New(ish) Faces:

Caera Denoir POV:

"Yes, I do."

Hearing those words leave my mouth Seris's face grew a knowing smile and Sevren's, a baffled look. Sevren was the next to ask a question now that the topic had been changed from Aether and his likely inability to use it to my love interest, great… With all the seriousness that he could muster Sevren asked.

"What was he like?"

I responded with a fond look on my face that couldn't be covered.

"When I met him, he had silk-like golden hair and cat-like golden eyes. He was tall and muscular, though not in a bulky way, with a lean, lithe figure and walked like he was a god in all but name. He hardly showed emotions because of the war, but when he did his goofy and graceful smiles would light up the room and laughter would ring like bells through it as well. He was, at least to me, perfect."

They were wearing knowing smirks as I continued through my explanation of what Grey was like when I was around him and knew him. It didn't take long for them to come up with a response, this time it was Seris who gave the response.

"Kukuku… you know you didn't have to put your feelings into the explanation, but I think I understand what you saw in him."

My blush lit up the room before I looked down, I could hear Sevren and Seris coo at the uncharacteristic display of emotions.

"Back on topic, will you help me?"

They noticed my serious attitude and decided that it was about time that they get back on topic, they didn't take long to respond to my question, Sevren was the first to respond.

"Of course, you're telling me about a future where I'm both dead and the rest of the world dies too. How could I deny you, even if I was afraid to help you, I'd imagine that doing nothing only contributes to the problem."

I nodded with a small smile on my face. Seris responded shortly after.

"I agree with Sevren, however there are a few things that I want in return."

I stiffened wondering what it is that she could want from me and would ask from me. As I was in my internal dilemma waiting for Seris to ask her demand she was taking her teacup up to her lips and letting a draft of the tea slowly find its way into her mouth and down her throat, she let out a satisfied hum before making her demand.

"I understand that this will probably be painful, but I need to know what happens in the future, even if just through your perspective, of what will happen. Additionally, I want you to be my disciple going forward."

I looked up at her, surprised to hear the simple demands that she had made. I sighed in relief before responding to her demands.

"Very well, I will tell you about the future, but before I do I want to thank you for helping me going forward."

I took in a long breath of air into my lungs before beginning to tell them about the future, this was going to be a long conversation.

—

Arthur Leywin's POV:

It hasn't been long since my… miscalculation? Yeah, that seems fitting.

The only thing that has happened since awakening is that we've gone to stay at an inn due to the lack of a house that we currently are suffering from…

Ah, being homeless reminds me of my joice youth… thought with all the sarcasm I could muster.

We have for obvious reasons decided to keep our early awakenings to ourselves as the attention we would get from everyone would be rather annoying and potentially dangerous.

Staying in the inn reminded me that the Twin Horns would be helping to repair the house soon, so maybe, just maybe, I could, you know, get mom to let me go meet them for the first time earlier than before. Wait, that sounded weird…

Don't get me wrong, I like talking to my brother, but it gets kind of dull when he is literally the only company that I have all the time from the day we were born till now we've practically been attached at the hip, not that I'm complaining, I just want some variety in who changes my diaper and who I sleep in the same crib with you know?

No? Really? Huh, I guess it was just me.

If I've remembered correctly the house won't take too long to finish, so I won't have too long to talk with them if mom even lets me meet them.

Still talking to others will be nice.

After my birthday the party arrived, and I finally found an opportunity in the morning to allow Ben and I to go see magic from the others for the first time. I had already informed Ben of the conversation I was going to be having with mom so that he wouldn't have any surprises.

I walked my way up to my mother acting shyly, making sure that I came off and gave the impression of being immature to her. I caught her attention and used the ultimate technique that I had devised in my past life in preparation for an event like this.

Puppy Dog Eyes…

What a terrifying technique to fall into the wrong hands…

"Mommy, can Ben and I go with daddy to meet the adventurers."

The question was could she resist the Puppy Dog Eyes technique, based on her baby journal, the answer was a resounding

No.

Seeing my eyes, it only took a second of internal debating for her to come to her decision like the doting mother she is.

What a terrifying technique indeed…

"Oh, of course boys, you'll be able to see some magic and meet our friends from when we were younger."

