REVENGE OF ASHES AND SHADOWS

REVENGE OF ASHES AND SHADOWS: I Woke Up as a Frail Boy in a Ruthless Fantasy World; The System Granted Me Power That Would Make Even Dragons Jealous, But I Couldn't Protect the Ones I Loved!

The only source of light in the pitch-black room was the pale blue glow of the laptop screen resting on the desk. Displayed on the monitor was a digital graveyard of an endless string of rejections: "Thank you for your application, however... Your interview was unsuccessful... We have chosen a more experienced candidate for the current position..." The cold luminescence radiating from the screen cast harsh shadows on the exhausted face of the young man sitting at the desk, accentuating the deep, purple bags beneath his eyes. Akira. A twenty-three-year-old, ordinary young man whose dreams had been ground to dust between the gears of the system. His hair was a disheveled mess, uncombed for days. As he let out a profound sigh, his shoulders slumped as if bearing the weight of the entire world.

"If this life is a game..." he muttered to himself, his voice raspy and utterly devoid of life. "It's an absolutely bug-ridden, trash-tier game."

The city's neon lights filtering through the window merged with the raindrops pelting the glass, casting warped, grotesque shadows across the walls of his room. That was exactly what his life had become: a distorted, blurred, and ever-darkening shadow. The fairy tales of a bright future fed to him upon graduating from university had been violently replaced by a ruthless struggle for survival. Waking up at the exact same hour every morning, drinking the exact same coffee, and attending job interviews with the exact same fabricated smile. Yet, the outcome never changed.

Bzzzt!

His phone suddenly vibrated, lighting up the darkness. A notification from his bank. His eyes involuntarily drifted to the digits on the screen. A negative balance. Credit card debts, unpaid rent, overdue bills... The invisible monster suffocating the country—inflation—was no different from a colossal dragon swallowing fresh graduates like him whole. With each passing day, the value of money melted away, the price tags on supermarket shelves changing as if mocking his very existence. He wasn't just unemployed anymore; he was bankrupt in every sense of the word. Even the faint jingle of the last few coins in his pocket served only as a bitter reminder of just how pathetic his situation was.

Akira slowly rose from his chair. His legs had gone numb from hours of remaining motionless. Dragging his feet, he approached the window and rested his forehead against the freezing glass. Outside, he stared at the sea of people rushing by beneath their umbrellas. His gaze was hollow, completely drained of life—mirroring the dead, lightless eyes of a character who had been stripped of all hope.

"This is it," he whispered, his breath leaving a patch of fog on the glass pane. "I have nothing left to hold onto."

Just then, a biting, icy wind slipped through the crack in the window, sweeping the stack of job applications off the desk and scattering them across the floor. The howling of the wind felt like a cruel taunt. Despair had coiled within his chest, heavy and consuming as a black hole. He turned his back to the window and headed toward the door. If he stayed in this cramped, suffocating room for even one more second, he felt like he would asphyxiate. He didn't know where he would go or what he would do, but he had to get out.

The moment his hand grasped the doorknob, he paused, a nameless void gnawing at his stomach. Was the only thing waiting for him on the streets just wet pavement and ruthless reality? Or...? He slowly pressed the handle down and took his first step into the dark corridor.

As he pushed the door open and stepped into the gloomy hallway, the familiar, suffocating stench of dampness and stale food assaulted his senses. The broken fluorescent light overhead flickered, buzzing like a dying insect—Bzzzt!—casting his shadow in a spastic dance of lengthening and shrinking silhouettes. He dragged his feet toward the stairs. The elevator had been broken for weeks; the only thing that actually functioned in this decrepit building was the landlord's merciless rent collection at the start of every month.

Descending the stairs at an agonizingly slow pace, it felt as though invisible shackles were locked around his ankles. He pushed open the building's front door and stepped out. The freezing night frost immediately pierced his thin jacket. The sky was pouring as if torn wide open, desperately attempting to wash away the city's filth in a futile effort. The sickly yellow glow of the streetlamps reflected off the murky puddles pooling on the wet asphalt.

Akira shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders tightly. Raindrops trickled down from his disheveled hair, streaming down his cheeks as if the sky were weeping in his stead. He watched the people rushing past him. A crowd hiding beneath colorful umbrellas, heads bowed, footsteps hurried... They were exactly like soulless NPCs in a colossal RPG, never deviating from their programmed paths.

They all have somewhere to go, he thought. His eyes held the cold, empty void of a true kuudere, an emotionless, bottomless abyss. A warm home, a family waiting for them, a job to wake up to tomorrow... The only things I possess are a sub-zero bank account and the doors the system keeps slamming in my face.

He stopped in front of a storefront window. On a massive screen inside, models with flawless, manufactured smiles danced in luxurious garments. The price tag displayed right below the screen was equivalent to Akira's grocery budget for three whole months. He stared at his own silhouette reflected in the glass: slumped shoulders, dead eyes, a defeated man. This city, this world, was a colossal meat grinder that pulverized the weak, and he was already being crushed between its gears.

The cacophony of the street—the honking of cars and the frantic buzzing of the crowd—suddenly began to echo violently inside his skull. He was suffocating. Remaining at ground level, standing face-to-face with this brutal reality was stealing his breath. He slowly tilted his head back. He looked up at the peaks of the skyscrapers mingling with the rain clouds—towering concrete spears thrust into the dark heart of the night.

"When you've hit rock bottom," he muttered through cracked lips, "there's only one direction left to go."

He abruptly pivoted on his heel. Escaping the suffocating throng of the street, he retreated to the dark, narrow stairwell of his own apartment building. But this time, he wasn't going down. He was going up.

First floor... Second floor... Third floor... His breathing hitched, the muscles in his legs burning. Yet, he didn't stop. With every step he climbed, a memory echoed in his mind.

Thud. "We are sorry, but you do not meet our qualifications."

Thud. "Your credit card debt has been forwarded to legal collections."

Thud. "Everyone your age has built a life for themselves, what exactly are you doing?"

Sixth floor... Eighth floor... Tenth floor... His chest heaved like a bellows, his heart hammering violently against his ribs as if trying to shatter them. Finally, he reached the top floor, the absolute summit of the building, and stopped. Standing before him was a heavy, rusted iron door. Across its surface, painted in faded red letters, were the words: 'No Access'.

Akira slowly reached out his trembling hand and gripped the freezing metal handle. He threw his entire weight onto it and shoved it down. The rusted hinges let out an ear-piercing shriek.

Screech!

The moment the door cracked open, the freezing storm outside invaded the stairwell like a ravenous beast. The violent gale whipped his wet hair back savagely, causing his thin jacket to flap like a tattered flag. Squinting against the wind, Akira took a step forward, his shoes planting onto the wet, coarse concrete of the rooftop. The city stretched out beneath his feet like an endless, ruthless ocean, glittering with millions of trembling lights. The pitch-black night and the howling of the storm stood ready to embrace him.

He slowly began to walk toward the edge of the roof, toward that fatal void. The wind called out to him, a whispering siren luring him to his end. But right at that moment, cutting through the darkness behind him and drowning out even the roaring rain, a strange, metallic chime rang out...

Chime!

In the exact millisecond that the sharp, metallic chime echoed against the walls of his mind, the breath of the universe caught.

A massive raindrop hurled by the storm, merely a millimeter away from striking Akira's cheek, froze in mid-air. It wasn't just that single drop; the thousands of raindrops suspended in the sky had transformed into countless glass spheres. The ferocious howling of the wind that had been whipping his jacket was sliced cleanly like a blade, and the endless, chaotic roaring of the city below was instantly silenced. The blinking lights of neon signs were trapped in a single frame, and a fluttering piece of paper hung suspended in the air, defying gravity.

Time had, in the most literal sense, stopped.

Right behind him, a beam of light filtering from the pitch-black corners of the rooftop tore through the fabric of the night like a sheet of paper. This wasn't the feeble yellow of an ordinary streetlamp or the artificial glare of the city; it was a blinding, pure, and divine light. It was so intense it threatened to scorch his retinas right through his closed eyelids, as if a higher-dimensional entity had forcefully ripped a fissure into this world.

And then came the sound. Rising from the epicenter of that divine light, a deep, vibrating hum resonated—a sound akin to the echoing chorus of a colossal church intertwined with the groaning of an ancient being. The sound flowed not into his ears, but directly into his mind, seeping into the most vulnerable cracks of his soul.

An invisible, gargantuan hand seized Akira's heart. The breath caught in his throat; his ribcage shuddered with an agonizing pain, feeling as though it were about to shatter. The indescribable, suffocating spiritual pressure enveloped him, piling tons of weight onto his shoulders. His pupils shrank in shock and dread, etching the classic, terrified expression of a doomed protagonist onto his face. Whatever entity lurked behind him, it was warping reality itself and crushing his mortal vessel.

He could have turned to look. He could have faced the source of that almighty, sacred light, becoming part of something miraculous for the first time in his monotonous, brutal life. Perhaps this was the salvation he had been waiting for.

But the colossal void within him, that exhausted soul ground to dust between the gears of the system, was heavier than anything else. Even the terrifying majesty brought forth by the light wasn't enough to illuminate the dark despair gnawing at his mind. His face settled into the dull, tragic, and utterly emotionless expression of a true kuudere. A bitter, almost mocking smirk touched his lips.

If this is a 'Game Over' screen... he thought to himself, ...they really overdid the graphics.

And with the very last shred of control he held over his body, turning his back on that divine light and the heart-shattering hum, he surrendered himself from the edge of the roof into the arms of the frozen, silent, and endless void. The moment his feet left the concrete, he began to plummet toward the city suspended outside of time, descending into a surreal dimension where even gravity had lost its function. As the light behind him attempted to swallow him whole, he fell toward his own darkness.

His eyes were squeezed tightly shut. He waited for gravity to ruthlessly yank him down to the wet, freezing asphalt. The phenomenon the Japanese called soumatou—his life flashing before his eyes—was projecting against the walls of his mind at that very moment. But there were no beautiful memories glowing in this lantern.

