Gradually, Garrick's eyelids began to open and his vision & other senses returned one by one. His head felt heavy and sore as a result of that extreme headache he had in the hallway; the same place where the creature, who called himself Delarossi, was.
'What was that anyway?'
He completely disappeared in that place, his body crumbled like flour and turned to dust. He had died once again, that's what he remembered. His thoughts were slow and he didn't know what was going on, so the incessant questions kept popping up in his mind.
So now we came to the true main question: how was he alive after all that happened and where the hell did that creature send him this time?
Garrick knew that creature was not a normal living being, as it had such magical energy that it could easily surpass the most powerful existences he knew in the whole Earth. But he left that worry for another time, focusing on the situation he was stuck in right now.
The youth still couldn't feel his body properly, let alone control it. Aside from moving a few fingers in simple motions, he couldn't do anything, it was almost as if he was suddenly a quadriplegic.
''GARAGHAR!''
Suddenly, his hearing came back and the young man heard some strange sounds around him, but they were utterly intelligible. He was about to consider the next action to take, once his senses had fully returned, but he ended up focusing on the moans and grunts that came from all sides of the place he stood.
''GPETHEPRIFNCE,FDSAKF''
The sounds appeared to be of people screaming, talking and some even desperately banging on something. All accompanied by the characteristic sound of birds that crushed the leaves of the dry vegetation around them.
He might not be able to understand many things right now and his senses might be dulled, but Garrick knew this situation was far from normal. After all, why were so many people screaming in horror in the middle of a possible forest?
Garrick tried but couldn't understand anything those people were saying, and he couldn't identify the reason for all the fuss either. Soon after, he started to feel like his body was heavier than before; it was almost like he was under something.
His senses began to come back more and more, and his skin was icy cold as if he were a corpse, which left him a little stunned. Suddenly, he felt his fingers wrinkle as if he were an old person and, at the same time, his body twitched on its own, without his command.
'What the fuck is going on?'
The strange sounds continued, getting louder as his hearing sense began to normalize more and more and people approached his current location. And then, even more alarming than ever, the noises spread in an odd circle around his body. But it was no longer only the sounds of grunts and screams that surrounded Garrick, now he only heard the sound of the waves of the dark sea coming towards him.
His senses returned once and for all, surprising him as soon as he saw the situation he found himself in.
''H-huh? AAAAHHHHH!''
All of a sudden, Garrick's body finally returned to its true way in that new world he was sent to. But contrary to what he imagined, that he would be reincarnated on dry land and safely; he was actually in the midst of violent waters that were so powerful that they would soon split his body in half if he continued there longer.
The young man found himself kneeling in an uncomfortable position, surrounded by huge waves of dark-gray water that pushed his body hard along with the tide. A lot of liquid rushed into his mouth wildly, puncturing his lungs and filling them completely; the sensation was almost as bad as his death in that damn street, surrounded by strange people.
By the way, it was his first time going into the water after a long time. And he didn't imagine that he would go back into the sea like this.
'Will I die once more? But I just died because of that freaking thing!'
He slammed his palms into the liquid and waved his arms desperately, trying to keep his balance.
''GET HIM OUT OF THIS SHIT, QUICKLY!'', a female voice yelled, as a loud banging sound rippled through the place.
'That son of a bitch, dared to send me to the middle of a dangerous place!', he cursed the dark creature of the sword, inwardly. 'I thought I was your last chance or something similar, you fucker!'
''RAAUGH''
Garrick made a piercing, slightly frightening sound, which temporarily ceased all surrounding sounds in an instant. He was drowning like a small child in the sea of the beach, waving his arms frantically in complete despair and trying to fight the force pushing him out of the way, unfortunately to no avail.
His body was too weak and slender for him to get out of there on his own strength. It was almost as if he had lost all the progress he had made in the last years of his hard, and diligent life. Come to think of it, his arms and legs seemed to be shorter than before, which was pretty weird...
'This has already happened twice in this short time! I will not die for the third time in the same day!'
However, he ended up sinking so low in that place full of blackened gray water that he couldn't swim up no matter how hard he tried. His life was anything but good to live, with only tragedy and misfortune befalling the poor man, but he still couldn't accept dying without fulfilling his desire for living in a good way. He couldn't fucking accept dying so uselessly in that shitty place, that he didn't even know where it was.
