Epilogue: The Story of Aria

Right now, it’s summer vacation. It’s nearly been a whole year since I first started attending school. Throughout the year, I’ve spent my time with Thoth, Raina, and occasionally went out with my parents to different countries within the kingdom. Everywhere I went, though, many people would immediately have their attention on me, and my presence in a vicinity will silence everyone. It looks like my appearance itself is a symbol of fear towards others.

After the [Fall Tournament], I continued training my [Gun Magic] with Jiriko, and after half a year of practice, I’ve mastered every [Basic Gun Magic] for [Small Weapons] and [Rifles]. I couldn’t exactly learn how to use [Launchers] and [Machine Guns] because I require a level 6 proficiency in [Gun Magic] in order to do so. Right now, it’s level 5, so I’m nearly able to learn them. Because of that, we decided to just focus on the combat training. I’ve obtained the class, [Gun Paladin]. It’s a class that hasn’t been discovered yet, Jiriko told me, so I don’t know exactly what it did yet.

Ever since the tournament, I’m now a known figure throughout most of the kingdom, so people often recognized me when they see me. As per usual, I’m treated the same as I usually am in school, but recently, I’ve noticed a group of people constantly watching me from a distance. Are they some sort of secret group that’s supposed to be keeping watch of me? I notice them trying to secretly take pictures of me, but I don’t really do anything about it. It’s not like having my pictures taken will kill me.

Throughout the year, I’ve participated in many school events, and the [Spring Tournament] as well. I was able to compete against the [Student Council], but I was forced to unseal two marks total against Raina, just like Thoth. Obviously, Raina was the strongest, using a strange spear called a [Naginata] as her weapon, which was made for people with greater dexterity and self defense, rather than emphasizing physical strength for combat. She used it mainly for speed, though, whirling it around at high speed.

Raina’s proficiency with this weapon rivaled Thoth’s ability with the spear, so they mainly competed against each other to see who would take second place in the tournament. Thoth won, because she had more battle experience and magic that helps influence her abilities. Immaturely, she boasted about it and rubbed it into Raina’s face at the end, but I smacked the back of her head to make her shut up.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the relation between these two have gotten worse since the first time they’ve met. I often see them glaring at each other, as if sparks were created between their gazes. Whenever I went out with the both of them in the city, they would often try to bring us to different places, and have conflicting opinions most of the time. I wish that they would just get along like the first time we all went out with each other. I don’t like it when they fight like this.

“Hey Aria! Are you awake yet!?” Speak of the devil, Thoth just bursted into my room yelling out loud.

“…good morning, Thoth.” I reply. Her random visits are now a common occurrence, happening at least once a week.

“Let’s go out! Come on, I brought a lot more people today!” Thoth yells, pulling me out of my room by my arm.

“…who?” I wonder how many of the people coming are those that I actually know.

“Surprise! They’ll be waiting for us in the city! We’re going to be late, hurry, hurry!” She says with a cheerful voice as we reach the front door.

“…breakfast…” I whisper.

“Geh, who needs that? Come on, let’s go! We’ll get you something on the way there, everyone’s already waiting for us!” She forcefully hands me my shoes, before putting on her own.

I sigh to myself as I do the same. I don’t know how to refuse pushy people, so I just comply with whatever she tells me to do. After we put on our shoes, she runs out the front door, and I chase after her. Sprinting out of the front gate, she heads toward the city, with me following closely behind. We were both going at a fast speed, rushing past people in a flash. To them, though, it was common to see the both of us running through town like this. Not that they actually know the reason why we’re running through.

We’re often rushing through like this whenever we head towards a new dungeon to explore it. We’ve cleared nearly every dungeon within the [Kingdom of Atalin], the most recent being an A-ranked one. A condition was set for every time we visited a new dungeon; to find the [Hidden Boss] before going to the next one. So how are we able to easily do this despite there are hundreds of other adventurers trying to do this? First, we identified the conditions for the [Forest of Fire] and [Kazaric Ravines]. After several weeks of experiments, we’ve found out the conditions for the both of them.

For the [Inferno Bear], it required survival within the forest without any fire resistance equipment, and kill at least ten monsters within a time span of thirty minutes. I was able to complete this condition the first time because instead of using fire resistance equipment, I used the [White Zone]. I also fought the entire horde on my own, killing over ten monsters and fulfilling the conditions. Most people wouldn’t want to try exploring this dungeon without fire resistance, so no one’s fulfilled the conditions yet.

