Did I die… again? Everything was pitch black. It was as though all my senses had been stripped away. I found myself in a void, absent of sound, scent, or anything that constituted life itself.
This was my original destination. This is death, I thought.
It was oddly anticlimactic. I had expected some form of judgment, maybe something that reflected the kind of person I was. But this… this is fine, I guess.
With nothing to do in the bottomless pit, I began reminiscing about my past lives: the useless dropout who perished in a car crash, and the young boy whose life ended in a swift decapitation.
I don't want to die yet. I have so many plans, and—I want to save my family from that wretched witch.
I'm not sure how much time passed as I lingered in my thoughts, but it eventually got tiring. A man can only think for so long.
Then, after what felt like an eternity, I heard something.
"There is a poison within the world, and I've given you the opportunity to remove it. Wasting a gift of this nature is unforgivable."
The words popped up in my mind, like they were my own thoughts, though I knew they weren't.
"Your first life is gone, now eight remain."
"Who are you?" I asked, to no avail though.
Whatever it is, it's clearly got a god complex. I thought.
After a moment, my senses slowly began to return, accompanied by a sudden rush of pain. My lungs were heavy, as if they were filled with water, so I flailed my arms in a desperate attempt to survive.
"Zane? Zane!" I opened my eyes in a cold sweat. Cinthia was shaking my body with her hands holding my shoulders.
"Hey Zane, you can let go now." Apparently, when I was flailing my arms, I unknowingly grabbed Regina's breast. She was looking down at me with a smile, probably trying to keep it professional, but the disgust was written all over her face.
The sight of her sent a surge of fear through my very blood. I remembered the image of my headless body on its knees, the last thing I saw before everything went black.
"Witch!" I instinctively shouted.
"Son, calm down!" Ansel ordered.
"Did you have a bad dream, Zane?" Cinthia asked.
Taking a moment to reassess, I noticed Regina holding a bucket. In this world, if someone doesn't wake up, then that person is drenched in water for a response. It seemed a bit counterintuitive, but whatever.
"So-sorry. I guess it was a bad dream," I said.
At that, Cilia climbed onto my bed and began patting my head, an awkward yet charming attempt to comfort me. I gave her an appreciative smile.
Later, Cinthia took me into the dining room like she always did. Ansel left for work, and my sister disappeared to wherever she typically went during the day.
Now that I was alone, I tried making sense of everything.
"I died, but then came back to life, but before I returned, I was in an unknown place. While there, a sentence echoed in my head. There is a poison in this world, and you must remove it, or something like that. But what is the poison?" I silently narrated.
Before I knew it, I found myself questioning whether this was actually a gift, or if I was just being used for someone else's goal. Why should I have to cure the world of poison?
It was then that I noticed the calendar. The date was identical to the day Regina had killed me.
At first, I thought Regina just forgot to update it, but I soon found that I had actually been sent back in time, to the morning of my death. To her, none of it had happened, but the memory was painfully vivid in my head.
The first thing I did was look for her. She was a bit hard to find due to the sheer size of the house, but when Cinthia opened the front door, I spotted her outside busy scrubbing clothes. This was my chance. I rushed to the library, grabbed the book, and hastily hid it in the farthest corner of my closet.
Knowing she kept a close eye on me, I decided to pause my reading until I felt it was safe to continue.
I went about my daily routine, pretending everything was normal. After my father tucked me in for the night, I waited an hour, then quietly reopened the book, picking up where I had left off.
Over the next few weeks, I repeated this process and eventually finished the first section. Each chapter discussed different aspects of magic, such as magic suppression, special cases, theories, devices, and gestures.
One of the main things I noted was in the special cases section. There was a story that took place around 400 years ago about a demon girl, named Lily, who unlocked her magic at the age of five. When she was older, they asked how her affinity was determined so early, but to put it simply, she never replied.
Evidently, the general population was left confused, so they pressed her for an answer. She never gave in, though. Over time, her presence in the village dwindled, and by the age of seventeen, she vanished without a trace.
Initially, I thought I would have to wait to uncover my own magical affinity, but after reading that story, a small spark of hope ignited within me.
The final chapter of the first section focused on gestures, essentially serving as a spell dictionary that ranged from simple incantations to some of the most advanced spells known. Each page displayed intricate body gestures, accompanied by detailed instructions for casting the corresponding spell.
One of the spells read: Titanium Dagger.
"A dagger?" I raised my arm to eye level, closed my eyes, and visualized a blade of titanium materializing in my hand. After a few moments of concentration, my hand began to feel cold.
To my astonishment, a shard of metal began forming in my palm, seemingly out of thin air.
It wasn't exactly what I had envisioned, but it was my first successful spell. The excitement spurred me on to cast more spells, from summoning small earth pebbles to conjuring ice shards.
When I finished having fun with my newfound abilities, I began to question the very nature of the book's teachings. The information here was revolutionary, so why? I was caught in an endless cycle of the same questions, and with no one to turn to, so I kept reading.
The next section was Weapon Utilization.
Weapons were commonplace across the country, though most people limited their choices to five main types: staves, swords, spears, bows, and daggers. There wasn't much variety beyond these. Each weapon bearer was ranked according to their strength, using a tiered system. The lowest rank was Pawn, followed by Enthusiast, Knight, Professor, and, at the pinnacle, the highest title a normal person could achieve, Royale.
That summed up the second section, so I decided to move on.
As I turned the final page, I arrived at the third and last part of the book, History.
But, to my disappointment, the pages were all torn out.