Years passed.
I turned ten.
Time moved strangely in this world. Slow when I wanted it to pass. Fast when I needed more of it.
My babysitter remained by my side all those years, teaching me what a normal child my age was supposed to learn. Letters. Manners. History. Behavior. Everything carefully adjusted to match the image of an ordinary boy.
But I was never ordinary.
At fourteen, I would be sent to school. The sudden age advancement wasn't natural-it was political. Alexander refused to fund my proper education, so instead of investing in me, he simply gave up. His attention shifted to his other sons.
That alone should explain why I resent him.
And yet... "hate" feels too simple. Too shallow for something this layered.
At ten years old, in the present moment, I said my final goodbye to my babysitter. Her mother had died. She had to leave.
Just like that, another presence disappeared from my life.
As for the blonde girl... I never truly entered her memory. The tall man had used a strange magic type to access it. The fact that I wasted the forbidden roll on him still irritates me. That paper was meant for something bigger.
Still... I survived.
That alone mattered.
Elizabeth grew weaker with each passing month. She was on the edge of death, her body consumed by that strange illness. Watching her decline felt like watching a candle burn at both ends.
The next four years would be spent at the Adventurer's Guild. I would earn money. Help my mother. Prepare for my education.
School itself didn't interest me.
I only cared about one thing.
The weird symbols.
After my last encounter with someone from the same world as me... something inside me shifted.
I couldn't eat for a month after killing him.
The memory wouldn't fade.
Killing a human being-someone who once lived where I lived-shattered something in me.
If I lose my humanity... I lose the last thing connecting me to others.
And if that's gone... what am I?
I've been doomed since the day I was born into this world. That's why I hate it. Not simple anger. Not childish resentment.
A deep, rotting disgust.
I hate this world.
I hate what it turned me into.
I had no interest in anything here.
But that man... for a moment, I thought maybe he could understand me. Maybe I wouldn't be alone.
Now he's dead.
And I'm left with nothing but hatred.
Even toward myself.
I neglected my magic training. Focused more on swordsmanship. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe that's why I nearly died.
I need to know my rank.
I need to grow stronger.
This body is small. Weak. Temporary.
But I still have time.
And I will push myself beyond its limits.
I visited hell while being alive .
I lost all intrestes in living anymore .
My only goal is finding a way out of this hell .
As I stepped into my mother's room, the air felt heavier than usual, thick with the scent of old wood and fading candle wax. The curtains were half-drawn, letting in a thin blade of evening light that cut across the floor and climbed the edge of her bed. She sat there, small against the wide mattress, her hands twisted tightly in her lap as if she were holding herself together.
She didn't look at me at first.
"I tried," she began quietly, her voice thinner than I had ever heard it. "I tried to raise you the right way. I tried to protect you from... them. From that family."
Her fingers trembled. I had never noticed how tired her hands looked - rough from work, veins faintly visible beneath pale skin.
"I never wanted you to be like them," she whispered. "Like... him."
The word hung in the room like smoke.
"Since the day you started walking, since the day you spoke your first words... I should've seen it. I should've understood." She finally looked up at me, and her eyes were rimmed red, not from anger - but regret. "Your father and I... we were always fighting. Always breaking each other apart. I didn't want that life for you."
Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together, as if ashamed of the weakness.
"I'm sorry."
The room fell silent after that. No wind. No distant noise. Just the faint sound of her breathing - uneven, fragile.
And for the first time, she didn't look like my mother.
She looked like someone who had lost.