The summoning of the [Yeti] was very simple, and was just a bad stroke of luck on our end. We had to enter the boss room via the teleportation room I randomly found, and survive the sudden ambush. The most likely reason why this hasn’t been discovered yet is because many would die if they were suddenly put into a situation like that. Anyone capable of surviving such danger is probably clearing [A-Ranked] dungeons instead.

After finding the conditions for these two [Hidden Bosses], we tried several different things related to the dungeon in order to fulfill the conditions to find [Hidden Bosses]. Each dungeon has its own unique requirements related to the dungeon. The higher ranked dungeons had insanely difficult requirements, not due to the strength of the monsters, but to the actions required to fulfill them. We were able to discover them though, and now we know the conditions for seven different [Hidden Bosses] other than the [Inferno Bear] and the [Yeti].

The both of us received several different item drops from these bosses, and they all had unique effects. We distributed them based on who would benefit more from the item. Conveniently, any clothing or armor dropped by the [Hidden Bosses] all had growth correction. This was convenient for us because we still had small bodies, most of them wouldn’t fit us otherwise. I still couldn’t use the spellbook from the [Kazaric Ravines], though, because I still haven’t learnt summoning magic yet.

The only unfortunate thing is that they always drop the same items, and if we try to take an item we already have, it disperses into magic particles. I guess this is to prevent having multiple copies of the same equipment. I mean, it’d be an easy way to harvest high quality equipment and just sell them at the market. The [System] would never allow something like that to happen.

Due to our hunt for [Hidden Bosses], there has been several search requests for the people discovering them. They still don’t know it’s us two doing this, because they don’t even know we’re exploring these dungeons. There’s even people stationed at the dungeons now to immediately search for us whenever we summon a [Hidden Boss]. From large guild clans, to small elite organizations, they’ve all been sprinting around the dungeon trying to search for us after the summon.

Of course, we try to complete them without being seen, so no one else will know what the requirements are, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so because of these people hunting for us. Most of the time, I’m forced to release several of my marks and instantly kill the [Hidden Boss] before they arrive. Thoth is often irritated because of this, not being able to finish the battle properly.

“There they are!” Thoth’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, signaling that we arrived at our destination.

The place we arrive at is a train station, where a large group of people stood. I recognized everyone there, and if there was a third party right now, they’d be witnessing a gathering of the strongest group of children in this generation. The entire [Student Council] stood there, along with Thoth’s friends. Pyrion and Sera was there as well, a total of 15 people total were here.

“Hey, you’re late! Late, I tell you, late!” Ghost yells at us.

“Yeah, come on! Were you two taking your time dressing up or what!?” Haki yells after him.

“Quiet, the both of you. They’re only two minutes late, there’s no reason for you to be yelling at them.” Peria says with a glare. This managed to get them to shut up.

The [Student Council] has been very successful this year. Every event the school hosted was extremely successful, and they made several fund raising campaigns that received a lot of support. As promised, I worked as a hidden member, and no one knew about the relation between us. I caught people who didn’t properly follow the school rules, and at one point, I subjugated a group of delinquents under their name. While disguised, of course.

“Hey Thoth!” One of Thoth’s friend greets Thoth when she sees her. I believe her name was Eve.

After the [Spring Tournament], Thoth introduced me to her friends. All of them were very skeptical of me at first, staring at me strangely when they first talked to me. They gave the same treatment I was normally given at school. After a few weeks, though, they were all comfortable with speaking to me now. I was no longer an existence of fear to them now.

“Ah, Aria. You’re as beautiful as ever, today.” Pyrion compliments upon seeing me.

“Hello~ Aria! Hello~ Thoth! It’s nice to see you!” Sera waves at us as we join the large group.

Thoth sometimes invited Sera during our outings after the tournament, so we talk every now and then. Sera was as polite as ever, and there was no sign of him become more masculine yet. If anything, he’s becoming more beautiful. Pyrion, on the other hand, just suddenly started visiting me out of the blue. Whenever I was with Thoth, she’d always glare at him and try to shoo him away. Not that I mind his presence, though, he’s the only one that showers me with compliments. He’s such a nice friend, treating me with kindness rather than avoiding me.

“Hey everyone! Sorry we’re late, we got no excuse at all! Actually, wait, I got one! It’s Aria’s fault for not being prepared!” Thoth pins the blame on me instantly.

“…didn’t tell me.” I reply with a frown.

“Haha, yeah, I’m joking!” She says while sticking her tongue out playfully.

“We should probably get going soon, the train will leave.” Deome says, looking at the clock.

