Chapter 16 : Memories [1]

 [Narrator POV]

The fragments coalesced in Claude's mind like shards of broken glass—sharp, distinct, yet part of a larger whole. As he sat in the flickering darkness of the dungeon, his consciousness drifted through the labyrinth of memories that defined his existence as a Miko.

Not reincarnation—convergence. A mind inhabited by multiple pasts, multiple failures, each with their own textures and tastes of regret.

From all the events untold and half-remembered, we can discern that Claude carries the burden of at least three distinct pasts.

When the fragments settle into temporary clarity, he can sometimes chronicle these experiences with surprising order—cataloguing lives that were never truly his, yet shape his every action.

The first was Alex Cromwell.

[Alex Cromwell's Timeline]

He was a prodigy in swordsmanship, his talent blooming like a rare flower in the modest soil of Buena Village.

By age eleven, Alex had already surpassed Paul Greyrat and achieved the rare distinction of becoming an all-style Saint—master of every sword technique known in the six-faced world. The gleam of his blade brought light and attention to Buena Village.

Word of his prowess spread across the land like wildfire. Ambitious nobles, seasoned warriors, and renowned sword masters made pilgrimages to Buena Village, each bearing offers and enticements to claim the prodigy for themselves.

Even Ghislaine of the prestigious Boreas family—a swordswoman of legendary skill and fearsome reputation—journeyed to see the boy wonder, her crimson eyes evaluating his every movement with intense interest.

"I would have you as my disciple," she had declared, her beast-race features solemn as she extended this rare honor.

But Alex declined them all with gentle firmness, his eyes reflecting a wisdom beyond his years.

"I want to have a peaceful life in this village," he would say, bowing respectfully. "Please forgive me for refusing your offer."

Those simple words revealed the truth of his heart—a deep attachment to Buena Village that transcended ambition.

Where others saw a stepping stone to glory, he saw home.

The villagers spoke of him with reverent tones. Children would gather around him in the training yard, eyes wide with wonder as he demonstrated forms and techniques.

His past as a Professor of Psychology and University Teacher—knowledge from another world entirely—gave him unique insight into instructional methods.

He could adjust his teaching approach for anyone, whether they were seven or seventy, explaining complex sword maneuvers with crystalline clarity.

"The sword is an extension of your intention," he would tell his students, patient even when they fumbled. "Before your arm moves, your mind must see the path."

Days passed in a comfortable rhythm of training and guidance. Sometimes he would assist his father at the smithy, the heat of the forge painting his youthful face with an orange glow as he hammered metal into submission.

His creations astounded even seasoned blacksmiths—blades with perfect balance, tools that seemed to anticipate their user's needs.

"How does a boy understand the soul of steel better than men who've worked it for decades?" visitors would whisper.

His intelligence shone in every endeavor. Had he known the bleak future that awaited Buena Village, he surely could have altered its course—but foresight was the one gift he lacked in this particular timeline.

What of his relationship with Rudeus Greyrat, the other reincarnated soul in Buena Village?

There was none.

After the water ball incident that triggered the awakening of his past life memories, Alex deliberately avoided further interaction with the prodigious child.

Though he maintained cordial relations with Paul and other members of the Greyrat household, this only occurred after Rudeus had already departed to serve as a tutor at the Sauros family manor.

He knew of Sylphiette, the green-haired girl who was Rudeus's childhood friend, but something strange occurred whenever he attempted to approach her—a mental block, like invisible chains restraining his thoughts and actions.

Later, he would realize this was a curse affecting his mind, preventing him from interfering with certain fixed points in the timeline.

By age eleven, Alex had already assumed a position among the guards defending Buena Village.

His reputation grew with each bandit repelled and monster slain. Unlike Paul, whose heroism was largely relegated to tales of past adventures, Alex actively protected the village—his sword becoming a symbol of security for its inhabitants.

The villagers began to speak of him in hushed, reverent tones. Not merely a prodigy, but a guardian deity who walked among them.

His very presence deterred evil from approaching the village borders.

His smithing abilities further elevated his standing. Using knowledge from Earth—metallurgical principles that didn't exist in this world—he created alloys of unprecedented strength and flexibility.

His experiments yielded materials that other blacksmiths could scarcely comprehend, let alone replicate.

"The boy speaks to metal as though it were alive," his father once remarked, watching Alex work with a mixture of pride and bewilderment.

Under his influence, Buena Village flourished. Merchants diverted their routes to pass through the growing settlement, bringing trade and prosperity.

The future gleamed with promise, like sunlight on the edge of one of Alex's blades.

Then came the day that sundered everything.

