Aiven's hand moved in a practiced motion, drafting, shading---blotting out the world outside the page of his parchment. He had drawn the Lady for hundreds of times due to Delica's demands so he knew every features of the young woman's face.

Lady Yuusha, he can't help but smile at the awkward naming sense of the hero.

Lady Yuusha. 'Yuusha,' the Japanese translation for 'Hero'

Even with how much the term has been circulated as a common household name, the ‘word’ still has a way of jolting Aiven’s memories.

To think, I’ll ever hear that language again in this world.

He had long guessed that the Hero Champion was from the same world he came from the moment he heard people addressing her as 'Yuusha'.

When that realization first dawned on him, there should be a feeling of amazement, excitement and the all powerful pull for life. So much better than all the floating stream of consciousness he have gone through.

But in reality, he felt nothing.

Unlike the grand summoning these champions underwent to pass through this world, he actually came on a more natural way.

He was born with the knowledge of his past life.

And if there would be a word for it...it would be repetitive and just plain depressing and boring.

His soul, as with most souls that have bodies that met their expiration, had went to the reincarnation cycle peacefully like any good normal soul would do.

It felt like floating, mindless stream with all other existence, sharing sentience and harmony in the gear that propels living as we know it.

Except that, his soul in particular must have accumulated so much bad karma in its past lives that he could be what you would have called as "fucked."

Eutanasia, stillbirth, miscarriage...a hanger (don't ask), his mother dying even before he could form limbs, abortion--any birth and infant death possible, you name it, he encountered it...some more than others.

So many deaths even before his soul could materialize in the living plane. This pattern goes on and on. It must have been millennias, eons, before his lonely soul started accumulating a longing to be born, to have life. And being in a limbo of souls where time was immaterial, there was really nothing to be done but be desperate.

He was...an abnormality.

A soul has no longing, they shouldn't have desires and wants because those are supposed to be attached to its material side, which he had not felt for a very very long time. He don't even remember clearly when was the first time he started talking to himself or the moment he dreamed about a life.

That was the moment his soul had clung to the only life it knows the most vividly.

A life of a simple man born in a small floating rock called Earth.

Realizing you're a soul of a dead person came as a shock. The idea of thinking, remembering, was so foreign to him that he had no idea he was doing it until he was trying to grasp the concept of coffee, then came breakfast...toothbrush, paste, a shave. A simple start of the day of a plain chemistry teacher in...was it Japan? China? He dreamed of waking up and going to work, to school, to a hospital. He tried to piece things together but the memories were vague and fleeting.

He knew languages; Mandarin, Japanese, some French? Latin? The man had vivid images of the Egyptiam Pyramids, the beaches of Hokaido, Mount Rushmore...but he was not sure if he saw them in real life or in a webpage while surfing for a vacation trip that never came.

He see himself drowning, falling from a building, being caught in an avalanche, not knowing if these were deaths he had experienced or were they part of vivid nightmares that had meshed in his memories. He don't even know his name.

Unfortunately, there's also a lot of useless information here. Like holidays, cellphone numbers, passwords, sites, authors, books, accounts, list of pokemon 1st-5th generations and their evolution, history of Japan, chemical reactions on base and acids, World War I-II, British history, taxes, driving manuals, Norse/Icelandic/Greek/Roman Mythology, periodic table of elements, lyrics about butts, electrical current on conductors and semiconductors, metaphysics, chocobos, project life cycle, anime ost, law of entropy, graphs, java/html codings, financial statements...

That time when 'he' walked home while eating ice cream with he father.

Another was when he was riding a bike. His younger sister was at the back and he'll purposely take the route with the bumpiest road while she scream at him bloody murder.

The day he saw 'her'. And the day she said 'yes'.

The day of his Dad's funeral.

The day his sister graduated.

Remembering past memories but not feeling them had also its set of wrongness.

As if what his soul had was nothing but videos and images and words from a string of information he could scan whenever he wished. Instead of saying 'memories', all of these came to him like he was watching something out of a screen.

It was like having a dream, but a cold one. Unfeeling, deadened cheap counterfeit of what it's supposed to be.

----------------------------------------

It took a lot of pain, but one thing was certain, he was not from here.

He does not belong here.

Aiven was already aware that there was a feeling of--wrongness. Words, thoughts, ideas, pictures of things that existed but did not, but is, were already in his head. He would correct himself everytime he saw anything remotely familiar. The thoughts were so convincing, so trustworthy, and confident about the things around him, but he knew that somehow it was wrong.

That very impulse was like a nagging instinct that kept him from saying anything, touching anything or even eating anything.

All he did was watched, stared at the things from the safety of his crib and felt himself regressed into a malnourished state of a vegatable.

He didn't knew why the sky was not the right color of blue, why it looked so freakishly high that he always ended up in a state of vertigo...why adults looked normal but not--their arms were longer, their jaws set in a more firm angle, their necks swan-liked, their fingers more stretched out to their palms...he was continously comparing them to---something he can't put his finger to. What is it? They didn't looked human enough, enough, as if the words were lacking?

His weak body would be plauged with nausea and would vomit every single time he saw something fall. Things fall weirdly now. Now? They had always been weird. It was just slow, a second longer than what was supposed to be.

Again, comparisons, comparisons, questionable comparisons.

And one of those glaring comparisons was the existence of people who shared his old world.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

----------------------------------------

He was too engrossed on his work when he felt a sudden dread at his surrounding. Immediately, Aiven's brush paused in midair.

