In my past life, on the turn of the fourth year of my time in the household, I’d been kicked out of the main mansion by Patriarch Mou. He had deemed me worthless, and talentless, and a waste of his time. So deep was his anger at wasting four years of time and resources on me that he’d had me kicked out of the estate itself, and exiled me to the forest, having his servants chase me as deep as they could so that I wouldn’t return.

Twisting and turning to avoid their beatings, I soon found myself lost in a world of foliage and darkened brush. At first, I’d curled up in a ball and shivered, the pain of my dismissal, both mental and physical, too much to bear.

Then, I lifted my head and realized I had no idea where I was. In the coming days I still had no idea. I’d nearly starved to death.

“Would you stop making all that racket? You’re disturbing the damned birds!” A voice had cried out. “Ack, and you’re crying too. Do you know what that’ll do to the herbs? I should whack those tears out of you, but first I need to replenish them. Let’s get you some soup.”

I’d looked up and spotted a pair of deep opal eyes gazing down at me, and then jolted in fright as I realized that her eyes weren’t the color of opal, they actually were opals. And she wasn’t human, she was made of stone.

That was the first time I’d met my master.

Now, I was meeting my master again, for the first time.

“What did you say?” The stonekin peered at me with suspicion.

I raised my head and grinned at her. “This lowly disciple, Aldwyn, greets his master.”

My master crossed her arms. “Disciple? I have no disciple.”

She had me there.

In my past life, four years had passed until I fell under her wing. Because of that, I only learned from her for three months. Less, if we counted my recovery time and distrust of her. The Mou family wasn’t fond of other races, and unfortunately it had taken a long time to dispel their backwards teachings and principles from my mind.

This time, I intended to speed up that part of my old life, and extend it. If I could place myself under my master’s wing today then I would have four years of her teachings to look forward to. I would have the company of someone I could trust, who didn’t want to beat me for getting answers wrong or burning precious materials with my mistakes.

And above all, she was an alchemist, tried and true.

“I’m one of the Alchemist’s Children,” the explanation spilled out of my lips. “Which is why I’m here to ask for your help. The Patriarch—”

“That traitorous sack of ass is your father?!” The trees bent to avoid her shout, and I winced.

I’d made a mistake.

But why?

Revealing that I was one of the Alchemist’s Children had never been an issue in my past life. When I’d done it, my master had taken me in with a sorrowful tut and nursed my wounds with soup.

Now, my master was fury incarnate. Her frazzled hair whipped around her as a breeze rose from the ground, and her opal eyes shimmered with rage, glittering like imploding stars. She raised her palm toward me, and I was keenly aware that her limbs were toughened stone, and my chest was squishy flesh. She could punch a hole through me without a second thought.

But it was what she clasped in her palm that worried me. Nestled between the crags of her stone fingers was a bright white pill with two glowing lines running through it.

With a single motion, she crushed the pill into dust.

I raised my hands in a panic. “No, wait, I’m here to ask for your help.”

“You’ll have no help from me, traitor’s child,” my master spoke coldly. “Begone.”

The remnants of the pill blew into me and the wind picked up, enveloping my clothes and grasping them with invisible hands. I was jostled and jolted in their grip, and my words were lost because the howling gale snatched them from my lips.

With a sickening lurch, I was thrown into the treeline, blowing past leaves and branches as the wind dragged me across the path I’d traversed. A minute later the gale spat me out, and I found myself sprawled across the dirt, my skin being pricked by the familiar grass of the Mou family gardens.

My master had kicked me out of the Velvetine forest.

I groaned. “Damn it.”

“Are you okay?” Someone shouted.

A shadow fell over me and I found myself staring into a pair of bright blue eyes. The speaker was a girl in a gardener’s tunic, her skin tanned from spending her life in the sun. Millie. That was her name. She was one of the gardeners I’d spotted earlier, and was looking down at me with concern, the sun behind her creating a ring of glowing light around her tousled brown hair.

At seventeen years old, technically, she was two years older than me.

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“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I growled. Millie stepped back, but she was more curious than wary.

I gave my body a quick patdown and a few leaves fell out of my clothes. My master’s magic was powerful, but despite blasting me through the forest and covering nearly an hour’s worth of traveling in a minute, I hadn’t even gotten a single scratch on me.

A faint smile crossed my lips. My master’s words were sharp, but I knew that deep down her stony exterior hid a heart of gold. Maybe even literally, if the legends about stonekin were to be believed.

“Thanks Millie,” I lifted myself up and gave her a smile.

Then I turned around and made my way back into the forest.

“No, wait, don’t go.” Her voice rose, curiosity sparkling in her eyes. “Did-did that tree just throw you out of the forest?” Millie asked. Then she paused. “Hey, how did you know my name?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again as no answer came to me. Her name had slipped out of my mouth by accident, and I didn’t have a response prepared for when I accidentally let knowledge of my past life slip.

Millie took advantage of my hesitation and drew closer, her eyes piercing into me as she refused to let her gaze drop from mine.

My face flushed, and I felt something shift deep within me.

Growl.

A loud sound pierced the air, and we both paused and looked down at the source.

It was my stomach.

Millie’s mouth parted in surprise, and then she let out a giggle.

“So, I’m Millie, and you must be Hungry,” she said, a playful smirk balancing on her lips. “Is that right?”

