Player 0.4 [You have died.] [Reset in progress.]

The carriage moved forward, and without the comforts of soft cushions and other luxuries of our usual Frey carriages, I felt every cobblestone we drove over.

"'Somewhere safe.' That's what those people said when they brought me to Krok's estate. And turns out I was kidnapped this whole time." Fin folded his arms. "Where are we actually going?"

He had a much higher-pitched voice than I was used to, making him appear to be closer in age to Jarvis and Elda.

Puberty hasn't entirely set in for him, huh?

Fin would remain relatively small framed even in the future that I lived with him through, but that was because of the treatments under The Spiders. However, the boy in front of me was just that: a boy. This wasn't the battle-experienced young man that I knew. This was a fourteen-year-old teenager.

He looked different enough that I wouldn't have been able to even spot him on the street without a triple look back. His voice and frame were different, his mannerism more confident, and even his hair was unrecognizable. Fin hadn't yet undergone the stress of the mana-enhancement treatment under the Spiders, so instead of the silver-gray head of hair, it was a chestnut brown, similar to that of his older sister.

This was a Fin that I never knew. He was as bright-eyed as the Fin I remembered, but his eyes were full of inquisitiveness instead of anxiety.

"I know I'm not going home; that was burned down days back," Fin continued talking. "Are we going to the Frey manor? Or somewhere else?"

"See? I told you all it was a shady place. Why else would it be called an orphanage when none of us were actually orphans?" a pudgy thirteen-year-old piped in, his loud voice overtaking Fin's. "And why they wouldn't let us go out when people came around."

"I never said it wasn't shady." The thirteen-year-old girl beside him adjusted her glasses. "I've been there for two whole years. Obviously, some things didn't add up."

"Then why did you always tell me to keep my mouth shut?" the pudgy kid asked.

"As I've said before, I didn't care one way or another," the girl replied. "Besides you—"

"How can you not care??" The boy cut her off. "We just found out we were being held hostage all this time. Months for me—two years for you."

"Because this was much better to live at than the dump I was at before," she replied. "They fed me three good meals, left me alone to do whatever I wanted during the day, and the pillows were nice—"

She didn't get to finish talking before the pudgy boy interrupted again. "Just because the beds were nice? What kind of stupid reason is that?"

The girl side-eyed him. "Do you have the brain of a squirrel? Did you not hear anything else I said? I just told you why, and it wasn't just because of the pillows or beds."

"You might want to be quieter. What if people hear you outside?" Fin tried to interject, but neither of the other two children seemed to hear him.

"It's sound-proofed with mana stones," one of the ten-year-olds sitting on the other side of Fin mumbled.

I missed some spoken or unspoken part between the pudgy kid and the girl when the boy's voice suddenly rose to a new height.

"Rude!" The boy jabbed her with the stick he'd been holding, with remnants of hard candy at the end.

"Hey!" The girl pushed him, making him fall onto Fin and accidentally elbowing him in the side.

"Would you two stop!" Fin pushed the boy back, toppling him over the girl. This was the first time his voice rose.

"What was that for?" The pudgy boy yelled at Fin. "She pushed me! I fell on you by accident. Why are you pushing me too??"

"Ahem," Ridley cleared his throat, and the children instantly quieted. "This carriage may be sound-proofed for those on the outside, but it's not for those inside. Lower your voices."

"Sorry," the kids said in unison, including even the two ten-year-olds sitting on the other end of Fin.

"Well, I liked my home, and I really missed my grandma's walnut cookies, you know?" the pudgy kid grumbled.

Based on Freida Stran's information, all of the children here lived either alone, like Fin, while their guardians worked and lived elsewhere, or they stayed with another relative, like the pudgy boy here. However, for all the kids, their guardians happened to be working for one of the nobles or a notable establishment in the capital city, either as maids, guards, or other sorts of servants.

The pudgy boy's father, for example, worked as a butler for none other than the head chief of Adovoria's internal security. It was ironic that someone whose job was to keep the palace and the streets of Adovoria safe had such a massive security gap within his own home.

Meanwhile, the girl with the glasses' grandfather worked as a custodian at The Order's headquarters. He worked there so long that I recognized his name, having passed him by in the training grounds and halls, in my original life. His pay was meager, as it was for the rest of us, but he was trusted with all the access keys.

To think The Spiders had him in their grasp this whole time?

I gazed over the rest of the children. Each one of them signified an undermining of our country's security, information, and processes.

I frowned.

Is this all of them? Or are there others being blackmailed?

The answer was obvious. Children were just one method of blackmail, and The Spiders weren't the only ones manipulating those with little power to do their bidding. For example, the royal waiter that poisoned my brother's and Princess Evelyn's drinks in a prior round was working under the Silver Eel's bidding.

"So, where are we going?" Fin asked again, now that some semblance of silence had come over the carriage.

