Chapter 3 – Reincarnation (2)

Buuong Buuong

The wooden sword swung freely through the air and split through the flow of the breeze. Asher turned his foot on a pivot and hit his foot on the ground with a firm discipline in his movement. There was a popping sound that cracked in the air with a harsh sound.

"Huh, what?"

A girl's voice resounded at the entrance to the mansion. Ignoring her, Asher continued to swing his sword and practice with focused eyes. As she came closer with a quiet and meek voice her figure became visible in the periphery of Asher's eyesight.

"… Asher what are you doing right now?"

"I am practicing my swordsmanship, Miss."

Even though Asher did not know this girl at all from his memories of his past life, the answer came out naturally as if it was something habitual for him.

'Is that kid my employer or something?'

Ignoring the useless thoughts in his head he turned his gaze away from her and focused back on practicing with his sword.

As the girl with red hair heard Asher's blunt response, she turned her gaze and looked at her sword in her hand with ambiguous eyes. It was the same girl that had berated him yesterday for 'skipping his chores'.

"I can see that clearly, but why are you doing that?", she asked him as if his actions were completely unexpected.

"I don't know", he responded with a flippant attitude.

As she heard his response and saw him continuing to swing his sword uninterrupted, her mouth opened and once again spoke with a despondent voice.

"… Something is weird. Who are you?"

"I am simply Asher, Miss."

"Don't be ridiculous, the Asher I know never practiced with the sword and wouldn't even be able to look me in the eye when trying to talk to me. Not only that he never had this kind of confidence."

The girl grabbed her sword with vigilant eyes. With just a glance Asher could tell her posture was solid and her foundations were well-built.

"Who are you really?", she asked warily but with slight hostility apparent in her voice.

Asher panicked. It was clear that the girl was picking up on the differences in personality between the real 'Asher' and his previous life. If he stood still and didn't try to defend himself, she would really stab him. He quickly wiped the sweat from his forehead and faced her trying to hide his confusion.

"I think I've lost some of my memories."

"…what?"

"Since I woke up this morning, I've been trying to remember memories that are feeling incredibly faint to me. Everything is jumbled in my head and it feels like my memory is fading away. The only thing I can really remember are bits and pieces like your name, Lady Reika."

How would she react to this clumsy excuse? Asher observed the girl closely with his guard slightly up.

As he woke up and came out into the lot to practice his sword early in the morning for his regular routine from his past life, the memories of 'Asher' were slowly coming to him. It was as if his soul and Asher's soul were steadily merging together their experiences. But only names of people and places that were relevant to Asher surfaced to him. No matter how much he tried to pry further into the mess of memories the old Asher contained, nothing came to mind for him.

He contemplated outright lying to her, but it seemed like the previous owner of this body had some kind of deep relationship with the girl in front of him, so it would be quite unfortunate if he tried to lie and she caught him on it.

So his solution was to tell the truth from the beginning, albeit mixing and hiding some important facts about his true identity of course. He wasn't quite sure if his manner of speaking was weird or didn't match with the culture or timeline here. If anything, he was just worried about talking like an old man of sorts, so he tried his best to remember how to talk like a child once again and decided to try his best to match the age of his current body.

The girl stuttered with a confused look and lowered her guard a bit, noticing the truthfulness in his words.

"Oh, you lost your memory?"

"Yeah, for some reason I thought that if I tried to wield the sword, my memories might come back to me, but it doesn't seem to be the case. I keep drawing a blank on my memories right now."

"… Last year at KangKaid Lake."

Asher stared wordlessly at the seemingly random words the girl had just spoken. Seeing his stoic expression, the girl frowned.

"It must be true, seeing that you have no response."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just something you would at least show a reaction about if you had your memories."

Reika frowned seeing Asher tilt his head in confusion at her. It was something that Asher would never forget if he had his memories.

"It was the case with the horse stables."

"What exactly happened again?"

"You almost burnt down the horse stables. You were trying to shoot off fireworks and got in huge trouble."

