Re: Ascension Rebirth – Resurrection of the devil who had lost everything

Chapter I

PART ONE

[Eternum Calendar - Year 981]

It was a bright and sunny afternoon in the midst of August when a certain baby boy was born to a pair of inexperienced parents. The mother who had just given birth was laying in bed with sweat dripping from her forehead; with a pale complexion from going through the efforts of childbirth. In the first place her constitution wasn’t too great but with the help of the midwife and doctor she was able to get by safely.

This woman’s name was [Rio Fallon].

Normally giving birth in this kind of situation would’ve spelled doom for anyone, however Rio had the comfort of her loving husband who never let go of her hand through the entire ordeal. She gave birth to her husband’s child; a healthy baby boy.

As the boy came out of the woman’s womb, he glanced back and stared into his new mother’s eyes. Compounded by the sun’s rays, the baby’s large emerald colored eyes reflected the two parent’s face. Once the baby surveyed the situation it started to cry out loudly.

The two parents were rather inexperienced and thought something was off with their new child but the doctor and midwife assured them that this was a normal thing; a sign that the baby was healthy. The two parents looked at each other with a worried expression but if their doctor was saying so it must’ve been true.

Confirming that the baby was safely delivered Rio’s eyes grew dull and soon her world turned pitch black.

“Rio!”

The husband called out to her frantically, scared that he might lose the love of his life. Her pulse was quickly dropping and soon she would be dead if nothing was done.

The doctor quickly administered some sort of ‘light’ towards the wife. [Magic], existed in this world, this certain type was [healing] magic; to heal her wounds from the birth and fatigue the doctor slowly applied magic. Slowly as the warm light engulfed her, her pulse returned to a stable state and she was breathing comfortably once more.

The doctor told the husband that she should regain consciousness soon. Hearing those words the husband breathed a sigh of relief as he thanked the doctor. He fell down to his knees beside the bedside and gently caressed his wife’s smooth black hair.

Rio slowly opened her eyes once more to see her loving husband stare back at her with a worried gaze. As soon as she came to, her husband embraced her.

He muttered under his breath, ‘thank you’.

“I’m alright dear. I only lost consciousness for a few seconds. More than that, have you decided a name for our new child?”

The husband, named [Mardoc Fallon], turned towards his new son who was still crying and held him up.

“That's right, a name, I've been so excited to finally have a child that I had completely forgotten about his name."

"Haha, that's very typical of you dear."

They met eye to eye; father to son.

Rio Fallon and Mardoc Fallon, aged 22 and 23 respectively, though they were very young they had always wanted a child. To see that dream through, they could not ask for any more. The tears that ran down Mardoc’s face reflected his joy.

Despite his clumsiness, Mardoc Fallon was one of the top knights of the realm. He had retired once he had learnt that his wife was pregnant with his first child.

Everyone had thought it was a pity that such a young and talented knight was retiring so soon. However for Mardoc it was not a sad day, but a day of celebration.

"How about [Morgant]? The name of my late master."

[Morgant Milis]; his former commander in a coveted sect of the country known as the [Praetorian Knights], even amongst them his master was a monster on a completely different level. In fact he was so powerful that it was rumored that he was able to take down an entire enemy fortress by himself.

Wherever Morgant Milis walked there were always praise, often time to the point of worship. He was beloved more than the country's gods. A figure of pure fortitude; a true paladin.

His master who had taught him for over 12 years was gone now but he could not forget the honor of having learned under such a master. Naming his son after him was only a matter of course.

"What a wonderful idea."

Rio had no objections for she had also worked as one of the country’s [Praetorian Knights], though her specialty was magic. It was during her work that she had also gotten to meet the famed knight and was instantly entranced by his charisma.

"Then this child's name will be [Morgant Fallon]."

"I'm happy, thank you for being born. Morgant."

It was unknown if the baby understood but it ceased its crying and started to laugh in his father’s embrace.

As of this moment, the child was oblivious to everything and merely laughed with glee in his parent’s embrace but soon it will know everything and once it does its fate will be forever changed.