But even with those thoughts in mind, he knew that with his luck and the small favor he received from that mysterious being in the sword room, he was sure he would drown like a mere idiot in the middle of nowhere.
Adrian, Catherine, Jullie - with whom he had a romantic relationship -, and a handful of people important to the boy, who were already dead or simply living their lives without worries, flashed before his eyes in instant; almost as if they were really there.
Was this some kind of illusion that people saw at death's door? Or just some kind of bad joke from the gods, or that creature?
''Fight for your life, don't accept such a death!'' The illusion in Jullie's shape screamed at the young man, motivating him to get out of that situation.
''I DO NOT WANT TO DIE! NOT AGAIN! NOT LIKE THAT!'', he screamed internally, as if trying to tell his body that it must endure this difficult ordeal.
And as soon as he said those soundless words to himself, a bluish light spread in an explosion form from his body. Slightly blue, glowing particles that looked like shards of glass floated across the site, acting as a barrier and blocking the powerful waves that flowed voraciously in front of him.
BAANKL!
[An extreme desire to live was detected coming from the user!]
[The effect of 'Gift of ????????' has been activated]
[A spell is being forcefully used by the system to preserve the user's life]
[???????? says that, for now, this will be his last intervention with the flow of the rules of the universe]
[????? wishes the user good luck on his journey to becoming stronger, and throughout his history!]
[???????? temporarily disappeared]
A blue circle that glowed as it pulsed - strangely similar to a human heart -, formed around him, and the youth fell to the ground on his back in shock. Even though he lived a mediocre life, Garrick had military training that he received while serving with Jullie in the special forces. But his senses weakened along with the current state of his body, so he wasn't prepared for what happened in an instant.
''W-whoa'', he muttered to himself, ''That's fucking insane...''
Garrick felt like Moses at the Red Sea, when the old guy split the Red Sea in half and was considered a prophet by the people, turning himself into a legend across all the history of Earth.
The differences were: He was not Moses; He was on the verge of death and he didn't know how long that weird barrier would last; And lastly, he had no idea where he was, or who he actually was.
But anyway, in all his life he never thought that in the end, all his efforts would only lead him to such a pathetic and weak state. Who would have thought that a guy who had worked so hard in life, having been faced with countless life-and-death situations, would be afraid of mere waves?
"Shit, that's all I needed right now." His voice had an ironic tone, and it sounded strange, almost like it wasn't his own. Maybe he had swallowed too much water...
Garrick felt his body grow even heavier than before, almost as if he was submerged again. He lost consciousness at the worst moment this could have happened, falling completely to the ground with his eyes closed, facing a life-or-death situation once again.
''Get him out of there! Wake up, Prince Aquamarine!''
A figure with long hair and a lean body rushed towards his direction. Snatching Garrick's unconscious body from those violent waves, pulling him to shore. At the same moment she did it, those strange glowing particles flew towards the boy and disappeared, almost as they never existed, upon touching his chest.
He opened his eyes quickly, his body still sore and with some minor injuries he had acquired in the course of that chaotic situation. In front of him, dark green hair spread in very beautiful strands, and deep yellow eyes that sucked his soul watched him deeply.
He felt like he was facing his old Colonel, who scared him just to train his mentality.
'She's gorgeous', he said internally, 'But yellow eyes and green hair? That's cool, but pretty weird too.'
The girl was a little short in height but extremely pretty in terms of appearance. She was certainly muscular and wore strange clothes with a blazon of a bright sun, with a sword cutting through the middle of the symbol.
''Are you okay?''
''Huk, Haahakh!''
Those minutes he was subjected to the waves, seemed like an eternity, and as soon as he woke up he vomited a huge amount of water. It was as if he were one of those water fountains placed in village and kingdoms squares.
His face was burning a little, probably from the saline concentration and some kind of swelling that his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose seemed to have developed from the force of the waves.
He felt strange nausea and a feeling of sluggishness throughout his body, that ached in every muscle and bone. Maybe he had been underwater longer than he thought and that's why he swallowed more water than he expected, as his voice was strange and his appearance completely ragged and destroyed.
