Fate is the will or principle of determining the cause by which things, in general, are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do.
Simply put the ultimate force in predetermining the course of events for every living things.
Who decides Fate?
It was decided by the entity or entities called God.
Nothing happens without His permission or knowledge. We are nothing more than His creation.
Everything has already been predetermined and you have little to no choice but to follow God's plan for you.
So what about my Fate?
Well, I would be fated to live alone in despair throughout my life.
That's what a priest told me when I randomly visited a church as a volunteer in my past life.
I don't know why a priest said that to me and I'm not much of a believer myself.
We are in modern times. Where science and technologies are booming rapidly. Humanity has come a long way. We are a few steps away from the advanced space exploration where an ordinary person like me can also get to Mars.
All I thought of the priest's words were bullshit.
Especially when I accidentally stumbled upon the same priest when I'm doing a part-time job of giving away flyers while wearing a mascot costume near the red light district. The priest was slightly drunk and holding a prostitute into a cheap motel.
But when I was on the verge of dying, the priest's words seemed to be echoing in my mind even though I didn't even remember what the priest looked like.
My previous life memory was shown in front of my eyes as if I'm waiting for God's judgment after everything I did.
It felt as if I was floating inside a dark deep sea where there was nothing around me except for the weird feeling all over my body that felt like water.
The deeper he went, the heavier his body felt. It was normal since the gravity force was much stronger below the deep sea than on land. Ares knew that he was unconscious and he didn't worry if he die since he already died once.
"$@%%$..."
An almost inaudible sound resonate around me. I felt like someone trying to talk to me while drowning in water, that was what it sounds like.
"%#%$&...."
I tried to listen to it but my head hurt the more I tried.
"Ughhh..." a groan escaped my mouth.
With much difficulty, I opened my eyes and saw the white blank ceiling with dim lighting around me. There was a ventilator on top of my mouth and nose. Dozens of wires were put on my body including my head.
Sounds of a machine producing a beeping sound every second reverberated inside the empty, silent wardroom.
Unlike the first time when I woke up in this world, I couldn't move even an inch. I couldn't feel my body at all.
'Did I suddenly became paralyze?' That was what I thought.
-Clack
A white-haired woman with a few red strands on her head entered the ward before standing right beside my bed. I looked up at her as if asking what was she doing here without her butler that always follow her around like a tail on a cat.
"It seems your mental state is alright so we can talk," Grand said to me while smiling slightly.
"..." I couldn't reply due to my condition thus I only stared at her.
"Blink your eyes once for 'yes' and don't blink for 'no' for the questions I will be asking"
"..." I blinked my eyes once.
Grand: Do you kill the Djinn yourself?
Ares: *blink eyes once
Grand: Ok that's it.
'What the fu...That's it? Shouldn't you ask me about the Demonic seed and what I'm going to do with the Djinn's corpse?
"I already can guess you wanted to sell the corpse and that Demonic Seed, you took it maybe due to curiosity. The other things in your spatial bracelet, I'm not interested. Your uncle will handle everything so you don't have to worry and quickly recover"
I almost rolled my eyes hard since I felt scammed. What's the point of asking me if they already knew about everything.
"Relax brat, you didn't do anything wrong. As the descendent of Demon Hunter, it was the most logical thing to do if you stumbled upon a Demonic creature like Djinn. Even though he looked like a human, he wasn't so don't feel too guilty."
'I don't care even if he was a human. I just don't want anyone to interrogate me since there wasn't any precedent where a first-year student killed a Djinn by himself.'
Ares knew that with his status he couldn't remain invisible no matter what he do. Since his first day at HGA, people always stared at him for various reasons that he is too lazy to know since he could already guess.
They stare at him because of his family status, his weird appearance of having two different eye colours and hair colours. His pale skin is also one of the reasons since it made him look weaker than his other family members.
He never care about people's thoughts on him but he didn't want to attract more attention towards him as he initially had.
"And don't worry. We won't disclose who killed the Djinn. Your uncle will make it look like one of his personnel come across the Djinn and killed it." Grand words made Ares feel his nervousness vanish.
From Grand, he knew that his condition was quite severe and he almost died from holy energy overload. He was lucky he somehow survived since if it was someone else, he might already explode.
The doctors still try to find the reason why he didn't explode thus he was required to go to the church and also tested his attributes affinity.
During his registration, Ron put his attributes as fire attribute but then when he learned magic, he could use other elements other than fire which means he had more than one attribute. That might be the reason why he didn't explode after being injected with a huge amount of holy energy.
The attributes inside his body might be the force that balances out the holy energy injected into him.
However, Ares was more confused since he saw Prince Theo seemed to do something when Cedric was busy injecting holy energy into him.
'But he was a dark mage and holy energy is the opposite of dark mana. He couldn't even get a healer to use normal holy energy on him other than holy energy from the priests of God of Death.'
Sensing that the knowledge from the novel that he knew seemed inadequate, Ares decided he needed to do something.
With much difficulty, he use any mana he could conjure to take a pen and a paper not far from him and decided to tell Grand his suspicion.
[Cedric injected holy energy into me and Prince Theo seemed to do something to him at the same time. After Prince Theo collapsed, that holy energy started hurting me. I want to know why]
Grand read what I wrote and after contemplating for a while, "Dark mages didn't have an affinity with holy energy but that doesn't mean he couldn't do anything. From what I know, dark elves especially know a method to restrict holy energy overload."