PART TWO

[Eternum Calendar - Year 988]

As the cold night air covered the small village of [Karta], two moons took their place high above the darkened skies. Looming over the horizon the lunar light seeped into the bedroom of a certain young boy; his hair black as night and eyes of jade, sweat dripped past his forehead as he woke up in a sudden burst of fright.

He panted heavily as he breathed in the chilly night air that leaked through the open window. For a good while he sat immobile in his bed, contemplating what it was that he saw in that dream, nay, that nightmare.

Through the hallway came rushing the sound of frantic footsteps.

“Young master Morgant?! Are you okay?!”

Bursting open the door was a distraught young maid with disheveled nightly, silken gown. Her blonde hair sparkling from the moonlight and her oceanic blue eyes equally reflecting the night light.

"Li...na?"

The young boy, [Morgant], replied at the sudden appearance of the young maid, [Lina].

She quickly walked closer and embraced him, who was still drenched in cold sweat. She stroke through his hair trying to calm down his rapidly beating heart.

“Everything will be okay, young master. It was all just a bad dream right?”

Morgant returned the embraced as he tears from the corner of his eyes, falling across his cheeks. Even he didn’t understand why he was crying, no, he knew it was because of the nightmare he had, but the contents of the dream was not something that would warrant tears.

“There~ there, young master. You said you were going to follow in the master’s footsteps to become a knight correct? Then something like a bad dream mustn’t bring you to tears like this.”

He nodded while still clinging to the young maid, yet he could not stop the tears. He then start to shake his head in denial.

“It just won’t stop. These dreams have been coming for me every night and it’s the same nightmare each time.

He began to confess.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of dream were they?”

Burying his head between the slightly underdeveloped bosom of the young maid, Morgant began to recollect his thoughts.

“At first it’s a peaceful dream of me flying high up above the clouds. From there I could see everything on the land, the forests, oceans and mountains, even a kind of city, made of tall grey structures.”

At his words Lina began to wonder what was so scary about such a dream, in fact it sounded very pleasant and mystical.

Morgant’s grasp became tighter with the following sentence.

“However it always ends up in the same manner. I suddenly lose the ability to soar in the sky and start plummeting to the ground at high speeds.”

“I see, it must’ve been quite scary then.”

Lina sympathizes, however that wasn’t quite the case, Morgant shook his head once more to deny it.

“No, it isn’t the falling part that’s scary, it’s about what happens afterwards. As I’m falling I see a woman beautifully adorned in an elegant white dress standing alone on an altar. She was waiting for me but because I was falling to my death I would never arrive and she will become saddened. It’s that what scares, the fact that she will be sad and that I won’t be able to see her ever again.”

“Young master…”

At a loss for words Lina simply embraces tighter and begins to stroke his hair once more.

“I know it’s weird to be feeling like this for someone I don’t even know but it still scares me all the same.”

After confessing tears began to form once more and as it did Lina started to chant ‘there~ there~’ to calm him down. It took a bit of time but Morgant was finally able to return to normal.

At some point Morgant’s parents [Rio Fallon] and [Mardoc Fallon], the butler, [Sebastian] and Lina’s twin sister [Lena] stood at the doorway listening in to Morgant’s story.

"Are you okay now, young master?"

Lina asked one last time to confirm that everything was alright.

"Yes, thanks to you."

He replied with an innocent smile then turned his gaze towards the small gallery that formed near his door.

“I’m sorry to have caused trouble for mother and father, Sebastian and Lena as well.”

“Oh, Morgant.”

His mother came to embrace him as well, rubbing their cheeks together.

“I- I’m quite fine now mother, please stop it’s embarrassing.”

“Haha, why don’t you leave it at that, Rio? It seems everything’s been resolved.”

His father, Mardoc came to take his mother way, and with a relieved smile, Sebastian and Lena also left the premises.

“Thank you, Lina.”

He thanked her once more.

