As Dumbledore's words settled into the air between them, Cain's thoughts drifted—
Dead. He was declared dead
By Hogwarts' rules and by the Quill's certainty.
Cain didn't argue it was false
Because, going by the lore of the game—the truth he had lived through—Dumbledore wasn't wrong.
He had died.
Not once. Not twice. But many times over and over again.
He remembered it now with uncomfortable clarity: the first time he fell in the Lands Between, the moment the world had gone dark, only for something else to pull him back.
The grace or Marika.
Arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live.
He had never questioned it before. In Elden Ring, death was temporary. A game mechanic. An inconvenience. Both a blessing and a curse, something you learned to accept.
But standing here—in a quiet office, beneath a wizard's careful gaze—Cain realized how absurd that assumption had been.
Grace did not resurrect him It returned him back for a purpose.
Cain lifted his eyes to Dumbledore. "The book thinks I died," he said slowly.
Dumbledore inclined his head. "It knows you did. Although this book right here is merely a replica as its original counterpart hasn't been touched by human hands since it's creation."
"So it's connected to the original book?"
"Yes it shows the exact words drawn by the quill on the book."
"Then it's not wrong."
Dumbledore paused.
"You speak as though death were… negotiable," the Headmaster observed.
Cain considered his words carefully. He'd survived worse than this conversation. But this wasn't a duel. There was no advantage to force or evasion here.
"I didn't come back on my own," Cain said. "If that's what you're asking."
Dumbledore's fingers tightened slightly atop the closed book.
"Then something brought you back," he said.
"Yes."
"Something powerful."
Cain didn't deny it.
Dumbledore studied him in silence now, not as a Headmaster assessing a student, but as a scholar staring at a problem that defied classification.
"The Quill records potential," Dumbledore said at last. "It records souls capable of magic be they big or small. When it crosses out a name, it does so because that potential has… ended."
Cain's jaw tightened. "Mine didn't."
"No," Dumbledore agreed. "It did not, but it was interrupted or brought back."
The word hung between them.
Interrupted and brought back
Cain thought of the Site of Grace in his dreams—how it had twisted, warped, shattered. How the light had felt wrong here, unstable, like it no longer knew where it belonged.
"You're worried I shouldn't exist," Cain said quietly.
Dumbledore met his gaze evenly. "I am worried that something has expectations from you."
Silence fell again.
Cain's thoughts raced—not with fear, but with grim recognition. In the Lands Between, he had been a tool. A champion shaped by necessity. A dead man pointed at an impossible goal and told to keep walking. Even the people he met wanted to use him the "Tarnished" to complete their own goals.
Cain spoke up. "If the Quill crossed out my name… why didn't Hogwarts reject me? The castle itself has a concious no."
Dumbledore's eyes flickered slightly.
"Ah," he said softly. "That is the question I have been asking myself."
He rose from his chair and walked toward the window, gazing out over the grounds where students laughed and packed and prepared to leave.
"The castle," Dumbledore said, "is built upon very old magic. Older, in some ways, than the wizarding world itself. It recognizes… anomalies and never rejects someone seeking knowledge."
"And you?" Cain asked. "What do you recognize?"
Dumbledore turned back to him.
"I recognize," he said carefully, "a boy who died… and returned with his will intact."
The candles dimmed, Dumbledore's voice lowered.
"And I recognize," he continued, "that whatever resurrected you may not be a blank slate."
Cain's fingers tightened at his sides. The train whistle echoed faintly in the distance.
---
Of course it wasn't finished. Cain kept his expression neutral, even as his thoughts spiraled.
Everything always looped back.
The Lands Between hadn't ended when the Elden Beast fell. The world had fractured, reformed, continued. Death had never been final there—only deferred, redirected, repurposed.
He had been repurposed like the tool he was.
Cain searched his memory, piecing together fragments of lore he hadn't thought about in months. Not the surface-level knowledge—the mechanics, the bosses—but the deeper truths buried beneath item descriptions and half-spoken myths.
The Greater Will. The One Great.
A singular existence that had once encompassed all things, before it fractured—before birth, before division, before Order itself. A being—or force—so vast that even gods were little more than instruments shaped by its intent.
Could something like that truly be gone?
Cain doubted it.
Power on that scale didn't just disappear.
Looking at his situation now. In a castle that chose its own students. In a world governed by magic that responded to intent, belief, and will.
Cain's lips pressed into a thin line.
If Grace had brought him back…
Then this wasn't an accident.
Cain met Dumbledore's gaze again, carefully schooling his features into polite confusion.
"You think whatever brought me back is still watching," he said.
Dumbledore didn't deny it. "I think," he replied slowly, "that forces capable of reversing death rarely do so without expectation."
Cain nodded once, as if absorbing a lesson.
If the Greater Will—or something adjacent to it—still existed, then Hogwarts was not a refuge. It was another board. With another set of rules.
Cain straightened slightly. "If I am… an anomaly," he said evenly, "why allow me to stay?"
Dumbledore's eyes flickered with something unreadable.
"Because," he said, "removing anomalies without understanding them has historically ended very badly."
A fair answer. Not a comforting one but still fare.
Cain inclined his head. "Then I suppose we'll both keep watching."
Dumbledore smiled faintly understanding that the child infront of him didn't understand his own destiny. "Indeed."
The Headmaster moved back to his desk, opening a drawer, his voice lighter but less sharp.
"For now, Mr. Riven, you may board the train. Enjoy your summer. Rest."
Cain nodded as he turned toward the door. Behind him, Dumbledore spoke again—quietly.
"Mr. Riven," he said. "One last thing."
Cain turned.
Dumbledore's gaze was fixed on him now, no warmth left in his eyes.
"If you remember how you died…"
"…I would very much like to know how it happened."