Like a switch, he tuned in his [Detection] skill. The passive skill quickly took over his mind sight and his senses heightened. The skill extended like threads of mana outside of his body for a few more chains, but the links from the novices merely indicated a yellowish color---not enough to be aggressively red, let alone be considered lethal.

So this meant that the bad feeling definitely didn't came fom the audience seats. Still, a yellow glow meant that their will towards him was on a negative side.

A loud sign came from his mouth.

The sibling's denseness must have rubbed off for Aiven not to notice the stabbing glares from his back, or the heavy atmosphere from the stands that was worsening every time Delica would refill his mug, like a servant, or whenever he answer Simos' amiable chat with nothing more than a nod or grunt.

Whispers and dark murmurs with his name were starting to get louder.

But knowing how senseless those rumors could be, Aiven put it passed him and simply made another layer for his draft.

Right off the bat, he had always been treated as an eyesore--so this much wouldn't even put a dent on his mood.

In everyone's perspective, he was a nobody. And hanging out with two of the most promising novices in the grounds, didn't helped in his situation.

To be called a failure, 'trash', a 'blank'--it was troublesome, but also childish. Just thinking about it, was already using energy he had no desire to spend.

He's aware that he was the subject of some form of bullying one way or another, but considering the circumstances, it was nothing less than tame and petty annoyance.

Snarky remarks every now and then, little sabotages that never actually succeeded, finding his satchel on the trash bin or his book immaturely drawn in a child's hand of minimalist rendition of vandalism.

Aiven had actually found their colorful insults as amusing and educational even. One recurring example was; 'having switched faces with a hound' (some dogs have better faces than humans though), 'dropped your brain in ox manure' (the used of ox instead of any other land-based animal was a mystery), 'no phlegm for wisdom' (this needed research to understand).

The moment these were spoken, the insults were already lost in translation, and he would end up staring at the person in confusion and silent contemplation.

And with his specialty at running away at the first sign of trouble, there's no need to make any big deal out of this.

Hah! Running away from bullies had its benefits. He sighed dejectedly, taking another bite from his muffin and savoring the cold and minty flavor of iceberry. But to actually have risen his agility to an inhumane degree because of being picked on---his life was really lousy.

Still, the idea of retaliating never crossed his mind. That would be toublesome.

Also, hurting anyone that just passed the two-digit age never really sounded right for Aiven. It was actually a wonder to him how the adults in the Training Grounds could stomach seeing children fighting it out on the open.

He couldn’t help but cringe whenever a kid ends up with broken bones or a cracked skull for "educational" purposes. The immediate healing afterwards made it easier not to be traumatized by the graphic daily dose of gore but really...this isn't something he could get used to easily. Just the thought of it evaporates all lingering grudges he had towards his batchmates.

He took another dip on his ink, relieved that his hands were not trembling from using a quarter of his mana levels.

----------------------------------------

Then he heard a sound of notification.

Just as Aiven raised his head, his vision was filled with a billowing wall of flame flickering with orange tint. Without any warning, a familiar heat the size of a carriage was suddenly casted towards him. The roaring flames were so loud, the screams also registered to his ears late.

Someone directly attacked him.

Instinctively Aiven's whole body jerked into attention, but after realizing something, he immediately forced himself to calm down. His eyes unflinchingly watched as the unfolding spell drawn close but hardly progressed any further than two hand spans from where they were seated.

All of their seatmates, in line of the spell, had already vacated and only the three of them were left.

For some reason, Delica and Simos were not concerned in the least. The blonde boy was clearly on his element, grinning widely as if being shot by mana, charged enough to melt bones was a normal daily occurrence for him. Delica was worse. She seemed delighted and was having a hard time suppressing a giggle.

The fire was thinning into nothingness. If not for the defensive barrier preemptively set up earlier at the railings, Aiven would have been the first to run in fear of being scorched into coals.

But that was not the only reason.

At the center of it all was a small girl. Sharp slanted eyes looked at him with the stillness of frost; her raven-black hair was done in a single braid that trailed to her ankle and was tied off with a red ribbon.

Aiven just blankly stared up at the girl from his seat while his brush strokes continued at the silence that awkwardly followed.

“Need something?” he asked, not wanting to mince words. Not that he could afford it.

His rude, uninterested reply startled the young girl into breaking her gaze for a moment but, it was restored instantly with a glare.

This was the best formal conversation Aiven could give her at the moment. He'd rather not talk, but unfortunately his hands were busy at the moment. There was no way he could just deactivate the skills and deliberately inflict a backlash to himself and waste his precious mana. And so he silently continued working on the portrait.

Compared to the sibling's calm reaction, his, was actually more abnormal.

“Useless brother,” the caster muttered in a strangely mature voice for her age.

The little girl, just a few meters from the guard rails was Aiven's cute adorable little sister, Leian.

“Ayah, she's such a tsundere,” Delica teased.

“Who are you calling tsundere, Lady Delica?” Leian answered so quickly, she could have easily snapped at Delica.

The shroud of mana between the guard rails and the audience' stand was slowly toning down. With a simple step, Leian was out of the combat field and stood resolutely before the trio.

“No need to use any titles, Miss Leian. We're all equals here in the Training Grounds after all?” Simos said. He was smiling and looked relieved to see her.

“You're too gracious, my lord, to consider everyone--even the lowly ones, as your equal,” her attention coldly went to Aiven's direction.