A Disastrous Beginning

It was past midnight. The silver moon shone with fervor over a dark alley that was now reeking death. Luke's death.

Luke powerlessly held his neck as blood oozed from between his fingers. His neck had been slit open by an unknown assailant.

As he was walking back to the orphanage, he had heard a woman screaming for help. He was the only one on the street at that time. He followed the voice to the entrance of a dark alley. He hesitated for a moment before he ran into the alley thinking that if he was not fast enough, the woman, whose screams were becoming even more desperate, might die if he did nothing.

By the time Luke realized that he had made a mistake, it was already too late.

As soon as he reached the end of the alley, the screams abruptly stopped, and an eerie silence took place.

He heard hurried steps behind him and as he thought of looking behind him a sharp and cold object slit his neck open.

Luke's first reflex as he suffocated and bled out was to hold his neck with his two hands. He then fell on the ground just as the full moon hiding behind the clouds could be seen again.

As he was about to lose consciousness, he remembered that it was his eighteenth birthday that day.

As he shed his last tears, a blurry moon being reflected in his eyes, he thought: "Wasn't I born during a night of a full moon?"

"…Of all the days I could have died…"

"I have no one …No one will miss me anyway…"

He finally died.

***

Linfall continent, Belic country, Stoneheart city

Inside the Rein clan's territory.

In a lavishly decorated room, a man had just lost all signs of life while sleeping. The poison coursing through his veins had just done its job when the moonlight shone in the room through the window. As the moonlight shone on his body a strange power appeared and purified him of the poison killing him. Seconds later, his heart started beating again.

The man abruptly opened his eyes and sat down on the bed.

He had white hair and looked to be no older than twenty. He also had blue eyes and an olive, almost brown, complexion.

He looked lost in thought as he turned his head to face the blinding moon through his window. In doing so, he unlocked a few memories.

"Luke…who is Luke?… Who am I?" he said, confused.

It took him some time to reorganize his memories: "Didn't I just die?… What's happening to me? Where am I?"

He asked himself so many questions but could not find an answer that satisfied him.

An hour later, after trying to understand his current situation, he didn't realize that he had fallen asleep.

In the morning, he woke up and once again refused to set foot outside. He had no idea where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

Not long after he awoke, he heard someone heavily knocking on his door.

"Young master, the patriarch summons you." A raspy voice said.

Luke panicked and for a moment his mind went blank.

"Young master?" the raspy voice was heard again.

"Give me a second." Luke said and then left the bed to look for clothes.

He reckoned that this will be his chance to know what was happening to him and learn a bit more about this place.

He found it weird that all he had available to wear were robes of different colors. He chose a blue one and donned it.

As he opened the door, he found himself face to face with a man in a brown armor armed to the teeth.

Luke asked: "What's your name again?"

The man said: "How could you have forgotten my name? I'm your personal guard since your birth."

Luke had an awkward look on his face: "Sorry… I seem to have amnesia this morning. I don't remember anything."

The man looked at Luke with a peculiar look. It seemed that the youth in front of him was telling the truth, but this wasn't the first time the man remembered falling for Luke's schemes.

The man said: "You think that you can shirk from your responsibilities if you claim to have amnesia? Do you think your grandfather will buy it?… Let's go, He's waiting for you. You know how impatient he is."

As he followed the man, Luke thought: "So my grandfather is the patriarch… It seems I can't get anything more out of this so-called bodyguard."

All of a sudden Luke realized something as he looked at the man: "He calls himself my bodyguard…but why do I feel stronger than him….wait…feel?…How is it possible for me to feel that I am stronger than him?"

Another question that went unanswered.

Everywhere they passed, hordes of servants bowed and offered greetings at Luke.

Luke knew by now that he had stolen the body of someone important. It frightened him even more. In his previous life, he never believed in reincarnation or transmigration. He never believed in anything and thought that death was the end.

What frightened him was what would happen to him if those who knew the previous owner of his body found out he had been erased from existence and replaced by another soul.