Looking over to Ben I could see the expression of surprise at how easy it was with a little fear mixed in probably wondering what kind of sorcery could cause a person to give in to manipulation so easily.

Oh Ben, I'll teach you one day.

—

It was the next day, and I was very excited, after all I was going to be meeting people from my past life. I had informed Ben already about them and he seemed at least curious about them after what I had told him, after all he seemed to be fascinated with the prospect of becoming an adventurer when we're older. Now would be a good chance for him to get some stories out of the Twin Horns.

My dad came to my brother and I; we had already packed everything that we would need for the day to come and told us that it was time to go. I could hardly prevent the smile building up in me to see the Twin Horns again. My dad seemed to think that it was more so related to the fact that they were adventurers rather than the fact that they were acquaintances from my past life.

Walking on the dirt road would have been troublesome if not for the fact that I had my asuran body to work with. Thinking about it, I'm very grateful to have received Sylvie's body though I'm not happy about the reason for it. Damn thinking about Sylvie reminds me that I still have to get her egg from Sylvia, and maybe just maybe, if at all possible, I'll be able to save her too.

Arriving at the house, or rather, where it had once stood, I was nearly trapped between Angela's foam pillows. I was in front of Ben so when I sidestepped the assassination technique landed, though on the wrong target. I could see Ben's desperate attempts at freedom, my expression didn't change one bit while I just mentally saluted him for his sacrifice with Regis.

Though Regis…

'Damnit why are you guys so lucky with women when you're only three?!'

I sighed at the comment before noticing that Durden was about to free my brother. Durden lifted Ben up by the knapsack that he had prepared in advance, upon seeing Durden, Ben looked up at his savior in awe of the gentle giant that had helped him. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines that I had when I was first saved by Durden, that is until he turned to glare at me silently so that no one could notice the meaning behind it. I turned whistling as if I was oblivious, noticing a tick mark appear on my brother's head as I turned around.

At this point the rest of the Twin Horns had arrived and I promised to apologize to Ben later for not telling him about the Twin Horns' assassin in the party. Before I could look around, I was snapped out of my action by my father who decided that now was a good time to introduce us to the Twin Horns.

"Hey fellas! these are my boys, Art and Ben! Say Hello to them boys!"

I noticed my brother looked at me for a moment longer before turning to the Twin Horns and introducing himself.

"Hello, my name is Benjamin Leywin, it's an honor to make the acquaintance of my father's former party members that I've heard about from him, please take care of me."

"Hello, my name is Arthur Leywin, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

My response was brusquer than the introduction that I made in the original timeline, it was a social tendency I had developed from only ever talking to people within my head for the better half of a million years, I'd become rather brusque in everything but my thoughts.

Yet it still made an impression. The Twin Horns eyes widened in surprise, particularly at my brother's introduction as they were likely not expecting us to be capable of articulating words so well at our age.

Well, nothing I can do about that blunder now…

"Hey Rey, are you sure these two are your kids?"

A familiar red-haired spearman was the one to ask the question, though for the rude comment the other members of the Twin Horns each came up to him and gave him a good thump on the head for it.

Helen was the next to come up and introduce herself, she was the same half-elf that I remembered her as, seeing her sharp features and familiar charismatic smile was relieving, I had missed all of them a lot these past years and now this finally confirmed for me that I was truly back and that I can kept them alive.

Though I'm not sure why it was Helen's smile that made me think about that.

"Why can I sense Mana cores in them?"

I was surprised to hear that from Jasmine, I almost flinched back in surprise, she wasn't supposed to know about that yet, will things change because of this? The others looked at us in appraisal and came out of it surprised. I had thought that the shell around my core was to prevent the appraisal of my core period, but I suppose not.

The Twin Horns began to bombard us with questions, and I just raised a hand to stop them, they seemed to catch the meaning of my action and then let us explain everything.

"To answer your questions, we awakened less than a month ago and decided not to tell anyone because it could draw attention to us."

They seemed to nod in response as the question they had all asked was how long ago we had awakened as well as why didn't they get talked about it. They seemed to accept those answers before the dunderhead Adam decided to ask us something that under normal circumstances would be ridiculous.

"Hey Rey, you mind if I spar with your boys, I want to see what the little geniuses can do."