Dark scenes flickered relentlessly behind his eyelids: the blaring of that cursed alarm in the dead of morning, the bland taste of cheap instant ramen burning his throat, the fake, condescending smiles of the HR specialists sitting across from him in interviews... "We'll be in touch," those lying lips had said. The nauseating churn in his stomach whenever he looked at his credit card statements. These were the broken, shattered fragments of a twenty-three-year-old ordinary, colorless, and utterly failed life.

It's ending, Akira thought. The voice in his head carried a morbid sense of relief rather than despair. He was counting down the seconds, the milliseconds, waiting to feel the hard, bone-crushing kiss of the asphalt. One... Two... Three...

But the awaited end never came.

The sudden, violent sensation of plummeting in his stomach slowly began to shift. There was no deafening roar of the wind. Instead of crashing to the ground like a stone, his body met a bizarre resistance, as if he were gliding underwater in slow motion. That heavy, suffocating grip of reality was replaced by an indescribable lightness. The invisible weight of the world on his shoulders... was completely erased.

Akira furrowed his brows. His heartbeat began to accelerate once more in the face of this bizarre anomaly.

"Is this thing called death... supposed to take this long?" he muttered through cracked lips. The moment the words left his mouth, they faded away, strangely devoid of any echo.

Gathering his courage, he slowly parted his tightly squeezed eyelids.

What he expected was that gloomy night sky filled with frozen raindrops, or the neon lights of the city rushing up to meet him. But the sight that greeted him was surreal enough to shatter the very limits of his mind's perception.

There was no city. There was no rain. Clouds, concrete buildings, apartments... None of it existed.

Surrounding him was a darkness so colossal, bottomless, and boundless that the human mind would struggle to comprehend it. Yet, this wasn't a suffocating or blinding darkness. It was as if he were suspended in the heart of deep space, right in the middle of a cosmic ocean where galaxies trillions of light-years away and nebula clouds of purple, navy blue, and golden yellow gently undulated. Bright stardust drifted past his eyes like a dream.

Like a fallen leaf, Akira continued to slowly, weightlessly plummet downward through this endless sea of stars—if the concept of 'down' even existed here.

Even his innate kuudere indifference shattered into a million pieces before this spectacle. His eyes widened in astonishment, his breath hitching.

"Where... am I?"

He tried to grasp the air with his hands, kicking his legs, but in this zero-gravity environment, he could do nothing but slowly rotate on his own axis like an astronaut.

This wasn't a dream. His mind was clearer than it had ever been, his senses operating with unprecedented sharpness. He could feel that cosmic chill brushing against his skin, that divine lightness swelling within his chest.

However, this mesmerizing and terrifying descent did not last long.

As he continued to drift through the deep, silent darkness of eternity, he realized something colossal was beginning to take shape directly beneath him—something entirely antithetical to the fabric of this cosmic void. Stardust gathered together, the darkness of space warped, and emerging from it, staring directly into Akira's soul, large enough to blanket the entire sky was...

Fzzt!

The deep darkness of the cosmic ocean and the stardust drifting around him suddenly collapsed inward and vanished, exactly like an old CRT television being unplugged. Following that transition—which lasted less than the blink of an eye—Akira was forced to squeeze his eyes shut against the crushing radiance enveloping him.

He was no longer falling.

He was standing dead center in a pure white void where it was impossible to tell if gravity even existed, a place utterly devoid of borders, walls, ceilings, or floors. This was a cosmic room completely stripped of detail, extending quite literally into infinity. There was no sensation of hard concrete or dirt beneath his feet; he was standing on sheer nothingness, yet he wasn't falling. Around him, dense layers of silver mist undulated sluggishly, giving the illusion of walking on clouds. There was absolutely no sound inside the space; the howling of the wind from moments ago, the maddening cacophony of the metropolis—it was as if all of it had been erased for eternity.

Holding his breath, Akira slowly turned around. His eyes searched for a single object to anchor onto, a single trace of color, but everywhere was comprised of that blinding, pure whiteness.

So... I finally died, he thought to himself. The thought echoing in his mind didn't bring the horrifying dread he had expected, but rather, a bizarre sense of acceptance.

The corner of his lips curled upward in that signature, indifferent kuudere smirk. "Is this all there is to the so-called afterlife? I suppose I was right about religions being full of it."

However, his fabricated apathy was shattered into a million pieces the moment the clouds of mist surrounding him were abruptly cleaved in two by an unseen wind.

As the mist parted to either side with the grace and reverence of a theater curtain, a silhouette materialized in the dead center of the pure white void. This was an indescribable entity that pushed the very boundaries of human comprehension. Her facial features, garments, or intricate details couldn't be discerned; her body glowed as if woven from solid gold and pure light. Yet, even within that ambiguity, the sheer nobility in her stance and the crushing, sacred aura she radiated were powerful enough to make Akira's knees buckle.

It was a Goddess. She was the absolute, unreachable, and flawless being depicted in all those fantasy anime and isekai tales. Even without visible details, just her elegant posture, her radiant hair billowing in the void, and the mind-bending beauty she exuded held the absolute power to leave a mere mortal spellbound—or even drive them utterly mad—with a single glance. Akira's throat went bone dry; his breath caught in his chest.

The cynical young man from moments ago had vanished, replaced by a helpless mortal frozen in awe before a divine miracle.

Then, the voice echoed.

It didn't reverberate in the physical space. It flowed directly into Akira's mind, into the deepest recesses of his heart, into his bruised and battered soul. It sounded like a thousand harps being plucked in unison—a voice as warm as a mother's embrace, yet as authoritative as the sovereign of a universe.

"My little one..."

That single utterance violently shook the twenty-three years of accumulated exhaustion resting upon Akira's shoulders.

The Goddess's silhouette leaned forward slightly, as if taking pity on him. Though her face was obscured by the light, Akira could feel her gazing directly into the darkest, most desolate corners of his soul.

"I saw it all..." the divine voice continued, echoing within his mind. "I watched your silent war amidst the cold concrete, how your hopes were stripped from you one by one, how you were pulverized between the ruthless gears of the system. Your life was spent paying the bitter price for endless misfortunes and the mistakes of others."

Akira's eyes welled up involuntarily. The thick walls around the desperate child he had buried deep inside, hidden from the world for years, began to fracture at a single sentence from this divine entity. Slowly, the Goddess extended her hand of light toward him. Stardust cascading from her fingertips faded into the mist.

"Your story in that monotonous, cruel world ended on that rooftop, Akira," the Goddess declared, her tone now ringing with resolute promise. "But I see the stubborn, unyielding fire within your soul. Therefore... I shall grant you a second chance."

Akira's pupils dilated. His heart began to hammer like a war drum within the silent cosmic room.

"To you..."

The light radiating from the Goddess's outstretched hand suddenly intensified, filling the entire room and enveloping Akira's body. The wind howled violently as the surrounding mist spun into a frenzied vortex.

Shatter!

The absolute, blinding light emitted by the Goddess abruptly fractured like shattered glass, instantly replaced by a warm, viscous, pitch-black darkness.

The absolute silence of the cosmic room was gone, replaced by a rhythmic, muffled thumping.

Thump... Thump... Thump... A heartbeat. But it wasn't his. The warm, confined space surrounding him suddenly began to contract, mercilessly pushing him toward a faint glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel. From the outside, muffled yet frantic sounds reached him, as if he were submerged underwater. A cry of agony, followed by the heavy panting and groans of a woman, and another voice urging her on...

"Just a little more! He's coming, the head is visible!"

Before Akira could even process what was happening, he felt himself slip from the warm fluid enveloping him and plummet out into the freezing, biting air.

The very first breath of oxygen to fill his lungs was so searing that he wanted to open his mouth and scream, "What the hell is going on?!" Yet, what spilled from his lips were not words, but a piercing, top-of-his-lungs wail of an infant that echoed through the room.

"Waaaaah! Waaaaaaah!"

What? What happened to my voice? he thought to himself. His voice sounded so alien, so minuscule to his own ears that he was struck with sheer terror. His eyelids felt as if they were glued shut. When he forced them open, the world around him was entirely a blur. Giant figures were rushing frantically around him. Massive, rough hands gently scooped him up and swaddled him in a warm, coarsely woven cloth.

As his vision began to clear seconds later, the first things to assault his nose were the scents of wet earth, burning wood, and the acrid, throat-burning stench of boiling medicinal herbs. Directly above his head was not the flat, soulless ceiling of a modern apartment; it was a rustic roof constructed from thick, unhewn wooden logs. The space was not illuminated by neon lights or fluorescent tubes, but by the flickering, orange glow of a fire crackling in a stone hearth. This was no hospital. This was a wooden cabin straight out of the Middle Ages, leagues away from civilization and the concrete jungles of the city.

Instinctively, Akira tried to move his arms. When he looked at what entered his field of vision, it felt as though he had been shot through the brain.

His hands...

Those twenty-three-year-old hands, calloused from endlessly typing up job applications and trembling as they signed debt notes, were gone. In their place were two tiny, chubby, pink, and perfectly smooth baby hands. He opened and closed his fingers. The infant hands mirrored the exact same motion.

The rusted gears in the deepest recesses of his mind began to spin at a terrifying speed. Baby hands... A wooden ceiling... The fire in the hearth... That second chance the Goddess had spoken of...

Impossible... he thought to himself. If he had control over a body right now, he would have collapsed from sheer astonishment. This... this is exactly it! The exact same thing that happens to the main characters in all those fantasy isekai anime I've watched my whole life! I've reincarnated! I've been reborn!

In that instant, the black hole in his chest, the heavy depression that had been siphoning his soul for twenty-three years, evaporated into thin air. A pure, untamed, and feral excitement—unlike anything he had ever tasted before—began to sprout within him.

No rent! No bank debts! No inflation, no unemployment, no condescending HR managers, no sickening stench of the subway... NONE OF IT!

The jaded kuudere youth within him had died, replaced by an otaku with stars sparkling in his eyes. A massive, almost demonic grin—as much as a baby's face could muster—spread across his face. If this was a fantasy world, he absolutely had to have some kind of cheat skill, a status screen, or a hidden power!