The mass teleportation incident struck without warning—a catastrophe beyond imagination. The air crackled with arcane energy, reality itself seeming to fracture as a blinding light engulfed the village.

Alex was training with a group of children when it happened. His first instinct—born of both this world's combat experience and his past life's protective nature—was to shield the young ones.

He gathered them close, his body curving protectively around them as the light intensified to unbearable brightness.

When the light faded, the familiar training grounds were gone. In their place stood the dank, oppressive walls of a dungeon deep within the Great Forest.

"Where is this?" he whispered, his voice echoing strangely in the unfamiliar space. Around him, the children whimpered and cried, their small faces contorted with fear in the dim light.

What followed was a desperate struggle for survival. Each passing day claimed young lives—some to starvation, others to the monstrous inhabitants of the dungeon.

The memory of each lost child carved itself into Alex's heart like acid on metal.

The hardest moments came when monsters attacked in packs. Despite his status as a sword saint, protecting multiple children while fighting was an impossible task.

The first day, he succeeded through sheer determination and skill. But as hunger and thirst weakened his body, his reflexes slowed incrementally.

He discovered quickly that the monsters' blood and meat contained potent toxins. One desperate taste confirmed this—the bitter, burning sensation on his tongue warning him away from this potential food source.

He couldn't risk feeding such poison to the children, yet without sustenance, their strength diminished with each passing hour.

One by one, the children were taken—their screams etching permanent scars on Alex's psyche.

When a particularly vicious attack cost him an arm, sliced clean off by a monster's razor-sharp appendage, he knew all was lost.

He stood alone in the dungeon corridor, the walls splattered with blood—some his, some belonging to the children he had failed to protect.

They were all gone. Consumed by the beasts that stalked the labyrinthine passages.

All of them.

Each step Alex took afterward was heavy with the weight of his failure. Tears carved clean tracks through the grime and blood on his face as he wandered aimlessly through the dungeon.

"I was too weak," he whispered to the empty corridors. "Too proud."

His hubris had been believing that his skills, exceptional though they were, could overcome any challenge. But the dungeon cared nothing for titles like "Sword Saint" or "Prodigy." Here, in the merciless dark, he was merely flesh—vulnerable, mortal, failing.

His final memory was of Vorpal Rabbits—their crimson eyes glowing in the darkness, their horn-like protrusions gleaming wetly as they surrounded him.

Weakened by blood loss, starvation, and despair, he could no longer defend himself. The creatures fell upon him in a wave of fur and fangs and hunger.

Thus ended Alex Cromwell—the Sword Saint Claude—devoured alive in a dungeon far from the sunlight of Buena Village.

[Fred Alphonse's Timeline]

The second memory fragment belonged to Fred Alphonse, whose path diverged significantly from Alex's.

Where Alex awakened to swordsmanship, Fred's encounter with Rudeus's water ball unleashed an entirely different talent.

As the cool sphere struck him, something ignited within—not memory alone, but raw elemental power. Fire erupted from his small body, blossoming outward in concentric waves of crimson and gold.

The sudden conflagration terrified onlookers. Flames licked hungrily at nearby grass and trees, consuming everything in their path with unnatural voracity.

The fire danced around Fred's body without harming him, responding to his unconscious emotions like an extension of his being.

Rudeus, witnessing the catastrophic result of his innocent attack, responded with instinctive problem-solving.

He conjured water to douse the spreading flames, but to everyone's shock, the fire only intensified when touched by the opposing element—a violation of natural law that sent murmurs of fear through the gathering crowd.

The commotion drew villagers from all directions. They stood at a safe distance, faces illuminated by the supernatural blaze, expressions caught between wonder and terror as they watched the boy wreathed in flames that obeyed no normal rules.

Someone had the presence of mind to summon Paul Greyrat. The former adventurer arrived quickly, took one look at the situation, and immediately called for his wife, Zenith—recognizing that her knowledge of magical phenomena exceeded his own.

Zenith arrived breathless, her eyes widening at the sight before her. She embraced a trembling Rudeus, who believed himself responsible for the chaos unfolding before them.

Sylphiette stood nearby with her father, recounting how Rudeus had defended her from bullies—the event that had led to this moment.

Paul's initial impulse to scold his son faded as he recognized that this reaction was unprecedented.

He himself had been involved in magical accidents in his youth, yet none had triggered such a spectacular response.

Zenith approached the circle of fire with cautious reverence, a leather-bound tome clutched in her hands.

The flames parted before her as if recognizing her intent, allowing her to examine the boy at their center.

"It's awakening," she announced, her voice carrying a mixture of awe and concern. "We have a Miko among us."