“That’s right, let’s get going. I already got the tickets, I’ll pass them out right now.” Ash hands out the tickets randomly to everyone else, and we all enter the station. Not knowing where we were headed exactly, I just followed suit with everyone else and went into the same train as them. This was my first time using a train, so I didn’t know how these worked exactly.

“Woo! Yeah! This is my first time riding one of these, I can’t wait to see how fast these goes!” Thoth is already occupying one of the seats, staring out the window.

“It’s your first time, huh? I’ll tell you now, this thing goes pretty fast.” Haki says with a boastful tone in his voice.

“What’re you acting so prideful for? Not like you own the train or anything.” Minaya’s words cause his shoulders to droop as he leans on the wall with his right hand, head down.

Our interactions continued, everyone holding different conversations with other people as we all occupy a seat. That is, everyone except me, who sat at a window seat, looking out the glass screen. The train starts to move slowly, and an announcement was made to stay within our seats.

“Here it is, it’s starting! I want to see how fast the magic train can go!” Sera says happily, going to one of the windows to look outside.

The train was currently moving at a slow rate, about as fast as a normal person can walk. Then, its acceleration spiked, the train surging forward at an insane speed. The scenery right outside the window looked like a blur, I can barely see what was passing by. Even though I had a skill that supposedly lets me perceive anything moving at high speed, this was still too fast for it.

During my training with dual wielding guns, dodging bullets was part of the curriculum, and I’ve obtained two skills; [High Speed Perception] and [Heightened Reaction]. They were both level 4, capable of seeing and dodging a [Magnum]. I still couldn’t see the bullet of a [Sniper Rifle] being fired, because it was still too fast.

I wasn’t able to see the scenery outside clearly, so that meant the train was moving at a speed faster than a bullet from a [Magnum]. Knowing this, I’m surprised that it wasn’t affecting the passengers at all. If I wasn’t looking outside the window right now, I wouldn’t have known that we were even moving. That’s how unaffected the inside was from the movements of the train. Magic is such a useful thing.

––––––

It took us about ten minutes total to arrive at our destination. Considering that we were moving at such a high speed, that meant we were probably at the edge of the kingdom. After leaving the station, I instantly realized where we were going.

“We’re here! Hello, [Munlit City!]” Thoth yells out loud.

[Munlit City], a seaside town that boasts to have the best seafood in the world. With large fleets of boats headed out to fish in the dangerous oceans, the city gathers most of its income from the sea. It also has the largest beach on the continent, a very famous tourist attraction that attracts people even during the cold seasons. It’s because the city was always warm, no matter what season it was. No snowfall, rarely any rain, often sunny throughout the entire year. I read this all from a book, so I couldn’t be exactly sure about this.

“Let’s go to the beach right away!” Haki yells, already making a run for it.

“Hey, wait up for me!” Ghost chases after him, towards the direction of the beach.

“Is it a good idea for a skeleton from hell to be swimming in water? Especially since his eye sockets have fire in them?” Orima asks Peria.

“No idea. Let’s just find out, shall we?” She replies with a sadistic smile.

“Thoth… let’s go…” Mint says to Thoth, while pulling on her sleeve. For some reason, I feel a bit strange when I see this.

“Ah, yeah, just wait. We need to go change into our swimsuits first, right?” Thoth says while patting her head. The feeling inside of me becomes a bit stronger, and I accidentally leak mana for a second, but stop quickly.

“…hmph.” I say as I walk towards the nearest restroom.

––––––

“Wow, your skin is so smooth and beautiful…” Eve compliments me when I took off my clothes. “What do you use to get it so smooth like this!?”

“Eve, my dear princess, it’s all natural.” Thoth says with a prideful expression.

“Wha–!? Seriously!?” Shocked by what she heard, Eve just stood there frozen for a bit.

“…tch.” I hear Mint click her tongue behind me, and I feel a sense of pride in myself for some reason.

“Oh yeah, Aria, here’s your swimsuit! I prepared it because I knew you wouldn’t bring one.” Thoth says while holding a bag out towards me.

“…you didn’t–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t tell you. I bet you don’t have one anyway, so I got you this one! You better wear it, or else, I’ll hate you!” She threatens me as she cheerfully pushes the bag into my arms, before running out of the restroom.

At this point, it was only Eve and I inside. The others have already finished changing, and are probably waiting for us. I look inside of the bag, and my mind becomes blank. I don’t mind becoming a girl, but this is too much for me...

