In a world far, far away from earth.
There was a boy.
This boy knew there was no salvation in this war-torn world.
Here, the strong would eat, the weak gets eaten. That's the irrational law of this world— scavenger for leftovers, begging in the streets, and suffering violent abuse.
Every day, this boy suffers— exploited as a slave, violently beaten, suffering for starvation and thirst. His mind had been long since worn out. And yet he still preserve until the next day, and the next day after that.
Even after all this suffering, he is thirst for something more. He wanted to find this person— this girl who always appeared in his dreams— he wanted to live— live and find this girl... He wanted to protect her from any harm, he wanted to save her from any distress.. He... He wanted to save her from the tears of sadness.
(A/N; *Cringe*)
***
Coitalize, also known as The Labyrinth City Of Aglish.
Here, in this wonderous city where both young and old gathered to seek fame and glory. A perfect place for you to be! If your am aspiring hero, then this is the perfect place for you!
(A/N;*Ahem* Let's do this one more time.)
Coitalize, also known as The Labyrinth City Of Aglish. But the city was more well known on its other name.
Coitalize, The Lawless City.
Here, slaves of different races were sold as a merchandise, Elves, Drawfs, Halfling, etc. As long as you had money there was almost nothing you can't buy in this city.
Illegal goods? Just turn left and there the shop.
Slaves? Oh it's just right there.
Assasination? Just go to a random inn and pay them a tribute.
Mercenaries? Just talk to a random person.
In this chaotic city were death and murder was a common occurrence. On a certain shack away from the all the chaos. A certain boy could be seen lying face down on the filthy ground, his entire body was riddled with scars and bruises, his malnourished body was already comparable to that of a stick— skin and bones, that is the only way to describe his current appearance, no fat, no muscle, only skin and the bones.
"Ugh..." The boy opened his eyes sometime later with such difficulty. Lying on his back, he blinked until his vision cleared and a dimly-lit wooden ceiling came into his view.
His mind was still hazy, as though there was a fog preventing him from thinking clearly. The fever was gone, but not without consequence. He was still weak, and had yet to recover his strength and stamina.
Overwhelmed with fatigue, the boy stared blankly at the ceiling. His mind managed to recover to a point where he could process his thoughts again, pushing his weary body up into a sitting position, he started to wonder about his situation.
"Ugh..."
A dull pain ached in his muscles, making the boy wince. It might have been a result of the cold he caught, or perhaps from sleeping on the hard floor. A glance around at his surroundings revealed a dismal room with some shabby furniture placed in the middle
"Where... Am I?"
The room was very familiar... and yet something inexplicable felt out of place. He knew he had lived in this room for a while now... but he was also seeing it for the first time.
It shouldn't have been possible, but it was almost as though he hadn't seen this place.
Something just didn't feel right... rather, something was muddled his memories. As he looked around the room in a daze, a sour smell suddenly pierced his sense.
The boy noticed the rags he was wearing were soaked with sweat. He furrowed his brow, mind now awakened. With a deep breath, he collapsed back on the floor. He felt like lying down for a little longer. He lifted a hand to place against his forehead — but in the next moment, he gasped loudly and stared intently at his hand.
It was definitely his hand... the small hand of a eleven-year-old boy. But it was... weird. There was something strange about it...
Ignoring the headache pounding in his head, the boy kicked his hazy brain back into gear.
A child's hand...? I... Wait, I?... huh?
Erwin — that was the boy's name. He was an orphan living in the slums of Coitalize, he was a defective product as the matron of the orphanage calls him.
(A/N; Erwin has a dream! And that is to destroy all Titans in existence!!)
Erwin was born with a defective core and sickly body. It also implies that he had no hope for attaining magic or do any laborious work. So before the aged of four, the matron sold him with the other defective kids as a slave for some cash.
While the defective kids was sold as a slave at a young age. The more healthy and talented kids was raised with care.
He was bought by a man for a messy Q25, his master was a bastard who abuses his wife and even sold her body every night to a random person, sometimes a whole group even stays for a night.
And the one who cleans up the room in the morning was non-other than him, he was purchased for that very reason.
This continues as he until reached the tender age of five. His master was killed and so does his wife, only him alone survived that day.
That was the whole summary of Erwin's life up until now.
So why did he have another person's worth of memories? The memories of a person living in another world, in an unfamiliar civilization, with technology that he didn't recognize... or at least didn't seen even once.
Broken images of various scenes flashed through his mind... They seemed all-too realistic to be written off as just the imagination of a eleven-year-old boy.
They showed the life of a completely different person. Someone named Nerval. According to his memories, he was a twenty-two-year-old university student. No — even now, Erwin was living that life, as if those memories had happened to him just moments ago. A strange unsettled feeling fell over Erwin, causing him to shake his head violently.
What am I thinking? Nerval...?
The set of dual memories left Erwin feeling confused. He looked down at his hands, as if he were trying to escape reality. But it wasn't the unblemished skin of a child who grew up well provided environment where food is plenty.
But these were the hands of a someone underweight and malnourished... these were the very hands of a child who had not yet eaten anything for the last 2 weeks.
And also according to his memories, this child had never had a bath for ages.
Seriously...? This kid doesn't even have a memory of having a bath even once all his life...
Erwin couldn't help but grimaced. The tattered clothes— if it could even consider it as one— was stiff and and dirty, Erwin couldn't even remember the last time he wash his clothes, this was also the very same clothes he wore on the day he was sold off as a slave.
Of course, he didn't even have any shoes. He was bare foot.
"Okay... calm down you got this..."
Erwin breathed in and out, deeply, trying his best to maintain his calm and analyzed his current situation. He placed a hand on his chin in thought.
He was Erwin... and he was also Nerval, with eleven-years worth of memories from living in Coitalize and twenty-two years of living in the place called Earth.
In this world memories can be forcefully implanted, he had seen that happen once, so he wasn't hundred percent sure If he were really Nerval or Erwin anymore... if he were really Nerval he wouldn't be a little boy right now, much less in a place like this.
And if this memories were correct, the young man named Neval wasn't even alive.
"In my memories, I got hit by something called Truck... I think?"
(A/N; Truck-kun strikes again!)
He remembered being hit by something called Truck, and he remembered being in extreme pain, like his limbs were torn apart. He couldn't remember what happened after that, his memories was still blurry, only bits and pieces was recollected.
"Where am I right now...? Is this a dream? The afterlife? Was I... reborn?"
He listed off every possibility he could think of, but there was something too raw and absurd about this reality to write off everything as a dream.
It was extremely hard to imagine that this was the afterlife, too. Although... this place, while definitely not heaven, was as close to hell as it could get.
Which meant he was most likely reborn, Erwin suspected. Could such a fantastical story be real? Did this Nerval person even exist? Had these memories in his head actually happened?
But no matter how much he wondered and question himself, no one would tell him the answer... as a matter in fact, there was likely no answer at all. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was Erwin, not Nerval.