As they descended the stairs toward the secret room, Sora walked in front with a firm stride.

  Behind him, Alvaron and Tsukari exchanged glances filled with doubt and expectation. They didn’t understand why their son had summoned them there, but something in his tone, that unshakable seriousness they had never heard from him told them it was important.

  So important that neither of them dared to break the silence.

  The soft sound of their footsteps echoed against the stone walls until they reached the underground chamber. The faint bluish glow of the crystals embedded in the ceiling illuminated the place with an almost solemn calm. Sora walked to the small round table in the center, set his notebook on it, and gestured toward the chairs around it.

  The three of them sat down.

  For a moment, only the quiet hum of the manaquartz lamp could be heard.

  Sora opened the notebook slowly. Its pages were filled with diagrams, symbols, and words he had meticulously arranged throughout the afternoon. He knew he could no longer keep this to himself.

  He took a deep breath, lifted his gaze toward his parents… and silently prepared to speak, ready to accept any answer, no matter what it was.

  Sora broke the silence. His voice sounded firm, but there was a tremor in it that neither of his parents had ever heard before.

  “Mother, Father… what do you think of me?”

  Tsukari and Alvaron looked at each other, confused by the question, she was the first to answer, with that warmth that always found a way to soften any worry.

  “I think you’re my son,” she said with a gentle smile. “A restless child with a lot of talent and a noble heart. Someone who makes us proud every single day, even if you can be a bit na?ve sometimes.”

  Alvaron nodded and added, in the grave and sincere tone that defined him:

  “I agree with Tsukari. You are our son, Sora your ingenuity and inventions have helped the village more than once, and the dedication you put into your work can only make us proud. It moves me to see how lovingly you care for Kanade… and the way you try so hard to make others happy.”

  Sora lowered his gaze to his notebook. His fingers brushed the edge of the pages, and for a moment only the sound of his unsteady breathing filled the room.

  “Doesn’t it seem strange to you,” he finally said in a low voice, “that your son suddenly started inventing things you had never seen before?”

  The air seemed to grow heavier. Tsukari and Alvaron exchanged another look, this one far more serious.

  It was Alvaron who answered, with a hint of curiosity in his voice.

  “Indeed, son. We always wondered how you were able to create things so… unique. Things no one here could have imagined.”

  Tsukari, however, looked at him with tenderness. Her smile was soft, but in her eyes shone a mixture of understanding and anticipation.

  “What are you trying to say with all this, dear?” she asked patiently.

  Sora drew a deep breath, holding back the weight of the words he had rehearsed so many times in his mind.

  “You see… Mother, Father… all this time I’ve been hiding the truth about who I am, i mean… I am who I am now, but my past…”

  He couldn’t continue. His voice broke, and his hands began to tremble slightly.

  Tsukari gently took his hand.

  “Son,” she said with a voice that felt like pure warmth “whatever the truth is, we already know our child. We know who you are. The past… is the past. You can tell us everything.”

  Alvaron, without a word, placed his hand over his son’s as well.

  The touch was firm, warm, filled with a trust that could endure any secret.

  After that gesture from his parents, Sora took a deep breath. The trembling in his hands gradually eased, and with his gaze fixed on them, he gathered all the determination left in his chest.

  “Mother, Father…” he began softly. “As I told you already, I have a past, one that came before being your son, Sora.”

  He paused briefly, searching for the right words.

  “I lived, grew, and died in a completely different world from this one, a place where magic didn’t exist… where there were only humans. A world that survived through the millennia thanks to ingenuity and the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. It was a world far more technologically advanced than Elythera, but also colder… crueler.

  There, failure had a very high price, and I…” he swallowed, lowering his gaze “I was no one.”

  His voice faltered slightly.

  “I was a person with no strength, no will to achieve anything, and when my life ended, it did so in silence… without anyone realizing I was gone.”

  The silence that followed was deep, heavy like the air before a storm.

  Sora lowered his head, biting his lower lip to keep the trembling in his chest from spilling out.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Then Tsukari stood up.

  Without saying a word, she hugged him.

  The warmth of her arms, the familiar scent of her hair, and the softness of her hands brought Sora a peace he hadn’t felt in years neither in this life nor in the previous one.

  That warmth was unmistakable. It was the same refuge that had saved him countless nights, when the nightmares of his past left him waking in a cold sweat.

  And once more… it was enough to calm him.

  Still within Tsukari’s embrace, Sora continued speaking. His voice was steady, but every word carried a weight that echoed against the stone walls of the silent chamber.

  “As I said… in that life, I never did anything, i never achieved anything but even so, frustration consumed me every single day.”

  His eyes clouded for a moment, recalling that feeling that had eaten him alive so many times.

  “That life ended when I was twenty-four,” he went on. “And when everything was finally over… I felt no more anguish. Only a vast calm, as if all the pain had dissolved.”

  “And then I woke up.”

  He paused, looking into the distance, a mixture of nostalgia and wonder softening his expression.

  “I woke up in the lap of someone I had never seen before, a woman of indescribable beauty, with an aura so serene… so pure, that her mere presence felt as if it could stop time.”

  “When I asked her who she was, she answered with a voice I still remember clearly, as if it were yesterday, she told me… that she was the goddess Astaria.”

  Silence fell completely.

  The flame of the candelabra flickered, casting shadows that seemed to breathe with them.

  Then Sora began to recount in detail everything he had experienced with the goddess: their conversation, the mission she entrusted to him, the structure of Elythera, the secrets behind the Conclave, and the purpose of his reincarnation.