“…I hate you Thoth…” I whisper to myself.

––––––

“…of the devil, here she comes! Hey Aria!” Thoth waves at me as I walk over, with a towel wrapped over my body. The rest of the group secured a fairly large area on the beach for us to use, Eve and I were the last to arrive. The blankets and umbrellas were set, along with an ice box containing drinks in it.

Most of the girls were wearing modest swimsuits compared to mine. Mostly one pieces, except for Raina and Eve, both who were wearing skirt bikinis. Sera was wearing a hoodie with some shorts. It didn’t do anything to hinder his beauty, though.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Come on! What’s with the towel!? You can’t show off your sexiness that way, you know!?” Thoth yells as me.

“…I hate you.” I reply to her as I sit down on one of the blankets laid out.

“Eh~ don’t be like that~ we can’t have such a beautiful figure go to waste!” She complains, but doesn’t try to remove my towel.

“Aria’s… body… under…” I can hear Pyrion muttering, and panting for some reason.

“You can’t swim if you’re wrapped like that, are you fine with that?” Deome asks me. I nod in response, perfectly fine with just watching.

“I’ll stay behind too. I don’t like water.” Peria states, despite being in a one piece swimsuit.

“You mean, you don’t know how to swim, right?” Ghost teases.

“Just get going, you meatless slave.” She replies, literally kicking him away.

“Okay then~! Let’s get going guys! We’ll be back~!” Eve runs and dives into the water, Thoth and the others following behind. Peria stayed behind, and for some reason, Pyrion did too.

“…can’t swim?” I asked her as she sat down next to me.

“I was never taught to. Not that it matters, really. I’m probably never going near the sea again after this day. I can always travel around by land.” She replies.

“…other continents?” She has to cross the sea to get there, right?

“Have you heard of airplanes? They’re those flying things in the skies you know, I can travel by air instead of water.” She explains with a sarcastic tone at first.

I forgot those existed. When I first read about a machine that can transport people by air, it was hard for me to believe that it was a real thing. I thought it might’ve been another one of those fairy tale fantasies my parents kept reading to me. Her telling me this confirmed that they do indeed exist.

“Do you not know how to swim either, Aria?” Pyrion asks me, who was way too close to me.

“…I do.” I say, while slowly moving away to create space between us.

“So why won’t you swim, then?” He doesn’t close the gap any further, understanding the message my actions are implying.

“…embarrassing swimsuit.”

“Ah, Thoth bought it for you?” I nod in reply to this.

Due to his constant visits, he now knows how to interact with me as well as Thoth. Nice to know that someone other than her can understand me this well. He continues the small talk with me, while Thoth and the others were all playing in the water. The tide comes in, and then suddenly, a random mass of water comes out and drenches me. I didn’t see it coming, so I couldn’t avoid or block it in time.

“Sorry Aria! That’s my bad!” I hear Ash yelling as I dry myself. Except, the towel was also wet, so that didn’t work very well. Also, the towel was no longer covering my body, therefore, it was now exposed to the others.

“Good job Ash! You got the ice queen to show off her body!” Haki gives Ash a thumbs up as he says this.

“…tough competition.” Mint mutters, but I don’t know what competition she’s referring to.

“Oh~ I knew it would look good on you Aria!” Thoth says as soon as she sees me.

“…beautiful.” I hear Raina mutter.

Right now, I was wearing a white bikini with padding in the bra. Although I was eight years old, I had a figure of a 13 year old, so something like this was able to fit me properly. When I first saw it, I was reluctant about wearing it, but Thoth’s threat went through my mind for a second. I know it was an empty threat, there’s no way she’d hate for something as silly as not wearing it, but I still gave in to it anyway.

“You look so cool in that, Aria! It makes it hard to believe you’re younger than me!” Sera praises me, sparkles in his eyes.

“…an angel has descended…” Pyrion whispers quietly, but I ignore him.

“Baby, if you came back to [Hell] with me, you’d freeze it over with your looks!” A strange line from Ghost, so I ignore that as well.

“Shut up you stupid skeleton. That was so bad that I’d like to throw you back into [Hell] because of it.” Minaya’s harsh words got him to not say anything further than that, which I was grateful for.

I didn’t think that it would’ve fit me very well, with my strange light colored hair, but the compliments from the others says it all. Honestly, it felt nice receiving compliments for my appearance. It’s better than people just glaring at me and stating that I looked terrible enough to kill others.

“…thanks.” I reply to them all, with a smile.

