There was a sound—faint and broken—like the cry of metal scraping against bone. Aren Valebrant—no, the one now wearing his name—gasped awake on the cold marble of a dueling terrace drenched in shadow. Rain hadn't yet fallen, but the air stank of a coming storm and the pressure of magic hung thick, almost hostile.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
This wasn't the bunker—his last refuge on a broken Earth. Not the tunnels dug beneath collapsed cities. Not the red sky overhead, scorched by firestorms and fallout, or the dead glass towers that once scraped clouds before they melted in the heat. He had died there—he was sure of it. Starved, betrayed, maybe poisoned. It was a blur. But death had come. And yet, his fingertips now curled over broken stone, damp with blood that wasn't entirely his.
In this moment, the soul inside the noble's broken body belonged not to Solvane, but to another world entirely—a ruined Earth, scarred by bunkers, red skies, and a silence born of extinction.
— ◇ —
The Continent of Solvane
Magic is not a gift here—it is blood and bone, taught through lineage and paid for with weight. Nobility is not a title; it is a responsibility sealed in ancient rites and power inherited from the roots of the continent itself. Swordplay is an art, magic is a language, and survival depends on both.
Here, noble Houses wield power both political and arcane. Every noble family bears a legacy ability, often manifesting as Personal Magic, a soul-bound trait unique to their bloodline. These talents define their strength, their politics, and sometimes, their worth.
Dueling is common—less for honor, more for message. And Aren Valebrant had just lost one.
Solvane is divided into four major kingdoms, with the story centered in the Kingdom of Varelys—a realm known for its rigid noble structure, powerful Houses, and a monarchy that rules with symbolic weight more than actual control. Political tension runs deep beneath civility. Noble feuds, arranged alliances, and family honor shape the fate of entire regions.
— ◇ —
He rose, vision a blur of pain and memory that did not belong here. In the crowd above the dueling platform, murmurs danced like blades.
"He's standing? After that?"
"Tch. He always was a cockroach."
"Is that really him…?"
He didn't know their names. He barely knew his own—but then it surfaced, faint and instinctive: Aren Valebrant. Not a memory, but a name tied to the body he now wore. And the body moved as if it remembered—the pain in his ribs, the tightness in his shoulder, the subtle recoil of a failed parry.
A political engagement. A public humiliation. A duel he'd lost—but somehow survived.
Watching him with storm-grey eyes sharpened by disdain stood Elina Caelthorn, his fiancée in title only. She hadn't moved from her spot on the stairs, expression unreadable. Her presence was noble in the way lightning was noble—silent, dangerous, inevitable.
She looked at him as if he were a ghost. And in truth, he was.
Not the real Aren. But no one knew that.
Yet.
— ◇ —
"...What is your name?" a voice asked. Not hers.
He turned. A healer mage approached, face grim, hand glowing faintly with emerald light.
It should've been a simple question. But for the first time in two years, in a world not his own, he hesitated.
And then he lied.
"...Aren Valebrant."
The storm broke.
— ◇ —
The lie came easy. Too easy.
Because something within him knew the truth wasn't clean—he was an outsider masquerading as a noble, caught in a deception that ran deeper than just a name. He was a stranger wearing another man's flesh, walking a life that was not his, trapped in a lie he hadn't chosen but now had to survive. As the healer's magic pushed warm mana through the fractures of his body, he saw them—shards of memories that weren't his but now were. Cold halls. A gilded corridor. A younger version of this face sneering at a servant. A slap that left no mark but left disgust in the air. Faces blurred by contempt. Rejection.
He remembered Aren's life—the original one. Every insult, every arrogance. How easily he wasted what others feared to grasp. The disdain he cultivated like a second cloak.
But now...
"Tch." He sucked in a breath as pain flared in his side. Ribs cracked. Right wrist twisted. Mana channels scorched from the duel.
The new Aren—he—had been forged in a world that punished hesitation. And now he stood in a world that punished pride.
A servant boy approached, hesitantly. The boy's eyes flicked between his battered face and the jagged remains of the training platform.
"Y-your Grace… shall I inform the steward of your recovery?"
Aren turned, too sharply. The boy flinched.
And in that twitch of reaction, Aren felt it. A memory that wasn't his, where Aren Valebrant had struck this boy before.
He clenched his jaw.
"…No. I'll walk."
He didn't apologize. But he walked slower.
— ◇ —
Somewhere on the Upper Terrace of Caelthorn Estate
Elina stood beside the steward, watching from behind the lace curtains as Aren limped toward the manor entrance. Her expression tensed—not with cruelty, but with a flicker of restrained disgust, like someone recalling a memory they wished they hadn't. It wasn't the wounds that unsettled her; it was remembering who he used to be.
"He's changed," the steward murmured.
She snorted. "A concussion will do that. Maybe he hit his head hard enough to grow a conscience."
"…My Lady."
"Don't worry. I don't believe it either." Her eyes narrowed. "He walks like a stranger. Not like the fool who challenged my cousin just to show off."
"He did lose," the steward added, carefully.
"Spectacularly," Elina agreed, her voice dry. "He challenged my cousin—who's far stronger than me—just to soothe his bruised pride, and paid the price. If he thought that would earn my sympathy, he's even more foolish than I thought."
She turned away before her face softened.
(Elina's cousin, the one Aren had dueled, was even stronger than she was—faster, with a clear disgust for the kind of behavior the old Aren embodied, and politically untouchable. A humiliating opponent for someone like the old Aren to challenge.)
— ◇ —
Hours Later – Guest Quarters of House Valebrant
Aren stood before a polished mirror, shirtless, bandaged, and scowling.
"This face is asking to be punched," he muttered.
He traced the faint white streak in his hair—new. That hadn't been there before. Nor had the strange stillness in his gaze. Not ice. Not calm. Just… focused. Detached.
Like a man still waiting to wake up.
The door creaked. The servant boy returned, tray in hand, eyes averted.
"I brought… soup. You missed dinner, sir."
"…You didn't poison it, did you?"
The boy froze.
Aren sighed. "Kidding. Set it down. I'll eat."
He took the tray, sniffed the soup, and frowned. It smelled perfectly edible—like it had been cooked by someone with just enough pride not to serve anything exciting. Even the food had standards, apparently.
Progress.
"What's your name?"
"…Toma, sir."
"You've worked here long?"
"Yes, sir. Five years."
He nodded. "Then you know I'm not good at jokes."
Toma blinked, confused. "That… that was a joke?"
Aren groaned and rubbed his temple. "If that's considered a joke here, I must've died and come back with a worse sense of humor. Tragic."
— ◇ —
That night, as the candle flickered low and sleep refused to come, Aren stared at the ceiling of someone else's room in someone else's world.
In the distance, lightning cracked.
He didn't know how he got here. He didn't know why he was here.
But he had a name. A body. A chance.
And if Solvane played by rules he could learn, he would rewrite what it meant to be Aren Valebrant.