Status! Open Menu! Inventory! he shouted in his mind, but nothing happened yet. So be it! Just being free from that damn modern world was a cheat in and of itself!

Just then, the elderly midwife holding him slowly carried Akira, swaddled in cloth, toward the bed. Lying there was a young woman, her hair plastered to her face with sweat, exhausted, yet wearing a tender smile that would make angels jealous. His new mother.

"Congratulations," the midwife said. The language she used was archaic and strange, yet Akira could directly comprehend the meaning of the words in his mind. This must be that classic auto-translation skill! "It's a very healthy baby boy."

With trembling hands, his mother took Akira into her arms. That warm touch made Akira feel the pure love he had long forgotten in the modern world down to his very marrow.

However, Akira's eyes were drawn not so much to his mother's face, but to a massive figure that suddenly burst into the room. The wooden door creaked open, and a man stepped inside—a man whose shoulders were too broad for the doorframe, wearing armor-like clothing made of leather and coarse fabrics, his face covered in scars. This had to be his new father. The man's imposing appearance was impressive enough, but that wasn't what truly took Akira's breath away.

As his father sprinted toward the bed... as that colossal man dropped to his rough knees and took his mother's hand, Akira's eyes continued to search the air for something. His mind was brimming with the expectations built from years of consuming isekai anime. He was waiting for a floating, magical fairy, a glowing sword, or at the very least, a blue, translucent 'Status Window' to materialize before his eyes. But nothing happened. There was only a giant man reeking of soot, sweat, and blood, shedding silent tears as he gazed at his tiny newborn son.

Days chased weeks, and weeks chased months.

Being trapped in the body of an infant—possessing the mind of a twenty-three-year-old adult yet unable to even control his own muscles, with no choice but to cry when he soiled himself... His initial euphoria had slowly given way to anxiety. What if this wasn't one of those fantasy worlds brimming with magic, where dragons soared through the skies? What if he had just been reborn in the Middle Ages, in a world of swords and mud, destined to hoe fields and die of the plague in his twenties?

As far as he could observe, there was absolutely nothing extraordinary around him. His mother sang the same lullabies while rocking him in his wooden crib, and his father would shoulder his massive axe every morning and head into the forest to chop wood. The only scent filling the room was the bitter aroma of the medicinal herbs his mother boiled. There was no magic. There were no magical beasts. There was only an ordinary, primitive rural life consumed by the struggle for survival.

Until that winter night.

Outside, the wind howled like a wolf, shaking the thick wooden walls of the mountain cabin. Akira was bundled up in thick sheepskins inside his crib, lost in thought as usual. His father entered through the door, shaking off the snow that had piled on his shoulders. The inside of the room was freezing; the fire in the hearth had long since died out, leaving behind nothing but feeble, gray ashes.

The man approached the hearth with heavy steps. Akira watched him through the wooden bars of the crib. His mind automatically reasoned, Now he's going to pull out his flint and tinder and struggle for minutes. Starting a fire in this primitive world was absolute torture in itself.

But his father didn't reach for his belt or his pocket. Instead, he raised his massive, calloused right hand. He pointed his thick index finger toward the dry oak logs.

In that instant, the breath caught in Akira's throat. He felt a bizarre ripple in the fabric of the air. It was as if the atmosphere in the room had grown heavy for a split second, an invisible pressure causing a slight ringing in his ears. At the tip of his father's finger, a tiny beam of light appeared—first crimson, then orange, and finally settling into a pure yellow. The light transformed into a crackling spark in the air, and then into a ball of flame the size of a walnut.

The man said nothing; he merely nudged his finger forward slightly. The ball of flame, as if tethered to an invisible string, glided through the air and dove into the logs. Within seconds, the dead hearth roared to life with a fierce, hot fire that illuminated the entire cabin.

Akira's world within his crib stopped at that moment.

His pupils dilated, trembling with the shock of what he had just witnessed. His mouth fell open slightly. The jaded adult within him was completely wiped away, replaced by the pure, unadulterated ecstasy of an otaku glued to a screen.

M-Magic... he screamed in his mind. His heart began to pound with a frantic rhythm, Thump! Thump! Thump!, as if it were going to shatter his tiny ribcage and burst out. He could feel his blood boiling in his veins. That wasn't an illusion! There was no flint and tinder! He literally used magic! If even that gruff, lumberjack-looking man can do it... There is magic in this world!

Gripping the bars of his crib tightly with his two chubby hands, he pulled himself up slightly. The orange reflections of the fire danced in his sparkling, thrill-filled baby eyes. If this was an isekai story and he was the main character... then the very same power had to be coursing through his veins!

Akira took a deep breath. He plastered an incredibly serious expression onto his face—far too resolute for a baby, almost as fiercely ambitious as a shounen protagonist. He raised his right hand, exactly as his father had done. He extended his trembling, chubby, tiny index finger into the empty air.

He squeezed his eyes shut with every ounce of his being, straining to sense that 'invisible energy,' that ripple in the air that had made the atmosphere turn heavy moments ago.

Come on... he whispered in the silent corridors of his mind, channeling his entire focus toward the tip of his finger. If I've been granted a second chance, it wasn't to be some nobody! Burn! Come on, ignite!

But nothing happened.

The only source of light in the room remained the flickering orange radiance from the hearth his father had roared to life with a single flick of his wrist seconds ago. At the tip of Akira's tiny, chubby finger, there was no fireball, no mystic energy warping the air, not even a pathetic spark. As he slowly opened his eyes, the serious, resolute expression of a shounen protagonist was replaced by one of tragicomic disappointment. His ecstatic otaku heart felt as if it had been pulverized by an invisible sledgehammer. The fire of his anticipation was unceremoniously snuffed out.

Yet, he didn't surrender. After all, he was a reincarnated soul, handpicked by a Goddess for a second chance!

Months chased years. The tiny, helpless infant in the crib transformed into a small boy running across the creaking wooden floors of the cabin with tottering steps, observing his surroundings with eyes full of calculation. Throughout these years, while his parents slept, he would secretly point his finger at the fireplace and mutter fabricated incantations like "Fireball!" or "Ignis!" He even spent hours staring at beetles in the garden, trying to move them with the sheer force of his will. The result, however, was always a resounding zero. That magnificent magical power simply refused to manifest. Though the weight of disappointment grew, he clung to the tiniest fragments of hope.

Perhaps I just have a late-blooming [Skill Tree], he consoled himself. Or maybe I just need to Level Up...

Despite his failure in the mystic arts, his life in this new world was nothing like the cold, ruthless hell of his past existence. At first, the sheer humiliation of being a twenty-three-year-old bankrupt, jaded man playing the role of a drooling, diaper-wearing infant who could only giggle had been a severe blow to his ego. In his own words, it was a "Trial of Sanity." But as time bled into years, playing this part ceased to be a burden and became his greatest solace.

Because the true warmth of a 'family'—something he had never tasted in his previous life—was right here.

His mother, Elysia, with her hair like spun gold and eyes the color of sea-foam, possessed a smile as soft as a spring morning. She looked less like a commoner and more like a forest nymph. The ancient lullabies she hummed while crushing medicinal herbs wrapped around Akira's weary, wounded soul like a divine balm.

His father, Zephyro, was a man who looked as though he could carry the weight of mountains on his scarred shoulders. To an outsider, he was a grim woodcutter who appeared ready to wrestle a bear at any given moment. Yet, when he returned home in the evenings, he would open those massive arms, toss Akira into the air, and catch him with a booming laugh. Beneath that intimidating exterior beat the heart of a gentle giant.

Akira had become truly, deeply attached to these two people. The 'Akira' who had rotted away in that dark, lonely apartment was fading into a blur. In his place, this new identity—a child thriving under the love of Elysia and Zephyro—was weaving itself into the very fabric of his soul. His tongue was slowly untying; he was beginning to make sense of the world, the mysteries of the forest, and the fantastic beasts described in his parents' bedtime stories. Even if he couldn't wield magic, a bowl of hot soup, the crackle of the hearth, and two pairs of affectionate eyes were worth more than all the riches of his old world combined.

Time was no longer the ruthless, monotonous enemy of his past life; it had become a warm companion, adorned with the crackle of the hearth, Elysia's lullabies, and Zephyro's deep, booming laughter.

"Valerion! Darling, your soup is getting cold!"

Elysia's cheerful, melodic voice echoed through the wooden hallway from the kitchen. On the floor of his room, Akira was busy stacking a tower of wooden blocks. It had taken him a long time to get used to this name. Valerion. It sounded like some high-level, charismatic elven prince from a top-tier RPG. Yet, deep down, he was still that weary, twenty-three-year-old Japanese youth. My name is Akira, he reminded himself every single time. I am the man crushed by the system, forgotten by the metropolis. But whenever he saw Elysia's angelic, tender smile or felt Zephyro's massive hand ruffling his hair, he donned this new identity like a mask he had grown to love.

As the years drifted by, little Valerion's tongue had slowly untied. The true challenge wasn't learning a new language; it was squeezing a twenty-three-year-old adult mind into the body of a clueless child. Sometimes, that mask cracked violently.

Just last week, when Zephyro had accidentally dropped and shattered a wooden cup, Akira had instinctively let out a profound sigh. "That is the nature of life, Father," he had remarked. "The things you think are most solid can shatter in an instant; what matters is how you gather the shards..." The silence that followed was so heavy it felt physical. Elysia and Zephyro had stared at him in utter shock. Realizing his blunder, Akira immediately dropped to the floor, tried to shove the wooden shards into his mouth, and broke into a fake tantrum. "Ba-ba broke the cup! Waaaah!" he wailed. His parents usually dismissed such moments, chalking them up to their son being "a bit too imaginative and peculiar." Yet, deep down, they were beginning to sense that he possessed an aura entirely different from the other village children.

Then, that day arrived.

The unyielding otaku fire within Akira was reaching its limit. It was a rainy afternoon. Zephyro sat on a log across from the fireplace, rhythmically sliding his massive axe against a whetstone.

Shing... Shing...

