Elshire Forest

???'s POV:

I walked slowly through the lands I knew as my home in this life, years passed as I scoured every single inch of the land, committing it to memory.

After all, it was time to give up everything for the sake of the future. For the sake of fate, I have to give up my memories, every last one of them, of my countless existences in order to finally die and be reborn as a truly new person anymore.

After a while I simply stopped looking towards the present or the future, I simply reminisced about my lives.

I was the hero, the villain, the commoner and the king, I was everything imaginable and I was always the best at it, even if my talents didn't lie in it.

But my name now isn't important, neither are the names of those who came before, they may be my ancestors, but they are by no means as important as what I may become.

Will I become a hero again? Maybe a villain? Who knows, all that really matters is that I'll be reborn again and live a new life in another world to be reborn again.

I'll regain the thing I oh so desperately wanted for all these years.

To be young and innocent again.

Because no matter how physically young I was I couldn't view my lives as more than a blur that passed by in but a moment in time.

I let a small smile grace my face for the first time since my cursed existence began and tears fell from my eyes as I let my memories and sense of self slip away as I truly began to die to be reborn again anew as something else.

I pray that what I'll become will live a good life.

I closed my eyes and slipped away completely into the darkness as happiness and relief filled me that I would truly be able to die forever.

"WAAAAHHHHH"

A cry escaped an orphaned baby's lips as it made its first sound to prove that it was alive in this strange world, yet life still passed and the child eventually died only to be reborn with another name, a name that would be known in his next world forever like the babe's own name…

#@%&.

—

Arthur Leywin's POV:

Arriving at Elshire was a surprise to me, one thing that I had forgotten was because of my influence with Aether I was capable of seeing through the forest's mist perfectly. I stood there and looked around, spotting my brother and the confused expression on his face I wondered if he had the same resistance to the mist as I had, I guess that it was possible, he had shown similar abilities to me since they day I first observed his abilities, even more so now that we had learned how to use Mana using Sylvie's methods.

"Are you able to see through the mist?"

"Yes, but why?"

'Ah so he can, it seems like it is possible that he has inherited my abilities to some degree.'

I narrowed my eyes in concentration thinking hard about our situations before begrudgingly coming to the conclusion that he may have the same physique that I have. Damn that was unexpected to some degree.

After Sylvie had given me her body and I had mastered vivium in particular, I began to alter my body to further enhance my abilities.

Using this I gained new resistances and increased physical abilities, I hadn't noticed before because of the Aether present in my body, but now it became clear that his body is the same as my own if I had no Aether present in me.

'How Fascinating, you two are just full of surprises.'

'Yeah, papa is like that sometimes.'

I could hear a conversation going on between Sylvie and Sylvia going on in my head before Sylvia and Sylvie controlled the connection and made their conversation private. They had been doing that a lot to get to know each other since they only knew about each other before even though they are family.

"Ben, it seems you've inherited another of my abilities, it seems like you and I will be able to coordinate our efforts to get stronger."

"What do you mean by another one of your abilities?"

After that question I decided to give him a full rundown of his abilities that I knew of so far that he had from me, after approximately an hour of talking it was clear that he had figured out his abilities and was making immense improvement with them.

It was then that our senses picked up a scream for help, though as I expected it was not from Tess but rather someone else, approaching the source of the scream I saw the same slave traders as last time with a little elven girl, they had just knocked her out like they had with Tess in the original timeline and seeing the scene made my blood begin to boil, however I decided to observe the child for a moment before I made my move.

The child had a deep black hair that seemed to catch all the light around it and warp light to it giving it an ethereal quality, her eyes matched her hair, yet her skin contrasted perfectly with it, being almost like my own, a milky white skin complexion that looked like the sun had never touched her. Her flawless beauty, although childish right now, was without a doubt, diviner.

As I finished taking in her features flashes began to violently appear in my head, filling my mind with countless memories. It was the same sensation as when I was reborn and my memories were restored, although much more violent, it was like seeing my past for the first time.

And beyond that.

It was a completely different life than I had lived before this one.

For a moment I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, but no, that wasn't possible, it was too real.

But that didn't matter right now, all that mattered now was what my mind was overwhelmingly screaming about the little elf.

'PROTECT HER!'

Activating my pillar ability, I created an arrow made of light and reeled it back making a bowlike shape and stance with my entire body. I was currently out of their line of sight but even if they spotted me it wouldn't matter. Releasing the arrow, it dashed through each of the slave traders leaving massive holes through their chests, and faster than they could react my arrow had ended them, the girl was knocked out aggressively and so she didn't have to see their gruesome demise at my hands.

Sylvia had a sad expression on her face, while Ben looked at me and his own hands repeatedly, most likely wondering when he would be able to do the same.

Walking up to the girl I took her and placed her in a more comfortable place, I had Regis give the bodies to the hounds and after their meal, he also released them into the wild.

It was not a surprise to any of us when we heard rustling in the forest before a small group of elves appeared, but what had made my eyes widen was that they were led by Elder Virion himself, the former king of Eleanor.

I knew that he knew about me already so when he gave me a big, teasing smirk on his face that reminded me of the one that he used to when I was growing up in Eleanor and I was beyond glad that Tess had confided in him, it looks like I had someone else to trust with the future.

"Hey brat."