At this point I finally noticed that my mother had been with us silently the whole time, I was shocked that I hadn't even noticed her presence until now.

Dad seemed hesitant about letting us spar with the much older, much stronger man in front of us but eventually relented and allowed us to have a spar with him in the crater where our house once was.

Many thanks to my dear father for this opportunity to be humiliated by a much older and stronger man than us.

Walking up to Ben I decided now would be a good time to give him a super quick lesson on mana manipulation and with my pillar ability injected false memories of how Mana is manipulated in the best way that I know of and believe me having Regis and Sylvie practicing their Mana manipulation for the better half of a million years had taught us some things.

My brother was surprised at first and took a few seconds to absorb the information but after a moment he looked at me thankfully and over the next minute tested what I had shown him in Mana manipulation, but jeez after just a minute it was like his body totally harmonized with the information and allowed him to do all the things I had taught him in that moment, I mean, he even got Mana rotation down to some degree!

The others looked at us in disbelief before we got into stance and waited for Adam to signal the duels beginning. It seemed that he was going to be taking us more seriously now that we had shown him a little of the mana manipulation that we were capable of through Ben's testing, Adam had found a suitable stick from the rubble that was once our house and with a confident smirk that I was more than ready to wipe off his face initiated the duel.

"Alright boys, come get me!"

—

Jasmine Flamesworth POV:

There was only one thought on our minds when the match started.

How did he do that?

Arthur let Ben rush forward first and as Ben was swinging down on Adam he near instantly blinked behind Adam and struck the weak blade into Adam's kneecap, the look on Adam's face was both a grimace and shock. Ben was behind Adam and Adam put all of his attention on the perceived threat that had been behind him.

It was his first and only mistake.

In less than an instant Arthur had already closed the distance between himself and Adam placing his sword on his shoulder, when Adam turned around, he was meet face to face with the boy who had only moments before been a fair distance away, only to find that in less than a second, he had crossed that distance so quickly that it was surprising to us all.

Adam slumped down in resignation and yelled out.

"Rey, how the heck did you train these little monsters?!"

I looked over to see Rey had a priceless look of dumbfounded shock on his face as he looked between his boy's faces.

"I didn't teach them that, hell I don't even know what they did."

All of us turned towards them with shocked expressions on their faces before I looked over at Rey after hearing a startled scream of pain, seeing the situation I almost sighed, Rey was being scolded by Alice for cursing in front of the two boys.

"Ben, how did you do the feint at the beginning? Arthur, how did you do the near instantaneous movement as well?"

I asked both of them while gesturing to them both, for their respective questions, these techniques were clearly advanced, and they were impressive to a degree that most if not all veteran mages would be completely unable to reproduce them.

"Well, the feint was rather simple…"

As he explained the movement to us, I felt that my attention should be placed on Arthur, to gauge his reaction to the technique, he seemed completely unfazed as he kicked a rock around waiting his turn to explain the technique. It confirmed my suspicion that he at least knew about how to do both of the techniques.

When it came time to listen to Arthur's explanation, I put a level of attention on it that I hadn't Ben's as although I got the first technique, this was a more useful technique for an augmenter as it allows one to close the distance between themselves and others near instantaneously which was an invaluable tool that could be used to change the tide of a battle between oneself and a conjurer.

"Well, the technique is complex, I don't imagine that you'll be able to do it, for me it took a while before I could even conceptualize how to use it, simply put you heavily stimulate your muscles in specific places throughout your body depending what action you want to take, it will also put a great strain on your body so don't try it. The technique is called: Burst Movement."

Hearing the strain part of the technique set everyone off from learning the technique from him for all except his mother whose wraith knew no bounds.

"Arthur dear, did you say that you just used a technique that puts a lot of strain on your body?"

The voice even though not directed at me made me feel a bit nervous looking at Arthur. He was basically shaking in his place. Accepting the scolding he likely knew was coming for him. I could only look at the young boy with pity before we decided to get back to work.

From afar I could see the look on Arthur's face as he looked into the distance. It was solemn, resolute and bittersweet. It was lonely, lost and reflective. But deeper than that hidden behind his eyes was a look I had never seen before it was confident to a fault, arrogant and antisocial, possibly even hedonistic.

But deeper than that…

Was madness.