"I- I see well, if- if you don't mind, I could stay here and- and- and sl-sleep together- ehh~?"

Before she could even finish her sentence Morgant had already fallen asleep on her lap. Though it would’ve been easy to take advantage of this situation to sleep together, Lina decided against it and laid the young boy to rest and pulled up his blanket to his head before leaving.

“Good night, young master.”

She said as she closed the door behind her to retire to her room for the night.

PART THREE

The following morning Morgant sat out at the back porch observing the flowers his mother had dedicated to tending. Off in the distance the sounds of people working about around the village in preparation for a festival could be heard.

Though Morgant wanted to go help, there was policy in the village that dictated young children not to be involved with preparations for festivals. The reason for this was most likely that there was some sort of incident in the past involving children and festival preparations but nowadays it had become simply tradition.

Seven years had passed since [Morgant Fallon] was born and his seventh birthday was just on the horizon. In fact this festival was that exactly. Due to the economic burdens of having individual celebrations for birthdays, the village decided it would be much more exciting and cost effective to simply have everyone’s birthday on the same day.

As such, the entire village was in a festive mood with lots of little decorations being hung up around the houses.

“Young master~ how are you doing?”

Creeping up towards the small boy, was a young maid around the age of 18, her golden hair tied up in a ponytail and her black and white maid dress in an impeccable state of cleanliness, not because she was a dedicated worker but because she had done hardly any work.

“Ah, Lina. Nothing, I was just looking at the flower that mother has grown. They are truly wonderful.”

“Ah, of course but I see an even more beautiful flower right before my eyes. Haah~ haah…”

Starting to pant as she licked the boy over with her eyes, she had the gaze of a predator looking at prey. It gave the boy a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere but since her actions had become so routine he was already used to it and let it slide.

“Morgant~! We’re here!”

Interrupting the perverted maid’s predation, was the appearance of two young children. One was a slightly older boy named [Ian], a fellow villager. He had short spiky brown hair and equally brown eyes with a slightly arrogant face, the other who was the same age as Morgant was Ian’s younger sister, [Ira]. Her hair was a smooth brown color that hung down to her back.

Ira, who wasn’t very socially adept hid behind her elder brother as they walked.

“Ian! Ira!”

Morgant got off the porch and went to greet them in an energetic manner, leaving the dangerous maid to her own devices.

“Let’s go play!”

The first line of greeting from Ian was that, but that too was something that Morgant had become accustomed to and thus accepted as it was.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Morgant turned back to Lina who was feeling slightly lonely, but as he turned back her expression lightened up thinking that perhaps he would return to her side, but that was not the case.

“Ah, Lina tell mother and father that I’ve gone out to play with Ian and Ira, okay thanks!”

With that the three children left just as fast as they arrived.

“Ah… young master… don’t leave me~”

* * *

“So where should we go today?”

Although he was the one to have invited Morgant, Ian was clueless as to where they would want to go to play.

“Hmm~ most of the village has become off-limits for children while the adults are preparing for the festival so our only destination can be our ‘secret base’, right?”

“Eh? But that’s boring, there’s nothing to do there as well.”

Ian complains.

“Now now, don’t say that, it has a nice view up there and the wind often feels nice.”

“Morgant, you’re talking like an old man again. What so fun about sitting around and doing nothing at all?”

Despite his initial protest the three children decided to play at their ‘secret base’ located atop of a grassy hill overlooking the small village of [Karta]. As the children reached the top, a cool midday’s breeze brush passed their faces.

“Ah, that felt nice. Look we’re almost there!”

Ira shouted as she ran ahead of the two boys towards the abandoned house. Though the location of the house was magnificent with an even more astonishing view the reason this house was left abandoned was because it served no purpose towards the residents of the village.

The village operated on a mostly agricultural and hunting system, so a house on a hill that cannot be used as either a farm or a base for hunters was relatively useless. Thus the three children decided to take over it as their base of operations.

Though cobwebs and signs of deterioration started to show on the house, it was still structurally sound and the chance of harm coming to the children playing within was minimal. More than that, most of the furniture were left intact which allowed the children to play many games within, like hide and seek or tag.