The metallic resonance filled the room. Akira approached his father with small, measured steps. This time, there would be no playing house. He was resolute.

He tilted his head back toward his father, wiping away the innocent, doe-eyed expression and replacing it with a gaze that was sharp, cold, and as serious as an adult's.

"Father," the boy said, his voice ringing with a clarity and resolve far beyond his years.

Zephyro ceased his sharpening. The giant of a man raised his thick brows as he caught the unusual gravity etched into his son's features. Even Elysia, who had been dicing vegetables at the kitchen counter, paused her blade and turned toward them.

Akira took a deep breath and posed the golden question: "Will I... will I also be able to use magic one day?"

The moment the words spilled from his lips, a brief silence blanketed the room. In this world, magic was as natural as the blowing wind or the rising sun. Other children in the village cared more for rolling in the mud or bashing each other with wooden swords than for the mystic arts. To them, magic was merely a mundane tool for daily life. But in Valerion's—Akira's—eyes, there was something far beyond a child's simple curiosity; there was a searing, almost sacred hunger, like that of a man dying of thirst in a desert reaching for a single drop of water.

Though Zephyro couldn't quite fathom his son's intensity, a warm, fatherly smile spread across his rugged lips. He reached out with a massive, calloused hand and ruffled the boy's golden hair.

"Of course you will, lad!" the giant man boomed, his voice as comforting as the fire in the hearth. "Just like every other child. Once you have seen your eighth winter, we shall journey to the village church. The Priests there will unseal the blockages in your mana veins, and you shall awaken your own element—your own power."

Akira's eyes widened to the size of saucers. The eighth year! The Church! All the isekai anime he had binged and every light novel he had devoured began to explode in his mind like a flurry of fireworks. This was a classic system!

His heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum. Elysia and Zephyro couldn't understand why their son had suddenly started trembling, or why the triumphant smirk of an emperor who had just conquered the world was spreading across his tiny face. Inside, Akira was screaming with joy, thrusting an invisible victory fist into the air.

I just have to wait! I only have to wait until I'm eight! the voice in his mind roared, nearly losing its sanity from pure ecstasy. I will endure until that day! and when I stand before the priestess at that stone, I'll show this mediocre world exactly who I am!

The thrill of anticipation made time flow like a rushing river. The years chased one another as the seasons shifted over the village. Snow melted, leaves turned amber, and the winds changed their course...

The tiny footsteps echoing on the wooden floor no longer sounded like the playful scampering of an ordinary child; they were the measured, cautious strides of an adventurer seeking hidden treasure. One day, while rummaging through a dusty chest tucked away in the furthest corner of the living room, Valerion—or Akira, as the stubborn adult within still called himself—found it.

It was a heavy book with a thick, weathered leather cover, its edges adorned with gold engravings that had tarnished over the ages. When he blew the thick layer of dust off with his small hands, he inhaled the faint, indescribable scent of antiquity that rose amidst the dancing particles. This was certainly nothing like the simple children's fables his mother read to him. There wasn't a single illustration on the cover; instead, it featured strange, interlocking geometric symbols.

His internal otaku instincts screamed at a deafening volume. Clutching the book tightly against his chest, he sprinted toward the kitchen where Elysia was busy kneading dough.

"Mother! Mother, look!" he exclaimed with feigned excitement, thrusting the book into the air. He deliberately laced his voice with the high-pitched, innocent timbre of a sweet child. "What is this book? What does it say inside?"

Elysia wiped the flour from her hands onto her apron and slowly turned around. As her gaze fell upon the thick tome in Valerion's hands, her usual maternal, tender smile graced her lips. She let out a soft giggle and booped his nose with a flour-dusted finger.

"Oh, that? That's just an old primer on the fundamentals of magic your father bought from a merchant in his youth, darling," she said with a dismissive shrug. She turned back to her dough. "You know how complicated magic can be. That book isn't for someone your age, Valerion. You wouldn't be able to make sense of those gibberish scribbles even if you tried. Now, run along and play with your wooden sword. Don't tire your little head with such boring things."

To Elysia, this was merely an ordinary child discovering a dusty, dull encyclopedia. But to Akira, these words were no different from a massive quest window popping up in an RPG with a giant [ACCEPT] button! He had been brushed off, yes, but his mother had unknowingly handed him the most valuable piece of information in this world: This was a grimoire.

Clutching the book even tighter to his chest, he slipped away to his room with silent, predatory steps. He shut the door firmly behind him and sat cross-legged on his bed. His heart was hammering in the back of his throat. He had thought he would have to wait until age eight, but if he could master the theoretical knowledge beforehand, he could start at a massive level advantage the moment the Priests unsealed his power!

With trembling, tiny fingers, he slowly pried open the heavy cover.

The moment he turned to the first page, his eyes widened in shock. The page was filled with a foreign alphabet he had never seen in his previous life—a script composed of sharp lines and curved runes that resembled no earthly tongue. Elysia was right; to a normal eye, it was nothing but gibberish.

But then... something miraculous happened.

In the very first second he focused his gaze on those nonsensical runes, a thin, high-pitched ringing echoed inside his skull. It was as if an invisible set of gears, deep within the machinery of his mind, had suddenly clicked into place.

Click!

The alien shapes on the page suddenly blurred, twisting and shifting like reflections on the surface of disturbed water. Within seconds, those meaningless symbols gained perfect clarity within his consciousness.

It was, quite literally, Japanese! No—the writing on the page was still that strange alphabet, but as Akira looked at it, he could read the meaning, the emphasis, and even the author's underlying intent directly within his brain.

"Impossible..." he whispered, his voice cracking. The oxygen in the room suddenly felt insufficient. His head spun violently, and he had to grip the edge of the bed to keep from dropping the book. A crazed, demonic smirk—the look of a mad genius—spread across his face. "This is it... [Automatic Translation Cheat]! [Language Comprehension]! I can understand not just the spoken word, but even the ancient scripts of this world instantly!"

The torrent of exhilaration within him was a massive river breaching its dam. The Goddess's gift had begun operating in the depths of his mind long before any Priest could awaken his magic.

From that day forward, Akira's life was irrevocably altered. By day, he continued to play the role of an ordinary child, splashing in the mud and never straying far from his mother's side; but by night, when the world fell silent, he lost himself amidst the pages of that ancient tome under the flickering, meager light of a candle hidden beneath his quilt. Mana flows, ether density, the fundamental resonance of the elements... Thanks to the countless fantasy novels he had devoured in his previous life, he absorbed this dense theoretical knowledge like a sponge, carving magic theories into his mind that his peers—and likely most adults—could never hope to comprehend. He was certain that by the time he reached his eighth year, he would be nothing short of a monster.

However, one night, nearing the middle of the book, he paused. He had reached a section where the pages were fused together, their edges stained a darker, almost visceral crimson.

He pried the pages apart with a steady, cautious hand. In the center of the page, in stark contrast to the orderly, academic script of the previous chapters, was a text written in frantic, heavy strokes, as if the author had been trembling in a cold sweat while penning it.

As Akira began to read those lines through his [Automatic Translation] ability, he felt his blood freeze in his veins. His pupils constricted with dread. The meaning formed by the runes pierced his mind like a black spear.

In that cramped, dim sanctuary beneath his quilt, the feeble candlelight flickered against the yellowed parchment. Akira's breath hitched, caught in the back of his throat. His translation skill rendered the jagged runes into Japanese with a ruthless clarity, whispering the frantic, dark secret the author had etched into the lines directly into his soul.

"The Ritual of Awakening..." the text began, the handwriting pressed so hard it had nearly torn the paper. "How innocent and divine a spectacle it seems to the common folk. That magnificent mana crystal atop the altar, a supposedly holy priest muttering prayers, and that white parchment thrust into the child's hand to guide their mana... From the outside, it appears as nothing but light and grace. Yet, the truth lies within the darkness woven into the very fibers of that white parchment."

Akira swallowed hard. The vibrant colors of his isekai fantasy were suddenly bleeding into shades of grey. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the script.

"Those parchments are no mere slips of paper. To forcibly rupture the naturally sealed mana veins of a child and deliver the necessary shock to the vessel, pure mana is insufficient; it requires the resonance of intense trauma energy. This is why, prior to the ritual, the parchments undergo a specialized process in hidden vaults. This process... is blood. Not the honorable blood of the battlefield or the simple slaughter of an animal. It is blood poisoned with pure, unadulterated horror—harvested from humans enduring agony and torture so profound it shatters the mind. Mana veins only tear open when they resonate with this macabre frequency."

The candle's flame danced violently as a draft of cold air snuck into the room. A cold bead of sweat trickled down Akira's spine. His stomach churned. He closed his eyes and saw the images of the village children, entering the church with bright, innocent smiles to reach their eighth year. To think that behind that so-called 'sacred' awakening lay the tortured, harvested blood of people screaming their last breaths in some dungeon! This felt less like the cheerful anime he remembered and more like the most brutal of grimdark fantasy series. This world was not nearly as innocent as it appeared on the surface.

With a trembling finger, he slid down toward the end of the page. The author's handwriting had deteriorated further here, the ink smudged in several places. It looked like a vital warning.

"The source of the blood is generally death row inmates from the dungeons, but..."

Akira paused at that 'but' at the end of the sentence. The gears turning in his mind slowed. For a few seconds, he stared blankly at the word. Then, his twenty-three-year-old adult mind—tempered by the ruthlessness of the modern world and hardened by the selfish survival instincts of the metropolis—kicked in.

Death row inmates...

"In other words... criminals who were going to die anyway," he whispered to himself. His voice was a mere breath, yet it echoed loudly in the silence of the room.

The sudden wave of horror within him was replaced by a strange sense of acceptance, even a pragmatic indifference. In his old life, he had seen how people figuratively tore each other apart just for a promotion, how the system preyed upon the lower rungs of society. If this world used the blood of murderers or thieves condemned to death to maintain its order, it wasn't that surprising. At least it wasn't the blood of the innocent, right?

