Chapter 1
A New Universe
Arthur woke up to the sound of faint sobs from nearby. When he opened his eyes, he saw an unfamiliar old woman who had long and lush white hair pinned behind her ears. She was wearing an emerald velvet satin cloak and a long white evening gown strewn with pearls and diamonds. Her face was wrinkled, but the lines on her face made her look gentle and kind. Her emerald orbs looked straight into Arthur’s face as her tears fell on his cheeks.
“Who are you?” Arthur gently asked, but what came out was a silent and stifled muffle.
Katarina caressed his face tenderly while her gnarled fingers trembled at the touch. She smiled, but the tears that continuously fell betrayed her every emotion. Arthur felt the longing in them. Like a mother who had lost its son and then found his way back.
After a few moments, her hands slipped under his back and legs. Her hands were careful as though she was holding something fragile. Then with ease, she brought Arthur into her arms.
Arthur’s composure was gone in an instant. He tried to move his arms and legs in confusion, but he couldn’t. They seemed shorter and heavier than usual. A barraged of questions ran through Arthur’s head like an avalanche. He searched for answers, but the more he looked, the more he realized how powerless he was. Not only did his body fail to respond, but all the natural and subconscious reactions also malfunctioned. He felt his heart thumped a drumroll, and his blood surged to his veins as he imagined the worst-case scenarios.
But all of it faded like an illusion.
While his mind was in panic, his body, his heartbeat, and his breathing remained calm. This frightened Arthur even more, causing him to cuss loudly in his mind.
Katarina spoke solemnly, catching every inch of Arthur’s attention. He followed her lines and words. For someone who knew multiple languages like his mother tongue, English, Mandarin, and a little German and French, he still didn’t understand any of it. It was entirely foreign.
Then she lifted Arthur a little higher, placing his head over her shoulder as she stood. She pinned him in place and took careful steps to walk out of the dim room.
And before Arthur, what surfaced was a place only seen in movies.
A small wooden box sat between two identical large triangles that formed a regular six-pointed star. Around it, twelve candles stood over flattened disc-like gemstones with varying colors in each corner. A circle encircled the star with strange text written along with it.
It gave Arthur mental goosebumps just looking at it.
Arthur averted his eyes. It was the only part of his body that he could move without effort. He scanned the room for any other clues to know where he was. His eyes laid to enormous shelves of books in the room. With the faint light coming from the candles, he also saw a long sword, a spear, a long wooden staff, and a bow hanging on the walls in the far corner of the room. The wand particularly grabbed his attention. Smaller stones that resemble those on the floor, embedded the wand and emitted a white-bluish light.
Arthur looked at the box again and its immediate surroundings, noticing a piece of cloth that covered the box.
A sudden realization struck him.
“No! That box is so small!” he dismissed, trying to convince himself of an already obvious fact.
Arthur desperately tried to move his body, but he only wiggled, followed by a low and strange cry that echoed in the room. The sound frightened him. Not because it was unpleasant, but because he knew where it came from.
His low cries echoed. He tried to stop the tears, but he couldn’t. He tried to suppress the sound but failed miserably. At that moment, he couldn’t deny it anymore, he had turned into an infant.
As Arthur’s desire to know accumulated, the louder his cries became. Katarina stopped on her tracks in the stairs and patted his back. She said something, trying to comfort him, but his thirst for answers couldn’t be quelled. His cries continued as he rationalized everything in his head.
Arthur found it extremely hard to accept since he didn’t believe in anything supernatural. Besides, he was lucky enough to be born in an era where people have a basic understanding of how life, the universe, and physics worked. He wanted to believe that it was merely a dream, but everything seemed too real and authentic.
After a while, he sucked a mental deep breath and pushed the questions away. First, he needed to stop his cries that seemed to worsen as he looked for answers. Strangely enough, he was getting annoyed while listening to his wails for a long time.
Unsurprisingly, Arthur stopped crying when he cleared his head. Not long after that, tiredness suddenly consumed his body. In a matter of seconds, he fell again into a deep slumber.
***
By dusk, Arthur woke up again from a very long sleep, his lips sucking on a gray horn that seemed to drip milk inside his mouth. It touched his tongue, but Arthur tasted nothing. He was resting inside a wooden cot with Serpent sculptures in each corner. The slats were shaped like a snake coiling around a circular column.
As he looked around, he noticed that the room was out of ordinary. The white walls were rough and made of stone. The foundation and frames were made of dark wood and dappled with light gray. Round ashen stones arranged on the wall formed a snake’s head, pointing to the door. The snake’s body ran towards the floor and circled the room in ever-smaller circles, creating a spiral pattern. Dark wooden slabs neatly covered the ceiling while silver spherical gemstones hang in each corner.
