Now I Remember

"—y… HEY!" A nasally voice rang in Valen's ear.

'Who the fuck is yelling at me..?'

"Do you think we'll get in trouble after all?" A feminine voice sounded.

"Shit! Hurry up and do something!" A deep voice added.

"I'm trying, okay!?' The nasally voice shouted back. Before taking a deep breath.

"HEYYYY!" He tried once more.

'Oh my god, shut up and let me be dead…'

SMACK.

SPLASH!

"What the fuck are you doing!?" Valen sat up and shouted.

After the fact though, he was left completely stunned. Before him stood a group of people dressed in neat suits furiously eyeing him.

"Oh look at him talk." One of them spat.

"Where do you reckon he got the nerve the glare at us like that?" Another woman added.

'What?' Valen thought. As far as he knew, he died after misseably failing to kill one of the Hero's companions due to that bullshit transformation.

Valen scoffed when he thought of how pathetic he went out.

However the group… 'supervising' him, obviously interpreted it as a snide rebuttal toward their comments.

"Stand him up." The gruff voice from earlier commanded. A man stepped out from within the crowd.

He was tall with a commanding presence, black hair and green eyes. His cleanly shaven face was extremely stern.

"Yes, Yes." The nasally boy said.

Now that Valen got a good look around him he realized that; one, he couldn't be dead. He had just been slapped and splashed with water.

He hadn't heard anything about such a greeting into the afterlife. And two, he was beginning to remember who these people were.

Especially this nasally chubby boy pulling him to his full height. He had brown curly hair and glasses. He was snuggly fit into a neat black suit with two coattails.

'His name was Laden or something right?' Valen scratched his soaked head.

"Hey Laden boy, was that you who slapped me?" Valen patted the boys back.

"Y-Yes..? I a-apologize y-young master." The boy murmured with a flabbergasted face as he stood Valen to his full height.

Which was questionably short…

'Why is this stupid boy as tall as me!?'

Valen looked down at his arms and found that they were much shorter than he last remembered.

'Am I a fuckin' kid?' Valen questioned incredulously.

He furiously swiveled his head left and right and scanned the bleak stone room. Bags of grain, spice, and ingredients lay scattered about.

He turned around completely and saw a puddle of water pooled on the cold stone floor where he previously played and an empty wooden bucket, still wet.

Valen dove to his knees in the puddle. A splash wetting his expensive silk pants in the process, but he completely disregarded it.

He planted his hands in the puddle and lowered his face to the surface of the water. He vigilantly stared into the reflection as it stared back at him.

A young face of a teenager, Valen reckoned that the boy he saw couldn't be any older than 16.

'No way this is me…' Valen thought as he turned his head left and right slowly while keeping his eyes locked on the reflection.

He started to touch his face with one hand in disbelief, uncaring of the dirty water that wet his face.

Lustrous black hair and deep blue eyes that were fixated on every ripple of the water.

'Did that fucking Hero send me back in time!?' Valen stared slack jawed into the puddle.

Valen admitted that as a Hero, he should maybe be allowed some extra magic or leeway in his magic prowess. But this was just ridiculous. Was slaughtering his friends, wiping out his territory, and killing him not enough?

Or was this a sick illusion, stretching the time of his death, while he was sadistically toyed with in reality.

The mere thought made Valen sick as his face hardened in the reflection.

"Does this brat have brain damage or what, why is he making faces at himself?"

A large hand grabbed the back of Valen's luxruious linen shirt and hoisted him into the air.

"Hey, I—" Valen grabbed at the back of his neck and turned his head to face his assailant. However, he was met with a solid fist crashing into his nose.

Bam.

The boy was flung back farther into the darkness of the room while the chubby boy ran back upstairs, squealing.

'Ahhh, amazing. Well at least I'm not dead… I think. And I think I'm starting to remember this son of a bitch.' Valen stood up and got his feet under him.

'Guess I'll fight.' He put his hands up by the sides of his head and crouched into a primed stance.

He gave off a solemn atmosphere, like a cornered animal going for the throat.

At the sight of this, Javier, who Valen was beginning to remember as his oldest brother's head servant, came to a halt.

In what seemed to be proud negligence, he turned back to the crowd of servants and started to laugh while pointing at Valen, half shrouded by the dense shadows of the storeroom.

"Are you all seeing this? Haha! He's actually fighting back, I think we might've actually gave him brain dam—" A relatively small fist coated in a swath of silver mana slammed across the back of Javier's head.

Fwam!

'Yeah, I remember now.' Valen grinned.

"You all thought I was a pushover right?" Valen shouted as Javier's limp body slammed against the concrete and his head began to spill blood.

He slammed his coated fists together and sparks flew out from his knuckles.

'I can't believe I had mana at this point in time and still refused to fight.'

Valen stepped over the unconscious body of Javier as his left dress shoe tracked the blood pooling under Javier's head.

clack.

clack.

The sound of Valen's dress shoes hitting the stone floor resounded as he left a trail of bloody footsteps, slowly approaching the crowd with his hands shining.

"Fuck!" A man shouted. "You're a stupid failure, we would probably make better Brightstar knights than a defect like you!"

He rushed out with a broom held in both hands as he swung towards Valen.

The trajectory was telegraphed, he was off balance, hell… even his eyes were closed.

Valen sidestepped the swing as he brought a hand down onto the handle and clasped. The wood crunched and deformed in his grip and was forcefully yanked from the servant.

"Agh!" He helplessly fell forward, his arms flailing.

A palm wreathed in a silvery mana violently caught his face and embedded his head into the stone bricks under their feet, leaving a web of cracks, blood splatters, and a few teeth flying.

"Eek!" The women servants immoderately started shivering while the men broke out in a cold sweat.

Valen slowly rose and pointed toward the bags of grain.

"The rope." The servants fearfully met his gaze.

"Tie yourselves in a line." Color immediately drained from their faces.