Aren awoke, and all he saw around him was white. There was no light, and there was no shadow. There was a single being that stood over him, eyes seeming to glow.
“Conscious?” The being spoke. Arin could decipher nothing more than the words from the voice. He could not tell if it was male or female. It held great force, but at the same time, it was soft, gentle – as if it were handling a single dewdrop upon a piece of hot steel, into which it swung a great hammer. The voice held as much youthful energy as it held fatigue and decay, it held as much emotion as it was blank.
[The hell…] Aren thought, unable to move his mouth.
“I am… what your limited vocabulary would label as a god.” The figure responded.
[Hah? Is this a joke?] His face contorted into a skeptical, almost angry expression as he looked up at the silhouette.
“I’m not lying. It was my mistake for burdening you so greatly.” The ‘god’ responded, the voice’s indecipherability seemed to convey some sort of guilt.
Aren couldn’t even laugh. This had to have been some sort of joke. His eyes narrowed, attempting to see into that slightly humanoid figure, the only darkness in whatever this place was, but couldn’t.
“If you think you were just going to have some stupid, unsatisfying end like that, I pity you. Even more so if you hoped for such a thing.” It spoke, returning to its enigmatic original state.
[Let the dead rest.] Aren immediately responded.
The voice sighed, the shadow retreating. “Alright, I will say it outright. It’s entirely my fault that you had to go through what you did. It may be selfish of me, but I refuse to have your blood on my hands.”
[It is selfish. Let me sleep.]
Immediately as Aren responded, it returned another remark, evidently ignoring him. “I’ve decided. I’m going to send you somewhere. It may be the same plot these guys read all the time in reincarnation stories, but it’ll diverge at some point. Now then, it is in my power to grant you whatever you wish going into this next world. I will not force your rebirth, but will rebuild your current body there. I’m sure the results will be satisfactory.”
Aren had never been bad looking, nor had he ever been overweight. He always maintained himself, as he never had the drive or the means to do anything else. [Anything?]
“If it is within my power.”
[In that case, just make it so that anything is possible.]
“Is that it?” The being seemed surprised.
[If I can do anything, then there is no worry about my value. I will not be irreparable, nor will I ever be worthless, as long as I work hard. To be able to immediately or rapidly surpass everyone else would be boring. It may just be self-assurance, but if it’s possible for me to have no limits, then that is all I want.]
There was a long pause, as though the strange being was deliberating.
“…So, you want to be a human?”
[? No. That’s not what I said, I sa-]
“This is what the human race was created for. In the weakness of the human race are infinite different kinds of potential. All you need in order to be the greatest is to first be the weakest, the raw potential from which everything is drawn. In a way, you just asked to be you.”
[Huh…] Aren stopped and thought to himself for a few minutes, the god deciding not to pry. [Alright. If you’re so insistent on this, then go ahead and send me. Perhaps all I needed was to hear that from someone with actual authority.]
“Satisfactory.” The shadows spoke for the last time before they enveloped all that Aren saw. Everything became black, and the shadow thought to itself.
“I should definitely erase his memory, lest he fall into despair or hate those around him. After that, let’s see… I definitely can’t just throw him there with no compensation, so I’ll make him luckier, maybe make his face a bit easier on the eyes. Not too much so – he won’t cope well with too much attention with no experience. So, hmm… Perfect. Off you go.
Aren watched as his history flashed before his eyes, faster than he could process. Within minutes he had gone through 17 years, and he was left with nothing, not even his own thoughts. They were in a language he no longer understood, in a tone he had never heard.
Everything disappeared.
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Aren sat up, and realized that the place he was now laying in was a crater of flame and dirt. All around him were scattered bits of pulverized rock, and some blood covered the ground – none of it his. He looked down and saw clothing he didn’t recognize – well, pants he didn’t recognize. His shirt had been ripped into ribbons, and probably incinerated.
Unable to and unwilling to comprehend the phenomenon, he stood up. He was entirely unscathed other than a scar that ran from his left pectoral muscle to his right hip. Unsteadily, slowly, he put one foot in front of the other, staggering his way out of the newly made, rather warm clearing.
Before he knew it, all around him was green. There were oddly shaped leaves at his ankles, the blades of grass slightly stiff. A warm breeze blew past him, and as he admired the altitude and variety of the trees, the temperature of the warm breeze at his back escalated.
He turned around, and instinctively muttered. “Well, I’m fucked.”
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The temperature rapidly rose in the forest, and an intolerably bright light could be seen not too far away, and pitch-black smoke followed suit.