He didn't even deign to read the rest of that 'but...' Perhaps the author was going to argue that this practice was unethical or launch into a long, moralizing tirade. Akira had no time for such things. He had only one goal: to grow powerful and survive in this world. He slammed the book shut in one swift motion.

Thud!

The muffled sound slashed through the silence beneath the quilt like a blade. With a single breath, he blew out the candle, plunging his surroundings into pitch-black darkness. His face held a cold, calculating kuudere expression—one that should never have belonged to a child. He had looked into the dark heart of the world's reality, but it would not turn him from his path.

It doesn't matter, he thought as he laid his head on the pillow, his eyes fixed on the darkness of the ceiling. If my veins are to be torn open, I don't give a damn whose blood it is. When I turn eight, I will walk into that church and I will take my power.

Years flowed like a river silently carving its bed since the night he had discovered that dark secret.

Akira—or Valerion, as the world now knew him—had practically etched that thick, terrifying grimoire into his mind. He hadn't just stopped at reading and understanding the foreign runes; he had begun to follow the grueling physical and mental training hidden between the lines—exercises designed to prepare the body and mind for mana. In the dead of night, he would perform push-ups on the wooden floor without letting a single plank creak, practicing [Breath Control] and pushing his tiny body to its absolute limits until he was drenched in sweat.

When he woke the next morning, he would resume his masquerade, donning the mask of the cute, innocent child before Elysia and Zephyro. There was no way his parents could know he was absorbing ancient knowledge like a sponge; such a revelation would bring questions and dangers far too great for an ordinary family to handle.

As time marched toward his eighth year, Valerion's life appeared no different from that of any ordinary village boy. Yet, during this period, he had acquired something he had never tasted in his twenty-three years of lonely, isolated past: a true childhood friend.

Lilia, the daughter of the village baker, was the quintessential childhood friend archetype. With crimson hair cascading over her shoulders, freckle-dusted cheeks, and large green eyes that seemed perpetually ready to well up, she was straight out of a classic anime. Whenever Valerion slipped into the forest for his "secret training," Lilia would tag along, watching his nonsensical—yet strictly calculated—movements with wide-eyed admiration.

Until that one sunny spring afternoon.

Valerion sat beneath the shade of a colossal oak at the forest's edge, visualizing the pathways of mana flow in his mind, when a high-pitched wail forced his eyes open. He recognized the voice instantly. It was Lilia.

The lethargic adult mind within him stirred, rising slowly from its mental throne. He moved toward the thicket where the sound originated, his footsteps silent and predatory. The sight that greeted him instantly transformed his kuudere indifference into a cold, simmering rage.

Lilia had fallen onto the dirt path, her clothes caked in mud. Surrounding her were five boys, their ages ranging from seven to eight. Four were the usual snot-nosed brats from the village, but the boy standing in the center was different. The silk-embroidered jacket, the silver ring on his finger, and the loathsome, condescending smirk on his face screamed that he was the son of a low-ranking Baron—likely here to collect taxes.

"How dare a commoner brat like you, a mere baker's daughter, cross my path!" the noble boy barked, grinding his heel into Lilia's fallen wicker basket. The other four lackeys let out coarse laughs to curry favor with their "superior." Lilia could do nothing but sob, burying her face in her hands.

A normal village child would have turned and bolted the moment they saw a noble. In this world, social classes were etched in sword and blood. But at that moment, Valerion completely forgot he was in a frail, seven-year-old body. His mind was still Akira—the twenty-three-year-old who had fought for his rights in the ruthless streets of the metropolis, the man who had zero tolerance for injustice. And right now, standing before him was a spoiled brat who thought the world revolved around his whims.

Seriously? Valerion sighed internally, rolling his eyes. The 'boss battle' of my second life is against elementary school bullies?

He stepped out from the bushes, hands shoved deep into his pockets, walking toward them with an eerie, unnerving composure.

"I hate to interrupt your little game," Valerion said, his voice dropping into a register that was far too deep and authoritative for a child. His cold, razor-sharp gaze pierced through the noble boy's eyes. "But the bread in that basket represents far more labor than that silk jacket of yours."

The five children recoiled, startled by the sudden intrusion. The noble brat's face flushed—first with bewilderment, then with a surge of arrogant rage.

"W-Who do you think you are, you little peasant?! Do you have any idea who I am? Flatten him!"

The four village boys charged, throwing the clumsy, wide-swinging punches they had likely mimicked from their elders.

This was where the agonizing training sessions Valerion had endured in the dead of night bore fruit. To an adult mind operating at peak analytical speed, their movements were sluggish, telegraphed, and utterly predictable—as if the world had slowed to a crawl. Valerion didn't use a single drop of mana. He simply stepped back, pivoting on his heel.

Whoosh!

As the first boy's fist met nothing but empty air, Valerion upended his balance with a sharp, calculated trip. Thud! He caught the second boy's wrist, redirecting his momentum to hurl him straight into the third. Crash! For the last one, he delivered a strike to the solar plexus—just two fingers, but executed with such surgical precision and force that the air vanished from the boy's lungs.

Gasp!

It had taken exactly five seconds. The four boys were groveling in the mud, groaning and wheezing, unable to even comprehend the lightning-fast sequence that had laid them low.

Not a single hair out of place, Valerion walked toward the noble scion with his hands in his pockets. The boy's legs shook, his arrogance melting into raw, unadulterated terror. Valerion stopped directly in front of him, tilting his head slightly. His eyes narrowed, and with a cold, oppressive aura that seemed to chill the very air around them, he whispered:

"If you intend to look down on others, ensure you possess the power to crush them first. Now, leave the silver for the basket and get out of my sight."

With trembling hands, the noble boy fumbled a silver coin from his pocket, hurled it into the mud, and fled with a pathetic, whimpering cry, his gang trailing behind him in a frantic scramble.

A heavy silence descended over the forest entrance, broken only by the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. Valerion let out a long, weary sigh, his shoulders sagging. Dammit, I blew my cover again, he thought bitterly. So much for staying under the radar.

He turned and slowly approached Lilia. She remained seated on the ground, staring with tear-streaked eyes at the boy who stood before her—a boy who, in that moment, radiated the quiet brilliance of a seasoned warrior. Valerion offered a faint, subtle smile—a rare glimpse of the adult's hidden tenderness—and extended his hand. The sun hit him from behind, framing his silhouette in a golden halo of light.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, the cold storm in his voice having vanished entirely.

Lilia took his small, calloused hand and rose unsteadily. Her cheeks burned a deep crimson. "I-I... thank you, Valerion. But he was a noble... you'll be in big trouble because of me."

Valerion reached out, his thumb gently brushing a tear from her mud-stained cheek. The grim wisdom of a man who had suffered through a lifetime of systemic cruelty spilled from the lips of the seven-year-old like a dark benediction.

"The color of blood is the same for everyone, Lilia," he said softly, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. "What they call 'nobility' is nothing more than the price tag on the clothes they wear. If you allow your worth to be dictated by the price others set for you, you will remain in the dirt forever."

He locked his eyes with her large, green ones. "If you keep your head bowed, all you'll ever see is the mud. Stop crying and look at the sky."

Lilia's breath hitched. As the wind whipped her crimson hair, she could feel with her small heart that this boy wasn't just a child; he harbored a soul far deeper and more vast than she could comprehend. The bashful flush on her face was replaced by a look of profound, unshakeable admiration.

"I will... I will look at the sky," she murmured, as if spellbound.

From that day forward, Lilia never left Valerion's side for a single moment. An unbreakable bond formed between them. Valerion's mature and wise demeanor shifted their interactions away from ordinary childhood chatter, turning them into something akin to a master teaching a disciple the ways of the world.

Months, then years, flowed like a river since that small skirmish in the forest. Time was no longer a dull wait for Valerion; it had become a precious canvas, where every second had to be meticulously woven. Akira, the man who had wasted twenty-three years of his life in his past existence, crushed by the gears of the system, understood the value of every moment granted to him in this new fantasy world.

Just before the first light of dawn stained the horizon crimson, while the village was still draped in deep slumber, Valerion would rise silently from his bed. The fragile, delicate body of a seven-year-old struggled immensely to keep pace with the military discipline of the adult mind dwelling within it. He would retreat to the depths of the forest, to his secret sanctuary beneath that colossal oak, and execute the mana exercises he had deciphered from the mysterious grimoire with absolute precision.

"Ninety-seven... ninety-eight... ninety-nine..."

He was breathless, sweat dripping from his brow and soaking into the earth. His tiny arms were on the verge of mutiny, trembling violently as he held the push-up position. Inside, the weary man grumbled: If this were a game, my [Physical Endurance] stat would have definitely leveled up by now. But in this godforsaken reality, all I get is the burn in my muscles! With one final burst of effort, he completed the hundredth rep and collapsed onto his back in the cool grass, watching the sky slowly bleed into blue. He took deep, measured breaths to clear his mind, attempting to sense the "Etheric Flow" described in the book.

He couldn't wield magic yet, yes—but he was forging his body into a perfect vessel, one capable of channeling mana with zero resistance.

Of course, these secret morning training sessions always had a loyal spectator.

A tuft of crimson hair peeking out from behind the thick trunk of the oak, and a pair of large, shy green eyes... Lilia. The baker's daughter had become Valerion's literal shadow since the day he had laid those bullies low. When Valerion sat up and cast a frigid, kuudere gaze toward the tree, Lilia flinched, realizing she'd been caught. Her cheeks instantly flared a bright tomato-red. She clasped her hands behind her back, pouting with a classic tsundere flair.

"I-It's not like I was watching you or anything!" Lilia stammered, scuffing the tip of her shoe against the dirt. "It's just... my father made extra sweet buns this morning. I thought you might get hungry while you were doing those weird movements in the forest... Idiot Valerion."

Valerion chuckled inwardly but maintained his cold, stoic facade. He stood up, dusted himself off, and approached the girl. As he took the warm, cinnamon-scented bun from Lilia's trembling hands, a light breeze caught his golden hair, making it billow slightly. He took a small bite and fixed his gaze on the horizon.

