Suddenly, more memories started flooding in, slowly appearing in his mind.
He lived in a small village called Merborne, located in the Naseriya Kingdom. He never knew his parents and struggled all his life to survive. He spent his days working in fields under the punishing sun, while at night he—
Edward's eyes widened at the memory.
This world was full of magic.
Images swam through his mind—stolen moments in the dead of night, crouched behind the broken fence of an abandoned barn, and practising mana control. He remembered his trembling fingers as he tried to draw the tiniest spark of mana into his body. His arms ached from the repetition, his body too frail to endure the strain, yet he never gave up.
The young boy was driven by hope, that simple word bled through all his memories. It was a desperate hope to one day join a guild and escape the suffocating confines of the village. He had no talent, no family to support him, but he never stopped dreaming.
The weight of those memories pressed on him until his own chest ached. That determination, that hunger to live for something more, all those dreams, they had all been taken from him.
His expression darkened, jaw tightening as he clenched his fist.
"I'll find whoever did this to you, Edward. Even if it's the last thing I do."
The vow slipped out as a whisper, yet it carried a weight of certainty.
He began walking toward the village.
The landscape around him blurred between the present and what the boy's memories painted. Every path felt like he had walked it before—yet his eyes told him he hadn't.
This sensation only grew stronger as he stepped into the Merborne Village. He locked eyes with countless faces. Faces he recognised yet didn't know. Names surfaced faintly in his mind, but the warmth of familiarity was absent.
The village itself was pitifully small.
Wooden huts lined the dirt roads, patched together with uneven planks and moss-stained thatch. Thin smoke rose from crooked chimneys, and the air carried the sharp tang of unwashed bodies, along with the smell of stale fires, and the sourness of rot.
Villagers shuffled about in ragged clothing, worn brown tunics patched at the elbows, skirts frayed from years of wear. Children with hollow eyes sat by the wayside, clutching sticks while pretending they were swords. Their laughter was faint and brittle, as if weighted by their living circumstances.
Occasionally, soldiers passed through the road. Men with weary eyes and leather armour that creaked with age. The blades they carried strapped to their backs were rusted and crooked, damaged by the wear of countless uses.
Edward's eyes swept over them. Not one seemed alarmed by the blood staining his clothes. A few villagers glanced his way, only to turn aside just as quickly.
"I guess blood in this world is not an unusual sight," he muttered under his breath.
His gaze travelled further, past the dilapidated huts and the villagers wandering the roads.
There, at the far edge of the village, a building loomed larger than the rest. Its walls were straight, its timber oiled and polished. The windows had shutters instead of rotting gaps, and a clean and well-kept courtyard stretched before it. It was a stark contrast to the cramped disorder of the huts.
Even without the memories, it wasn't hard to guess that the building belonged to someone in power. This was the village chief's building. Authority radiated from its very existence.
But that wasn't where he was headed.
Instead, he turned toward another building—larger than the huts but modest compared to the Chief's residence.
It was an inn.
As he recalled from Edward's memories, he rented a room there.
The heavy door groaned as he pushed it open. Warm air hit his face, tinged with smoke and stale ale. Behind the counter stood a mountain of a man, broad-shouldered, and arms as thick as tree trunks. A thick black beard covered half his face.
The innkeeper's eyes flicked toward him.
"Back already, boy?" he rumbled, voice as deep as gravel.
Edward offered a stiff nod, not trusting the boy's memories enough to attempt conversation. The man grunted and went back to polishing a chipped mug.
He ascended the stairs, the old wooden flooring creaking under the weight of each step. His room was just at the far end of the hall.
He stared at the door that hung slightly crooked for a few moments before pushing it open. A faint smell of damp wood rushed to greet him.
The inside was pitiful.
There was a narrow bed with straw that barely qualified as stuffing. A single candle stub on the floor, its wax melted into an uneven pool. No desk, no wardrobe, no chest—nothing but bare walls and a space to collapse.
He crouched low, eyes scanning the floor.
There, tucked into one of the corners, a small bundle of cloth lay. The boy's second and only other set of clothes.
Edward stripped off the bloodied rags clinging to his body. His reflection caught faintly in the dusty windowpane. The boy's lean frame, dark brown hair falling into his eyes, and hands too thin for a life of hard labour, despite it being his only source of income.
He pulled on the clean clothes. The fabric was rough and threadbare, but at least it wasn't covered in dried blood.
As he adjusted the tunic, his thoughts circled back to the murder.
The boy had owned nothing. No valuables. No land. Not even a proper set of clothes.
"It couldn't have been for materialistic reasons," he whispered. His eyes flicked across the small, hollow room. There was nothing to steal.
More than that, the manner of death lingered in his mind. Blade strikes, close and deliberate. It hadn't been careless. It was intended, maybe even personal.
He sat on the bed, his elbows resting on his knees.
"Did you owe someone money?" he murmured. "Did you steal something?"
He searched Edward's memories, but they remained fractured, like broken glass refusing to form a picture.
A darker thought coiled into his mind.
"Or… could there be a serial killer in this village? A man who takes pleasure in cutting people down. Someone who wants to watch their victims bleed?"
The possibility sent a chill along his spine. But then he exhaled, shaking his head. There were no leads or trails to follow. Only speculations and a few deductions he could've drawn from the blood spatter. Until his memories filled in more, the case was already cold.
He leaned back against the creaking wall. For the first time since waking in this world, silence surrounded him.
Until—
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The sharp sound broke the stillness. Edward's head snapped toward the door.
He slowly rose to his feet, moving carefully across the creaking floor.
His hand tightened around the iron handle, and with a swift motion, he pulled it open.
Standing in the doorway was a girl.
She was young—around his age, maybe a little younger. Her hair was tied back into a loose braid, strands of black hair falling against her pale cheeks. Her ashen eyes fixed on him. She wore a simple linen dress patched at the hem, but her posture was straight, her presence strangely unshaken.
For a heartbeat, they simply stared at one another.
Edward blinked, the boy's fragmented memories stirring faintly at the sight of her face. He knew her—or at least, Edward had known her.
But who she was, and why she stood at his door, he had no idea.