It took them a good ten minutes to reach their destination.

They entered a castle-like building.

As they neared the great hall, Luke admired the cleanliness and the lavishness.

The great hall was crowded. Dozens of people sat around a big round table.

In the seat of honor was a man that was in his forties.

"That can't be my grandfather right?…he looks so young." Luke asked his bodyguard.

The bodyguard once again looked at Luke with a confused look saying: "It's your grandfather. Those who reach the immortal realm are immortal and don't age…everyone knows that…Do you really have amnesia?"

Before Luke could answer, his grandfather spoke: "Luke. You're finally here."

Like Luke had felt how powerful he felt compared to his bodyguard, he now felt like an infant in front of his grandfather's might. It was a feeling he couldn't explain. Moreover, he had been called by the same name he was called in his previous life: Luke.

"Hel…hello Grandfather." Luke said before he inwardly thought: "So I have the same name…this can't be a coincidence..."

Hearing Luke's greeting made the patriarch puzzled. Something seemed off about Luke.

"Are you okay Luke? You look pale." The patriarch asked.

As everyone seated around the round table scrutinized Luke, he felt cold sweat on his back.

Luke decided that it was probably better that he says he was amnesic to avoid further questioning.

"Actually, I…" Luke tried to say but was cut by the patriarch: "It's okay. I know that you were at the Immortal Drunkard restaurant last night drinking with your friends for your eighteenth anniversary... happy birthday by the way…I hope you've celebrated enough because it's time to get back to work."

An alarm sounded in Luke's head. He thought: "Work?…wait…eighteenth birthday?"

He had died on the day of his eighteenth birthday and was reincarnated in a body that had turned eighteen the same day. Even more coincidences that he couldn't explain.

The patriarch, seeing that Luke was silent but shaken, decided to keep talking: "I know you hate working at the factory, but no one is as skilled as you in making pills. You're also the only one who has created his own recipes and most of them…if not all of them… are the most popular amongst all our products…It's also partly thanks to you that we are the most powerful clan in the kingdom…so you see why you cannot stop working…at least while you're still adamant about sharing your recipes with the rest of the clan…If you shared them with us you wouldn't have to force yourself to work so hard."

Letting every word sink in, Luke thought that he never had such bad luck ever since being murdered in his previous life.

Hearing that an entire clan depended on his work to survive made him want to crawl into a corner and stay there forever. He had no idea how he was going to speak the truth in front of this patriarch that he felt was too dangerous. Every cell in his body told him to just run away and never look back…start a new life elsewhere… but at the same time, he was afraid of this new world and new life that didn't make any sense to him.

Luke looked at the bodyguard that was standing next to him and suddenly a name popped up into his head: Erik Rein.

Not knowing what it meant, he connected some dots and then said it to the bodyguard: "Erik Rein?"

The bodyguard seemed relieved for some reason that he couldn't explain himself. Just hearing his name out loud had relieved him of an enormous burden. The bodyguard said: "Yes. I am Erik Rein…So you do remember me…I didn't believe you at first, but it kept nagging at my mind…Do you not know that I would be punished if something happened to you?"

Luke screamed in his head: "How is this possible? I've never met this person before today. How can I know his name…Was I reborn with powers? Can I read minds? That's how I knew his name?"

Once again, Luke's mind was filled with questions that he had no answer to but deep in his consciousness, he seemed to hear a distant smirk.

He tried to feel this so-called power once again but nothing happened. It was clear that he couldn't read minds.

As the patriarch listened to their conversation, his mind went blank and then realized something. As he doubted his conjectures, he asked the bodyguard: "Tell me what happened Erik."

Erik immediately straightened himself and said: "Yes, patriarch…This morning, when I went to fetch the young master, he didn't remember my name. He claimed that he had amnesia…"

Before letting Erik finish, the patriarch turned to Luke and asked: "Is this true?"

