Leo followed the vice-principal. Sun was already getting up when Leo was rescued. After a ten-minute walk, they entered a small clearing. In the middle of it, Mr Etan stopped and pulled out a small black cube from his pocket. Mana entered the object and then it shined.

Suddenly in an instant, a car appeared in front of them.

“Was it there all this time?!” asked shocked Leo.

“Yes.” The white-haired man touched the side of the car and one door to the back seats opened. He put Miss Anna from his shoulder there, laying her down on the seat.

“You don’t need to restrain her?” asked Leo again.

“Don’t worry she won’t be waking up anytime sure. Even with the spell placed on her.” He said and opened both doors to the front seats. “Now go and sit down.”

Leo nodded and went to the passenger door, he hesitated though and stood there.

The vice-principal looked at him and sighed, he placed his hands on the top of the car. “I know that currently you are confused and don’t know what is going on but we are not your enemies and we also don’t plan on forcing you to do anything. We are doing this to protect you.”

“But why give me that book… everything wouldn’t have to happen if I was not given it. Nothing would have changed…” said Leo remorsefully some of his anger surfacing.

“You are right about the fact that not much would have changed, just that you would have awoken who knows when and we wouldn’t know. And then who would get to you first the Inquisition or them?” he said looking in the direction of the woman in his back seat.

Leo looked surprised at this. “Does that mean that that was going to happen to me either way?”

“Yes. If you want more answers you will need to meet the principal. He can explain it much better than I can.” He said sitting down in the driver seat.

Leo looked for a second but in the end, he was too tired and hurt to think now so he decided to trust Mr Etan and entered the car.

The engine started silently and the car rose up in the air soon rising up above the trees.

They started flying in the direction of the city, Leo noticed his house on the way, there was car with a golden badge on it next to his home.

“They move quite fast, well you were on their list for some time already.”

Leo looked at Mr Etan questioningly.

“It’s the D.I.I.”

Leo understood that. He smiled sarcastically it seems the great plan of his great escape were just him playing around. He pressed his head against the back of the seat, he knew his parents must be freaking out now. Still, he was tired. He winked few times, then his eyes closed themselves and he fell asleep.

-*-

Next time Leo opened his eyes he was laying in a bed. He freaked out a little but soon noticed he must be in some kind of infirmary, his wounds have also been healed.

Standing up he pushed away the sheets around his bed and walked out. There he saw a single woman sitting and marking something on holoscreen. She noticed him without him saying anything.

“Oh, you woke up. I will call the commander.” she said but actually didn’t seem to do much other than pressing some buttons on her screen. “You can sit down. It may take few minutes.”

Leo nodded and found the closest chair and sat on it. Looking at the woman she didn’t seem to give him more attention. No one else was in the room and without even a single window he had no way to tell what time it was.

With nothing to do his mind wandered. What would he do now, what were his parents doing, what did they knew, what was Mary doing, would he get to see them. He had no answer for any of them but maybe the talk with principal would help him answer some of them.

The door to the room slid open and the principal entered the room.

The woman stood up and saluted. Leo also stood up and looked at him.

“Thank you for calling me. You can sit down.”

At that, the woman sat down returning her attention to her work. Mr Alexander turned his head to Leo. “Now I’m sure you have a lot of questions but are you hungry maybe?”

Leo wanted to say no but before he could he felt rumbling in his stomach. “Well, a little…”

“Good. You slept for a whole day after all, is there anything you want?” he asked.

Leo shook his head “Anything is fine.”

The principal nodded and said, “Come with me then please.”

They left the infirmary and walked through quite a long corridor before entering what looked to be a cafeteria. There were few people here, some looked at him but most didn’t pay him attention and enjoyed their meals.

Mr Alexander went to the counter and took a trey and got himself a pasta and Leo did the same and both of them sat down at a single table.

“First of all let me tell you where you are. This facility is a place where people who have memories of their past lives can live without having to fear for their life. It took us a lot of time and work to manage to achieve this since the hate for people like you is deeply rooted. In the end, we only managed to establish this place where reincarnated can train and then are sent to the monster continent to procure precious material from magical beasts.” he said.

