It was past 7:15 am, on a weekend, and Austin had just arrived at the construction site.
"Alright, Austin. Let's get started." Austin said, tapping both cheeks as he tried to stay awake even though he was feeling a bit sleepy.
"The quicker I get this over with, the more time I'll have to rest during this weekend." After muttering this to himself, he swiftly tightened the straps on his safety harness.
Austin had been working several long shifts on various projects for weeks now, without proper rest, so he really wanted to rest this weekend once he was done with this.
Currently, he was working high up on the scaffolding of a half-finished apartment complex which was twenty stories above the ground. So, from his height, he could hear the cars passing below and the distant rattling of a train in the background.
Austin picked up his pace as he became more eager to finish early, but then, he noticed that the sky was slowly turning dark and cloudy.
"Oh, shit. That is not good," Austin cussed as he knew that he shouldn't have trusted the weather forecast this morning.
"Too bad James called in sick last night."
"Things would have been a lot easier for me if the two of us were working right now."
His partner had called in sick again, meaning that Austin would have to pick up the slack, as usual.
If the two of them were working on the scaffolding right now, the work would have moved a lot faster, so Austin told his foreman about James' absence and its effect because everyone else was either busy welding or moving materials at the ground level, but the foreman told Austin that there was nothing to worry about.
He even assured Austin that all the equipment and metal beams had been inspected, labeled, and checked.
So, Austin's task for the day was simple and quick.
He just wanted Austin to work on the scaffolding, move a few materials, and secure a few panels; then he could leave before the rain started.
In other words, what could go wrong?
And so, Austin continued to work.
However, while he was moving some materials, he stepped on one of the beams which had been labeled with a sticker that said INSPECTED.
But clearly, it wasn't, as the metal suddenly gave way, and just like that, Austin fell from the twenty-storey building.
He didn't even have enough time to register what just happened, let alone scream before everything around him turned dark.
Unlike in the movies where the female protagonist would scream when falling from a height, that didn't happen to Austin, because in reality, no one can fall at the pace that he did and still have the chance to scream before hitting the ground.
But right after he hit the ground, Austin's eyes suddenly sprang open, and he gasped loudly.
His heart was beating rapidly, and the event leading to his death replayed in his mind once again.
He couldn't believe that he actually fell from a twenty-storey building.
'Weren't those beams inspected?' He wondered.
'Maybe not all of them were inspected.'
'But, wait a minute, how am I not dead after falling from such a height?' Austin asked himself before noticing the strange place he was in.
"Where am I?" Austin wondered out loud because he could see that he wasn't in a hospital, so he wondered where he was.
He noticed that he was currently resting on a futon mattress, but when he tried to sit up, Austin groaned in pain.
It was only then that Austin noticed that he was finding it difficult to breathe.
He felt a strong tightness around his chest, and every part of his body felt pretty numb as well.
In fact, it felt like his organs and intestines were melting from the inside, and this made Austin wonder what was wrong with him.
However, before he could make sense of the pain he was feeling, Austin suddenly noticed a blue panel hovering before him.
[Initiating binding to host....]
'Huh?'
[Warning! Binding disrupted.]
[Begin analyzing...]
[Analyzing host's body...]
[Poisonous substance detected.]
[Substance is currently causing severe pain to the host.]
[Creating countermeasures to erase all traces of poison...]
[Creation complete.]
[No trace of poison is left in the host.]
[Host has successfully gotten rid of the poison.]
[First skill acquired: Poison Purge.]
Austin read the words displayed in front of him, and afterward, he felt his body warming up, followed by a soothing sensation.
His body slowly began to glow, and before he knew it, all traces of numbness and agony vanished as though they had never been there to begin with.
Austin couldn't believe what he was seeing right now.
Aside from the fact that his body had magically healed all of a sudden, Austin wondered how he suddenly acquired a system.
He always thought a system interface only existed in web novels and light novels, but he never expected to have one in real life as well.
But he was glad the system had appeared in the nick of time to save him; otherwise, it would have been too late.
Austin smiled and stared at the screen hovering in front of him, but then a new string of words appeared on the screen.
[Initiating binding once again.]
[Binding..... 1%]
[.....3%.]
While waiting for the system's binding to be successful, Austin suddenly registered something that he had seen in one of the system's prompts.
He wondered why the system would detect poison in his body when he had clearly fallen from a height and should have died from such height.
In fact, he should be worried about broken bones or possibly internal bleeding and not poison.
'So why did the system detect poison in my body?' He pondered on this, but then, he paused his train of thought for some moments, before turning his gaze to the unfamiliar room he was in.
Austin lifted his body until he was in a sitting position on the futon, and then he noticed a scroll placed beside his mattress.
He also noticed a porcelain vase at the corner of the room and a small stool underneath it.
The room seemed different from any modern room he had ever seen.
Then, as he wondered whose room he was in, a sudden wave of information flooded his mind.
Austin groaned in pain as more information flowed into his head, and then he slowly began to make sense of everything he had noticed so far.
'Somehow, it seems I have transmigrated into the body of a prince with the same name as mine.'
Austin realized that he was no longer in the world he once knew.
Instead, he had awakened in a world of swords, magic, exorcists, demons, and beautiful demi-humans.