Luke weighed the pros and cons of lying and decided to tell the truth: "Yes. I have amnesia."

The patriarch then closed his eyes as the temperature in the entire hall rose.

Luke's entire being wanted to flee but stopped when he realized that the temperature in the hall rising was impossible. Not long after he was showing signs of suffocating, but oddly enough he remarked that he was the last one to be affected by the change in temperature. The dozens of men sitting around the round table and Erik had long fainted. He didn't know why or how he could stay standing, but he felt that if the temperature rose by a few more degrees, he would be the next to faint.

The temperature was so high that everything around him seemed to blur. What amazed him was that nothing in the entire hall caught on fire, not even the clothes they were wearing.

It didn't take long for Luke to realize that everything was caused by the patriarch. The patriarch's emotions to be exact. For some reason, Luke knew.

"Magic exists in this world?" Was the first thing Luke thought. Nothing else could explain it.

Suddenly, it was like something was unveiled in his mind: Magic had to exist to explain all the weird things that had been happening to him.

The patriarch, eyes still closed, said: "Tell me you're joking…Because you being amnesic is something that can't happen."

Luke felt brave for a moment and said: "No. I'm not joking. I really can't remember anything."

The temperature rose again, and Luke felt that it was impossible for him to keep staying in the great hall. He had to leave while he could still walk.

"But I heard you saying Erik's name and from his words, he didn't tell you his name either. How could you know his name if no one told you?" The patriarch asked as he opened his eyes with a solemn look on his face.

"I don't know how I knew; it just came to me." Luke said.

The temperature then started to drop, returning to normal.

"Remember anything else. Like my name? … your late mother's name?" The patriarch asked.

"No... Nothing." Said Luke as he wiped his sweat from his forehead. It seemed that the patriarch wasn't angry anymore.

"From what I see, you being able to remember Erik's name may be that your memories are coming back…but what I want to know is how you lost your memories in the first place. And the only thing that I can think of is poison, but you look okay, and such poisons should be potent enough to leave you bedridden for weeks. No one else but you wakes up and find themselves lacking their memories." The patriarch said as his finger tapped on the armrest. He added: "Let's just hope it is temporary. For now, do not leave the clan's territory and have Erik follow you wherever you go."

By now, Erik and the others were waking up.

Luke was lost in thought, thinking about what he would do once the memories of the owner of his body came back. Would he still be the same? Or would there be two people living in the same body? The best scenario would be that he remains the same with only an additional set of memories.

Luke turned to the groggy Erik and said: "Let's go back."

"Yes, young master." Erik said.

Before they left the hall, the patriarch said: "And do not forget to give me an update on your condition every day. I want to know what you remember."

The patriarch was lost in thought as his men woke up one by one. He thought: "Before his mother died, she said that because of his father's bloodline, Luke would stop aging at eighteen and his body would begin to change. Is being amnesic one of those changes? Or is it completely unrelated to that? Was he poisoned and then his body expunged the poison on its own and then lost his memories? Whatever the reason, it's clear that his memories will come back eventually, but if he was poisoned, it could happen again. Which means that someone is after his life. Normally, I would worry but from what I saw today, that little schemer endured my flame heat without using essence to protect his body. Which means that he is stronger than he let us believe. Everyone in this room is the strongest of our clan, yet they fainted while he remained unscathed."

"He had to lose his memories for me to realize that I was harboring a wolf in sheep's clothing. Well, the stronger he is, the better for our clan but with his memories gone, he won't know how to use that strength and the ones after his life might succeed in killing him."

"As for those that want his life, it can't be from our clan. No one is crazy enough to kill our cash cow. It must be the Eldridge clan or the Mallory clan. It can even be the imperial clan."

"Lately, we have grown too powerful for them to ignore us. If we keep expanding this way there's no stopping us from claiming the whole country and then the whole Linfall continent one day."

"For now, as long as Luke doesn't set foot outside of our territory, it gives me time to find whoever is behind his poisoning, if there ever was one."