A child

'It's him, I'm sure of it.'

This presence felt like a flow of water, pure and free. Light as a petal and smooth, carefree. This aura had long been embedded into Ian's spirit. He wasn't sure of its identity the first moment, but now that the surroundings were calm, Ian could guarantee. Anticipation lit up in his heart as the corners of his mouth uncontrollably moved up to a rarely seen degree.

Ian cast another look at the camp. Everyone beside the guards was asleep, and the woke ones didn't pay any attention to him. He casually strolled around like a guy who couldn't fall asleep and gradually moved further and further away from the tents. Walking away from the group, he approached the woods and entered the jungle.

'I'll pick him up and return quickly.'

Finding his path in the jungle wasn't hard. He just followed the faint whiff of the familiar power oozing through the depth of the greenery. He took each step joyously, anticipating the moment of reunion. The smile never left his face even for a single second, and he didn't waver on his path, not even half a step.

The walk wasn't long nor was it short. Ian didn't rush it as he didn't want to cut short his joy. Under the pale moonlight, bashing in the chilly breeze of air, he ventured deeper into the road.

Shhhh

Shhhh

The grass and bushes shook gently. It wasn't due to the breeze but because of something's movements. Ian was almost at the center of the jungle.

"Hmm, what might it be? A beast? Oooh where might he be~"

He hummed in an intentionally loud, yet playful tone. The bushes fluttered even more at his remark as if in response.

"Here!"

The blue-haired young man squatted down beside a bush and lowered his head, peeking through the leaves. The short leaves shook and a small, fluffy head popped out from within.

"Woof!"

"Ah?" Ian gaped slightly, taking in the features of the animal's head. Dark-blue fur and almost black pupils, noise a little pit pointy, and ears long and broad.

"Woof? Aren't you a wolf? Why are you barking?"

A childish voice echoed in Ian's head, loud and clear. "I've just taken the form of a wolf, so I don't know how they sound. Don't wolves bark? I should learn more!"

"Is that so? I'm not sure either."

Disregarding the thorns and branches, Ian reached out his hands and wrapped his fingers around the animal's soft fur, pulling it out of the bushes, and dragging it into his embrace. A warmth went up his body and spread to his chest, washing away all the anxiety in his heart.

"Hehehe~"

The giggle once again was heard through his mind, not ears. Ian, more than used to it, sat down on the grass and placed the wold pup on his knees, caressing its head with a finger.

"I didn't think you'd find me so soon, master. It's only been a few days since the reset!"

"Yeah, things went kinda different this time."

While Ian stroked the child's body and head, the puppy was wiggling and bouncing up excitedly, rubbing itself to the man's body and licking his fingers. 

"By the way, where were you the previous round? I couldn't find you anywhere."

"The previous round?" The wolf pup put its front paws on Ian's chest and pulled its body up, standing on two hind legs. "What do you mean, master? We were together the previous round."

"We were together?"

Ian thought back at his previous life. He was sure that he couldn't find this child back then. He spent months searching around, but he didn't come across the slightest clue about it.

"Lior, Are you sure you aren't mistaking it for any other round?"

Throughout his life and the numerous regressions he's been through, the only entity that followed him around and never left his side was this little child, Lior.

"I'm sure of it!"

The child wasn't human, nor was it an animal. It was more like a spirit created out of pure Aether, something that has gained consciousness for itself over time and created an identity.

The existence that started from being nothing but a bundle of energy, grew to be a tiny spark of light, and turned into a mindful spirit, then matured to be a conscious being capable of shifting shapes and taking in the forms of various animals.

Lior was more like a family for Ian than a mere spirit. This child was the only one who understood the essence of Ian's regressions and remembered each round to some extent. When a reset happened, Lior would lose most of his memories about the previous round and only keep a tiny bit of it, though, that was enough for Ian and for the kid, to find each other again and resume from where they were left off.

Probably due to him forgetting most of his memories, the spirit still held the characteristics of a child despite living for a long time, but Ian didn't mind it at all. He was more than happy to look after this non-human kid.

The child's voice shouted in his mind again, "I'm sure! How can I not be? Don't you remember? We went to a village, had a farm, and lived in peace for a while. I was a doggy back then!"

Ian's eyes narrowed into a line.

'Wasn't that the round before the previous one?'

"I don't know how that round ended but when I woke up, I was in this jungle, and then you came here after a few days, which is now!"

The child explained more after not receiving any reactions from Ian.

"Why? Is there a problem?"

"I'm not sure." Ian shook his head and got up while holding the wolf pup in his arms. "Anyway, let's go back to the others."

There was nothing he could find out by sitting here and doing nothing, so he decided to go back to the camp first and wait to see what would happen next.

"No, wait!" Exclaimed the puppy while jumping down. "I've found something. You have to see it. Follow me, follow me!"

"Ah, hey!"

It didn't even wait for Ian to respond as it jumped around, running in a direction with its tail wagging excitedly. The human followed him from behind with a helpless smile on his face.