Leo listened to it and tried to be calm as much as he could. “Does that mean I will be sent there too?” He only heard of Monster Continent as a place far north full of death and cruelty. Once in the past, it was the place where Demons ruled and also where they met their end by the hand of Olympius.

“That is something we would need to talk about later. For now, let me answer all of your questions.” Said the principal smiling kindly at him.

Leo looked at him and gathered his thoughts for a second before asking. “Then why did you give me that book?”

“Ah, that.” The principal smiled and closed his eyes. “Well, in truth I wanted to wait for it longer but your soul fluctuation where getting to the point where I could no longer hide them with my spells.”

Leo widened his eyes at that. “Wait what do you mean by hide?”

“Your soul fluctuations for a long time now were well past critical level, I just did my best to hide them as much as I could every time they jumped up. Haven’t you lately had strange dreams about people you didn’t see but felt that you know?”

Leo remembered the few times he had such occurrences and nodded.

“So I gave you the book that I knew belonged to you as a way to speed it up since as an organization we don’t have authority to watch over suspects of awakening. That is D.I.I. work and they don’t think kindly of us, they watch our every move quite carefully. Though they are sloppy sometimes.”

“But how did you knew it was mine?” asked Leo, he didn’t quite get how he could know that.

“To explain that I would have to teach you more about how souls are created and made and remember things. For now, just think of it as complex magic.” The principal said his face straight. “Still it’s shame you didn’t take it with you, getting it back now may be impossible.” He scratched his chin.

“Why would you want it?” Leo asked.

“It could help you remember more. You don’t want it?” asked the principal perplexed.

“Why would I want to see the thing that destroyed my life twice already…” he answered.

“I see…” the principal eyes looked regretful. “Sorry if I could have done it differently I would have done it.” He bowed to Leo.

Leo looked at him and wanted to say something but in the end stayed silent.

“The other reason I gave it to you now is that there is a requirement for recruiting here. The person in question needs to show that they are capable of fighting and you beating Sophie was what fulfilled that requirement. It’s good that you did it, otherwise, we would need to think of another way to for you to prove yourself.” The principal continued. “Can I ask you how much and what do you remember?”

“I well… most of Arthur life up to his death.”

“Nothing about you as Daniel?”

“Well, those memories feel strange more like a movie than something I went through and doesn’t feel complete.”

“Maybe it’s the because those are older and sustained more damage from continuous deaths. I guess you don’t know how many time you reincarnated only to be killed a few moments later?” the principal asked.

Leo looked mortified at the thought but guessed that it has to be something that happens considering that children are examined at birth. He shook his head and looked at the food he had left. He didn’t feel like eating anymore.

“Ah sorry. I guess it’s hard to think of such things.” Said the principal. “For now you should rest though we will talk later in a private about what you want to do.” He said standing up. Leo followed after him.

“Jennifer.” Mr Alexander spoke to a white-haired woman that was talking with someone, she stood up and saluted sloppily, she didn’t seem to care much for formalities. She was about the same hight as Leo. “Would you take Leo here to his new room it’s in block B, room 303.”

She looked at Leo for a while and smiled. “Yes sir!” she said enthusiastically.

The principal nodded and said to Leo. “We will see each other later tonight, I have few things to take care of.”

“Nice to meet you I’m Jennifer. Are you new?” she said passing him a hand.

Leo shook her hand and said “Yes. I’m Leo.”.

“Let me show you the way then.” Jennifer said.

They left the cafeteria and started walking together Leo following behind her.

“When have you awakened?” she asked.

Leo was surprised at her openness about such things but maybe here it was normal. “Today but apparently I have been near it for some time. At least Principal Alexander said so.”

“Principal? Are you from his school? How old are you?” she asked.

“Me? I’m 15.” he said.

“So young! I thought that you were older.”

“Really?” he was kind of happy to hear that he looked older then he was. He liked to be seen as mature. “And how old are you?”

She looked back at him “It’s a secret. You shouldn’t ask a woman about her age.”

