"Why now, of all times!" Adam yells, his voice full of desperation as he frantically searches the scorched area for anything salvageable.
Amidst a vast plain, a large cone-shaped burn mark stretches from one spot toward a distant mountain. Adam's eyes dart around, desperately seeking anything to take with him before fleeing the scene.
"I knew using all that mana was a bad idea. But why did I do it anyway?!" Adam thinks in frustration, scanning the charred landscape for items that escaped incineration. At least the obliterated caravan and its soldiers, victims of his rampage, made it easier to decide where to search. Adam sprints towards the bisected bodies of five soldiers, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Was I so angry that I ignored basic logic, like not revealing myself to the entire world!" With urgency, Adam examines the remains, searching for anything useful. He finds a worn leather backpack on one soldier and eagerly takes it. Inside, there's some dried meat, a water-filled sack, and a small bag jingling with copper coins.
He also discovers a pendant, which he respectfully returns to the fallen soldier. Discarding his makeshift knife, he claims a small iron knife and a basic iron sword from another soldier.
"And to top it all off, like an imbecile, I used up all the mana in the mana core! Now I look like a fool and have no mana left to defend myself!" Adam swiftly slides the sword and knife into the leather sheaths attached to the backpack, securing them with two of its worn straps.
Although Adam longs for some clothing, everything is too large for his childlike frame. After finishing with the soldiers, he darts toward Palasal's remains. Upon getting closer, though, he notices something strange. "Wait, this is..."
Closing his eyes, he tries to sense the mana around him. Amid the blood puddle, a dense mana source reveals itself, pulsing from Palasal's ring. Adam swiftly grabs the ring, slipping it onto his left middle finger. It's slightly too big, but not enough to bother him. As he wears the ring, mana surges through his body once again. The ring's aura changes color and becomes similar to Adam's mana.
"Perfect! This solves the mana issue!" The ring holds a decent amount of mana but not enough to recreate the earlier chaos. He retrieves the crystal spike dropped during the battle and races off to a random direction.
"Think, think, think! Where should I go?" A flurry of memories floods his mind as if in response to Adam's plea. In these recollections, he hears multiple conversations from before the child, Yue, ran away from the group.
All discussions lead to one thing: a castle. A castle governed by a lord with significant influence, who might share the soldiers' belief that the child is a demon. This raises many questions in Adam's mind, some of which still linger. Why do they think Yue is a demon? As far as Adam knows, demi-humans have little connection to demons. In fact, demi-humans are nearly the opposite, their bloodlines intertwined with high-beasts—a species with a long history of divine origins.
So why are they convinced that Yue is a demon? Is there more to Yue than Adam realizes? Regardless, Adam doesn't have time to dwell on these questions.
Adam, realizing the castle's location, starts running in the direction the vanished caravan was headed. Though advancing straight towards enemy territory is risky, his alternatives—returning to the cave or wandering aimlessly—aren't any more appealing. Both options come with hazards, such as accidentally confronting the enemy or encountering dangerous creatures. The castle, however, offers the best chance of survival: It is an unexpected hiding place and provides a clear path to follow and access to a populated area.
This bustling environment would be the perfect place to eavesdrop on conversations and gather vital information about the unfamiliar land he's found himself in.
Determined, Adam races toward his objective, and for added protection, he raises the hand adorned with the glowing white ring. As if bending light itself, Adam turns invisible and continues on his way with a smile.
----------------------------------------
Around thirty minutes later.
----------------------------------------
Exhausted from his sprint, Adam collapses onto his backside, gasping for air. He's covered what feels like miles.
Now near the edge of a forest with scenery that reminds him of the woods he'd been in earlier, Adam has successfully put a safe distance between himself and the aftermath of his magical explosion.
Fortunately, he hasn't encountered anyone seeking to investigate the destruction he caused. Hidden from view, Adam sighs and looks up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves above. "What the hell was I thinking?" he asks himself.
"Did I let rage take control of me?" Pondering this thought, he quickly adds, "No, it's my body and soul."
"Our souls fused," he says aloud. "For that to happen, my soul must have either decayed enough to fuse easily with another or been deliberately fragmented by someone. That would explain my lack of mana—my soul would have had to be weakened. If they had tried to fuse my soul with another, mine would have obliterated the other, given its dense concentration of mana."
