Chapter 43 - A boy named Dorian

  Like most things that had happened to him in recent memory, confusion was the main emotion dominating his mind. He had reached the surface of the waters and managed to spit out all the water, only to find himself being grabbed by some large man and thrown like a ragdoll in the air.

  Disorientation was muffling his mind as the world slowly came into view. He was lying on a wooden floor with several worried faces looming over him. As the water drained from his ears, he heard his name being called and locked eyes with a distraught girl cradling his head.

  It took him a full second to realize that it wasn’t his name that was being called.

  “Dorian, Dorian are you all right? Speak to me, brother!” He recognized her voice as his older sister Ellio. Memories slowly trickled in as the pieces were put together.

  He couldn’t focus on viewing the memories like he did with the tiger as the external noise and distraction were too great.

  “I’m okay, I’ll be fine” He replied, trying to buy time to ground himself in this new reality of his.

  His soul was stable now, and more notably, it had settled deeper into this body than any other before. He was truly a part of this new vessel now and probably wouldn’t be able to reduce pain by distancing his soul anymore. He had fully committed to this reincarnation, and as a result, he was alive again… Inside the once-dead body of a young thirteen-year-old boy, with his sister and friends surrounding him and calling his host's name.

  A lump appeared in his stomach as that truth settled in. It was great news that he was alive once more, but how would he explain to these people that the person they knew minutes ago was actually dead and that he had taken over his body?

  They would probably think him crazy. He touched the back of his head and winced at the pain. His fingers were wet with blood and now the picture of this boy's death started to come into focus. Memories of a journey across a sea, boarding the ship, a sudden boarding by a sea monster, and a fight that caused him to fall and hit his head before falling overboard. It began to make sense why the kid drowned, he was knocked out and drowned to death.

  But now, his body was being recycled by Adam, as a vessel to gather knowledge and resources that could help him learn about all the insane shit that happened to him, and eventually find a way to bring his true soul back to life. As he lay on the wooden floor of the ship, he made up his mind about how he would act moving forward.

  This wasn’t his life, yet he would need to pretend it was for the time being. He would use everything at his disposal to learn about magic, and when he has discovered enough, he would return to his main soul to relay the information. He wouldn’t lose focus of his true identity and purpose. He wasn’t this kid, and nothing that mattered to his host's former self would apply to him.

  As he started to get up, he once again looked around at the ship and the many faces around him. This wasn’t the new life he was aiming for, this was a mission, and despite needing to play the part of the dead kid for now, he would stick to his real goals no matter what.

  “How are you feeling, boy?” The voice came from the bulky older man who had helped him before.

  “I’ll be fine, thank you for your help, sir” He replied.

  Ha, you're one lucky kid, you should be more careful. The South is dangerous even for veteran hunters like me young hunter candidates.

  Adam frowned at the man's words and not because of their contents. He only now realized that he didn’t know what language they were speaking, yet he understood them and even replied in the same language. He had experienced a host’s memories before but nothing like this.

  When he possessed that tiger, the memories were distant, like watching a movie on a screen, yet as he spoke, words he had never even heard or pronounced before came out of his mouth with practiced ease. It was a surreal experience, yet it also made sense. His soul and this body had fused far better than any other reincarnation before, so his host’s brain was perfectly relaying his oral intentions into this foreign language since it wasn’t foreign to this body at all.

  It seemed to work like a filter, his soul would dictate his intentions, and his brain would link him to the different words that correspond to each intended word. His muscle memory then took over as years of speaking the language allowed Adam to fluently speak a completely foreign language as a native.

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  This was all stuff he had never even thought of before, yet the fact that everything simply fell into place after literally swapping out someone's soul did frighten him. How would anyone know that someone had been replaced if they looked, talked, and remembered everything the previous person did?

  He felt frightened of his own ability to impersonate people, but snapping out of his thoughts, he looked the captain in the eyes.

  “I’ll be very careful to stay out of trouble from now on, sir.”

  The older captain smiled before turning his back from Adam and walking over to where the large sea beast was being manhandled on deck.

  “Come on Dorian, let's get you inside before you get thrown overboard again. Do you know how worried I was, what if the captain couldn’t get to you in time?” Dorian's older sister was forcibly dragging him by his arm as she made for the ugly wooden box of a shelter at the center of the ship.

  The boat was in the shape of a canoe but was vastly bigger. At least a hundred meters long, with both ends ending in sharp tips. There were no sails or rows, and the only structure was the rectangular shed that served as refuge onboard.