“Then are you a reincarnated too?” he asked.

“Yep, I was lucky enough that I died only 2 times before I was lucky and my parents decided to hide me despite the result of the examination. Though a lot of things happened and I ended up here. Still, it’s not as bad as some. In the last 800 years, some people died so many times that they broke so much they lost most of their memories and sometimes even reasoning.” She explained.

“You seem pretty casual about this.”

“That’s how I am. I don’t dwell much on the past. I learned that after many lives.” She smiled.

They talk ended at that and they arrived in front of room 303. “If you decide to stay here I’m sure we will see each other often. There is not that many of us here.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Twenty here.” she said. “Most are either on the monster continent or doing other stuff. But I’m sure there is no more than fifty of us in total.”

Leo nodded that was still a lot in his opinion. “I just thought about it but why is there no windows?” he asked.

She looked at him as if he was crazy “We are underground. You didn’t know?”

Leo felt little embarrassed “I didn’t. I feel asleep when I was coming here.”

Jennifer looked at him and laughed clutching her stomach. “Most people come here stressed enough to get a heart attack and you slept.” She laughed some more. “Ha… I guess we will get along well if you stay here. Anyway, see you later.” She said.

He didn’t want to say it was because he was running around the forest whole night. “Bye.” he answered.

She waved to him and walked away, he looked at his room. It was pretty basic a single bed. One tall and narrow wardrobe and a single desk with chair. Not bad he thought, after all, they were not humans in many eyes.

He laid down on his bed and without much to do he contemplated on what he was told. If what they said was true he couldn’t really be angry at them and should thank them and he also doubted it was a lie and he was already deep into their base with no way to get away so it was already too late to doubt them. He could only hope for the best.

It took an hour before someone knocked on his doors. He went up to answer them but they slid open on their own and on the other side he saw the vice-principal.

“Hello.” Leo said.

“Good evening.” Mr Etan looked at him. “The commander is calling for you.”

Leo nodded and both of them went out. As they were going Leo asked, “Is everyone here a reincarnated?”

“Most, I’m not one if that is what you want to ask.”

Leo was actually wondering about that “And the Principal?”

“He also is not. The government wouldn’t give a reincarnated control over this facility.” He said. “We are here.” Mr Etan turned to one of the doors and they opened.

It was not that far from his room.

“I brought him.” said Mr Etan. Leo saw Mr Alexander sitting there drinking something from a cup and reading something from holoscreen.

“Thank you.”

“I will go back to my work then.” After he received a nod he went further down the corridor.

“Please enter Leo.”

Leo entered the room it looked similar to his own outside the fact that there was no bed here and an additional chair next to the desk.

“Sit down.”

Leo did as he was told and sat in front of the principal.

“I will cut to the case since you probably more or less understand the current situation. You have two options now. We have a facility far away where you could safely live for the rest of your days, you wouldn’t be forced to fight or do anything. Otherwise, you can stay here and train and become part of one of our squads and be sent on various missions.” he said.

“What facility?”

“One far away from here, it’s quite a nice place and you could do anything there. You wouldn’t be able to contact with anyone outside though.”

“Do many people go there?” asked Leo.

“Very few actually, most reincarnated hate tranquillity the most since one of the requirements for reincarnation is to want to live and do something.” He said.

“And if I stay here would it be possible to meet Mary or my parents.” Leo asked with a little hope for a positive answer.

“That is not very likely to happen. I’m sorry… if it depended on me I would let you but there are rules over which I have no control.”

Leo went silent after that. He considered his options. On one hand, he was not sure if he wanted to risk his life in the monster continent or whenever but he couldn’t say it didn’t sound exciting for some reason. At the same time if he went to some facility and was left there for the rest of his life with nothing to do…

That option also forsook any option of ever meeting with anyone he cared about again and the chance of changing anything in his life and while he was sure he wouldn’t have much freedom here, hope was something he still didn’t give up on.

He closed his eyes and crossed his arms.

“You don’t need to give me answer now…” said the principal. “I understand it may be a hard decision.”

“No.” said Leo and looked at the principal. “I will stay here.”