"The sugar ratio is precise," Valerion remarked, his voice carrying the deadpan gravity of a world-class gourmet. "My compliments to your father, Lilia. And... thank you for not leaving me alone this morning."

Lilia's eyes sparkled, her stubborn pout melting into a wide, radiant smile. In that moment, contrasted against the grey concrete of his past life, Valerion felt just how precious this village, this freckled girl, and his family truly were. I think, he mused to himself, I want to conquer this world not just for survival, but to safeguard these smiles.

When he returned home in the evenings, he was greeted by Elysia's warm vegetable soup and Zephyro's thunderous laughter that shook the very foundations of the house. When his father hoisted him up with massive hands and asked about his adventures, Valerion would cling to his beard with a well-practiced childish giggle, letting the day's fatigue dissolve into the warmth of their familial bond.

Months chased years; seasons pursued one another. The thick winter snow gave way to spring blossoms, which in turn surrendered to the scorching heat of summer. During this time, Valerion's body gained a lean flexibility, and his gaze deepened with a maturity far beyond his years. He locked the horrific truth of the "Blood Parchment" into the darkest chamber of his mind, having already accepted the price that must be paid on the path to power.

Finally... the long, patient wait came to an end. As the hourglass dropped its final grain of sand, Valerion opened his eyes to the fateful morning of his eighth year.

In this world, the passage of time wasn't dictated by the complex birthday calendars or zodiac signs of Akira's past life. Here, age was calculated by the year of birth. As a result of this simple yet practical system, all children born within the same year attended their sacred ceremony together on a single day. In the RPG terms of his old life, this was quite literally the day when every new player on the server finished the [TUTORIAL] phase and selected their [CLASS].

That morning, the sky above the village was clearer and bluer than ever. Smoke rising from the chimneys of wooden houses mingled with the fresh, dew-scented morning air.

Akira—or Valerion, as he was known to all—stood before the mirror, adjusting his clothes. Even the weary, twenty-three-year-old mind within him surrendered to the grandeur of the moment, feeling like a child waiting to unwrap gifts on Christmas morning. He wore a clean linen tunic, its collar intricately embroidered with blue thread by Elysia.

"Father! What do you think my power will be?" Valerion shouted as he sprinted into the living room. He wore his flawless, innocent, and excited mask, though the spark in his eyes was entirely genuine. "Fire? Or will I control the wind like you? Or... can I hurl [LIGHTNING] like in the legends?"

Zephyro, who was cleaning his massive axe by the hearth, let out his signature, house-shaking laugh. He reached out with a giant hand and ruffled Valerion's golden hair.

"Steady there, little man!" Zephyro said, his eyes beaming. "[LIGHTNING], eh? If you awaken power that immense, I fear you'll accidentally level this shack over our heads. But no matter what it is, the blood of your mother and I flows through you. I have no doubt you'll be the best."

Just then, Elysia emerged from the kitchen with freshly baked buns, offering a sweet smile. "No matter what my son's power is, he is already special to me, Zephyro. Don't go riling him up with such wild expectations." She leaned down and pressed a warm kiss to Valerion's cheek. "Just be yourself, darling. Power is merely a tool; your heart is the compass that determines how you use it."

As Valerion was soaking in that classic, heart-warming family moment, the door was hammered frantically from the outside. When they opened it, they were met by Lilia. She wore a clean, lace-trimmed white dress that stood in contrast to her usual baker's apron. Her crimson hair was tied into two braids, and her freckled cheeks were flushed from running and excitement. Behind her stood her father, the village baker.

"Valerion! Aren't you ready yet? We're going to be late!" Lilia snapped with her classic tsundere edge. "Everyone is already gathering in the village square! If we're late, they'll shove us to the very back of the line!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Valerion laughed. Lilia's frantic energy reminded him of the anime characters from his previous life.

The crowd gathered in the village square formed a long convoy of wagons and wooden handcarts. The Church of Awakening was not located near the village, but on a sacred plateau far beyond the forest, reachable only by winding around the base of the mountains. The journey would be long and arduous.

As the caravan slowly set off, Valerion and Lilia sat side-by-side at the back of a wagon, watching the road with swinging legs. The journey took hours. As the sun climbed to its zenith, the sound of birds from the depths of the forest mingled with the joyful giggles of the children.

"Do you think..." Lilia murmured, her eyes fixed on her hands clasped in her lap. Her voice was much softer and more fragile than her earlier frantic tone. "What do you think my power will be, Valerion? What if... what if it's a weak, useless element? What if I'm just someone who can drip water or blow a tiny breeze?"

Valerion turned his head slightly toward her. His eyes held that familiar, deep, and mature expression. "There is no such thing as weak or strong power, Lilia," he said softly. "There are only minds that do not know how to wield it. If you can only drip water, you accelerate and sharpen that drop until it can pierce through solid rock. You are clever. No matter what manifests, I know you will turn it into something magnificent."

Lilia's cheeks flared a deep crimson once more, and she snapped her head away. "I-I already knew that! I was just testing you, idiot..." she muttered, though the tiny smile tugging at her lips betrayed her true feelings.

Finally, in the late afternoon, the Church of Awakening appeared on the horizon—a massive structure of white marble with needle-like spires piercing the heavens. The sacred, oppressive atmosphere radiating from the building instinctively reduced everyone's voice to a hushed whisper.

Hundreds of families had gathered in the church's vast courtyard. To maintain order, the priests enforced a strict rule: only small groups of ten families would be admitted at a time.

Akira and his parents stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Lilia and her father, ensuring they stayed in the same group. The wait was pure torture. After each group entered, the heavy oak doors would groan shut. Minutes later, they would reopen, and children would emerge with faces full of pure joy and bewilderment, clutching glowing white parchments in their hands.

"What exactly is happening in there..." Valerion swallowed hard. He was practically losing his mind with curiosity. How exactly did the "System" he had visualized for years actually function?

Finally, the moment arrived. A priest with a resonant voice invited their group of ten through the colossal doors.

The interior of the church was dim, cool, and filled with the heavy, stinging scent of incense. In front of the ornate altar stood a line of priests in white cowls. On the altar table lay those seemingly ordinary white parchments—the ones whose dark secret Akira knew all too well.

"Welcome, children of the Goddess," the High Priest announced, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Now, your time has come. Each of you will be granted a sacred Awakening Parchment. When our priest recites the prayer, your internal mana will flow into this paper, and the universe will whisper your true self as follows: Name, Affinity, and Power."

The children lined up. Valerion's heart was drumming against his ribs. The first boy stepped forward; the priest pressed the parchment into his hands and placed a palm on the child's head, chanting in an ancient tongue. Seconds later, the parchment glowed with a faint, yellowish light, and golden letters appeared:

[NAME: KAEL] [AFFINITY: EARTH (WEAK MANIPULATION)] [POWER: LEVEL 1]

As the boy jumped with joy, Valerion offered a cynical internal smirk. Of course they'll be Level 1. These kids have never done a single second of mana training in their lives! Naturally, everyone starts at point zero. But after the hellish training I've been doing in secret for years, my power is bound to hit the ceiling. Whatever, I'll just claim I'm a 'prodigy' and find some way to explain it away, he thought, his arrogant otaku mind racing.

The line moved steadily. Finally, Lilia stepped forward with trembling steps. The priest smiled, placed the white parchment into her small, shaking hands, and began the prayer.

Suddenly, the parchment erupted in a brilliant, dazzling ocean-blue light. Reflections resembling water ripples danced across the church walls. As the light faded, elegant blue runes manifested on the paper:

[NAME: LILIA] [AFFINITY: WATER (HEALING & WAVE CONTROL)] [POWER: LEVEL 1]

Tears of joy streamed down Lilia's face as she ran to hug her father. [WATER] affinity was a rare and highly sought-after talent, capable of both devastating attacks and healing allies. Even at Level 1, her potential was staggering. Valerion was genuinely happy for her; he gave her a subtle wink and smirked as if to say, "I told you so."

The High Priest cleared his throat, restoring silence, and turned his gaze toward Valerion, clutching the final parchment.

"Next... Valerion," he called out.

In that instant, all sound in the church vanished from Valerion's ears. There was only the violent thumping of his own heart. He narrowed his eyes, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. He marched toward the altar with the steady, unwavering resolve of a man walking toward his destiny.

He grasped the white parchment. The texture was ice-cold. The priest placed his hand upon Valerion's golden hair, and the ancient prayers began to spill from his lips.

Valerion felt the massive reservoir of mana he had spent years accumulating—the power he had tamed through that secret grimoire—tear away from his chest, surge down his arms, and crash into the parchment like a feral, raging river.

The room fell deathly silent. But from the parchment, there came no yellow glow, no blue ripple. Instead...

Once the other groups had finished and departed, only Valerion, Elysia, Zephyro, and the hooded priests and priestesses remained in the vast, somber Awakening Hall. Lilia and the others were already back in the courtyard, waiting for the final family to emerge.

The room was heavy with incense and an absolute, suffocating silence.

Valerion—or rather, Akira, with the weary soul waiting to awaken within—clutched the innocent-looking white parchment with both hands. The rationality of his old world clashed with the fantasy logic of this one. He took a breath and closed his eyes.

And then, the system quite literally went haywire.

The very second he made contact, a blinding, BLOOD-RED FLAME erupted from the center of the paper! This wasn't the warm, docile fire of a hearth; it was a savage, violent, and roaring pillar of fire that felt as if it had been ripped from the very depths of hell. The crimson inferno expanded with such terrifying speed that it swallowed the altar in seconds, licked up the stone walls, and blanketed the entire massive ceiling of the church.

FWOOOOOOSH!

Elysia let out a horrified scream, shielding her face, while Zephyro threw his massive frame in front of his wife to protect her. The priests and priestesses stumbled back in a blind panic. But as the seconds ticked by, everyone realized a bizarre, impossible truth: this colossal, blood-red fire wasn't burning anything. Valerion's clothes weren't singed, the wooden pews weren't turning to ash, and there was no suffocating scent of smoke in the air.

This fire wasn't a physical flame—it was a visual manifestation of the pure, unbridled mana overflowing from Valerion's soul!