Asher didn't know exactly what he did there at KangKaid Lake, but the fact the previous body's owner tried to burn down the horse stables was no joke.

"I wasn't kicked out of the mansion", Asher muttered to himself.

"My parents, the nobility ruling over this mansion blocked the news from spreading across to other towns and avoided us being disgraced. Anyone else would have been fired if they did what you tried to do but, you're a little… different than the other employees we have employed. And well, my mother specifically covered for you."

"Is that so?"

Asher nodded and understood at that point just why the entire town looked at him with scornful gazes.

Being an employee that did not follow an employer's will and almost ruined the employers public image. No matter how much the power structure was fading, the nobilities still held some power. But trying to burn the local stables was a crime that should definitely be punished for.

"Did you really lose your memory?"

"Is there any reason for me to lie?"

"No, but…"

Reika glared at him with a questionable face. It was totally reasonable to not want to believe something so unusual like losing one's memories.

"But you just don't seem like you.."

"Are you talking about doppelgangers? If you want to call a priest for a blessing to check, you're more than welcome to do so."

"I don't think that's the case. Besides, why would a doppelganger be dwelling in you when they don't even exist anymore in this day and age? That would just be weird."

"Is that so?"

As Asher spoke slowly, noticing that there were some stark differences from his previous life like the existence of doppelgangers, he saw Reika's eyes turn somewhat wary and guarded again, but at least now they weren't hostile.

"Okay sure. You lost your memories, but that still doesn't explain why your personality is all of a sudden so easygoing."

"Because of the very act of losing my memories, I think my mind is just unfocused on other aspects of my life as I'm just solely trying to recover my memories at the moment. The best thing to do is just try and retain my normal routine. I had something I had been meaning to ask you anyways, Miss."

"What is that?

"If what you said is true, then why are you having a peaceful conversation with me right now? Wouldn't it make more sense to despise me like everybody else?"

While the previous owner was employed by the estate, he had acted as Asher in a disgraceful manner to the Lord. As an employee or servant, he represented the image of Reika's parents. And if he acted disgracefully as she had said, then it would be more reasonable for her to despise him like everybody else.

"Your behavior only affects my parents' image and not my own. I have no reason to even care about such trivial things."

As she said, it really didn't mean much in reality but most nobles were quite petty especially growing up as children.

"I don't know about the details, but that case was still within the acceptable range of tolerance it seemed with my parents. You knew that as well and it seems you have adjusted your behavior slightly as a result to be somewhat less troublesome. I don't know why my parents bother keeping you around but as I said, it's not my business."

Asher noticed that it seems his excuse had paid off and that if the old owner was remorseful for anything that he had done, then his behavior might match his current one as a mature, adult-like presence. But Reika did not seem to care and was somewhat detached from her emotions regarding him. She just saw him as something not worth her time.

"Hmph, you've lost your memories? Well at least this might actually be something good and maybe you'll stop your childish antics. Now please stop bothering me now Asher."

She was rather cold with him, but he didn't really mind. Asher smiled bitterly realizing the view she had of him, or at least 'Asher'. It was neither hate, nor contempt but rather, complete disregard for his very existence. It was an emotion that wasn't typically seen at a girl her age. Most people that had that cynical view on life, were further along in their lives.

But as she said, it didn't matter now at all. In fact it rather might play off well and be seen as Asher turning over a new leaf. He could live freely as he did in the past since nobody had any expectations for him anyways.

"Then, thank you very much for your time Lady Reika.", Asher spoke as he bowed slightly.

—

"Eh, this isn't the time to talk, what a complete waste of training time."

Reika drew her sword close to her body. She took stance and started her swing. The tip of the sword shook strangely and proceeded in it's trajectory. The form of the sword moved like a snake.

Asher muttered under his breath.

"It's Lepenia's swordsmanship"

"Oh, you know what kind of swordsmanship this is?"

"It seems like my memories regarding the sword didn't disappear. Seeing your movement Reika, you must have been learning for a bit over 4 years?"