His mind races as he starts to find answers to the many questions plaguing him. "The first scenario is more likely. Even with just Yue's memories as my information source, I know enough to understand the time I'm in."
Adam took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "In one of Yue's memories," he began, "Juliet talked about the memento or the mana core bracelet. She said they've been putting mana into the bracelet for hundreds of years."
"To think it has been around five hundred years," Adam said out loud. He had lived in the time when demons attacked the village of Sora. One of the individuals there was one of the causes of his friend's death.
Opening his eyes, Adam started to take off his backpack. "When I went there to investigate, the hero was also there. However, I was mostly fighting elsewhere, so it's no wonder why the villagers of Sora didn't know of me. But I did hear, after I was done, that the hero gave a gift to the villagers, praising their bravery. All the while, hiding this gift from the kingdom's ears."
As he rubbed the bracelet with his hand, Adam thought about the other hints from Yue's memories. When Yue was enslaved, one of the soldiers talked about the date and year. Even though it was a completely different calendar system than what Adam knew, he could still use it to indicate what year it was, like the year of the Fallen Age, when he had slain the Demon King.
Adam sighed, "Otherwise, it should explain why I have no mana. Perhaps that damn goddess repaired my soul as well. I still have all my memories, mana control knowledge, and birth gifts. This would also explain why I have no control over my emotions. I'm not just me…"
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He raised his hands and stared at them. "I'm both. I'm Adam and Yue. Everything that has happened, all of the past choices I've made in this body, were all decided by us. The only reason why my soul is so dominant over Yue's is probably because of his death. When he died in that cave, my fusion and the goddess's intervention came just in time to save his life. But currently, he is asleep, unconscious, dreaming. The hints were always there, like the blessing this body had with its unnatural strength."
Standing up, Adam looked back at the backpack. "Once the child awakens, or I receive all his memories, will I truly be Adam Arcania? The White Death, who has taken millions of lives? The foolish soul who kept repeating the cycle of revenge?"
He took the sword that hung from the side of the backpack and slowly drew it. The blade shimmered, appearing freshly polished. Adam looked into the blade and saw his reflection. Even when the reflection showed Yue's face, it reminded him of his past self. He stared at his reflection for what seemed like hours but eventually returned to his senses and sheathed the sword again.
"I will worry about it when the time comes," Adam decided. "For now, I'll continue traveling to the castle. The road isn't that far away from here, so it won't be hard to pinpoint the exact direction I should walk towards." Upon thinking this, Adam put on the backpack.
"I've lost half of the ring's mana. For now, I need to restrict myself from using it further." Adam turned towards his next destination. "I don't know how far away the castle is, but I'm certain it will take a couple of days to get there. A certain divine should have authority around this area if my knowledge is right. So," Adam began to walk forward, "let's get a move on."
----------------------------------------
A few hours later.
----------------------------------------
Adam dropped multiple branches onto the burning fire and sat down to rest. The horizon almost completely hid the sun as night began to fall. Shadows stretched out around him, transforming the dark forest as the once bright leaves turned into a mix of black and gray. The sounds of nighttime animals filled the air, their calls echoing through the thick trees, adding to the otherworldly atmosphere. The soft glow of bioluminescent plants and insects created a dim, magical light on the forest floor. Adam smiled, glad he had found the perfect small opening in the forest—just enough space to make camp.
Adam breathed a sigh of relief as he finally finished setting up camp. "Seems like I can finally rest a little," he said, stretching and lying on the ground. "Now it's just me and my thoughts, with the sound of the forest night."
Despite the potential danger, Adam preferred to meditate and think to himself in the dark forest. Was it because he had once been strong enough to qualify as an apex predator, or did he enjoy being alone with just his thoughts? Even he wasn't sure. It could be because that's how he spent most of his nights back in his previous life. Either way, the sounds of insects creating a soft tune in the forest helped him relax alongside the cold breeze that came with the night.
"Now then," Adam begins to sit up straight and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath before diving deep into his thoughts, "Let's review what happened today thus far."
As these thoughts crossed Adam's mind, the ring and the bracelet began to glow dimly white. He slowly started to transfer his mana into the mana cores.
"Alright, perhaps the most important event, how in the goddess's name did I manage to stumble upon not one, but TWO mana cores? Aren't these held by the most important members of the holy family? Did I perhaps kill a member? No..."
