and it refused to listen.

I tried to move away from the woman to analyze the situation but the body refused to obey. It was like I was paralyzed from within, though this was the first time I have ever experienced such an occurrence.

Then, in my head, a strange sound that seemed to emanate from nowhere but my head, I heard.

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 11%」

’What the hell? ’

My body stood on its own accord and I looked in horror at my moving limbs as they carried me to the window. I reached for a cigarette that laid on the nightstand and lit it with the flame of a nearby lamp with practiced ease, smoke filling my lungs as I exhaled in a nonchalant manner.

’This isn’t real. This can’t...’

My thoughts were silenced by my mouth that spoke of words I didn’t want to say.

"You know, whores shouldn’t cry by doing their job."

I leisurely inhaled and exhaled as I watched my reflection in the window with a growing horror.

’This ...’

The face that stared back at me wasn’t mine.

It was Lorenzo Riina’s.

I have seen that face dozens of times in ’City Of Overlords’ during my five years of playing the game. In the stories of the game it was the spoiled rotten son of a mafia boss who was killed before the events of the game started, a mere background character.

It was no one of importance, so he didn’t even get a proper death animation.

A character who was played by countless players but forgotten in the end by all of them.

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 38%」

’But...’

If this was a lucid dream I should already been able to do something. I should at least been able to wake the fuck up and take control of my body before doing this ridiculous things. But it wouldn’t listen to my orders. My consciousness was caged within this body like a animal in an ivory tower.

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 64%」

The sound of the synchronization notification was starting to annoy me. What was that for anyway? With what am I synchronizing with?

What am I going to do when I reach 100%? This is not what I meant by lucid dreaming.

’ Will I become Lorenzo Riina? ’

Lorenzo Riina was described as someone who lived his life drunk with the privilege and power his father was giving him in the game. He was a trash character. Arrogant, cruel and heartless.

"A doll doesn’t cry," my body said, voice as dry and cold as winter air made my skin crawl.

Turning my head to the side, I continued smoking. With the smoke rising in the air with lazy grace I caught a glimpse of another reflection in the window.

Lorenzo Riina was staring back at me, his unkempt hair somewhat looked like it was done on purpose, stylish. His face was pretty, if you liked the cruel type.

Even next to the game protagonist’s face, he wouldn’t lose a single bit of his beauty.

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 83%」

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 91%」

While the woman kept crying silently behind me I didn’t give a single damn thought of her. My body didn’t as well as Lorenzo Riina, the new name I was going to take in this new world.

"People say they have the most thoughts when they lie in bed," I heard myself murmur as I watched the smoke curl in the air.

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 98%」

New memories came to me, a father that ruled with an unbreakable will and blood. The smell of expensive cologne and gunpowder. Nights in casinos and nightclubs, filled with sycophants who laughed at my jokes and ran away at the sight of my anger.

Lorenzo Riina took another drag of the cigarette in his hand.

「Synchronization Progress – Currently 100%」

"Just get the hell out of my sight and remember. Next time you meet me, don’t cry or I’ll get mad."

There were a few seconds or sound before the woman’s footsteps neared the door. She stopped and looked at my back with eyes that reflected only helplessness and hate. It was only because of the reflection in the window that I saw them.

Through the glass the only thing I saw was despair in her eyes.

After a few minutes she started putting her clothes on with jerky and hurried motions.

—Click!

I was alone on the window again with smoke in my lungs and the taste of a crazy world in my mouth trying to piece together the shattered pieces of my existence.

’First, I was mafia boss. Then I killed myself. . And then... somehow, I became Lorenzo Riina. A minor character from ’City Of Overlords’. A foot note in a game that I have forgot about years ago.’

This was absurd. It should have made me mad but all I felt was a smile forming on my face.

This real world that I am now inhabiting wasn’t ruled by politicians and faceless kings that live in white marble palaces but something else. Something more primal. Strength. The power to take what others had in abundance and make it your own.

Men like Lorenzo Riina.

I turned around away from the widow and stared at my reflection in the mirror that stood in the other end of the room. Lorenzo’s face stared right back at me, dangerous, pretty and unattainable. The face of someone that was born into power, someone that never knew hunger or want.

Someone that had never had to earn a single damn thing in his life.

"Power isn’t granted," I murmured to the reflection in the mirror of my own body. "It’s taken. And I’ve had a lifetime of practice."

I chuckled to myself at first, then louder. It soon turned into a full blown laugh that reverberated in this luxurious bedroom, bouncing around the silk decorated walls and expensive furnitures that represented more wealth than what even nations possess.

"Hehehe... haha... HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

My laugh transformed into something else, unrestrained. The laugh of a man reborn. The laugh of a predator who had found the best hunting grounds in existence.

I was free...