'Dark mages...restrict holy energy overload...dark elves'
From what Grand said, Ares could deduce what Prince Theo, who is a dark mage and also a quarter dark elf had done.
"You're a clever kid so find the answer yourself," Grand said looking at her youngest great-grandchild that has dozens of wires all over his body.
[How much do I get for killing a Djinn and the Demonic Seed]
"Tskk this money-hungry brat. The government already bank in the money into your account"
After I finished confirming a few more things, Grand exited the room.
"Ares take care of yourself and don't always make trouble."
'I'm not, but it's my bad luck to be with the protagonist that is a trouble magnet so I'm just an unfortunate extra accidentally getting involved in trouble'
Seeing Grand still stare at me, I reluctantly nodded my head lightly.
A few days later, Grand came once again after my condition stabilize even further and I was transferred to a normal ward. I could talk and sit down but still need a few more days to stand up and do more arduous activities.
"If you feel anything weird with your body, please tell anyone in our family or your servants. We can't let you lose control again"
"Yes, I will."
"You will go to Soga Mountain to recuperate since it was nearer to this hospital and you can stay there for summer. Before that, take this."
Grand gave me a wooden magic box. There was my name inscribed on it. The box looked old and cheap.
The square wooden box was the size of a shoebox, so I couldn't guess what was inside.
"This is yours from years ago. Anith's servants accidentally found it when cleaning up an old storeroom. It has a complicated magic inscription where only you could open it. So I thought you might want to take a look."
"Oh, thanks, Grand."
"Sure but you also have to rest properly so I took this box and gave it to your butler instead."
She took away the box and exited the wardroom.
'Then why did you show it to me?'
After making me curious, she took it away and now I didn't know what to do to spend my time inside this ward.
The next morning after breakfast, Jax, Grand's butler gave me a long bag that seem familiar to me.
"Is this my guzheng?"
"Yes, young master. Madam Zandra just get it fixed so the guzheng looked new"
"Ok say thanks to Grand"
"Sure. I excuse myself first"
One of the things I never expected after transmigrating to this world was, that the original Ares also knew how to play guzheng and piano.
*(Guzheng: The zheng or guzheng, is a Chinese plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25 or 26 strings, is 64 inches long, and is tuned in a major pentatonic scale. It has a large, resonant soundboard made from Paulownia wood. Other components are often made from other woods for structural or decorative reasons)
In my past life, I learned how to play the piano during my stay at the orphanage. To be honest the orphans there were forced to learn them so we could join charity events as performers.
We were also forced to join any competitions that have monetary rewards.
There were also performances during the dinner event for our big donators. The orphanage also did this to attract more parents to adopt kids from our orphanage since usually there was a stereotype, kids that able to play musical instruments beautifully were clever and bright-minded.
However, no one ever adopted me even though they praised my piano play. They said I'm too distant and not as cheerful as a kid should be.
I was abused and hit almost every day, so of course, my behaviour became a bit cold and taciturn not like other kids. That was why I never got adopted until my real grandparents found me.
They brought me back and I thought everything would turn out better. But living with them was a lot worst than my time in the orphanage. When I was 13, a kind neighbour taught me how to play guzheng.
Since he was the only one that treated me kindly like an older brother, I liked playing guzheng with him.
I only played the piano when I'm extremely sad like when that neighbour died in a car accident.
His property was donated to a charity organization except for one, a white guzheng that he used to teach me.
He told his lawyer to give that guzheng to me. He also put forty thousand dollars inside my account so I could pay for my college and university fees. He also paid for expensive health insurance for me.
I managed to finish my degree and started a new life far from my family because of that money. I got a free annual check-up due to the insurance he paid.
I still used that guzheng until I die. In my will, I asked my lawyer, the very same lawyer as my deceased neighbour to make sure that white guzheng would be buried along with me.
And now living as Ares, I also have a white guzheng with golden lines on it. It looked more expensive than the one I had before.
I saw this guzheng for the first time when I cleaned up my room in Grand's mansion. It was put under the bed inside a big metal box.
Feeling excited, I started playing a random song that I could remember before I stopped because I just realized that I should pretend I had amnesia so how come I still remember how to play guzheng.
But no one thought it was weird and they looked happy seeing me playing the guzheng.
Later Grand also asked whether I needed the guzheng to be fixed since it's been a long time since I last played it. She also ordered someone to put a piano inside my room, in case I wanted to play it but I rejected that request.
Unknowingly I started playing a soft relaxing song after Ron left the wardroom. That song was the favourite song of that person I thought as my brother despite we didn't share any blood relation.
It was also the first song he played to me. Until I died I never knew the title of the song.
While playing the guzheng, I felt a sense of gratitude for my current life. Even though I was a villain character inside the novel, with my past life memory, I could change my fate.
In this life, I have a caring and great family. I won't live alone in this life. A rare smile formed on my face.
The tranquil calming sound reverberated from my room and I was deep inside my own world where I didn't even realise someone was watching me.
Link for the song Ares played:
https://youtu.be/iwSk7mKkakY
Title video in yt: Endless Love (OST The Myth)-Jackie Chan & Kim Hee Sun (Guzheng Cover)