The Phantom Groom System

"Uncle Sully, what the hell is wrong with Danny? You've been staring at him for half an hour, say something already!"

"Sigh... there's nothing wrong with the kid's body. No wounds, no poison, his pulse is steady as a rock."

"Then why's he been fading like a candle these past two days? He just cracked his skull open on the pavement!"

"He's... tangled up with something that shouldn't exist. The Phantom Bride is choosing herself a husband. Danny's on her list now. Sigh. Somebody ought to start thinking about a funeral."

Glass bottles clinked as the old man packed up his bag, his voice trailing off into the dark.

"I'll head out. Send Gimpy over later for a few doses, won't cure him, but it might ease things for the time he's got left..."

The voices faded down the hallway.

Danny Reyes's mind slowly clawed its way back to consciousness.

His throat felt like it had been dragged over broken glass.

He forced his eyes open, and what he saw made him go rigid.

Cracked plaster walls. A rotting mattress on the floor. Wind hissed through a broken window, guttering a candle that reeked of cheap tallow.

Where the hell was he?

Wasn't he just in the middle of a shootout with Marco Reyes's crew?

Had he taken a bullet and gotten dragged somewhere to patch up?

Uncle Sully? Gimpy? Who were these people? None of his own men went by those names.

"Ngh"

A blinding pain split through his skull, and Danny groaned.

A tidal wave of memories crashed into him all at once, flooding his brain until it felt like it might burst.

"Danny! Danny, you're up? You okay?"

A wiry man came rushing in at the sound, a jagged scar carved across one blind eye.

Danny looked up at the stranger's gaunt face and rasped out, "...Squint."

The memories had fully settled now. He understood everything.

He'd been dropped into someone else's life, the exact kind of thing he used to read about in trashy web serials to kill time. This body's name had been Danny Reyes too, an orphan who'd grown up scavenging the alleys of New York with nothing to his name.

Squint was someone this Danny had once pulled off the street, half-beaten to death for stealing scraps from a diner. Danny had nursed him back with food and water until he could stand again.

There'd been another one too, a kid called Gimpy, saved the same way.

The three of them had scraped by for years in a stretch of Brooklyn everyone called Blackwood Alley, shaking down small shops for a few bucks of protection money. Not exactly a good life, but enough to survive on.

Then, two days ago, this body started wasting away for no reason. Worse by the hour. And today it had finally given out, one hard fall, one cracked skull, and Danny's soul had slipped right in to fill the empty shell.

He rubbed his temples, letting it all settle, then said, "Squint. Get me some water."

A mouthful of cold water went down and eased the burn in his throat.

"What'd Uncle Sully say?"

No point dwelling on the transmigration thing right now. What mattered was figuring out what was actually wrong with this body.

Uncle Sully was the only thing passing for a doctor in Blackwood Alley, more con man than physician, selling snake oil more often than real cures. Unreliable, sure, but for people like them, he was all there was.

Squint's mouth tightened. "Uncle Sully said there's nothing physically wrong with you. Said the sickness... it's because you"

"You crossed the Phantom Bride."

Phantom Bride?

Danny frowned and motioned for him to keep going.

In his old life, any doctor who tried feeding him a line like that would've had a gun barrel pressed to his forehead. But this wasn't his old life anymore. Not much point getting hung up on ghosts and curses when you'd already died once and woken up in someone else's skin.

"Uncle Sully said it's some rare kind of curse. Look at your wrists"

Squint pointed.

Danny glanced down. On each wrist, a blood-red mark had bloomed into the shape of a wild goose.

"That mark, it's part of an old wedding rite the Phantom Bride performs. The first two steps: the Proposal, and the Asking of the Name."

As he spoke, Danny felt an itch crawl across his chest. He scratched at it without thinking.

Then he froze.

He yanked his collar open and saw another mark rising slowly on his skin, shaped like a shell, or maybe a character from some ancient script.

"...The third rite's done."

Squint's voice cracked. "Proposal. Name-asking. Fortune-telling..."

Six rites made up the old wedding tradition. Next came the betrothal gift, the setting of the date, and finally, the bride being carried across the threshold.

Once all six were complete, Danny would be "married" permanently.

Squint's face crumpled, and he burst into tears. "I told you, I told you not to mess around with Vince Sorrento's wife!"

Men like him and Gimpy would've died in some gutter and been tossed in a pauper's grave years ago if Danny hadn't taken them in. Now Danny had brought this curse down on himself, and there wasn't a thing either of them could do about it.

Danny wasn't exactly thrilled either.

Great. He'd barely finished transmigrating and he was already about to get married to death by a ghost.

In his old life, he'd clawed his way up from nothing to build an empire out of sheer nerve, never flinched from a fight, never backed down even facing down a gun with nothing but a blade in his hand.

But this enemy wasn't flesh and blood. It couldn't be seen. Couldn't be touched. Just these red marks creeping steadily across his body, tightening like a noose.

He took a breath and swallowed the urge to curse everyone's mother. Focus. Figure out where this Phantom Bride curse actually came from.

Then he remembered what Squint had said a minute ago.

"What'd you mean about Vince Sorrento?"

In this body's memories, Vince Sorrento ran the whole show in Blackwood Alley. And worse, Danny and Vince were in the exact same racket.

The old Danny had come from nothing, but he had a pretty face and a smooth tongue, sweet-talking every woman he met, and somewhere along the way, he'd ended up in bed with Vince Sorrento's wife.

Squint wiped his eyes. "Vince has been hunting you down every day since he found out. Then three days ago, he stopped. Started telling people you wouldn't live much longer."

"We figured he was just saving face. Didn't think much of it."

"Then the next day, you got sick!"

"That son of a bitch put this curse on you, I'd bet my life on it!"

Danny nodded slowly. Squint's read on it made sense.

Vince was a hothead. No way he'd let something like this slide, he'd gone and found some way to curse Danny instead of just putting a bullet in him.

Fair, in a twisted way. Sleep with a boss's wife and get away with it because you're fast on your feet? Sure. But eventually the bill comes due.

No use complaining about it now. If Vince had cast the curse, chances were he also knew how to break it.

Looked like a visit to Vince Sorrento was in order.

Danny pushed through the ache in every muscle and forced himself upright.

His vision swam.

He shut his eyes and shook his head, figuring it was just the injuries. It didn't help. Everything blurred, then folded inward all at once.

A transparent panel materialized in front of him.

His own portrait sat on the left side. Six empty slots ringed his image like something out of a video game from his old life.

On the right, lines of text scrolled into place:

【Danny Reyes】

【Vitality: 30 / 60 (Status: Cursed, Phantom Bride's Toll: -10 Vitality per day)】

【Strength: 3】

【Defense: 1】

【Inner Energy: 0】

【Agility: 5】

【Charm: 69】

【Item Slot (1): Empty】

【Item Slot (2): Locked】

This was...

A cheat power? A system?

Before he could process the thought, a mechanical voice sounded in his head.

【Equippable item detected. Equip now?】

【Butcher's Bone Knife】

【Rank: White】

【Bonus: Strength +2】

【Special: Bypasses a portion of enemy defense. Reveals the layout of an opponent's meridians.】

【Requirement: Strength 2】

【History: Forged originally from tenfold-refined steel salvaged from an old military blade, later reshaped by a butcher and used to break down carcasses for decades.】