Reika furrowed her brows and looked at Asher with a confused and cynical look.

"Even if you lose your memories, how can you know so much about swordsmanship all of a sudden? It seems like I should lose my memory once or twice seeing that it's doing wonders for you."

"I wouldn't recommend trying to lose your memories. Anyways, I have something to ask. Are you satisfied with that swordsmanship as it is?"

"Well.. It's all I have to practice at the moment…"

"That swordsmanship."

Asher pointed at her sword and chuckled lightly.

"Isn't it incomplete?"

"…What… how so?"

"I'll show you a solution for it, but in return I want you to lend me some time to talk after the training session."

"Huh, what do you want to talk about?",

Reika took a step out of her stance to catch her breath as Asher shook his head to clear any misunderstandings she might have.

"It's not anything weird. My memories are still jumbled up. I just want to know what the current time is like and the things about this place. Things like that."

"Ah, okay. I can tell you later if it's only that much."

"I want to know as soon as possible really. Wouldn't you like to take a break anyways?"

"Well… okay. What are you curious about?"

Reika put her sword down ash Asher started to get a little nervous about what to ask. Well first. He decided he needed to know what were the biggest differences between his timeline and this one. Essentially, he needed to filter and sort out his information.

"The name of this empire is under the Inak lineage, is that correct?"

"That's right."

Reika replied as if that was pretty much obvious. Her soaked red hair with beads of sweat shook as she spoke.

"It's just a normal town by all means. No heroes, no famous names from our town in the history books. Not even any mines."

"Yeah, I think I know that much as well."

Asher nodded his head and closed his eyes. This place was pretty much similar in that aspect to the place he lived in his previous life. The land was ruled over by the Inak Principality and it seems he had been forgotten as the Captain of the Imperial Guards. But it didn't hurt his ego. If anything, being the captain of the Guards here was nothing special in the first place.

'Well it seems in both lives, this place is my hometown.'

Was there a purpose or reason for this? He tried to think about it deeply to see if there was anything he could dig up, but there was nothing special in either of his memories.

"What's the current year?", he asked.

"Well, it's been 10 years since Inak III has been crowned emperor."

"… Are you sure?", Asher asked reluctantly.

"Then what is his majesty's full name?"

"It was the first child born from the Hemenian concubine. The 4th prince, Inak Vocaitos."

Asher felt flustered. He knew the name of the emperor but, he just couldn't understand the political landscape at all right now.

"Is the second generation still alive right now?"

"What?"

It couldn't be possible right now. It was just a decade or two after his death. The emperor during the time he was alive in his previous life was Vocaitos' father and was the ruler of the second generation. That man was ambitious and eager to conquer. Regardless, it wouldn't make sense if he died, since he would have been too young if Vocaitos was the current ruler.

"Vocaitos-sama couldn't have been earlier than 10 years old…" , Asher muttered to himself.

He even remembered hugging Vocaitos on the day of his birth because of his duty as the captain of the Imperial Guard to keep the family safe. If Vocaitos was truly in power he had to be extremely young right now. He could still remember those tiny hands and the wails of a baby as if it were in front of him right now.

Reika however, who had heard Asher mutter under his breath thought he was being outright delusional as he was spouting utter bullshit. It was impossible for this servant boy to speak as if he had met the current and reigning emperor.

"I think my head hurts a little right now. I know this isn't something I should be complaining about in front of you, who just lost his memories but, you're talking as if you're 30 or 40 years old right now."

"… …", Asher remained silent at Reika's whiny voice.

"What is that expression? Are you feeling ill? Should I get you a priest?", Reika observed Asher's seriously complicated expression and got worried.

"No."

Asher barely acknowledged Reika's presence right now since he was trying to figure out just what the current timeline was right now. Just a month before his death, He had visited the Emperor out of goodwill to see the newly birthed Vocaitos.

If Reika thought he was talking as if 30 years or so, then… it must have been 20 years since 'he' had died.