My flush of embarrassment grew deeper across my cheeks, and I suddenly realized just how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten in two days.

“Aldwyn,” I replied. “And I should go. I have rations in my hut.”

“Rations? Those pieces of dried wheat won’t give you the stuff you need to live.” Millie scrunched her nose in disgust. “The good meals cost you a bronze plate at the employee quarters, or you forage them yourself.”

I held my empty hands out wide. “Do I look like I have a bronze plate?”

“Foraging it is!” She declared.

Without waiting another moment, she grabbed my hand and dragged me forward, through the garden paths and toward the more populated sections of the forest that I’d avoided.

I glanced back at the forest with anticipation. I’d never learned my master’s name in my past life, but the three months I’d spent with her had been the best I'd ever experienced.

After those three months, she had disappeared.

Worry gnawed at my mind and I tapped the air, navigating the System’s screens until I found the information I was looking for.

I Want To Go Back (Legendary):

The first trial: The Patriarch.

The second trial: The Disappearance.

I hadn’t looked at this section of my screen much, mostly because it was brand new and I hadn’t had enough time to explore it. My skill, [I Want To Go Back], had come with four trials. The Patriarch, the Disappearance, the Traitor, and the Tower.

Just seeing the names didn’t trigger any of my memories, but I was sure that the first trial had to do with the deaths of the Patriarch’s children. I shivered as what little memories I’d recovered reminded me of the cruel fate that awaited the Alchemist’s Children after that. As for the Disappearance, well, I had an inkling of an idea that it had something to do with my master.

“[Potion Creation],” I murmured. “That's what I need to save them.”

How long had it taken me to learn that skill in my past life?

A brief flash of memories responded to my thought, and I saw myself celebrating. I was the last of the Alchemist’s Children to learn the skill, but I had finally done it.

It had only taken me two years.

“Hasn’t anyone told you that it’s rude to play with your System when you’re with a lady?” Millie’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

I closed my System screen, revealing Millie’s smiling expression. We’d stopped in front of a large garden that was less ornate and more functional than the ones created by the Patriarch. Instead of flowers, it held herbs for cooking, vegetables for plucking, and a rainbow of scattered fruits hung from nearby orchids by the dozen.

“Here at household Mou, we earn our keep,” Millie led me through the gardens proudly. “Take what you like, but make sure you stick to the portion sizes allotted. You look mega hungry, so I’ll tell you what they are when you hit them,” she winked. “By the way, do you have [Foraging]?”

“Yeah—Uh, no,” I quickly corrected myself.

[Foraging] was a vital uncommon skill required for collecting herbs and gardening that preserved whatever was foraged as a percentage of its perfect state. Rumors had it that if you reached the highest tier of [Foraging] then things came out perfectly no matter how roughly you handled them.

I’d managed to obtain the skill after a year of practice in my past life. All the Alchemist’s Children had. When all was said and done, that was a pretty good speed to obtain an uncommon skill.

However, that skill hadn’t transferred over into this life. None of my old skills had. Which was a pity since I’d had five years worth of skills accumulated.

“Yeah, no?” Millie asked.

“I don’t have it,” I replied hastily. “I forgot. My bad.”

“Then I guess your food won’t be as fresh,” Millie raised an eyebrow at me. “I’d offer to pluck it for you, but you need to buy me dinner first.”

Her words caused me to trip over my own feet, and I barely stopped myself from landing face-first into a vegetable patch. When I righted myself properly, I shot Millie a glare and she giggled.

“Do you always trip over your own feet?” She asked. “And get flung from trees?”

“Hey, I’ve lost my memories, I’m just glad I know how to walk,” I replied.

“Ah, I heard about that,” Millie nodded. Then she curled a finger over her lips and her eyes took on a mischievous twinkle. “Does that mean every line I use on you is a fresh one? That’s great.”

“You’re pretty, every line you use is a great line,” I said.

Millie paused, and a faint blush crossed her cheeks. “You must have been a smooth bastard before.”

I waited for the flood of memories showing me how suave and flirtatious I’d been in my past life…

Hmm.

Those memories didn’t exist.

Despite knowing Millie’s name, I hadn’t actually known her. I was an Alchemist’s Child, and she was a gardener, and the Patriarch kept all of us far apart from his staff when he could.

“Come on,” Millie grabbed my arm again. “I’m starving.”

She pulled me forward until we reached a patch of recently grown vegetables. The soil glowed light green as we stood in front of it, and I saw a couple of scrappy wards built into the corners of each garden patch. They were nothing compared to the ones my master had placed in the forest, but they were good enough to capture mana from the surroundings and imbue it into the dirt to make the vegetables grow quickly and healthily.

Mana…that was something else I had to brush up on.

“Take it from the stem,” Millie said.

“Thanks,” I nodded.

I squatted down to dig out a rather plump green vegetable the size of my hand and the shape of an apple. With every twist of my hand snapshots of memories snuck into my brain, telling me how I’d learnt to do this in my past life, and the optimal ways to do so.

With ease, I dug out the vegetable and held it in the air triumphantly. My growling stomach was aching for the tiniest of morsels, but Millie had snatched up two grass buckets from nearby, and I placed my food in the nearest one.

The moment I let go of the vegetable, a bright blue box appeared in front of me.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill: Foraging (uncommon).]