I found myself in front of the Chief butler's door. I grabbed the door knob and turned it around, allowing myself to enter the room.
"Yo" I casually waved my hand at Rayn... Or atleast the massive pile of paper that covered his entire desk not allowing me to see if Rayn was even behind that pile.
I heard the chair moving as Rayn stood up allowing me to see his neatly, clean old wrinkled face looking prim and proper.
"Have you forgotten your manners along with your memories" he sighs as he looks back at me, with a slight frown but shrugs it away "atleast your short temper isn't an issue anymore"
"My bad" I scratched my cheeks and fiddled my eyes around the room before going back to facing Rayn who was looking down at his paper while standing up facing towards me.
"I wanted to ask you" I told him as I straightened myself trying to be as firm and proper as possible. Rayn raised an eyebrow at my informal words and formal tone.
"I would like to start learning a weapon" Arnold lacked talent to use any of the standard weaponry, that much I knew. But I'm different, I learnt this when I looked at my Appraisal sheet.
Rayn narrowed his eyes at my face as he glanced me from top to bottom "let me ask you this young master" Rayn's words were sharp and I felt a intense pressure spread throughout the room.
"I've been wondering this for a bit, Young Master Arnold Von Armsberg. The Appraisal sheet that I handed you, what were the results?"
Rayn isn't an idiot, he could easily figure out that Arnold wouldn't just waltz into his room and ask to select a weapon when he inherently lacked any weapon skill. He fought with his fist since childhood and refused to use any weapon leading to his lack of mastery in any weapon. Just cause I lost my memory doesn't give me an excuse to pick a weapon since my muscle memory would make it easier to learn the fists over any weapon, so picking a weapon right now isn't an optimal choice. That is, if I was Arnold but Rayn doesn't know that.
I gulped under his gaze, I was going to make an excuse and tell him this either way "here goes, please work"
I pulled a folded brown leather paper and handed it to him. He finally saw it.
Rayn's eyes widened when he saw the appraisal sheet.
***
Name : Arnold Von Armsberg
Race : Human
Age : 16
Insignia : Counter
Skill : Firearm Mastery(S-), Flames of hearth(-)
***
"I...I see..." For the first time since arriving here, I saw Rayn's face lose it's composure as cold sweat ran down his forehead.
"Insignia is meant to be unique to each individual until the day they die... How..." Insignia is the virtue bestowed by the gods themselves. It is something a person has to carry until the day they die. In some cases the strongest identity a human can possess.
Arnold's original Insignia allowed him to absorb mana, allowing him to absorb any kind of magic attack. But I'm not Arnold, I'm someone else.
Absorb
That was the insignia Arnold had, a single word. What it meant was a mystery but all he knew was it allowed him to absorb incoming magic attacks.
Insignia in most cases is just a single word, unless we use an appraisal scroll or get an appraisal user, we wouldn't know what it truly means.
And so here was mine, as I felt Rayn stare at the status sheet in his hand.
Counter
Not exactly sure what it meant and I wouldn't know until I get my hands on an appraisal scroll myself. I have some idea of it, but for the moment I don't want to delve too deep into the thought of my Insignia as something more important is at stake.
"So..." I looked at the Chief butler of the Armsberg family as his face through the various stages of grief.
"How..." He grabs his neatly shaved chin with one hand and looks at the appraisal sheet with the other "An insignia is linked to a person, it can never be changed...Unless the source of the person either disappears or crumbles..." Rayn scratched his chin and tried to come up with a reasonable logic for this in his head.
He stood there eyeing the sheet while deep in thought for several minutes before his eyes finally left the sheet and fell on me.
"Young Master" he snapped his finger and all the pile of papers, documents in the room disappeared "how about you have a seat" his voice was monotonous, almost devoid of any emotion in it.
A chair that was at the side of the room, slowly moved to the center of the room presenting itself in front of me. Rayn himself sat on his chair behind the desk, while I took the seat in the center.
"Let me ask you this, Do you know of what happened to you a few days prior"
"I fell ill suddenly and lost my memories" I told him as a matter of fact, since that's what happened.
He sighs and he massages his head.
"That is correct, atleast that's we told you and the rest of mansion" The walls around the room suddenly darken, as if trapping everything inside the room in a seperate space.
I look at him confused "These is no way he would know that I took over this body!?"
"The truth of the matter is, there was an assassination attempt on you" He pointed tapped his finger on the desk and a document flew into my lap, with a gesture for me to open it "The assassination attempt wasn't physical attack, but by speculation an ancient magic that aimed directly at your force driving your life"
Looking between the butler and the document on my lap, I opened the sealed document and found myself reading through a report.
My name was written on it, my details and as I read through it one line stood out.
"Patient is experiencing Cardinal Source Resurgence, the source has been shattered, while also allowing itself to reconstruct. A condition that has never been observed before"
Under it, it showed multiple charts, graphs and terms I could not under.
"Source? Cardinal Source Resurgence?" I read further down the list and I'm assuming whatever this source is, it has got to do with me taking over Arnold's body.
"Source... That's what those in the field of medical studies call it atleast. But for us magic users, we can call it Soul" Rayn said as he flicked his finger, the document in my hand vanished into thin air startling me at the sudden emptiness in my hands.
"Soul...." I sat there pondering, I'm sure this has to be a shocking for the original Arnold. But in my opinion "This was probably the side effect of me taking over his body"
"In my opinion, the reason your Insignia has changed can come down to two reasons" being up two finger and holding up a peace a sign. He grabbed his index finger with his other hand
"One - it was because your soul shattered and somehow survived. A miracle that we are still looking into, hoping no side effects will come out of it" he closed his index finger leaving only the middle finger up.
My interest peaked as I leaned in closer to hear his next possibility....and then I froze.
"Or two - Possibility by the slimest chance there is, what if another soul entered the body of our young master here"
Well...fuck