An awkward moment of silence goes by between us, which spreads to the surrounding people. Everyone was staring at me strangely. This often happens whenever I try to make a full smile, and I often forget about it. It seems that it’s still bad enough to change their minds about my beautiful appearance.

“Hahaha! Well, now that Aria doesn’t have a reason not to swim, let’s have her join us!” Thoth abruptly breaks the silence, and grabs my hand before pulling me into the water.

After that, I joined in with the activities with the rest of the group. We played beach volleyball, with a touch of magic. I say touch, but it’s mostly just slamming it back & forth with extreme strength. Then, we played a strange game suggested by the [Student Council]. Something involving watermelon smashing, where someone is blindfolded and has to hit a watermelon with a wooden stick.

The only problem was, we all had very acute senses, so it was very easy to find the watermelon. So we decided to spice up the game a bit by having other people toss the watermelons around as we try to hit it. This made it far more fun, except whenever I was the person hitting it. My senses were too acute, so it was still easy to hit the large fruit.

“Are you using echolocation or something? How the heck are you hitting all of these!?” Ghost yells at me.

“What kind of life-or-death training did you go through? It’s as if you can still see under that blind fold!” Haki adds.

“I don’t think echolocation would even work in a place right this. And she’s probably trained her other senses in case she has to battle in a dark area. It’s a common thing to do.” Deome tries to logically explain my ability, but it was obviously wrong.

“How much watermelons did you guys even bring? We’ve already gone through more than ten!” What Thoth said was true. Right now, the remains of several watermelons were all spread around us.

“Ew, I’m even drenched in the juice. I knew this was a bad idea!” Minaya complains.

“If you want, we can lick it–” Haki tried to suggest.

“Kill yourself.” Every girl here said without hesitation.

“…die.” I add on afterwards.

After that, he was on his hands and knees, head down, facing the ground. It was kind of depressing to see, but no one comforted him because he deserved it.

––––––

“I want to go to the beach again next time! I had so much fun!” Sera said happily.

“Right? We should all do something like this again!” Thoth replies to Sera, fist pumping in the air.

We’ve all just left the train station, finished with our trip to the beach. It’s now evening, the sun setting in the horizon as we all stand at the entrance of the station.

“This was enjoyable, I wish we can do something like this again soon.” We agreed with Ash’s opinion.

“Well, we shall take our leave here. Have a good time tonight, Aria.” Deome says, and the rest of the group says their farewells before we all go to our separate directions. Except for Thoth and Raina.

“…not going home?” I ask the both of them.

“Nope! We’re going to your house first!” Thoth says, before pulling on my hand and making me walk with her.

“...surprise waiting there.” Raina tells me as we head to my house. Now that I think about it, Deome said something about having a good time tonight, rather than just saying goodbye.

“So, how was your time at the beach today?” Thoth asks me.

“...enjoyable.” I tell her.

“Enjoyable? Come on, you had loads of fun, didn’t you? It was more than ‘enjoyable’! Right Raina?”

“…yeah, it was fun. I had fun playing with everyone.” She smiles after saying this, a nice sight to see. For the first time since the first outing we had with the three of us, they’re finally getting along well.

“That’s right! So you had fun too, right, Aria?”

“…yeah.” Her face beams at me as she hears this.

“Okay then! Let’s make this the best day ever as soon as we get home! Come on! Let’s go!” For some reason, she becomes extremely excited, and starts sprinting ahead. Raina and I chase after her, and I notice an excited expression on Raina’s face as well. This was something I rarely seen so now I was really confused on what was going on. When we finally arrived at my house, the lights were off, and my parents weren’t home.

“Here we are! There’s something special waiting for you inside, Aria!” Thoth pushes me forward, through the front gate.

“We’re right behind you.” Raina says something that I found slightly ominous, but she probably meant it with good will.

I walk to the front door, and pull out a pair of keys I was given after the [Fall Tournament], my parents allowing me to leave freely after knowing I can definitely defend myself. I found this entire situation strange, though. Normally, my parents would never be both out of the house this late into the evening without telling me. Also, all the lights would never be out.

When I put my key into the lock, I find that it’s already unlocked. Did someone break in while my parents were out? Or were they attacked!? Immediately, I open the door and charge in, only to have the lights turned on immediately, and my parents standing at the front door with a  two layer vanilla cake in hand. Confetti is fired at me, and balloons filled the hall.

“Happy Birthday Aria!” Everyone around me yelled.

“…eh?” What’s happening now?

