Quintessence of Arcana

Bestowed by a Dead Man's Memories

Year 994 of the Arcane Era.

Early Spring. In the slums of Lorham, one of the bordering cities under the territory of the Arcadian Empire.

“Hah... hah...”

A certain boy is curled in the corner of a dark and shabby wooden shack, which the air is dry and chilly. He was panting for breath, with his cheeks bright red. He groaned openly, seemingly tormented by nightmares. The dirty rags he wore on his body were soaked through with sweat; and at just a glance, it was clear that he had a fever.

But at one point, a warm, gentle light began to shine and embrace the boy's body. It was a different kind of heat from the fever that had been tormenting him. This heat was warm and comfortable enough to entrust oneself to. Color rapidly returned to the boy's face, and his breathing evened out. For some reason, the fever that ailed the boy’s body was gone, and the light that covered his body disappeared with a subtle flash.

“Mmh...”

The boy blearily opened his eyes sometime later. Lying on his back, he blinked until his vision cleared and a dimly-lit ceiling came into focus. His mind was still hazy, as though there was a fog preventing him from thinking clearly. He tried to stand up, but his body is still trembling slightly.

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. He glance around at his surroundings and revealed a dismal room with some shabby furniture placed in the middle.

“This is...”

A room he was very familiar with, the boy thought. And yet, something inexplicably felt out of place. He knew he’d 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 there were two people’s consciousnesses within him...

Something just didn’t feel right... rather, something was muddled with his memories.

As he looked around the room in a daze, a sour smell suddenly pierced his nose. He then just noticed that the rags he was wearing were soaked with sweat. With a deep breath, he collapsed back on the floor; he felt like lying down for a little longer. He then lifted a hand and stared intently at it.

It was definitely his hand. A hand of a boy who just turned twelve. But it was weird. There was something strange about it...

The boy then started to reminisce something as he momentarily closes his eyes.

A dream.

He had a dream. A dream that was a bit, no, a lot different than the dreams he usually had. To be precise, it was more like fragments of memories..

“Ah!”

In the next moment, he opened his eyes and gasped loudly. Ignoring the headache pounding in his head, the boy kicked his hazy brain back into gear.

Erald — that was his name. He was an orphan living in the slums of Lorham, sworn to take revenge to a certain someone who murdered his family. That was why he had grasped at straws to survive up until this point. That should have been the entirety of his existence and he was sure of it.

But it seems he had attained some compiled memories of a certain person living in another world, in an unfamiliar civilization, with knowledge that he didn’t recognize...

Broken images of various scenes flashed through his mind... They seemed all-too realistic to be written off as just a dream of a twelve-year-old boy. It showed the life of a completely different person. Someone named Evan Skier.

According to his memories, he was a weapons engineer and a soldier. But somehow, Erald felt like he had personally experienced everything, as if he was living that life just moments ago. A strange unsettled feeling fell over Erald, causing him to shake his head violently.

“What am I thinking? Evan Skier...?”

Erald breathed in and out, deeply, trying to calm himself and organize his memories. He placed a hand against his head in thought. He was Erald, and he was apparently that person Evan Skier as well.

But no matter how much his memories were doubled, he wasn’t Evan Skier. If he were Evan, he wouldn’t be a little boy right now, much less in a place like this. And if his memories were correct, the man named Evan Skier wasn’t even alive.

“In my memories, I died on the battlefield fighting against those aliens... I think?”

He remembered what happened to him alongside the last of humans as they struggle for survival against the foreign race that invaded their world. Somehow, he remembered being in extreme pain, like his limbs were torn apart. He even felt all sorts of emotions from that particular scene.

Regret, remorse, lamentation, and a deep sigh… Even until his life flickered out, these fervent emotions raged inside him. They lingered inside the boy's mind, ringing his heart.

“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 about this reality to write off everything as a dream. It was also hard to imagine that this was the afterlife. Although this place, while definitely not heaven, was as close to hell as it could get.

But no matter how much he wondered, there was no answer. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was Erald, not Evan.

As he deeply organize his newly acquired memories, a sound of an empty stomach echoed throughout the room. Erald came to a depressing realization that he was starving. He sighed; the hunger he felt made him feel a bit lightheaded. There were a lot of things on his mind, but he thought it's best not to think too deeply about it. Besides, his first priority for now is to find food — in order to survive.

Just then, the door to the shack was yanked open. Erald pushed his exhausted body up so that he could look at the doorway as several men and one woman crowded into the small wooden shack.

“Hmm? Oh, Erald! Are you finally awake?” asked one of the men standing at the front of the group as he spotted Erald in the dimly-lit shack.

“Huh! So you actually survived. Thought you were a goner... Hey, boss! Erald’s still kicking! We thought he was good as dead before...” the man yelled. His eyes were wide with surprise as he directed his voice toward the back of the group, where a giant man stood over the rest.

“Ha! What a lucky brat. You were almost keelin’ over from your fever yesterday... We were gonna toss you out if you were still sleepin’ today,” said the giant man named Gaul, who had been referred to as boss; he sounded impressed.