She explained to the bewildered villagers that they were witnessing the emergence of a rare gift—a person with the ability to manipulate elemental forces as naturally as breathing.

Fred had become a conduit for fire magic, a living vessel for primal energy.

Thus was born Claude the Fire Miko, his designation spreading through Buena Village and beyond with the speed of the very flames he commanded.

Fred's parents looked on with understandable concern, but Zenith offered reassurance. "He will learn control," she told them, her calm voice a balm to their fears. "The fire recognizes him as its master—it will not harm him. Our task is simply to keep others safe until he masters his gift."

The village buzzed with news of their elemental Miko. What began as fascination, however, gradually shifted toward fear as Fred struggled to contain his newfound power.

For two days, fire manifested around him unpredictably, scorching the earth where he walked and igniting objects he touched.

On the third day, exhausted by the constant effort to contain the raging energy within him, Fred collapsed.

Zenith, alerted to his condition, hurried to tend to him. Under her care, he recovered physical strength, but emerged changed in spirit.

In his previous life, Fred had earned master's degrees in chemistry and psychology. He had also developed considerable skill in programming and engineering—a renaissance man of the modern era.

These memories integrated with his new existence, but the personality that emerged was markedly different from Claude's original temperament.

Where Claude had been extroverted and sociable, Fred became withdrawn and analytical. The vibrant child who had once run laughing through Buena Village disappeared, replaced by a solemn figure who spent hours in solitude, exploring the boundaries of his abilities.

He discovered a natural affinity for enchantment—the art of infusing objects with magical properties. This captivated him more than simple spellcasting.

While other mages hurled fireballs or conjured barriers, Fred learned to weave fire essence into metal and cloth, creating artifacts that radiated controlled heat or illumination.

Rumors of an Elemental Miko stirred briefly beyond Buena Village's borders, but without dramatic displays to substantiate these claims, they remained merely curious tales.

The nobility of the Asura Kingdom, preoccupied with political machinations, paid little heed to stories of a fire-wielding child in a remote settlement.

This suited Fred perfectly. He had no desire for recognition or advancement. His days followed a predictable pattern: awakening, magical research, training, meals, assisting his father by maintaining the forge's fire at precise temperatures, sleep. Then repeat.

His life continued in this methodical progression until the teleportation event—that fixed point across all timelines—tore him from the familiar and cast him into the dungeon's depths.

Despite his considerable magical power—having achieved the ranks of Saint Enchanter and Fire Saint Mage—Fred discovered that some challenges transcend magical ability.

Hunger gnawed at him relentlessly as he navigated the dungeon's treacherous passages.

More devastating still was his discovery that his greatest strength became his undoing. When he encountered the Ancient Troll—a massive, primordial creature lurking near the dungeon's exit—his instinctive defense was to summon fire.

But the beast's eyes gleamed with malicious intelligence as the flames bloomed.

Too late, Fred realized his error. The Ancient Troll grew stronger in the presence of light, absorbing energy from fire and converting it to physical might.

Each defensive spell Fred cast only strengthened his opponent, until finally the monstrous creature overwhelmed him completely.

The Fire Miko's brilliance was extinguished in the darkness of the dungeon, his body broken and left to decay in the labyrinthine passages—another failed branch in the tree of Claude's possible existences.

[Claude POV - Present]

Sitting in the darkness of the dungeon, I shake my head to dispel the vivid recollections. The weight of these memories—lives that were and weren't mine—presses against my consciousness like a physical burden.

Alex's swordsmanship flows through my muscles when I fight. Fred's understanding of fire and enchantment whispers to me when I work with magic.

But I am neither of them. And both of them. And more.

I am Claude, the Miko of Convergence—the collector of failures, the inheritor of regrets. Each memory is a lesson written in pain, each death a warning of what awaits if I follow the same paths.

The dungeon around me is simultaneously new territory and hauntingly familiar. I've died here before—multiple times, in multiple ways.

The knowledge makes my skin crawl, but it also arms me with advantages my previous selves lacked.

I rise to my feet, wincing at muscles sore from fighting the dungeon's denizens. Unlike Alex, I know how to purify the monsters' meat.

Unlike Fred, I understand the Ancient Troll's weakness to water magic combined with physical attacks.

"Third time's the charm," I mutter to the darkness, a grim smile touching my lips.

Somewhere in the depths of my fragmented consciousness, a third Claude stirs—another life, another set of skills, another failure waiting to be redeemed.

But that story will have to wait. For now, I have rabbits to hunt and a dungeon to conquer.

This time, I won't fail.

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