The memories came back with the smell of stone, dust, and frying potatoes. One moment, he was a boy of thirteen, gawking at the sheer, impossible scale of the Tower of Babel piercing the sky. The next, he was two people in one body, the collision of lives so jarring he stumbled, catching himself on a rough-hewn cart. The wood was real. The noise was real. It was all horribly, wonderfully real.
His name was Elian. He was thirteen years old, with pale hair that fell into his green eyes and the tell-tale pointed ears of a half-elf. And for the thirteen years of that life, he had not *also* been a thirty-four-year-old office worker who had died staring at a hospital ceiling, his last coherent thought a regret that he’d never finished the latest volume of a light novel series. A series about this very city.
Orario.
The name tasted different on his tongue now. It wasn't a fantasy setting. It was the air in his lungs, the overwhelming chorus of a hundred languages in his ears, the ground beneath his worn boots. Panic, cold and sharp, tried to rise. He shoved it down with the practiced discipline of someone who once had to deal with quarterly reports and a micromanaging boss. One crisis at a time. First, breathe. Second, assess.
He had a small pouch of valis, barely enough for a few days' worth of food and a room at the cheapest inn. He had a short knife on his belt, more a tool than a weapon. He had the clothes on his back. And he had a crushing, world-altering cascade of foreknowledge that was both his greatest asset and a terrifying burden.
A flash of cerulean caught his eye. A butterfly, its wings impossibly vibrant, drifted on the air current from a street vendor’s stall. Elian froze. His hand, unbidden, moved to the hilt of his knife. His breathing hitched. The tiny creature, a speck of harmless beauty to everyone else, was a monster to him. A silent, fluttering horror. He forced himself to look away, heart hammering, a cold sweat breaking on his brow. The fear was old, irrational, and deeply rooted in a forgotten corner of one of his lives. He couldn't even remember which one.
“Move it, pointy-ears!” a burly animal person—a boar-man, by the looks of him—grunted, shoving past.
Elian regained his footing, the brief, sharp terror replaced by a grimmer resolve. He knew the story. He knew about the little rabbit, the sword princess, the gods playing their games from on high. But he was not Bell Cranel. He had no destined encounter, no cheat-code skill waiting to be unlocked. He was just a boy with two sets of memories and a mortal terror of butterflies.
And he was hungry. The smell of the fried potatoes was getting to him. Jaga Maru Kun. He could see the stall now. They looked… disappointingly lumpy. Nothing like the perfectly uniform, golden-brown croquettes from the convenience stores of his past life. Probably soggy on the inside, too. Another cherished illusion dashed against the rocks of reality.
He couldn't afford to be just another face in the crowd. He needed a Familia. He could try for Loki’s, but they wouldn't take an unknown, unproven half-elf. Ganesha’s? Too much of a circus. Hephaestus? He wasn't a smith. The thought of knocking on Hestia’s door was tempting, a surefire way to get right into the center of the coming storm. But that was Bell’s path, Bell’s story. Riding his coattails felt like a betrayal of this second chance, and more practically, put him right in the blast radius of every disaster destined to befall the boy.
No. He had to forge his own way. And every path in Orario began at the same place.
He navigated the throng with a new purpose, his smaller frame an advantage in the crowded street. He dodged adventurers laden with gear, merchants hawking wares, and children chasing each other underfoot. The Guild headquarters was an impressive building, but it wasn't his destination. Not exactly. He skirted the main entrance and went to the side hall, the one marked for Advisory Services.
He scanned the neat rows of desks, each occupied by a meticulously organized half-elf advisor. His eyes landed on one in particular. Brown hair tied back neatly, glasses perched on her nose, an air of crisp professionalism that couldn't quite hide the concern in her eyes as she spoke to a nervous-looking rookie. Eina Tulle. The one trustworthy advisor who actually cared, even if she hid it behind stacks of paperwork and regulations.
That was his initiative. He wouldn’t just take the next available advisor. He’d wait for the one he knew could be trusted.
When her client left, clutching a map and looking slightly less terrified, Elian approached. He stood before her desk, waiting patiently.
Eina looked up, her expression shifting from mild weariness to professional focus. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Elian said, his voice softer than he intended. “My name is Elian. I’ve just arrived in Orario. I wish to register as an adventurer.”
Her eyes gave him a quick, efficient scan. Age, race, lack of equipment, the faint tremor in his hands he couldn't quite still. “You seem young. Half-elves mature at a similar rate to humans, do they not? Have you had any combat training?”
“None to speak of,” he answered honestly. There was no point in lying to her. “My parents… I was raised in a village far from here. They’re gone. I came to Orario to make a living.” The lie was practiced, a story he’d invented on the journey here, long before his other memories returned. It felt thin and flimsy now.
Eina sighed, a quiet, almost inaudible puff of air. It was a sound he imagined she made a hundred times a day. “To register, you must first receive a Falna from a deity. The Guild does not facilitate this process directly, but we do perform an initial screening and record your information. It is standard procedure.”
She pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and a quill. “Name: Elian. Age: thirteen. Race: Half-Elf. Any known relatives in Orario?”
“No.”
She made a note. Then she put the quill down and picked up a small, slender rod of polished silver, capped with a fist-sized, uncut crystal. “This is a simple magical resonance tool. It records a baseline sample of your innate mana signature for our records. It will confirm your identity should your status be lost or stolen. Please hold still.”
She held the crystal a few inches from his chest. It began to glow with a soft, white light. Standard procedure. Elian had read about this. It was just a magical fingerprint, nothing more.
The light flickered.
It shifted from white to a pale, watery gold. Then, for a split second, it flashed with a deeper, richer hue, an ancient gold that seemed to drink the light in the room before vanishing. The crystal’s glow sputtered and died.
Eina stared at the now-dark crystal. Her professional mask was perfect, but Elian caught it: the slight widening of her eyes, the sudden tension in her jaw. She lowered the rod slowly.
“Is… something wrong?” Elian asked, his own voice betraying a new knot of anxiety in his stomach. This wasn’t in the books. This wasn't part of the established lore.
Eina placed the rod carefully back on its stand, her movements too deliberate. “Your circumstances are… irregular.”
“Irregular how?”
She met his gaze, and for the first time, her expression was not that of an advisor to a client. It was something sharper. Warier. “The reading was inconclusive. There’s an… imprint. Faint. Not a Falna, certainly. Nothing malicious. But it is an energy signature I do not recognize.” She paused. "It almost feels divine. But that's not possible."
She was withholding something. He could see it in the way she refused to elaborate on the color, on the flash. She was giving him the barest possible version of the truth.
“What does that mean for me?” Elian pressed.
“It means I cannot complete your preliminary registration today,” she said, her tone snapping back to crisp professionalism. “I need to consult the Guild Master’s archives.” She took out a small, temporary pass and stamped it. “This identifies you as being in process with the Guild. It is not a license to enter the Dungeon. Understood?”
“Yes,” he said, taking the card. It felt heavier than paper.
“Do not seek out a Familia until I have had a chance to investigate this. Do not cause any trouble. Report back to me, and only me, tomorrow morning at the ninth bell.”
It was not the start he had envisioned. He had planned to be methodical, to use his knowledge to his advantage, to be a quiet player in a game of giants. But as he stood there, with Eina Tulle’s guarded eyes on him, he felt a profound shift. Orario wasn’t a fresh start. It was a continuation. The city had already seen something in him, something he didn’t know was there, and had found him wanting. He had arrived with the secrets of the future in his head, only to be confronted by a secret from his own, unknown past.