At that moment, he thought he looked worse than a beggar. Maybe, if it weren't for the dozens of well-dressed people around him and the green-haired girl, he really could have been mistaken for a homeless person.
''What were you trying to do in the middle of a place like this, alone?'' The girl asked annoyed, the other people frowned in unison with her speech, their eyes focused on Garrick's figure, who was confused, ''Trying to kill yourself in order not to fulfill your responsibilities after turning ten?''
Garrick, who literally evaporated and died twice in the same day, was not understanding anything that was happening around him and glanced at the woman in confusion, bewilderment explicitly spread across his face. From him being submerged in the middle of a mysterious beach with some vegetation scattered around the place, to the unknown girl who yelled at him meaningless things.
He really wasn't getting the flow of things here. But he would really like to know what was going on.
''What... are you... talking about?''
His voice sounded hoarse and frayed, surely the water had a severe effect on his whole body, including his throat. But that thinner voice reminded him of just one thing... Even husky, that voice he possessed now, reminded him of the tone of his younger self.
It was almost as if he had just become a child. Perhaps this was all a hallucination in his head and he was in a coma?
''What? Are you by any chance feeling sick, young master?'', the boy couldn't discern if the young woman was angry or worried, ''You are Aquamarine Jann Linjol, the second prince in the royal succession line of the kingdom of Linjol!''
A second of silence fell, leaving everyone embarrassed, until another woman with clothes similar to the girl with green hair, asked:
''What was that green flash that we saw earlier?''
''Eh?'', Garrick didn't know what to respond.
''Don't you dare play innocent, prince! We saw the flash of the magic you used just now'', the woman put the left hand to her chin in bewilderment, ''But you shouldn't be able to use magic of that level, right?''
As Garrick lost himself in his own thoughts and was trapped in a stupor, the woman took a rectangular device the size of her hand, from her pocket, and placed it almost against the boy's forehead.
The trinket made some weird popping sounds, which reminded Garrick of a radioactivity meter from Earth. But, soon after, he erased those thoughts and focused on something more important.
As he did so, the girl scratched her head curiously, showing the device to the others around her.
''5. 5 points. They're the same values as before, there's nothing different. So how did he use that spell?''
The girl was trembling fiercely, and talking in bewilderment, not letting go of Garrick's shirt collar at all. That language that came out of her mouth didn't seem strange to him, but still, he couldn't remember any language similar to that one and had no idea how he could understand it.
He also noticed an interesting thing: the woman was calling him by another name, Aquamarine. Which was bizarre.
But even if he understood the words themselves, that didn't mean he had any idea what the woman was talking about. His mind was still confused by recent events; from his first death, to the conversation with that bizarre being that he had no idea who he was, until the present moment.
An awkward silence settled between the group for a moment.
And as if for a moment of enlightenment, Garrick held up his index finger.
"Oh, now I understand."
He finally understood some meanings of what the woman was saying, and with that he discovered: He was in Heaven Realms, but as a person, he had never heard of before.
That shadow creature had reincarnated him in the same world he loved so much when he lived on Earth, but he wondered how much time had passed since his true body had been killed?
Perhaps he had been living in that body longer than he thought, but hadn't he awakened until the present moment?
Several theories raced through his head at a staggering speed, leaving him even dizzier than before.
'Second time, huh'
A second chance, he certainly wouldn't miss this opportunity for anything. This time... This time he would make all the powerful bastards that roamed the world kneel before him, he would cleanse the world of the maggots that filled it from all sides and then create the ultimate civilization with his power and knowledge.
But before that could happen, he would have to strengthen himself. And he didn't care how he did it, as long as he became as strong as he could... as long as he became as strong that no one would dare defy or betray him again.
As he thought about these things, his vision began to blur with each passing second, and he became extremely nauseous.
'Shit'
The girl was holding him in place, and his head began to hurt like hell.
His eyes began to close once more, and he fell to the ground with his arms outstretched.
''Young master Aquamarine? Young master, are you okay? YOUNG MASTER! Get medical help for him, qu…''
His senses left his body before he could hear the girl's last words. And so, Garrick, now known as Aquamarine, collapsed limply just like that.