"We're taking you to a safe house within East Adovoria," Ridley replied. "All of your guardians will arrive to see you there later today."

The children looked happy at this news, the pudgy boy especially.

I smiled as well, realizing what this meant. Ridley's mages had successfully freed all of these children's guardians from the runic tattoos. Initially, Ridley had warned us that it might not be possible to rescue all of them. Still, his people had managed to do so nevertheless. Had we just saved the children, but their parents, siblings, or grandparents perished, this would have been a bittersweet ending.

I glanced at Fin.

Interesting. And here I thought Fin was the only one to have ever figured out how to remove The Spiders' runic tattoo. So there are more talented mages than I had previously thought. Or perhaps he learned how to do so from a mage like Ridley or his crew?

"Now, as for you," Ridley spoke to Fin directly, "You'll be going to the Frey manor to see your sister there."

Fin smiled for the first time since entering the carriage.

"Ahem," Ridley cleared his throat. "And I have a proposal for you. Have you ever had any interest in becoming a mage?"

My eyes grew wide at what Ridley was suggesting. Before I could oppose such a proposition, Fin responded with full enthusiasm.

"Yes!" His eyes twinkled. "Can you teach me?? I want to learn how you created that door in the wall. And how you levitated that tree root and made that man trip."

I frowned.

Odd. Fin was an extraordinary mage in the timeline that I knew him from, but he never seemed to fully enjoy it. He was a mage mainly because he excelled in it and could utilize magic to survive in this world. There was no curiosity or excitement to it. Magic was merely a chore he dealt out.

However, the Fin before me, untainted by years of tortuous training and mana-enhancing procedures under The Spiders, desired to learn magic.

"Stupid, you need to have a large mana core to practice magic," the pudgy boy said.

"And luckily for him, he does," Ridley replied. "But a mana core isn't all there is to it. Fin, I can teach you magic, but it'll be a lot of work, and there won't be shortcuts. So I'll take you on as an apprentice only if you're willing to put in the effort."

"I will!" Fin said.

"Don't worry," Micah leaned in and whispered to me. "Fin won't undergo the enhancing procedure. Ridley doesn't do that; he's a traditional mage. Not that anyone outside of The Spiders knows how the procedure is done anyhow."

"Ah, is that so." I nodded my head.

If so, I had no reason to oppose Ridley taking Fin under his wing. Especially not if Fin wanted to become a mage himself.

I rubbed my chest. There was a slight stabbing pain.

Strange.

I had put Fin on an entirely different life path than the one he went down in Round 1. It was a better path by all accounts. His sister would be alive, he wouldn't be tortured by The Spiders, and he'd be able to learn and practice magic for its enjoyment rather than be forced into it.

So what is this discomfort?

"Are you alright?" Micah suddenly asked. "Did you hit yourself on anything? Damn it, I forgot to tell you to take this thing off."

Micah swiped the worn-out artifact cap off my head. The moment it was off, I regained more feeling in my body. And as we rounded another corner, I realized the carriage was far more uncomfortable than I initially thought.

"No, no. I'm alright," I replied and pushed away the sudden tears.

"I had some dust on my shirt that happened to fly in my eyes and nose," I lied.

My chest clenched, and it felt like I had a toad stuck in my throat.

It finally hit me. The Fin before me was Fin. But without the seven years, trauma, and fighting experience, he was a completely different person from the one that I knew.

And while it made me happy that Fin would have a different and better life in this round, at the same time, it dawned on me that the Fin that I knew, the Fin that I was good friends with, was no more and never would be. As gruesome and terrible as his original scars were, they made him the Fin that I was familiar with.

He was going to live a different life. A happier life. And thus, even in seven years' time, he would never grow into the same person that I once knew.

It was such an obvious thing, but somehow I had missed the reality or perhaps just the extent of what this meant. Having died early, Micah and the rest of my family underprepared me for this. The changes between how I remembered them as and how they were now weren't all too different. Even Kleave appeared the same, although he also died young, shortly before I entered The Order.

I pushed away the remaining pooled-up tears.

Ah, I'm grieving.

I realized what this pain was. The Fin that I knew had died in my original life, and he would never return.

I chuckled and looked out the carriage window. We passed by tall and short buildings in East Genise, backgrounded by a lowered golden sun in the blue sky. It was a beautiful and bittersweet day.

How ironic. I have turned back time and can save everyone. Yet, even with the Game's ability to restart my life, I still cannot truly bring back the people I cared about.

A blue screen suddenly appeared before me.

Huh?

[ New stat update. ]

[ @#!^\ : -2 ]

[ @#!^\ : -6 ]

Just what is this new stat? And why was it in the negative?

 

AlekAundra

If you had the chance to go back in time 7 years, would you take it? 
(¬‿¬)