“Haha, you forgot, didn’t you? I knew this would happened, so I decided to throw you a surprise party!” Thoth said with a triumphant look.

“…I thought of the beach idea.” Raina added.

So this was all planned out for me? I’m honestly surprised, because I’ve never had something like this happened to me before. In my previous life, due to my nature, I never had anyone to celebrate it with. After I left to start adventuring, my day of birth had been forgotten. Ever since my reincarnation, my parents always celebrated it every year so far. This time, I had my two closest friends here, with my parents.

“...ah… thank you…” I whisper to them.

“Aw, dear, don’t thank us! It’s only natural for us to do this for you, right, you little adorable angel!” My mother says and comes to hug me.

“Pfft, you’re my friend now! Of course I’ll celebrate your birthday!” Thoth says to me.

“...same with me.” The white haired girl says.

“Come on, blow the candles out!” My dad urges me. After I do so, the four people around me starts clapping and cheering out. Other than my dad, of course, who’s holding the cake.

“I’m going to cut the cake in the kitchen, so all of you go to the dining room, alright?” My dad says, leaving with the cake. My mother brings us to the dining room, and inside, it was filled with banners and more balloons for my birthday celebration. This was probably the biggest one they’ve thrown for me so far.

“So, how was the beach?” My mother asks.

“You should’ve seen Aria! She was so hot in the swimsuit I gave her!” Thoth immediately says to her.

“…I got pictures.” Raina says something scary.

“When?” I immediately ask. I didn’t see a camera on her at all.

“Secret~” She replies while holding a finger to her mouth.

We talk about our trip to the beach, until my dad arrived with the cake. It was cut evenly into 12 pieces, four which are handed out to us. Thoth and Raina left after that, and I was sent to bed due to how late it was. My parents came into my room though, just as I was about to sleep, and sat on my bedside.

“Hey there, little princess.” My dad says to me.

“You know, it’s been nearly three years since you were blessed. After that, it’s been miracles after miracles. It makes us overjoyed as your parents that you’re growing up so well, and so strong. So I want to ask you now, what do you want to do when you grow up?” He says with a serious look on his face.

“No matter what you pick, we’ll go along with it dear.” My mother was in her rare, calm mood today. It shows how much they’ve been thinking about this.

“…adventurer.” It was pretty obvious that I was going to choose this, and it looks like they were expecting it as well.

“…thought so. Then in that case, we’ll help out!” My mother suddenly says out loud, all signs of  the calm mood gone.

“…huh?” What was she going to do exactly?

“We’ve told you before, right? We were both former adventurers! That means, we can help you with the education you receive from school, and you’ll become the best human adventurer ever existed!” She explains with an excited look in her eyes.

“Basically, we’ll support in your magic and gun training. From what we’ve seen, you’re interested in both subjects, right? Honestly, I truly believe you’re going to be stronger than anyone else out there. But it’s up to you to choose what do you want to do with that power.” He rubs my head, and I sit there in silence, listening.

“Well then! That’s how it will be! We’re going to help with your training, so you’re going to accept it as our daughter!” Showing a peace sign, she smiles at me happily.

“…thanks.” I say to them.

“What’re you thanking us for? It’s only natural that we’ll do anything we can to help our cute little angel!” My mother leaps onto me and begins cuddling me.

“You know, now that I think about it, it’s been a long time since we’ve read you a story.” My dad says.

“Ah that’s right! Then, tonight, we’re going to read you a bedtime story Aria! What would you like?”

“…Alice in Wonderland.” I say to them. It was my favorite fairy tale from this era. In particular, I was interested in the ‘Mad Hatter.’

“The usual, huh? I expected this, so I already bought the book with me. Let’s begin, shall we?” My father nudges closer on my bedside, while my mother laid next to me while hugging me.

“Once upon a time…” My father begins, and the story of Alice was told.

That night, I slept peacefully. Currently, I’m in my early years of my new life, and it has its ups and downs. For now, I’ll be training myself for my future, to roam around and find something interesting to do. With all these events happening on the way, it lead me to discover things I’ve never had before.

In this life, I have a family that loves me unconditionally.

In this life, I actually have friends I can be close to.

In this life, I have a brighter future than ever.

With this, I’ll step forward feverishly into what fate has to offer to me. Whether it’s allies that have strange quirks to them, or dangerous situations that can possibly kill the people I’m close to, I’ll forcefully turn it to my benefit. Right now, I’m just here to live my new life the way I want to.

Over 2,000 years ago, the story of the hero, Thoth, ended. Now, the story of Aria, will begin.