The crimson flames receded like a dying storm, swirling inward until they were swallowed by the parchment clutched in Valerion's hand. Every soul in the room held their breath, their shoulders trembling as they stared at the paper. The elegant gold and blue runes of the other children were nowhere to be found. The System itself had torn away the boy's mask, etching his true, otherworldly essence onto the page.

Smoldering black letters hissed as they revealed the impossible truth:

[NAME: AKIRA] [AFFINITY: ?????????] [POWER LEVEL: 129]

The priests' eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. Zephyro and Elysia stood frozen, paralyzed by the sight. "Akira"? What did that even mean? Furthermore, the runes occupying the [AFFINITY] slot were ancient, jagged, and utterly indecipherable—belonging to no known tongue of this world. It looked as if the very source code of the universe had been bled onto the paper.

But the true horror was the number. [POWER LEVEL: 129]. In a world where every child began at Level 1, and even legendary masters struggled to reach the 40s or 50s in their prime, a god-like power had been sealed into the body of an eight-year-old boy.

However, Akira could not savor the victory.

His frail, eight-year-old mortal vessel could not withstand the sudden release of this gargantuan force. The crushing pressure of Level 129 mana was a physical weight. Akira's pupils constricted in agony. A guttural groan escaped his lips as the veins in his neck and arms turned pitch-black, bulging beneath his skin. His body shuddered like a generator pushed trillions of times beyond its capacity.

"AAAAAARGH!"

The moment Akira screamed, an uncontrollable shockwave of dark purple and black mana erupted from his right hand.

VOOM!

The wave swept across the altar like a scythe of pure destruction, slamming directly into the chest of one of the officiating priestesses.

The divine atmosphere of the hall transformed into a scene from a nightmare within seconds. The priestess hit by the wave let out a shrill, ear-piercing shriek. Her body turned a violent crimson before her skin began to melt away like hot wax. Yet, there was no blood, no gore. As she writhed in agony, she began to transmute into a blinding, divine light, splintering into glowing particles as she was systematically erased from existence. Her bones, her robes, the final expression of terror on her face—all dissolved into nothingness.

Clink! The only thing left behind was her golden cross hitting the floor with a hollow chime.

"ABOMINATION!" the High Priest roared, his mask of benevolent grace shattering to reveal a face twisted by fanatical hatred and dread. He leveled his staff at Akira with shaking hands. "THAT IS NO CHILD! THAT IS NO HUMAN! THE DEVIL HIMSELF HAS INFILTRATED OUR HOLY SANCTUARY!"

Zephyro and Elysia remained motionless, lost in a vacuum of shock. Everything had unfolded with such violent, incomprehensible speed that even their parental instincts were paralyzed.

The four remaining priests and priestesses, driven by a bigoted terror, instantly dropped into combat stances. Deadly spears of light and orbs of holy fire began to manifest in their palms. Their target was singular: the small boy kneeling in the center of the altar, his veins blackened with rot-like mana. They intended to execute Akira where he stood.

The High Priest raised his hand and barked the order of execution: "ERASE HIM FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!"

As the lethal spells tore through the air, hurtling toward Akira's small, broken frame...

Chime!

That familiar, metallic, and otherworldly chime that tore through the very fabric of the universe echoed against the church walls.

Chime!

And once again, time came to a standstill for Akira.

The holy orbs of fire remained suspended in mid-air, a mere inch from his face. The High Priest's features were locked in a distorted mask of frozen malice. His father Zephyro's massive hand, reaching out in a desperate attempt to protect him, was paralyzed in the void. Even the dust motes dancing in the air defied gravity, hanging motionless. For Akira, the entire world had transformed into a single, frozen frame of a haunting masterpiece.

From the section behind the altar, where the massive, colorful stained-glass windows depicted ancient myths, that same blinding, pure, and divine beam of light he had seen on the rooftop of his past life reappeared. The radiance slashed through the gloom of the church, centering itself directly upon Akira.

Out from the silver mists, with all her majesty, unreachable beauty, and terrifying holiness, that familiar silhouette—the Goddess—stepped forward.

Her voice, which sounded like the resonance of a thousand harps and carried a tone both authoritative and tender, flowed directly into Akira's mind:

"My little one..." the Goddess said. A faint, subtle smile could be sensed behind the radiance of her silhouette. "It appears you unwrapped the packaging of the gift I gave you a bit too quickly."

In that silent, silvery void where time had ceased to exist, the divine silhouette of the Goddess stood like a proud artist admiring her own creation. The lethal spells hanging in the air, the twisted faces of the fanatical priests... none of it concerned her in the slightest.

"Do not worry, my little one..." she spoke, her voice peaceful yet piercing into the deepest layers of his consciousness. "None of what has transpired is your fault. Those pathetic mortals are simply too blind to comprehend the miracle standing before them."

The Goddess's hand, woven from pure light, slowly reached toward Akira's agonized cheek, which was now webbed with blackened veins. There was no physical contact, yet he felt a cooling breeze wash over his very soul, numbing the white-hot pain.

"I did not cast you into this world at random, Akira. You know I chose you specifically. Because I saw the silent war you waged in that dark room of your own world... I know you can claw your way out of this situation—this pit—as well."

Akira gritted his teeth, struggling to force words out through the spiritual pressure. "This... what is this power? It's going to tear my body apart!"

The Goddess offered a faint, ethereal smile. "The gift I have bestowed upon you is pure potential, stripped of all constraints. You are not bound by the laws of this world. Your power allows you to wield 'All Magic.' Water, fire, earth, wind, light, darkness... every element in the universe shall obey your command." Her silhouette began to turn transparent, dissolving into a shimmering silver dust. "But every blessing carries a price. The greatest disadvantage of this power is its astronomical mana consumption and the requirement of a high starting threshold. That Power Level of 129 you saw on the parchment... it may be a legend to these mortals, but for your potential, it is merely the beginning. Do not let even this number satisfy you, Akira. Surpass your limits."

"Wait! Don't go!" Akira shouted, reaching out toward her. "You can't just leave me here in the middle of these killers! What am I supposed to do?!"

But the last traces of the smile on the Goddess's divine face faded. "I trust you, my little one..." her whisper echoed one last time in his mind as she vanished completely into the void like drifting stardust.

In the millisecond of her disappearance... Chime!

The fractured gears of time began to grind once more with a deafening roar.

The world was suddenly flooded with sound, color, and violence. The holy orbs of fire and spears of light launched from the priests' hands were mere milliseconds away from skewering Akira's body. The High Priest's loathsome, triumphant roar grated against his ears.

At that exact moment, an unbearable, agonizing pain stabbed into the center of Akira's brain, feeling as if it would crack his skull from the inside out. Knowledge. Hundreds of pages of magic theory, mana pathways, and elemental arrays were branded into his mind like a searing iron. The most fundamental, most primal element flared in his consciousness: Fire.

The feral survival instinct that had taken hold of his body merged with the selfish defense mechanisms he had learned in the ruthless streets of his old world. If he didn't kill them, they would kill him. It was that simple.

Writhed in agony, before he could even consciously decide, Akira flung his arms wide and screamed, tearing at his throat: "BURN!"

With that primal command, devoid of any formal incantation, the gargantuan force of Level 129 vomited into the room. The fire erupting from Akira's palms resembled no magic ever seen in this world. Swallowing the holy spells cast by the priests like mere scraps of paper, this fire—a black and deep crimson wave torn from the very core of hell—swarmed over the four priests.

"AAAARRRGH!"

The screams filling the room were so horrific they pushed the boundaries of human sanity. Within seconds, the priests melted away inside those savage flames. Their flesh, their bones, even their very souls were turned to ash within the black fire. No corpses remained, no traces left behind; there were only the hollow thuds of staves hitting the floor and the scorched black scars etched into the stones.

Akira collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. He stared at his trembling, tiny hands. This was his first murder. With his own hands, deliberately and intentionally—however instinctive it may have been—he had taken four lives. His stomach churned; the 'modern and civilized' Akira from his past life wanted to vomit from within. But his twenty-three-year-old adult mind immediately took over, freezing his emotions like a true kuudere: They were going to kill me. They would have killed my mother and father too. I had no choice.

Across the room, Zephyro and Elysia were slowly emerging from the paralyzing grip of shock. Elysia covered her mouth with her hands, weeping silently. Zephyro's massive frame was shaking. But he was a woodsman; he knew the laws of the wild, he knew what survival demanded. The terror in his eyes was replaced within seconds by the iron resolve of a father ready to burn the world to protect his son.

"Elysia! Get it together!" Zephyro bellowed, his voice vibrating through the chamber. He sprinted to Akira's side and scooped him up in his massive arms. He looked into the boy's eyes but asked not a single question. He only knew he had to protect him. "We need a plan. Now!"

Zephyro scanned the room. "No one can see this." He rushed to the altar and snatched the pitch-black parchment containing Akira's impossible secret—the one reading [AKIRA - 129]—and tucked it into the inner pocket of his leather vest. He then grabbed a fresh, unused, and blank white parchment from the table and thrust it firmly into Akira's hand.

"Only Lilia and her father are left outside. Everyone else has gone," Zephyro whispered, breathless. "Don't let anything show on your faces. No matter what happens, we are just an ordinary family."

As they pushed the heavy oak doors of the church open with a groan, the fresh, sunlit air hit their faces. At the end of the courtyard, Lilia and her father, who had been waiting patiently by their wagon, immediately ran toward them upon seeing the doors open.

"Valerion!" Lilia called out, her face etched with worry. "Why did it take so long? For a moment, we thought something bad happened inside... are you okay?"

Lilia's father also noticed the tense expression on Zephyro's face. "Zephyro, my friend, is everything alright? I don't see the priests?"

Zephyro, delivering the performance of his life, let out a deep sigh and adopted a solemn, slightly reverent expression.

"Everything is fine!" Zephyro said, his voice intentionally deep and authoritative. He gestured to the blank white parchment in Akira's hand. "But the High Priest claimed he received a divine vision. A sacred matter... They ordered us to seal the church doors immediately after the ritual and forbade anyone from entering. It seems the Goddess needs to commune with her priests in solitude. Entry is strictly prohibited."