“...Yes. Somehow.” Erald replied, holding back a frown.

These men were a group of jacks-of-all-trades here in the slums. They had a large circle of influence and earned their money working as outlaws-for-hire and by taking requests for all kinds of evil activities. Human trafficking, illegal trading, robbery, swindling, extortion, transportation and disposal of stolen goods... even hit jobs. The list of crimes they were willing to get their hands dirty for was endless.

To these men, an orphan in the slums was like a convenient, disposable pawn. Easy to obtain, use, and throw away — which they often did. Erald was one such pawn that these men had picked up. He lived in this small shack with them and lived in fear of being subjected to their abuse. Sometimes they would hit him for stress relief, sometimes they would force him to assist with their crimes, using him as a scapegoat or bait while they escaped.

But in this cruel world, his survival depended on them. In fact, he had survived until today by desperately obeying them.

“Hey, it’s cold in here. Let’s get to celebrating and warm ourselves up!” said the other underling.

He walked to the shabby wooden table in the middle of the room and placed some food and alcohol down with a thud.

“Good idea. Hey — leave that in the corner. It's been drugged to sleep, so don’t go wakin’ it up,” ordered the leader of the group of men.

One underling moved to place a sack with their spoils on the floor. Then, in high spirits, the men had the sole woman in the group pour their drinks, and they began to eat.

“It sure was a great haul... right, boss?”

One of the underlings cackled.

“Hmph. It’s fifteen gold for cargo transport. Can’t be anything decent... I doubt it’s just a slave inside. Probably some noble’s kid or something.”

“But fifteen gold coins for a side-job like that? It’s freakin’ amazing.”

“Yeah.”

Gaul took a large gulp of his alcohol and took a ferocious bite of his hunk of meat. Erald watched on from the side, swallowing his saliva hungrily. The topic of their conversation was ominous, but Erald was far more interested in the food in their hands. Since Erald had been sleeping off his sickness, the chance of them feeding him was extremely low. It wouldn’t happen unless Erald do well in his job.

The relationship between Erald and these men was simple: the strong and the weak, the exploiters and the exploited.

They’d shelter him as long as they could exploit him, then mercilessly throw him out once he was done. Erald had seen them do that to many other children already. While he didn’t intend on continuing their relationship forever, he was just a twelve-year-old boy. Only the fittest could survive on the streets of the slums, and he doubted he could live for very long out there without them. But at that very moment, the smell of the food was unbearable on his empty stomach.

“I’m hungry...”

It was all he could think about. He was too fatigued for anything else. Erlad let the men’s conversation wash over him, only half-listening as he sat slumped in the corner of the shack, resting his body, when suddenly—

“Heeey Erald. Erald!” one of the underlings called out to him.

“Yes?”

“Your fever sweat stinks like crap. Go wash yourself — you’re ruining the food and drink.”

“...Okay.”

He’d hoped that they would give him food, but that was just his wishful thinking. The underling pinched his nose and made a shooing gesture with his hand. Apparently, the sweat made Erald’s body odor a lot stronger than he realized.

“I’m sorry.”

Erald bowed his head once and staggered to his feet. He hobbled towards the door of the shack.

“Erald! If yer still not better, we’ll sell ya off as a slave. The only thing y’got goin’ for ya is yer devil’s luck and pretty face, after all,” the leader said gleefully, already well on his way to being drunk. The underlings roared with laughter, as if he had said something hilarious.

"Geez, stop picking on children...”

The woman pouring the drinks chided them exasperatedly, but Erald continued walking out the door without looking back. He closed the door behind him.

“Erald.”

Erald turned back at the sound of his name being called. The door reopened immediately, and the woman who was pouring drinks stepped outside.

“Go get yourself some breakfast with this. It should be enough for some stale bread and plain broth,” the woman said, placing three small copper coins in his hand.

This woman was the p********e the leader favored the most. She was also on amicable terms with Erald, often looking out for him like this.

“...Thank you very much, Amanda. Are you sure?”

Amanda responded with a kind smile when Erald thanked her.

“Just make sure you come play with me when you’re a little older.”

“Haha...” Erald laughed awkwardly.

“I’m just kidding. I’ve told you before how I have a niece your age, right? You remind me of her, that’s all. I’m going to quit this job soon anyway,” Amanda explained with a shrug.

Erald intended on paying her back some day, but just as he opened his mouth to tell her so, Amanda cut in, “By the way, you seem different today... did something happen to you?” She asked with wide eyes.

“Huh? Umm... I’m not sure what you mean,” Erald answered uncertainly and tilted his head. He was startled.

“So you can make that kind of face, too. Your pretty face looks much better when it isn’t sulking,” Amanda said cheerfully.

“Er... sure,” Erald hesitantly agreed. “I’ll keep that in mind, I guess.”

“Alright. Off you go, now. They’ll get mad at me if I chat with you for too long.”

“Right. Thank you...”

Erald bowed his head, then left.