However for today they decided on simply laying around and hanging out as opposed to active play. They overlooked the festive mood their village was going through.

“Ah~ looks like the adults are having fun preparing, you can even see the smile on their faces. I wonder why we can’t help them out?”

“I heard that there was an accident that took place before so the previous village chief decided to ban children from helping with any sort of festival preparations.”

“Isn’t that a little backwards? We can’t enjoy the festival if we haven’t put any effort into help preparing it you know.”

Morgant thought on that a bit and he couldn’t help but agree.

“Well, I suppose you have a point but it was the adults’ decisions so we can’t do anything about it now.”

“Ah~ how boring!”

Once again despite his complaints he lays down on the grassy hills and closes his eyes, but bursts back up with a sudden epiphany.

“Ah! I know, how about we venture into the forests?! There might be all sorts of treasures that the adults could be hiding in there.”

Morgant and Ira give each other a rather worried before turning back to Ian who considered it a flash of genius to enter into the forests that the adults had labelled as ‘dangerous’. Especially, they barred the children from getting anywhere near it as monsters that could instantly kill such children frequently dwelled within.

“Big brother, I don’t think that’s a good idea, even father said never to go into that forest. There are monster there and we could easily get lost.”

“What?! Don’t be such a cry baby, they’re just telling us that because they don’t like seeing us leave their sights. If it’s just for a bit it’ll be fine!”

“Ian, I agree with Ira, it’s too dangerous to go in there without any sort of adult supervision.”

“What? You too Morgant? I’m disappointed in you. Isn’t your dad supposed to be some sort of high ranking knight?”

“I don’t see what my father’s occupation has anything to do with this.”

“Weren’t you receiving training from him? Then it should be fine right? If we combine our strengths we could probably defeat any monsters that get close!”

Morgant seriously considered that possibility for a short while. It was true that he had been receiving special training from his father in the way of the sword and even went into the forest with his father once. However, following in his father’s example of being righteous he decided to honor his promise with his father about never venturing into the forest without supervision until he was old enough.

Thus Morgant shook his head to shoot down Ian’s proposal.

“Sorry Ian, I don’t think we should. I promised father I wouldn’t go there without him. Besides, we have a lot to do out here as well.”

A frown showed up on Ian’s face but their little group had decided with a democratic vote to not go near the forests just north of Karta.

“Argh! Fine, whatever.”

Ian fell back onto the grassy planes and decided to sleep it off. Morgant and Ira exchanged a look of victory and accompanied Ian in their little afternoon nap.

“Ah, what are you guys doing? It’s hot!”

Ira and Morgant snuggled up towards Ian.

“A little bit is fine right?”

Soon the three of them fell into slumber.

PART FOUR

The next day a terrible incident occurred in the village.

“Morgant! Morgant! It’s terrible!”

Ira came running in tears with a panicked look in her eyes. At first Ira had been slightly afraid of Morgant, always hiding behind her older brother, but after a few weeks she had opened up to him completely.

“What’s wrong?”

Since the village was still in festival preparation mode, Morgant decided to stroll around the outskirts of town and perhaps to visit their secret base. During his walk, Ira had come crying to him, without Ian.

“It’s… it’s… it’s…”

“Calm down Ira. Take a deep breath and then tell me.”

Following Morgant’s instructions she took a deep breath and held it in for a few seconds until her face went red. Once she was no longer able to keep it in she let it all out with a soft and cute ‘pwah~’ sound.

“Now, tell me what happened.

She nodded and started to explain what was wrong.

“It’s big brother! He ran into the forests that our dad said not to go into!”

“Eh? By himself?”

She nodded frantically. Morgant himself was starting to panic a little over the news. Their earlier disagreement about entering the forest had gotten to him and decided to venture into the forest to prove to both Ira and Morgant that he was right about the forests not being so dangerous as the adults had put it.