As impossible as it seemed, Adam assumed, "Have they found a way to mass-produce the mana cores?"
Just the thought of this seemed insane. Mana cores were gem-like structures that could store massive amounts of mana. A tiny core small enough to fit into a ring had enough storage to allow one to tap into a similar mana reserve as a newborn God Named. If said person were to release all of the mana into their body, they could easily wipe out groups of a hundred men. That was just a small one; a medium-sized core like the one in Juliet's bracelet had the storage capacity of five small cores.
Of course, the amount of mana one could release also depended on the size of the core. A small one would not be enough to allow Adam to create his God Named Armor. The medium-sized core came close, but it wasn't enough to help him fully manifest it. A large one, however, would easily allow Adam to enter his God Named state without any issues.
The main question, though, was how they mass-produced the mana cores. To create or find a core, the core had to be exposed to an area of dense mana for hundreds of years. Additionally, the core had to be a gem or some gemstone. Once the dense mana in the air surrounded the gemstone, it would slowly change and become a mana core.
As a bonus, some gemstones were found already brimming with mana. So once someone obtained one, they would have enough mana equal to a God Named. As easy as it sounded, finding a mana core under these exact circumstances was next to impossible.
Dense mana areas, found only underground, were considered dangerous for those with little to no mana control, as the mana could suffocate them. Not only that, the monsters that resided there were powerful, strong enough to make even the Crystal Valley monsters look like insects, not considering the golem.
Adding insult to injury, during Adam's lifetime, only five areas with mana cores were discovered around Orstria, including those found by demons. Moreover, there were only twenty known mana cores in existence. So for Adam to stumble upon two of them seemed improbable. Of course, he shouldn't make such an assumption, considering he hadn't been in this age for long. However, Adam never expected to obtain two mana cores so unexpectedly. He knew one, but finding someone with a mana core as valuable as a kingdom's treasury was another matter. It baffled him that ten holy knights didn't surround the individual.
Adam sighed out loud, already assuming that either mana cores were no longer rare or that people had become more foolish. "Imbeciles," he muttered out of habit.
He noticed that he'd been transferring mana into the cores for some time, and as the ring and bracelet stopped glowing, Adam stretched and stood up. Once finished, he glanced towards a nearby tree and smiled faintly, "It should be about time for the moon to appear."
Adam then approached the tree and began to climb. Upon reaching a high point, he was greeted with a clear view of a full moon and a smaller one beside it. The two moons cast a bright pink glow, illuminating the forest canopy around him.
"As usual, you two don't change," Adam remarked, smiling at the moons. The sight reminded him of his current situation in a way. The larger moon represented Adam, while the smaller one symbolized Yue. The larger moon moved wherever desired, and the smaller one followed, accompanying the larger moon without a choice. Without the larger moon, the smaller one had nowhere to go, left only with itself and this cursed world.
Adam stares at the moons in silence for a long moment until he says, "You must have struggled to get to this point, haven't you, Yue? Even though I know almost nothing about your past, you've still shown me the hardships you endured until now."
Adam closed his eyes and embraced the cold breeze, "You and I aren't so different. We've lost people important to us due to a lack of courage and strength. Except..." He opened his eyes again, their light dimmed, "I consider you lucky. You got to die early, escaping the cycles of revenge and tragedy. You didn't have to leave this world burdened by a hundred promises that haunt you."
Adam was reminded of his past when he would stare at a long rope for hours. He always tried to reach it, hoping it would aid his journey to reunite with his loved ones. Yet every time he attempted to do so, their voices echoed in his mind like broken records. They spoke of promises that Adam would live on without them and lead a healthy life.
Those moments felt like time loops; every time Adam wished to leave this world, their voices would stop him. Then he would always ask with despair-filled eyes, "Why can't I join you?"
Adam blinked, and the light in his eyes returned, "But this time will be different. I won't let these past mistakes happen again. This time, I'll ensure that we both die surrounded by the people we love. I'll make sure everyone we love gets their happy ending. That's why..." Adam's expression became resolute, a look he seldom showed, "I'll give everyone we love a happy ending."
"Thank you."
Adam's eyes widened as he heard a young child's voice echo in his mind. He smiled and replied, gazing at the moons, "And thank you too, young one."