"So, are you excited for tomorrow?" Erika inquired, dressed in a loose shirt and pajamas while eating her dinner.
After changing into comfortable clothes, she and Nora sat down at the dinner table to eat dinner which was take-out noodles.
"I am definitely excited. I will unlock my powers tomorrow." Noah replied confidently while eating the noodles fondly. It had been quite a long time since he had eaten those.
"Looks like someone is confident." Erika sounded surprised as she hadn't seen Noah being confident for a long time.
She had been expecting him to be demoralized and had even prepared multiple speeches to up his morale but it looked like she didn't need them anymore.
"Well, if I don't awaken any tomorrow, I will basically be f…," Noah managed to stop himself from cursing, "Powerless for the rest of my life." He finished.
Though Erika didn't mind him cursing, Noah remembered that he used to be quite different in the past. Having such a sudden personality change wasn't a good thing.
"Well there is a very minute chance that you would awaken your powers past eighteen but the chances might as well be impossible," Erika then gave her son an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, I will be with you no matter what happens."
"Thank you, mom," Noah replied genuinely. In his past life, his mother had done exactly what she had said.
Noah still remembered that when she had died, he had murdered an entire kingdom in cold blood for what its royal family had done.
It was an event that had happened only twice in history and those two had never been as brutal as what Noah had done.
The entire event could be described in words but only those who had seen it could feel the amazement and cruelty of what Noah had done.
"Well, we will find it in 12 hours." Erika finished as the mother-son pair ate their dinner in silence.
'She pushed herself too hard today.' Noah observed.
Even without his powers, his eyesight was at a level that let him notice the smallest of details. Erika worked at a government-run facility that provided bodyguards or team captains for hire.
She would often take the highest paying job, sometimes taking those suited for two to six people, and would overwork herself.
Noah knew that the place she had worked at was one of the worst ones out there and did a lot of scamming and fraud. However, he felt that something had changed in his current life.
'I guess I will massage her shoulders later on.' Noah thought as he finished his dinner soon.
He stood up and deposited the dishes in the dishwasher, picking up his mother's empty plate as well. Noah then closed the lid of the dishwasher and set the timer on it.
"Good night, Noah." Erika wished her son goodnight while kissing him on the forehead and going inside her room.
Noah remained standing outside his room for a few minutes before knocking and entering inside. Erika was lying on her bed with a tired expression yet she was far from sleeping.
"Mom, do you mind if I massage your shoulders?" Noah asked in a concerned tone as Erika blinked in surprise.
'He noticed it…' She thought while realizing the fact that Noah had noticed her slightly slower shoulder movement.
"I would love that," Erika admitted as Noah smiled and climbed on her bed. He then sat behind his mother and placed his hands on her shoulders.
He started by loosening her shoulders, making Erika feel as though someone had just lifted a huge burden off her shoulders.
Noah then pressed the back of her shoulders using his thumbs and applied a small amount of pressure.
Erika felt as though she was in heaven. She completely relaxed her body as Noah used different pressure techniques to massage her shoulders.
"Mom, can you tell me something about father?" Noah finally asked after a few minutes of massaging her shoulders.
"Your father?" Erika asked in a slightly drowsy tone.
"Yeah. I want to know what kind of a person he was, how you both met, and what led to you getting separated." Noah asked in detail, remembering the same talk both of them had in the past.
Erika had told him about his father after Noah had witnessed the first major death of someone close to him.
She had told him about how she had hated his father yet had been forced to live with him for some time.
"When you were born, you were extremely weak and no one believed you would grow up to be strong.
His family of course blamed me for it making me divorce my husband. At least I got this house." Erika had then sighed in defeat since she hadn't been able to do anything.
Noah had only known this side of the story and had no information that his mother had been in love with an elven prince.
"Ah well… Your father and I met in a tournament for the first time. Both of us were royals, though my kingdom was one-fourth the size of his kingdom. We both ended up in the finals and oh well, I wiped the floor with him." Erika chuckled while remembering the past.
"Everyone was left stunned and it was then that your father got interested in me. The same tournament was held every five years so when we met again, both of us were in our twenties. This time, the match ended with us knocking each other out."
'The past changed…' Noah thought simultaneously as he knew that his mother and father, the one from his previous life, had never met in such a way.
"We both ended up in the hospital together and well, we got talking. It turned out that both of us were in a similar situation, inches away from being forced into a political marriage. We then talked about things we loved to eat and how our lives were different.
It was a fun time for someone like me who barely had any friends but I guess that's because of my beauty. I was the idol for boys and the girls pretty much hated me. Your father was completely opposite of me and everyone loved him.
Though I remember him saying that ninety-nine percent of those people were only nice to him because of his title…"
Erika's voice suddenly trailed off as she lost herself in the memories of the past. Noah didn't say anything and let her have her time.
"Anyways, years later, we met again when I ran away from home. We did talk about that during our time in the hospital but it was shocking to meet him in a town in the middle of nowhere.
Lady fate moved our strings and turned out he had just ran away from a wedding, For the next few weeks, both of us spent the time moving. Weeks turned into months and two years later, I gave birth to you.
But fate had been playing a cruel game and somehow, your father ended up in the clutches of the Elven royal family, his own family…"
Erika inhaled sharply as though remembering something horrible. Noah quickly moved his hands towards the back of her head and pressed it tightly, releasing it after a minute.
Erika's expression relaxed a bit yet Noah could tell that she felt uneasy.
"Your father is… dead I guess. I never heard from him again and escaped with you. I went to my family to ask for help and all I got was this house situated hundreds of kilometers away from my home." Erik sighed. "You have his eyes…"
"I see…" Noah decided that it was enough for one day. He had made his mother remember the nightmares of her past. The least he could do now was give her a relaxing sleep. "Goodnight Mother."
"Goodnight son…" Erika yawned loudly as Noah slid off the bed. His mother then laid down on the bed, forgetting all about the work that she was supposed to do.
Her eyes automatically closed and within a few minutes, she was soundly asleep. Noah looked at her mother with a sad look before sliding the sheets over her body.
He silently walked out of the room and made his way to his room. Through the window present there, Noah looked outside to see that night had settled all over the city.
"Fate's cruel game…" He muttered while looking at the stars. "I guess that's something everyone plays in their life once."
Noah remembered how he hadn't been able to obtain revenge on his real father in his previous life. This time, he had a father who he could obtain revenge for.
"I will ask mom for more information sometime in the future," Noah muttered before looking at the clock drilled into the wall above his bed. "But before that…"
DING!
The clock suddenly made a loud noise, something that only happened on his or his mother's birthdays.
It was midnight, the time for his true powers to awaken.