  When he finished, Alvaron and Tsukari remained motionless, caught somewhere between astonishment and disbelief, their faces reflected perfectly the magnitude of what they had just heard.

  At last, it was Alvaron who broke the silence.

  “So then…” he said slowly, trying to process the words, “...that’s why you learn so quickly? It’s… incredible, son. Simply… hard to believe.”

  Tsukari, however, wore a different expression. A spark of understanding crossed her eyes before she spoke.

  “Son,” she said softly, “your teacher Seralya knew all of this, didn’t she? To be honest… I suspected it as well.”

  Sora looked at her in surprise as she continued:

  “In those first months, Seralya was extremely cautious with you, almost distrustful. But a few days before your sister was born, she asked permission to use a magical artifact she owned… one that allowed her to see into memories and after that… the two of you became very close.”

  Sora, now outside his mother’s embrace, nodded calmly.

  “Yes, Mother. Master Seralya used that artifact to look into my memories, she feared it might be a trick from Selmyra, a way to hunt down the last vasto sapiens of Elythera… so she did it.”

  He looked away, a mix of understanding and melancholy in his expression.

  “And even though I warned her… she saw memories I never wanted anyone to see, not because I wished to hide them, but because they were too ugly and too human. Things no one should ever have to witness or feel, after that… she trusted me completely.”

  Sora took a breath and lifted his gaze toward his parents.

  “If you don’t believe my story, we could use that same artifact. But I must warn you… The memories of my previous life aren’t pleasant and I don’t want either of you… to see me that way.”

  Silence filled the room once more, only the distant drip of water against stone accompanied their held breaths.

  Tsukari was the first to react. She gently shook her head, and with a voice full of tenderness, said:

  “It isn’t necessary, son. Your words carry no falsehood. Just by looking at you… at the expression on your face when you speak of that past… it’s clear you don’t wish to relive it.

  We don’t need any artifact to know you’re telling the truth.”

  Sora watched her in silence. And before he could say anything else, Tsukari wrapped him once more in a warm, deep embrace, the kind of embrace that seems to stop the world for a moment.

  Alvaron, who had remained silent until then, finally spoke in his firm yet calm tone:

  “What matters now is the task the goddess entrusted to you. Son, I’ll be honest with you: the Eryndel family has never stood with the Conclave.”

  His voice carried a weight Sora had never heard from him before.

  “Your great-great-grandfather,” he continued, “after completing a series of assignments for the Conclave and receiving his noble title, chose to withdraw entirely. He decided to establish our lineage here in Rulid, as far from the capital as possible… because he wanted nothing more to do with them. That idea that distrust toward the Conclave has remained alive in our family ever since.”

  Tsukari nodded, joining her husband’s confession.

  “And obviously, I am not on their side either, that church they worship so blindly has hunted our kind as if we were demons, knowing what they do… no person in their right mind could support them.”

  Sora listened closely, processing each word.

  His mind filled with new pieces to a puzzle he was only beginning to assemble.

  “So then…” he asked, hesitant, “why was there never an open rebellion against the church? I don’t believe our family is the only one that resents them… are we?”

  Alvaron sighed. His gaze turned somber, almost melancholic.

  “In the past, there were attempts, son, but every rebellion was crushed without mercy by the Conclave, they are… ruthless and that was before the Elite Knights existed, the very same who came today for Seralya.”

  Tsukari lowered her head slightly, her voice heavy with memory.

  “I witnessed that myself, when I escaped from the Conclave, I saw with my own eyes how those uprisings ended… Entire villages wiped off the map, whole families annihilated for merely opposing them.”

  Silence returned once more, Sora clenched his fists over his knees, feeling the weight of every word. For the first time, he understood the true magnitude of the enemy he had to face and yet, there was no fear in his eyes, only a quiet conviction, the very same he had inherited from both his parents, from his father, who walked away from power, and from his mother, who survived the flames of persecution.

  After listening to their words, Sora took a slow breath and straightened slightly in his chair. He looked at Alvaron and Tsukari with the calm of someone who no longer intends to retreat.

  “Mother, Father,” he said in a steady voice, “I need your help to carry out my mission. I don’t want you to get directly involved; I need you to lend me your knowledge and skills, since the moment this was entrusted to me, I knew one thing: a direct attack would be suicide. The most sensible option is to infiltrate them and destroy them from within, the most logical path I’ve thought of is to follow the steps to become a knight of the Conclave, by doing so, I can accomplish this on my own; when Goddess Astaria returns, we can restore the order as it should be.”

  Alvaron regarded him gravely and answered without hesitation:

  “This isn’t a mission you can carry out alone and besides, there is someone who’s not going to let you leave on your own…”

  Sora understood the warning before Alvaron even named her. He nodded and continued firmly:

  “I’m aware, Father, that I can’t do this without allies, that’s why I’m afraid Nanami will join the cause… but I need her. She’s an invaluable ally; I already discussed it with Master Seralya.”

  Alvaron fixed him with a look born from experience and added in a firm voice:

  “Then both of you will have to become stronger. Sora, I’m going to train you with the sword,” he declared, resolution on his face.

  “You and Nanami. But you must swear to me that you’ll return in one piece.”

  Tsukari stood beside Sora, her gaze filled with both hope and worry.

  Alvaron extended his hand; Sora took it without hesitation.

  The gesture was brief but heavy with meaning.

  “I swear it,” Sora answered with determination. “We will both defeat Selmyra and return home to celebrate our victory.”

  The vow fell upon the room like a solemn promise as heavy and true as the one he had once made to Goddess Astaria.