  As he was dragged away by Dorian's surprisingly strong sister, Adams rummaged around in his new host’s brain in search of information about his new world and relationship with his apparent sister.

  Soon, a few things became very clear. This was not some magic-filled world like where he died. He learned that the new continent of the south was the only place where magic thrives. The north is occupied by humans and most have never even seen magic before. He was born in the north and had been sent to the south in search of a better life. His sister and he were both on their way to a southern city called Malder, but unlike the human-inhabited north, the south was filled with monsters of various types, referred to as a whole as Niorbo.

  According to Dorian’s memories, the creatures are believed to be the spawn of an evil god sent to destroy their world, and fighting them grants one the strength to rise against that evil deity and protect humanity. But crossing the Caspien sea was often the most dangerous part of the journey south for anyone traveling to the land of danger and opportunity.

  No humans in the north had magic, but they would tell stories of the great heroes of the south, who fought off the evil Niobos in heroic tales while huddled around campfires.

  From Dorian's memories, these humans seemed to be a lot more unified than any on Earth, to the point that it was almost hard to believe. His new host and his sister grew up in a small close-knit community where all the kids were raised together by the adults. Crimes and disputes over land and power were seemingly not a thing as far as Dorian was aware, as all his memories were of stories of fighting off evil creatures and getting stronger to protect mankind.

  That may simply be the naive mind of a young teenager, yet it proved that crime wasn't so prevalent at least. He couldn’t help but crack a smile at the wholesome memories of the past, but the release of his wrist by his sister pulled him from his thoughts.

  “You really need to be careful, I’m not a hunter yet and can’t protect you all the time.” She declared with tears still in her eyes.

  A pang of guilt rose in his chest but he squashed it down the moment he felt it.

  “Don’t worry Ellio, once I become a hunter, I’ll be able to kick any Niorbos butt.” It was the truth, from this young boy's memories, ‘hunters’ were the infamous protectors of humanity who became stronger by killing the Niorbos.

  It wasn’t explicit in Dorian's memories, but a little deduction from his past life, and the answer was obvious. These Niorbos were magic beasts and the hunters were magic core welders. If he wanted to learn more about magic, he would definitely need to become a hunter at one of the cities that have been protecting humanity from the Niorbos for hundreds of years.

  “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, even if you can become a hunter at fourteen, I’ll still be stronger than you, I always win in an arm wrestle.” Came his sister's response, she was clearly trying to lighten the mood, misinterpreting Adam's silent and distant expressions for shock after a near-death experience.

  He smiled at her as he sat down against the wall.

  “I’ll stay close to you if we ever run into some nasty Niorbo then”

  Just watch, I’ll kill them so bad they'll beg for mercy. She joked while flexing her arm muscles.

  He may have just arrived in this world and life, but his body was spent from literally dying. He felt sleep coming for him, but first had to check his theory. He had no mana core in this body but he still attempted to open his status window. It was something that he could do in his spirit form but he was still wondering how it worked.

  When nothing appeared, his lips lifted in a small grin.

  ‘So I need a core to access the system… Does that mean I can start over from scratch the right way? I'm sure I screwed everything up on the beach. This is going to be a great opportunity to learn the basics from an actual magic civilization.’

  This wasn't how he was expecting it to go, but this was what he dreamed of when he was wandering around blindly in the uninhabited magical world that eventually claimed his life. Despite his complex emotional state and situation, he couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement at being able to finally find out the answers to all the magical questions that had stumped him when he first started on his journey.

  —

  Meanwhile, sitting cross-legged on a surface of solid liquid. Adam's spirit continued his deep focus on soul circulation. It was his first soul magic spell but he felt it had become useless to him now. He had used it to fuel his soul in a cycle that helped both strengthen the soul and increase his magic soul core.

  Except now it was evident that it had minor effects on his soul compared to simply absorbing the ambient haze around him. Yet the spell acted more directly on the soul, unlike the haze which nurtured his spirit body mainly. Therefore, he had spent most of his time since he sent off the soul fragment split between handling and moving around in his spirit form and working on incorporating his soul magic into further growing himself.

  Using soul blaze on himself was obviously a bad idea, so when he felt himself flying through the air more smoothly during his spirit control practice, he would switch to focusing on using his soul mana to further grow his soul's strength. He had repeated these two practices over and over again until something finally clicked.

  Looking up at his status screen, his eyes widened and a smile filled his face.

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