He also noticed that not a single electrical device could be found. All the furniture in the room was made of wood and stones and had an intricate design of a serpent, including the small shelf of books, the large wardrobe, and a small rectangular table.
Two red velvet silk curtains hung on a wooden stick to cover the sides of a wide-open window. And since there was no glass, the wind blew freely from the outside as the curtains flew midair.
An endless number of gigantic trunks stood behind the window. Thin and long vines clung to the trees, and flowers of all colors bloomed from them. It was dim, though a streak of crimson light occasionally escaped the large canopy that covered the forest. A medley of faint animal noises, mostly from birds and insects, accompanied by the sound of the gentle breeze, added more life to the woods.
It was very surreal, but Arthur didn’t feel uncomfortable. As he enjoyed the peculiar scenery of the woods and the subtle design of the room, the door suddenly swung open. Katarina emerged inside the chamber. A man wearing a gothic full plate armor followed behind her while carrying a wooden crate. She waved her hand to the doorway, and the man immediately exited after placing the box on the table.
Katarina looked at Arthur, giving him a warm smile. Though Arthur initially felt uncomfortable with her stare, he couldn’t brush off the warm feeling. She reminded him of Clarissa. She then approached the window and pulled the exterior window shutters. The light in the room instantly faded.
In the darkness, he heard Katarina mumbled a few phrases and ended it with, “Explosé Lumeré.” And the stones in the four corners of the room lit up.
A cold sensation ran down on Arthur’s spine.
Then Katarina walked beside the crib and gently held the wooden frame. She muttered another phrase, and the box opened on its own. The contents, which were wooden sculptures of birds, stars, moons, and sun, flew and floated half a meter above the crib. She touched one of the birds, and it began emitting a faint light. She also touched the other birds, the moons, the stars, and the sun – one after another – all of them shone as she did so.
Arthur stared with little fear. Now, he was looking at everything with brimming awe and wonder. “How could these things happen?” he asked himself.
Katarina waved her fingers, and the horn floated too, soaring behind her. After some time, it glided back to his mouth as he felt its weight above his chin. Then he realized, all these things that hovered midair were embedded with similar stones.
Arthur swallowed mouthful saliva as the milked dripped on his mouth, even without him drinking on it. He could barely contain the excitement. He shifted his gaze again, trying to understand everything, but none of it made sense. Still, it filled him with wonder.
Magic, huh?
Arthur didn’t believe in magic. It didn’t exist in the real world. He used to think that magic was one of the things that ancient humans use to explain anything which was outside of their comprehension. Yet, here he was, witnessing a power that couldn’t be explained by any scientist of Earth.
At the time, Arthur already realized that he reincarnated. However, to think that he was reborn in another world was outside of his wildest imagination. No, not merely another world, but he was born in another Universe. After all, his previous universe was bounded by the same law of physics. Those laws didn’t apply in this little room.
Still, he couldn’t understand the reason why he retained his memories.
Arthur was contemplating such things when he felt an unusual presence. And for the first time, his body didn’t betray him. He was so startled that he had peed on himself. After a moment, a knock echoed from the door.
The smile on Katarina’s lips disappeared, her whole body straightened with elegance, and her green eyes became devoid of any emotion. Her behavior changed, as though she had turned into a different lady.
After Katarina’s brief answer, the door opened, and a man entered. He was slender and tall, standing more than six feet. His long silver hair was neatly tied, but it nevertheless touched his waist. He wore a black cape and a white tuxedo with a tail behind. It matched with white trousers and black leather shoes. He had thick and dark eyelashes, where a piercing sapphire situated below.
Leomord gently closed his eyes, then placed his right hand over his left abdomen and slightly bowed upon seeing Katarina. Despite being shock at the severe sight of the woman he served, he remained expressionless. “I have arrived, Lady Allegia,” he said. Then he looked at Arthur who was now looking at him with his light jade eyes. Leomord lost his cool for a moment and gasped. That Signum, he thought, a cold sensation running down on his spine.
“Manners, Leomord,” Katarina said irritably, giving Leomord a severe stare.
“I apologized, but that Signum, and your–”
“Drop it,” she urged.
He nodded solemnly, “Kus Gramus.”
“Sares,” she said, her lips arched into a half-smile. “Now, follow me,” she added and exited the room, immediately followed by Leomord.
Arthur was left dumbfounded with their conversation, but he could feel the tension building up on the other side of the door. By the time the man was gone, Katarina began to cry silently, whispering something to herself.
He wanted to comfort Katarina because it reminded him of his grandmother. But he couldn’t. It was a mundane yet Arthur’s earliest concern in that world. In the meantime, he’d wait until he was old enough. He promised himself that in this new life, he would live without a single regret.
Magic, huh? I wonder if I can be a powerful wizard in the future, he thought. His eyes sparkled with excitement as he watched the wooden sculptures float overhead.
