1 Rebirth

Azalea City was one of the major port cities of the peninsula. An economic center of trade with a constant bustle of traders and people travelling in and out of the city. The skies were colored deeply blue and clouds occasionally blocked the burning sun brandishing its heat from over the horizon.

Dante woke up from a feverish dream, wiping away the sweat from his brow and getting up to freshen up. He gazed at himself in the mirror, still shocked by his new and foreign appearance. His blue pupils shone like clear sapphires that glinted with surprise and shock.

Twelve days earlier, Rob, a simple engineer back on Earth felt himself crushed during a freak maintenance accident at the manufacturing facility, only to resurface within this new wowlrd and in this new body. He was a young teen again, merely sixteen years old and in a foreign world much different from his own materialistic one.

For one, monsters existed in this bizarre world. Monsters that could move mountains and overturn seas. They flew like giant disasters high in the sky and could even manipulate the elements. Dante, the name of the new body that he was trying to adjust to, was frightened by the potential post apocalyptic hellscape such a dangerous world would lead to. But his fears were for nought.

While this wasn't the most technologically advanced world, humans had another weapon at their disposal. The summoning Grimoire. A special tool shaped like a book that supposedly bound with the very soul of a human entity, allowing them to capture and tame these monsters for their own use.

With the help of these grimoires, humans rose from being one of the weaker species in this world, to turning into the dominators. Monsters were pets to be controlled and humanity's supremacy would remain unchallenged. Atleast that's what Dante's memories led him to believe.

Dante was a sixteen year old boy. The son of a prominent merchant in Azalea city. Being the trading hub that it was, merchants here often accrued more power than the kingdom's stationed nobility. The Bradley Family was a feudal merchant enterprise that staked it's claim as one of the three major merchant families in the city. The other two being the Sprouts and the Norms.

Dante was but the third son of the Bradley family's patriarch, Norman Bradley. He had grown up weakly, but handsome - pampered by his mother but derided by the rest of his family for being an absolute failure. Dante parsed through his memories to observe his past self whiling away his life as a drunkard, rushing after girls and bullying the common folk.

It wasn't surprising then that someone had attempted to assassinate him while he had been coursing through the main streets of Azalea City. His doting mom protected him from the carriage let loose in his direction. Led by deviant ferghanas running amuck, the carriage trampled.over his mother in front of his own eyes.

The young master was shocked and filled with self loathing. Drinking himself not only through sadness, but also into death, Dante paved the way for Rob to descend into his body in a timely reincarnation for the man from Earth.

The new Dante sighed as he recollected these things before he entered his private chambers to freshen up. Heading to the main courtyard of the Bradley Mansion for a scrumptious breakfast, he didn't fail to notice the stares of disgust and loathing secretly being directed towards him by the servants as well as the other Bradley family members. Dante ignored those stares and walked over to the family table, waiting for the collective gathering to begin their daily morning feasting.

His arrival immediately precipitated a sudden silence, that quickly devolved into murmurs. Dante observed his family members as he had done so several times the past few days. His eldest brother Hiltor, the second brother Kris and his younger sister Nat all avoided his gazes. The more distant cousins, aunts and uncles were more openly contemptuous of his presence, the sneers much more difficult to hide.

The murmurs quickly vanished when the patriarch made his presence felt. Silence once again settled over the large table, this time more permanently as the stoic Norman Bradley sat on the presiding chair. With a cough, he signalled that breakfast could now begin and no one dared to protest the signal.

It was only when the meal - full of the most delicious fruits, the scrumptious of monster meats and the tastiest of spieces and juices - had been consumed that attention focused once more on the patriarch. A fervent atmosphere had enveloped the courtyard and Dante noticed expectation in the eyes of everyone but him. Clearly he was in dark about a matter and it probably had to do with him. Dante quietly took in a gulp of the crystallized water to settle his parched throat.

"The house has decided," Norman announced in a deep sonorous order, "That Dante will be sent to the Nugatory Island to handle our affairs for the foreseeable future."

Dante could feel that even the sound of a pin dropping would ring brightly within his head. From the deep recesses of his memory, he plucked out the information regarding this island. Nugatory Island was named so, but in Earth terms it was almost the size of a continent like Africa. In this world however, it was a barren island with few resources. It was a backwater area with little to exploit from a merchant's perspective and one area where the Bradley's had almost no hold over. He was being exiled.

Dante could feel Norman's eyes land on him, observing every microexpression he possibly made as realization dawned on his self. Dante simply sighed and nodded without making a sound, surprising the others out on the table.

If it were the old Dante, they were sure to have seen him throw a terrible tantrum and curse filled alcoholic rage flow out. However, Rob wasn't one to react in this manner. He was mentally more mature, had suffered through hardships of his own on Earth. He was initially grateful for the luxurious life he got to experience in this new world, but an exile didn't necessarily deal him a body blow. Instead, a feeling of excitement coursed through his mind, but he kept it hidden.

Dante bowed before calmly speaking. "I accept the station." Few more words were said. Norman raised an eye, but didn't react any more than that. He quickly left the room and so did the others in rapid succession. Clearly, the matters of the breakfast table were going to be the major point of gossip for the next few days in the Bradley household.

Hiltor, Kris and Nat were the only ones who stayed behind in an organized choreography. Dante could clearly see that his two older brothers blamed him for their mother's death and we're only reluctantly still standing here to console him. His younger sister was much more sophisticated. She put on the appropriate expression for the occassion, though through his memories he was well aware how they felt about him.

"We tried to convince dad." Nat said apologetically. "But there was intense pressure from the family council to expel you altogether. In the end, this was the only compromise that was reached."

"You should thank you sister." Hiltor spat out with disgust. "If not for her suggestion, you would be a roadside beggar on the streets of Azalea. Don't go to that backwater and spoil the name of my Bradley family!"

Dante didn't reply to their words. He simply observed their actions calmly. When they left as well, he returned to his own chambers. Within the privacy of his own room, the back of Dante's right hand shone out a pale grey glow and a white colored book, a Grimoire with intricate symbols manifesting on the leather bound cover glowed calmly and floated in front of his chest.

A few days after Dante had sorted through his memories, he had decided to give a try to bind with the Grimoire his family had left for him years ago.

The process of Grimoire binding was quite a peculiar one. Grimoire's were but ordinary books made from the bark of the Soulborne Tree. It was said that this particular species of tree, that grew all over the world was a distant descendant of a mysterious tree. It had the peculiar property of connecting with a human's soul when a blood rite was performed.

Grimoire's in themselves were quite simple. They were simply books without any identifiable properties of their own. However, on performing the blood rite, the Grimoire would fuse with the soul to become humanity's most powerful weapon.

Dante quietly observed the pages of this blank white Grimoire that he had failed to fuse with until his reincarnation. The book had six empty pages, a page having the ability to capture and tame just the one monster. The number of pages was usually a reflection of the strength of the soul. From Dante's memories, having 2 pages in the White Grimoire stage was normal. Some of the more talented individuals had 3 or even 4 pages. Dante instead had six, a terrifying number. He had his suspicions that it had to do with the fact that his soul had fused with the previous owner's of the body, increasing the capacity of the Grimoire.