"Hey gramps, by the way, who else do you have hidden there? I can see them, but not who they are."

I saw a priceless look of surprise on his face before he bellowed with laughter, the others there were surprised. I had noticed considering that outwardly I look like a simple human boy accompanied by his twin brother and two white fox mana beasts as well as a wolf mana beast.

Revealing themselves I saw Rinia along with Tess and another girl who had been with them when they had used Rinia's divination to see me. It didn't take long for them to begin introducing themselves to my brother and me.

"Hello, I am Rinia Darcassin, these two are Tessia Eralith and Celia respectively, I presume you are Ben."

Rinia said while gesturing to the person that she was referring to. Seeing Tess again surprisingly didn't make my heart ache, ah I really had gotten over her, I couldn't even muster more than an expression of happiness to see her.

The clear look of confusion on Ben's face made me realize that I hadn't told him about them in advance, Oops.

Turning to Ben I began to introduce all the parties to each other respectively.

"Ben these are people that I have been aware of for a while, they were planning to meet us here in the woods, I know most of them at least a little, however Celia is completely foreign to me, Rinia, Tess, Gramps and Celia, I would like you to meet my brother Benjamin Leywin."

Ben looked at me with mild annoyance at my forgetfulness as I gave him a sheepish smile to apologize to him.

Turning to the others I asked the question that had been on my mind for a while.

"So, who is this elven girl here and where do we bring her?"

All of the newcomers turned their eyes to the little elf and upon seeing her Virion's eyes widened in recognition, he looked between myself and the girl before saying.

"That girl is the daughter of a high-ranking noble family, the Alarie family, she was declared missing right before we left and were beginning to send troops out to look for her. But it seems you beat us to the chase."

He said clearly amused that he now had an excuse to invite us to stay in the kingdom and become his disciples. During all of this Tess had been silent the whole time, I was concerned that it was because she didn't know how to approach me now that she knew the truth of what happened to me. But my fears were wrong when out of nowhere after having a word with Rinia she sprinted up to me at full speed before tackling me to the ground with a hug.

I was surprised but happy that she wasn't going to avoid me because of my circumstances.

"I missed you."

"Yeah, I missed you too."

During all this Celia as well had been silently watching us but seeing Tess's trust in me decided to approach. It seems Tess had managed to make another friend in the meantime.

Bowing slightly to me she introduced herself.

"Hello, my name is Celia, I was born in Zestier and orphaned before getting taken in by Rinia, she is training me to be her successor, I am a tri elemental with a deviance in divining, it is a pleasure to meet you."

Bowing back, I presented myself as kindly as I could, seeing her courtesy and the other's trust in her I decided I would do the same.

"Hello, my name is Arthur, and this is Benjamin, we are from the remote town of Ashber in Sapin, and we are quadra elementals with deviances in all elements with the exception of racial specific magic, we also have other deviant magics that we would like to keep a secret for now."

She nodded in response. I decided to tell them about my current plan for the time being.

"For now, I believe that it would be most beneficial to wait for the little Alarie to wake before making our way into Zestier, with this group it might take a week, during that time we can train a little and come up with plans for the future. Is that an acceptable plan for the time being for everyone?"

Everyone nodded at my words before we decided to sit down to talk more.

After a few hours, it was getting late, we decided to retire for the night as we were setting up tents with our equipment and the equipment that we salvaged from the slave traders the girl woke up.

As she stirred from her sleep, she began to cry for her parents but noticing her strange surroundings and the fact that the slave traders were not the ones around her but rather a rag tag group of human commoners to Elvin royalty.

Her confusion knew no bounds before suddenly bowing before the former king and his granddaughter.

Surprised by her actions we each chuckled at her briefly as her face flushed crimson.

Looking up slowly she noticed that we all had gentle smiles on our faces. I came up to the poor girl and said what she was likely hoping to hear from us.

"You can go home now."

She began to cry before leaping into my arms and digging her claws, I mean fingers, into my shirt latching on as tightly as possible and sobbing profusely.

It took what felt like an eternity for her to calm down from her crying, of course none of us judged her for crying as all of us had the mental age of at least twenty and the maturity to go with it.

After she calmed down, I asked her a few questions.

"I have a few questions for you, is that alright?"

She gave a small, curt nod before I continued and began my questioning. After a few minutes of questioning, I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time today, as this little girl was like Tess 2.0, she had the same circumstances as Tess in the previous timeline and during this I could almost feel that Tess was cringing imagining herself as that little girl.

After a little while she began to become drowsy alongside Tess, so we decided that we would sleep for the night before beginning to travel too Zestier.

The next morning, I decided that it was time to introduce Regis, Sylvie and Sylvia to the party with their own voices.

Seeing Virion's reaction to Regis made me realize that I with Regis, Sylvie and Sylvia around I was never going to be free of teasing. Damnit, what a miscalculation.

It turned out that the unknown factors in the timeline, Celia and Amelia, being their names, strangely similar I know, but they were both very agreeable and helpful traveling companions to have and surprisingly had Mana cores, I knew about Celia's but not Amelia's as I didn't bother to consider the possibility when I first saw her.

After traveling for a week, we had arrived at the gate to Zestier and Tess had awakened only hours earlier and was excited to begin relearning magic and seeing what possible new abilities she had available to her.

Walking through the gate we saw something unexpected.