Morgant was at a loss on what to do with the situation, ideally it would’ve been best to simply inform the adults and start a search but doing so had negative consequences. The most prominent being that Ian would be mad at him for involving the adults in their little game. On a lesser note, he was taught by his father to always treasure the bonds between friends.

“I got it, Ira stay here, I’ll go get your brother, but if I don’t come back in the next two hours I want you to call for help from the adults, okay?”

She nodded furiously at his request.

“Thanks, then I’ll be back soon!”

Before venturing off to the forests, it was necessary to bring at least some of protection and the best way to do that was being armed. He ran around to the back of his house to take out a small metal sword, being caught by Lina in the process.

“Young master? Is something the matter?”

Morgant shrieked back a bit but decided to keep it a secret from Lina as well.

“Ah, no I just wanted to practice with the sword a little since father is busy helping with the preparations.”

“Oh, I see, then do be careful out there.”

“Okay, thanks Lina! I’ll be back before dinner!”

Lina waved back as she saw her young master leave.

* * *

The forest that loomed above north of Karta was known for three types of monsters. The first was the [Goblins], other than being savage and having sharp claws their strength were no different than that of humans, meaning if Morgant was able to move as his father had taught him then they wouldn’t be too much trouble.

The only foreseeable problem was that Goblins tended to move in groups of at least three or more and in such a scenario Morgant could easily be overwhelmed.

The second type of monster that lurked within the forests were the [Kobolds]. They were a type of corrupted fairy spirits. While they were mostly individualistic monsters and had a very small frame, around the size of a human head, they were also extremely fast and excelled in mediocre fire magic.

While Morgant had no real methods of dealing with fire magic and match the speed of the Kobolds, it was unlikely to appear as their existences were a rarity even within the forest.

The last type of monster that frequented this forest was the [Boar Warrior], a distant relative of the [Orc].

They were well known for their large and muscular frames as well as their brute force battling style. Adult Boar Warriors usually stood around 2 meters and used mainly crudely constructed stone or steel axes and clubs as weapons.

It would be nearly impossible for Morgant at his current level of expertise to win a fight against such a monster one on one. Thus the best course of action would be to run away and avoid fighting if encountered.

Those were the only kinds of monsters, aside from small, harmless animals, that resided in this forest. The only real danger being a group of Goblins and the Boar Warrior.

Morgant entered the thick forests with light steps. The canopy wasn’t so thick that it blocked all light, streams of light made it through, providing enough light to easily navigate through the forests. The grounds were covered in bark and dead leaves thus each step made an audible crunching sound.

He walked through the forest for a good while and made significant progress but no signs of Ian could be seen or heard. It was a little strange, since Ian went in before him it would not have been weird if he had encountered a monster but if he truly was safe that would be for the best.

Coming across a fork in the road Morgant noticed several footsteps into the distance. From the lightness of the sound it most likely belonged to a group of Goblins. He immediately climbed up a tree to scout ahead, and sure enough three Goblins holding stone spears and clubs were wandering about.

Their skin was ashen grey and had tribal tattoos drawn on them. Their teeth sharper than a beast’s and their hands also possessed keen claws. The only words that could be used to describe them would be ‘savage’ and ‘crude’. They weren’t much bigger than Morgant perhaps only a head taller but at a size in which normal adults could easily overcome them.

“Kii~ Ki~ Kiki!”

“Kii~ Kikiki~ Ki!”

“Kikikiki.”

They communicated towards each other using various screeching noises, incomprehensible for human ears. From the looks of it they were scouting out the area for some reason, this wasn’t a good development as Morgant was hoping they would just pass by without conflict.

However as time dragged on, Morgant began to get a little desperate, any more time wasted in this area could determine whether or not Ian was in a fatal situation. If he needed help it was Morgant’s duty to come to his aid but that wasn’t possible if he was going to be held up by mere Goblins.

Then there was only one course of action; to fight.

His weapon, despite being child sized, was still clearly superior to those crude stone constructs made by the Goblins. In a one on one fight it would’ve been simple to use that advantage to overwhelm the Goblins but there were three and they had a size advantage.