Lilia's father, being a sensible man who knew the dangers of meddling in church affairs, narrowed his eyes. He noticed the sweat on Zephyro's brow but did not press further. "I see... It's best not to stick our noses into holy matters. Come, get in the wagon. Let's head back to the village."

The return journey was worlds apart from the joyous clamor of the way there. Sitting at the back of the wagon, Lilia kept glancing at Akira—at Valerion—searching his unnervingly pale and hollow face. It was as if a bottomless, dark abyss had opened within the boy's eyes, a void she had never seen before. No one spoke. Even the heavy silence of the forest was nothing compared to the suffocating quiet within the wagon. Though Lilia and her father did not know the truth, they could sense that something profoundly dark had transpired.

Late that night, as the sky draped itself in pitch-black ink...

Far beyond the village, the sacred Church surrendered to colossal flames that tore through the midnight sky. Zephyro had put the sanctuary to the torch to incinerate every shred of evidence—the scorch marks and the black ash of the fallen—erasing them forever. As the flames climbed higher than the surrounding pines, the crimson glare reflecting off Akira's face served as grim proof that he had stepped onto a path from which there was no turning back. The next day, the common folk would whisper that the fire was a divine punishment from the Goddess or a tragic ritualistic error; no one would dream of suspecting an eight-year-old boy.

But the true trial was to take place that night, within the confines of their wooden home.

The hearth was cold. The room was illuminated only by the feeble, flickering light of a single candle on the table. Zephyro and Elysia sat on one side, staring at the small child they had raised and cherished.

But they no longer looked at him as a child. In their eyes, there was terror, a gargantuan question mark, and a profound, soul-shaking tremor.

The pitch-black parchment lay between them like a dormant explosive. The name etched upon it: [AKIRA].

Zephyro took a deep, shaky breath. He locked his gaze with the boy sitting across from him—the boy who sat with his hands folded on the table, possessing the unnerving composure and hollow gaze of an adult.

"Valerion..." the man whispered, his voice cracked and raw. "Or... whatever that name on the paper is. Please, tell me the truth."

A single tear escaped Elysia's eye, her hands trembling uncontrollably. Zephyro swallowed hard, finally posing the heavy, devastating question:

"Our child... what happened to him? Who are you?"

The flame of the lone, meager candle on the wooden table flickered within the heavy silence. Zephyro's thick, raspy voice hung in the air, while Elysia's tears trickled down her cheeks, dripping onto the floorboards. This massive man and this angelic woman were looking at him as if he were a monster, an alien entity.

A heavy weight settled in Akira's gut.

In his twenty-three years in that freezing metropolis of his past life, no one had ever shown him the love these two people had. If he were to throw the cursed reality of 'reincarnation' in their faces now—if he told them, "I am actually a bankrupt, twenty-three-year-old adult from another world"—what would happen? That warm familial portrait would shatter into a million jagged pieces; his mother's lullabies would cease, and his father's protective embrace would be closed to him forever.

No... Akira's only anchor in this world was this family. He would not let this mask slip, no matter the cost.

He cast aside his frigid, calculating intellect and triggered the most critical performance of his life.

His pupils dilated, trembling with intent. His lower lip quivered with the flawless precision of a terrified eight-year-old. The tears streaming down his face were not a fabrication this time; they were fueled by a raw, primal panic—the fear of losing the only anchors he had in this world.

"Mother... Father..." Akira sobbed, his voice thin and fragile.

He suddenly lunged forward, throwing his arms around Elysia's neck as he dissolved into a fit of hysterical weeping. "I... I don't know what happened! That fire... those men... I was so scared, Mother! Please, don't be afraid of me! Please don't leave me! I'm your Valerion!"

Elysia's maternal heart softened in mere seconds before his desperate pleas. All her fear evaporated into the air, and she pulled him into a crushing embrace, weeping alongside him. "Shh... I'm here, darling. Mother is right here..."

However, as Akira sobbed against his mother's shoulder, his teeth were gritted on the side of his face they couldn't see. Crying alone wouldn't be enough. He had to uproot the seed of doubt within Zephyro once and for all. His mind raced frantically through the pages of the grimoire he had spent years memorizing in secret. Come on... come on! Illusion... Image Manipulation... There has to be something!

And then, he found it. A high-tier [Skill: Light and Reflection] spell that required complex mental imagery.

While still clinging to Elysia, he slightly twitched the fingers of his right hand as it hung behind her back. His gargantuan [Mana Level: 129] began to coalesce at his fingertips. He hadn't even fully mastered the formula; this was an instinctive, blind gamble—a desperate shot in the dark. Please, work... he pleaded internally.

The meager candlelight in the room suddenly bent and fractured.

Elysia and Zephyro's breath hitched in their throats. Within the dim shadows behind the table, a shimmering silvery mist began to undulate. As a divine, pure white light flooded the cabin, Zephyro bolted to his feet in shock.

In the heart of the radiance, a familiar silhouette emerged—the flawless holographic mimicry of the Goddess. Her features were indistinct, yet she radiated a majesty that demanded one's knees hit the floor.

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly; a heavy, divine aura seeped into the very grain of the wooden walls. Akira, without lifting his head from his mother's shoulder, funneled every ounce of his concentration into the lips of the hologram.

The silhouette spoke with that sacred, resonant voice that sounded like the plucking of a thousand harps. The sound vibrated directly within the souls of his parents:

"He is my blessed little one..." the false Goddess declared, her voice transforming the humble cabin into a grand sanctuary. "This inconceivable power and the name etched upon that parchment are divine gifts bestowed by the heavens. The priests, unable to endure the purity of such force, were consumed by their own inner darkness. Do not fear him. He is of your blood, of your soul... He is my little miracle upon this earth."

Following that final utterance, Akira abruptly severed the mana flow. The hologram dissipated like stardust caught in a violent gale, scattering throughout the room before vanishing into nothingness within seconds. All that remained was the familiar, faint crackle of the hearth and a heavy, sacred silence.

Phew... Akira let out a long, exaggerated mental sigh of relief. It worked! I can't believe my luck held out.

Elysia and Zephyro remained on their knees, their eyes wide as they stared at the empty space where the hologram had just been. The doubt, horror, and paralyzing fear that had gripped them were gone, replaced by a pure, unshakeable faith and a profound sense of divine relief. Zephyro covered his face with his massive, trembling hands and began to sob. He crawled toward his wife and son, pulling them both into a crushing embrace with his gargantuan arms.

"Forgive me, my boy..." the man wept, his tears falling into Akira's hair. "I thought you were an abomination, that some darkness had claimed your soul... But you... you are the Goddess's greatest blessing to us. Valerion... or Akira, that sacred name she bestowed upon you. You are our son."

Wrapped in his father's massive, protective arms, Akira let his shoulders slump. He had succeeded. Through a "holy lie," he had reclaimed his warm family.

After that night, the events in the church were never spoken of aloud within the wooden walls of their home. Zephyro locked the pitch-black parchment away in a secret compartment beneath the floorboards, sealing it there for eternity. The next morning, they took the second, blank parchment. With his father's help, Akira etched a few ordinary but respectable-looking runes onto it—a status that would satisfy the village's common sense without drawing unwanted attention:

[NAME: VALERION] [AFFINITY: FIRE (BASIC MANIPULATION)] [POWER LEVEL: 3]

For the son of a woodsman, it was a respectable standing, yet normal enough to slip under the radar. When they showed this parchment to Lilia and the curious villagers, Lilia crossed her arms with her classic tsundere flair. "Only Level 3? Hmph, I suppose I'll have to be the one to protect you then, Valerion!" she teased, though her eyes betrayed how genuinely happy she was for him.

The "mysterious" burning of the church and the legend of the priests "ascending to the Goddess's side in a pillar of divine flame" became the talk of the village for weeks. Akira returned to his role as the charming village boy, training in the forest with Lilia as if nothing had happened. Life had settled back into its pastoral, peaceful routine. Akira had successfully lulled the Level 129 monster within him to sleep, content to sip warm soup with his family.

Until two months later.

It was an ordinary, sun-drenched morning. Akira and Lilia were sitting beneath the oak tree at the forest entrance, laughing together, when they were startled by a thunderous, rhythmic pounding of hooves.

Akira looked up, his eyes narrowing. The adult mind within him immediately began to ring the alarm bells of imminent danger.

Entering the village along the dirt road was a detachment of knights. They were encased in shimmering silver plate armor, sitting atop their steeds like literal machines of death. Leading the pack was a man with half of his face covered in jagged burn scars, his gaze sharp and merciless. Glinting on his chest was the blood-red crest of the Royal Inquisition—the very order the scorched church had belonged to.

The dream of leading a peaceful, ordinary life was like walking upon the thinnest sheet of glass. And with the arrival of that horrific decree from the Capital, the glass shattered into a million jagged shards.

To the villagers, the Church's surrender to the flames might have been perceived as a "divine act of the Goddess," but when the news reached the Capital, it struck the world of the nobility and high priests with a far more sinister resonance. Who would dare burn the house of God? Who could possess the power to erase holy priests into nothingness? The answer was immediate: Demons. The whispers spreading like wildfire among the city folk soon fermented into mass hysteria—a collective madness fueled by fear.

"The demons are at our gates!" the cries echoed through the palace walls. The people didn't want a long-drawn-out investigation or a fair trial; they demanded that the "blight" in the countryside be purged by the root. To suppress this spiraling panic, the Crown chose the most ruthless, most definitive solution: The village was to be wiped from the face of the earth.

On a mundane afternoon, with the sun hanging high in the zenith and children scampering through the dirt paths, the silver-clad death machines of the Royal Inquisition appeared at the village entrance.

There was no proclamation. No charges were read, and no right to self-defense was granted.

Astride his steed, his face shrouded in the deep shadow of his helm, the High Commander cast a fleeting glance at the bewildered peasants. His eyes held neither pity nor hesitation. He simply raised his gauntleted hand and delivered the freezing, single-word command:

"Execute."