“Hurry!” A voice called. Five people dashed across the forest at a speed no human on Earth could even hope to obtain. The one who shouted out was slightly shorter than the rest – a girl, no older than 15, led the mad dash, her long, almost luminescent silver hair trailing behind her. Her gray eyes narrowed as she saw the flame, and she sped up. What seemed to be nothing more than a refined stick bounced on her back. Of course, what could be noticed was that there was more that was bouncing than that.
“We get it, Lotte, just don’t push yourself.” One of the other four responded. He was incredibly light on his feet, despite the needlessly shiny, engraved, likely unwieldy silver-blue armor that covered most of his body. As they approached, he unsheathed his weapon – a pure black longsword with a curved edge, its hue perfectly matching his hair.
The fire had long stopped, replaced by smoke. As they approached, the layer of darkness became deeper and heavier. Lotte coughed, slowing down.
“Oi, don’t stop now. You’re the one who told us to hurry, right?” Another one of them said. Despite the haze, his hair didn’t lose its bright orange hue. He grinned back over his shoulder as the party continued forward.
“Oh, shut it, Telor. I was just caught by surprise.” She retorted, putting a thin white cloth over her mouth.
Within a few meters, the smoke was no longer present – it only formed a ring around what they found. In front of them was a massive creature. It was at least eight meters long, its slit golden eyes looking forward from its angled face to what was in front of it. It bashed its tail against the ground, folding its teal wings.
A Drake.
The drake was a Rank 12 monster capable of ripping apart its prey with long, serrated teeth, and shooting fire strong enough to burn a human body black all the way through. In short, it was quite dangerous.
“Erlend, distract it!” Lotte called out before rushing into action, unsheathing a moderately wide flat-bladed sword.
“Got it!” Erlend returned, running straight towards the Drake’s mouth. This may have seemed like a bad plan, but Erlend happened to be a Rank 14 Knight, and if such a thing as this defeated him, they had encountered an Anomaly and were all screwed anyway.
Telor got into position, and his dim blue eyes looked as though a drop of dye fell through his irises. Crimson pigment flowed into his eyes, and as soon as they went fully red, his hand glowed. From it shot a concentrated beam, straight at the left eye of the beast. The orange color of the beam changed to dark red, and eventually dispersed in a show of flame, but not before dealing some damage. The defensive eyelid of the Drake had been melted through completely, and the eye within completely exploded. This was a Rank 13 spell aptly known as Flame Concentrator.
Lotte dashed in with her sword, bending her knees and standing on the balls of her feet, eyes narrowing as she crouched. She lunged upward, stabbing into the gap between two scales, tearing them from the beast’s body. Ignoring its cries of agony, protest, and fury, she stabbed the sword into the exposed soft flesh, ending the drake’s life immediately.
The very one-sided fight was over within 15 seconds, before the Drake even had a chance to respond. One could probably see their cohesion as an elite group even if they were blind.
However, a situation in which one could not see their cohesion as aforementioned elite group was the case in which one would have their entire back half charred and burned and be unconscious due to sudden onset of intense heat. Such was the condition of Aren, who felt the source of this comfortable warm wind he had caught.
At such a convenient time, the group noticed him. Lotte immediately dashed over, putting two fingers to his neck. She paused for a second, and sighed in relief. “He’s alive.” However, she immediately switched gears. “Erlend, carry him.”
“Hah? Why me?” Erlend responded, annoyance in his voice. “You’re the one who saw him first. You carry him.”
“Stop with your foolish quibbles and someone, pick up the poor guy. He’ll probably be annoyed if he gets wind of the fact that you two argued over who didn’t have to carry him. I mean, look at the beanpole. He can’t be that heavy.” A new voice resounded through the immediate area of the forest. Its source was none other than a man in a white and gold robe, holding his hand at his forehead as if he were dealing with a particularly bad headache (which, in a way, he was).
““You didn’t do anything, so you carry him, Solas!”” Lotte and Erlend shouted at him in unison.
Solas took the effort to walk over to the nearest tree, which was about a foot away, and swing his head into the trunk out of frustration.
Author's Note
Spoiler :
Hi, Tortellini here! I write this. Surprise, huh?
Well, this is kind of a greeting, I guess? Hi. This novel has nothing to do with Aren's previous life, I'll tell you that now. The prologue intentionally glazed over the view of his life - it's the same thing he sees. Now that I've said that, this is the first chapter! I hope you enjoy it. You'll get all that boring as hell exposition and information later. Chapters will probably be about 2k words every 1-3 days.
Until next time!
-The Author of this Currently Useless Novel