Beyond Extra

Darkness.

Then, pain.

A dull, throbbing ache pulsed behind his eyes, along with the feeling of something weighing heavily on his chest. It was suffocating. His limbs felt like they were made of lead, and his head was cloudy, as if he had just resurfaced from deep water.

He groaned instinctively, but the moment he did, a fresh wave of pain shot through his skull.

“Shit…”

The word slipped out automatically, but something felt very wrong. His voice—hoarse and quieter than it used to be—was almost unrecognizable. He slowly opened his eyes, only to find himself staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize.

His heart raced.

This was not his room.

The ceiling above him was ornate, but old—cracks decorated the plaster like delicate veins. A musty smell lingered in the air, mixing with something metallic. He could feel the mattress beneath him—a firm, cheap fabric that wasn’t what he was used to.

He sat up slowly, his vision swimming momentarily before focusing.

The room was cramped, almost claustrophobic. A wooden desk stood against the far wall, cluttered with books, crumpled papers, and a lamp that flickered dimly. A narrow window let in slivers of grayish light, casting long shadows across the floor.

He glanced down at his hands.

They were pale, slender fingers, and there was a faint scar crossing his knuckle, like from an old cut. These weren’t his hands.

Something was definitely off.

He turned and caught sight of a mirror near the desk. His breath caught in his throat.

A boy stared back at him.

No, not just any boy. His wild, fiery red hair was slightly tousled and framed sharp green eyes that looked both worn out and eerie. His features were delicate yet distinct, with a sickly pallor to his skin. Dressed in a loose white shirt, he looked like someone on the verge of collapse—fragile, underfed, and yet somehow sharp and intense in his gaze.

A name popped into his mind.

Karma Sinclair.

His heart sank.

He knew that name.

Not because he owned it—oh no, it shouldn’t belong to him. It was the name of a background character, one so minor that he barely lasted a few chapters in the novel Sovereign’s Requiem.

An extra who died in Chapter 10.

That realization hit him like a stone. His mind raced, piecing things together faster than he could process. The unfamiliar body. The strange voice. The name.

He had transmigrated.

And not into some powerful noble heir or a gifted magician. No, he had been tossed into the body of Karma Sinclair—a disposable footnote in the story, a background character whose only purpose was to exist briefly and then vanish.

A laugh nearly escaped him, but he swallowed it back.

How utterly ridiculous.

A wave of nausea threatened to rise, but he pushed it down. Panicking wasn’t going to help. It wouldn’t change anything, and it certainly wouldn’t help him survive.

So, he took a slow breath and let the memories settle in.

Karma Sinclair was a seventeen-year-old student at Vanguard Academy, one of the top schools for people with supernatural abilities. Yet, unlike the novel’s heroes, he was painfully average. No powers. No impressive family background. No powerful friends.

His existence barely made a ripple in the story—except for the unfortunate detail that he was destined to die in the first big incident.

And his cause of death? Totally pathetic.

He had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A collateral victim of a supernatural disaster during the academy’s first major combat test. The book had only given him a couple of sentences before moving on to a more important plot.

His fingers gripped the thin sheets of the bed.

“...Well, that’s just great.”

He had read the novel before. He knew how harsh the world could be. This was a place where power determined status, where hidden groups pulled the strings, and where weak extras like Karma Sinclair were simply collateral damage.

And he had been dropped right into that chaos.

He wanted to scream at the absurdity of it all. Why him? Why this body? Why this specific moment in the story? But he pushed those thoughts away. They wouldn’t help him now.

Right now, he needed to focus on one thing—

Surviving past Chapter 10.

Karma swung his legs over the side of the bed, feeling the unfamiliar weight of this new body. Weak. That was the first thing he noticed. There was a lack of muscle, a certain fragility to him, like he hadn’t eaten or exercised properly in months.

Perfect. Not only was he an extra, but he was a fragile extra.

He pushed himself up to his feet, testing his balance. His legs felt a bit sluggish, but they held him. The headache lingered, but it was manageable.

He had to gather information.

His gaze flicked to the desk, where a pile of books and scattered notes lay. Moving cautiously, he crossed the room and scanned the papers. Class schedules, assignments, textbooks about supernatural theory—everything confirmed what he already knew.

This was Vanguard Academy, and he was trapped in the role of Karma Sinclair.

He let out a slow breath.

No abilities, no connections, and a death sentence looming in less than ten chapters.

If he wanted to change that, he had to move quickly.

His first instinct was to run. To leave the academy before the story’s first major event. But that was a gamble. In a world like this, the strong ruled while the weak were eaten alive. Leaving the academy could lead to an even bigger unknown.

No. He needed a different approach. A plan.

Avoid attention, gather resources, find use.

Karma Sinclair might have started as an extra in the novel, but he wasn’t going to accept that role.

His green eyes flickered with determination, a spark of calculation lighting up within him.

“If I can’t dodge the plot,” he murmured, a slight grin forming, “then I’ll just have to rewrite it.”

He had no delusions of becoming a hero. He wasn’t the main character, nor was he some chosen one. He wasn’t here to save anyone.

His goal was much simpler.

Survive. Thrive. And make sure that when the dust settles, Karma Sinclair is still around.

No one notices a disposable extra.

And that…was his greatest advantage.