If he jumped off from the tree it was possible to instantly take down one Goblin, making it a 2v1 instead of 3v1. That would be infinitely more preferable in the current situation, however just as he was about to jump he felt a chilling sensation, like he was being watched.

Morgant looked around to see if he could locate the owner of that gaze, but no matter how hard he looked there wasn’t any indications of there being anyone other than the three Goblins and himself. Deciding that it was simply his own imaginations he decided to go through with his plan and jumped off the tree.

He used the momentum and the surprise factor to stab the Goblin that was loitering beneath him.

“Kii!!!”

It cried out as blood gushed from its back where Morgant stabbed it.

Quickly getting off he got into position to deal with the other two Goblins that had now been alerted to his presence. The two Goblins were on guard and started approach slowly.

Life and death was the norm in such forests, and the two Goblins didn’t take the death of their comrade too heavily, though they were still quite unhappy about the matter.

The Goblins were not known for their intelligence, in fact they were borderline stupid, even when it came to combat determining their survival. Thus only one of the Goblin lunged at Morgant while the other stayed back to watch, this wasn’t to observe Morgant’s fighting style but simply because it didn’t want to get in the way of its comrade’s attack.

Which was a blessing for Morgant, as he easily countered the Goblin’s attack with the techniques he had learnt from his father. The Goblin struck with its stone club but they were easily dodged and Morgant went in for the kill with his sword through the Goblin’s chest.

It also screamed out in pain as it fell. Seeing this situation the remaining Goblin instantly lunged itself with its stone spear. This opponent was slightly harder for Morgant as the spear gave a little more reach than his short sword.

However this too was an easy victory as the Goblin did not have any sort of mastery and only swung it around wildly in hopes of getting a hit. With the techniques taught by one of the country’s top knights, Morgant quickly dodged the random stabs and closed the gap between the two, ending the Goblin’s life with a stab through the neck.

It fell down shortly drowning in a pool of its own blood.

He felt rather displeased with having Goblin blood spilled all over his clothing but this couldn’t be helped as the situation was that dire. Suddenly remembering his goals in the forest he continued his search for Ian.

The search continued on for a few more minutes until a cry could be heard from a short distance away.

Running frantically towards the scream, Morgant came across a desperate situation. Ian was locked in combat with a Boar Warrior, though calling it ‘combat’ would be rather inaccurate, in truth Ian was struggle to do his best to avoid the fatal swings of the Boar Warrior’s stone club.

A great big, pig, towering with its iron like muscles, swung radically away at Ian as he desperately dodged. Ian was clearly tired out and unable to move and taking advantage of the situation the Boar Warrior was about to swing down and end of the life of his childhood friend.

“Ian!”

Morgant ran towards him and pushed him out of the way. While Ian was able to be pushed away in time, Morgant himself received an indirect blow to the chest, breaking several ribs and bones.

He coughed out blood and was instantly winded as he was flown back towards a tree.

“Morgant?!”

Ian ran towards his friend who was struggling to breathe.

After a brief moment of catching his breath, Morgant was able to regain his posture but the broken bones in his body still ached. However, as the son of the country’s knight he did not want to disgrace his father’s teachings thus allowing him to soldier through the pain, doing so would’ve taken considerable amount of will. Ian could only watch with awe and respect as Morgant got up even after such a hit.

“Are you okay Morgant?!”

“I- I’m fine, more than that, let’s focus on the enemy for now.”

“O-okay. What should we do?”

“We should probably run but I don’t think I’ll be able to. However you can so go, run.”

“What?! How can I leave you here to die? I won’t run away, if you’re going to die, we’ll die together!”

“Ugh… you damned idiot, why couldn’t you just listen for once about what I say?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll apologize as much as you want later but we need to both get out alive so I can do that! I promise I’ll listen to whatever you say next time so don’t die!”