"Here here here here!" Lior halted after running for a while and started to hop up in one spot. Ian's steps gradually came to a pause after seeing what the child was pointing at with its tiny front paw.

"...A... shrine?"

What lay across him was a shady building with aged walls and half-crumbled pillars, looking about to collapse at any moment. Its entrance was overgrown with weeds. Designs that had the marks of history on them and words in ancient languages were inscribed on the walls. The structure that screamed its old age was shrouded with layers of leaves and branches, rendering it unrecognizable unless specifically pointed out. Ian could only see it because Lior showed it to him.

"Since when was there a shrine in the jungle...?"

"I know right?" Lior, rubbing its head on Ian's pants like a kitten, didn't sound bothered at all. "I found it while playing tag with the animals. The area has a lot of lions and snakes, so I doubt any human could ever get close to it."

The broken branches crunched under Ian's shoes as he cautiously approached the building. His fingers swept across the texture of the walls, brushing against the patterns and grazing the designs.

"But I've been here before, quite a lot at that."

"Yea, me too~"

Ian has passed through this jungle multiple times. In some rounds, in order to find Lior, he had to explore the whole area. However, there were never any buildings in this place. It wasn't that he was mistaking the location; in fact, he'd used this area with a thick density of trees and proper shadow as a hideout before, but he'd never come across anything like this.

"Master, master, maybe someone transferred it to here?"

"Do you think that's possible?"

Looking at how the trees had whirled around the structure and the weeds tightly attached to the walls, it was obvious that this shrine had been here for years.

"Then what?" Lior put its front paws on Ian's legs and raised its body to stand on two feet, wagging its tail in a request to be held. "If it's a shrine, who do you think they worshiped?"

"Who they worshiped?"

With a deep frown on his face, Ian approached the entrance of the shrine. He didn't forget to pick up the child and hold him in his arms before setting foot inside.

'Alaric's behavior is one thing, but the appearance of a new shrine? And something as old as this one?'

Ian even doubted that he might be hallucinating or had a serious problem with his memories.

'Even if another regressor appeared and their round started just before mine, such a change is impossible to be made in the span of a few days or even years. This shrine looks at least a few hundred years old and seems to have a properly established religion backing it. A mere regressor or any other variable can't create something like this.'

There was a single possibility that allowed a person, a regressor, to change things to this extent: If the regressor didn't belong to the current era but to the past. A person who experienced a regression far back in history and caused the creation of such a shrine.

Ian doubted if such a thing was possible. He wasn't sure if regressors existed in the past, or if the history, as he's experienced it, could be twisted. He had changed the future, but never the past. Even if that was possible, Ian believed that his guess couldn't be true.

'If a regression happened in the distant past, it's impossible that the only thing that changed from the history is the existence of a small, worn-out shrine. It's possible that my memories were also erased of the new differences and I'm only imagining it to be the real history, but then I should have deemed the addition of this shrine as normal as well.'

Ian decided to disregard this theory until he found any additional differences in the future. But if regression wasn't the case, then what exactly has happened?

Tap

Ian cautiously pushed away the weeds covering the entrance and stepped into the shrine. The entire place was dark, with faint rays of moonlight scattered on small areas of it. Its interior was covered in dry leaves and animal bones, indicating that the abandoned place was used by beasts as a hideout.

"Cough cough!"

Ian covered his nose with his sleeve, coughing and sneezing due to dust. The little wolf puppy buried his nose in Ian's shirt upon feeling it twitch.

"Thus all lives return to life," Ian read through the texts illuminated by the moonlight. "Shall life breed with nature and shall nature bear with life."

"Master, what kind of nonsense is this?"

"Shhh!"

The blue-haired young man raised his head, staring at the domical ceiling thoroughly covered in small holes, the gaps in which silver moonlight oozed into the shrine. At the center of the shrine was a pillar, engraved with various patterns, thick at the tip and thin at the top, slightly tilted and bent.

"They worshiped nature..."

Ian watched the mixture of the holes, ceiling, and the strange pillar, which resembled a tree made of silvery light. Even after a prolonged period of abandonment, the scene was enough to leave the onlooker in a state of awe.

"Amazing!"

Ian exclaimed while approaching the pillar. He wanted to take a closer look at it and read the inscribed ancient words. Even if the texts were damaged by the passage of time, Ian could understand them to such an extent. He has done various research on ancient tombs and temples before.

Crack

"Uh?" Lior's ears perked up as its body stiffened in Ian's arms. Ian too, flinched and attempted to move back, however, it was too late.

Groommmp

The floor under his feet cracked and fell apart in an instant. The tiles fell down alongside the man standing atop them.

"Eeek!"

Ian wrapped his arms around the screaming child and activated his power. Golden light surrounded his body as if to cover him in a shield, but the light was too faint to form a shield and looked to be a thin layer of paper instead.

'Damn! I should've tried harder to gain my power back!'

Cursing his lazy ass, Ian fell down from an unknown height while surrounded by gold.