Tired of waiting further for his opponents to make a move, the Boar Warrior took it upon himself to charge towards the two children. Morgant pushed Ian to one side and dodge in the other direction leaving the Boar Warrior to stab his tusks within the trunks of the tree.

While the Boar Warrior was stuck Morgant took the opportunity to stab a couple of time into the flesh of the enemy. It started to cry in pain as blood oozed from its wounds to the back of the leg.

Managing to free itself the Boar Warrior became many times more furious, it attacked much more faster and harder giving Morgant an even bigger handicap.

Ian tried to throw rocks to get its attentions but he was ignored as the Boar Warrior wanted revenge for it sustaining injuries. As the pain of his broken bones finally got to him he fell down, giving the Boar Warrior a clear line of attack and a potentially life ending one.

“Morgant!”

It struck down as hard as it could but before the attack managed to land it was temporarily stopped by an unknown force. Morgant didn’t understand what was going on but he had taken advantage of this bizarre phenomenon to counterattack, managing to deliver the final blow in the enemy’s neck, killing it instantly.

A wave of relief overcame Morgant and as he started to relax the pain really started surface and Morgant fell to the floor.

“Morgant!”

Ian ran over to check for injuries. Upon closer inspection of Morgant’s chest, there were severe bruises that were almost dark blue and black in color. If left unchecked it could become infected.

“Let’s hurry back to the village, else you’ll really die!”

“Y- yeah…”

As he answered, the sounds of monsters could be heard from behind them. Not just a few but many, most likely number in the dozens.

“O- okay, we really should run.”

Morgant said as he stood himself up.

“Grab onto me, I’ll act as your support.”

“No, we’ll never make it like that, we’ll have to run as fast as we can if we want to escape.”

“But your wounds might open and you might really die! Just grab onto me!”

“No, we’ll both die. You said you’d listen to me right? Then trust me, I’ll follow along behind you closely and run as fast as I can. I’m willing to take the chance of my wounds opening if it means we have a higher chance of survival, so please do as I say.”

“But… okay, I got it. So then we’ll be running fast right?”

“Right, and no looking back, that would only slow us down.”

“… Understood.”

“Then, let’s run!”

The two of them started to run straight back to the village but as they did the pain in Morgant’s chest only increased. He eyed Ian who was running with tears in his eyes, he was so distracted by fear that he wouldn’t notice if Morgant had stopped following him.

Taking this opportunity, Morgant started to run in the opposite direction, garnering the attention of all of the monsters chasing after them. With one last look at Ian who ran straight without looking back Morgant breathed a sigh of relief.

Keenly chasing behind Morgant were various monsters, Boar Warriors, Goblins and even the rare Kobolds. They would chase him down until he was dead.

Luckily for them Morgant really was near his end.

He came to up to a dead end; a cliff. Between falling to his death and getting mauled and eaten by monsters he preferred the first option. Morgant ran passed the cliff and jumped off.

As he did a sense of freedom over came him, as did fear. His last moments were reminiscent of his dreams, falling down to his death, but likewise what scared him most wasn’t the fact that he was dying but the fact that he could never ever see his family again.

Shivers ran down his spine as such thoughts overtook his mind.

With a great big splash, Morgant hit the lake at the bottom of the cliff. Though it was water, falling towards the water’s surface from such an altitude would make it no better than if it were solid ground. Not to mention the severe injuries to his chest would open at that level.

Morgant struggled in pain as he entered the water and consciousness fading from him.

At that moment, a single thought came to him apropos of nothing.

“Ah… If only I could see Erin one last time…”

With that he finally understood everything that was going on and the true meaning behind the contents of his dreams. He had remembered who he was and what had happened, but it was far too late now, his true personally had surfaced only as he was dying a second time. In a last self mocking move, his right hand moved towards the front of his face and emulated a motion reminiscent of pushing up one’s glasses.

“Hah… ha…”

As his eyes were about to close a small slender figure came swimming to him. He could not make out who it was or what it was exactly but that wasn’t necessary to concern himself over now. He closed his eye as he welcomed his eternal sleep.