"Reoloy... Reoloy... Reoloy..."
Owen muttered the name absentmindedly. He was seated on a bench by a segmented section of the beach, a side that was much less frequented than the bustling port and harbour.
No matter how hard he tried, the name didn't come up in his memories. He still hadn't seen the face of the body he now inhabited, but the outfit he was wearing most definitely stood out.
A pitch-black one-piece suit, a zipper running from the neck down to just short of his belly button. He could mostly dismiss its appearance if not for the unnatural way it absorbed light. The high collar and cuffs were also adorned with noticeable golden accents, oddly elegant for a simplistic set of clothing.
'There's no way I'd forget a design this weird,' he thought. 'Plus, the other kid was wearing it too, so it must be some kind of uniform.'
Owen remembered most things about RON; that's how he knew exactly where they were right now. More than that, he had encyclopedic knowledge about tools, characters, and organisations—the depth of his expertise went in that order exactly.
Even so, he was certain that he could identify all the story-relevant groups based on just their emblems, general aesthetic, and minute lore details. That made it all the more strange that he knew nothing about what he assumed to be the faction the original owner of this body belonged to.
"So... pretty much a blind start, then."
It wasn't all bad. He still possessed knowledge of the world. Despite these new gaps in information, he could manage.
To start, he could feel an overwhelming amount of power flowing through his body.
In RON, you had to commit to one of three systems: Ki, Mana, or Casis. Owen had done playthroughs using all three, so he knew enough to make an educated choice, but that was in-game.
This was real life.
"It doesn't matter," he said, a faint smile forming. "The choice is obvious."
He was still himself, after all.
Now, the problem was that he was sure that the power rushing through him was not his power of choice.
The game had described it as clarity and opening of the mind. This was, for sure, not that.
It wasn't too much of an issue, however. There were methods to switch between the three options. It could introduce a myriad of other problems depending on his luck and certain other factors, but what was life without risks?
Owen stood up, walking towards the centre of the busy city.
This place was Galma.
In terms of the game map, it was in the south-western edge of the Lindis Kingdom—the same nation that housed Academy City. He was still in the bounds of familiar territory.
"Not the best starting point, really..."
The academy was all the way in the north-west, miles away from where he was. Not to mention, he couldn't even hope to achieve anything without some modicum of combat ability.
He needed a weapon.
Using this body's current power would likely lock in his character build prematurely. A good enough offensive relic would compensate for his temporary shortcomings just fine.
Owen sifted through the crowd, nearly crossing paths with some figures sporting cloaks of the same unnatural black as his suit. He caught them only in his peripheral vision and turned just in time to see them heading off toward the beach.
He had no grounds to base anything on, but he was certain that those people were dangerous.
'More weirdness.'
He continued on his way, deciding to create as much distance between himself and the dark-clad strangers as he could.
Making it out of the crowded area, he stopped in front of an antique stall. The wares looked useless to him, nothing but trinkets, until something caught his eye.
A chained, peeling silver pocket mirror.
"How much for this?" He asked, grabbing the item enthusiastically.
The woman behind the stall regarded him with a bored, distant expression, as if his presence had barely registered to her.
Only then did it occur to Owen that he had no idea whether he even had money. With a quiet sigh, he placed the locket back onto the table and turned to leave.
"You can have it."
Owen's head snapped back towards her.
"Huh?" He blurted.
"I said you can have it."
Her voice was gentle—disarmingly so—and for a brief moment, he almost believed the gesture was genuine. The way her smile seemed forced and stretched awkwardly to her eyes brought him back to earth.
"...Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Take it," she confirmed, still smiling ear-to-ear.
The young man nodded in thanks and walked away, pocketing the item.
'Fool,' the woman thought, barely suppressing gleeful laughter.
The mirror was a cursed item. It housed an entity that tormented its holder relentlessly until death or until it was passed on to someone else.
Owen knew that, of course.
He recognised it the moment he laid eyes on it.
Gaiskas's Mirror.
It was pretty useless in-game, save for a single, very specific instance—but it would serve his purposes just fine. More importantly, it was perfect for a few tests he wanted to run.
Owen returned to the quieter, residential district—where the hostels and guest houses were located, and where this "outing" had begun. He fished the item out and flipped it open, revealing the reflective interior.
For the first time, he saw his face—fragmented, since the mirror wasn't large enough to capture it all at once—but clear enough.
Green eyes and a sharp face. Bluish-black hair, too.
That confirmed it.
He didn't know this character.
Owen remained quiet for a moment, then broke out into a fit of joy-filled laughter.
This was more like it.
If he'd been dragged into this world only to replay the role of the protagonist, it would've been somewhat interesting—but beyond the fact that everything was real now, there would have been no true novelty.
This, though, was different. A genuinely unknown path, brimming with unanswered questions. That was the kind of depth that could stir real excitement in him.
The goal hadn't changed: keep the world from ending, even without being the main character.
But now, he could do it in a way that was fully his own.
"More importantly..."
He looked back in the mirror, seeming to focus intensely on it. After a moment, his skin, as seen in the mirror's surface, was replaced by a bright blue aura. It glowed fiercely enough for him to cover his eyes.
'Just like the game had described,' Owen thought, openly amused at this being real life. 'Immerse your attention in the mirror, and it will reveal the essence of the user's power.'
'In this case, mana...' Owen sighed, looking upwards. "Not the worst case scenario, but a bust is a bust."
In RON, mana was the most convertible power of the three available options. Methods of conversion weren't that easy to come across, though. Additionally, he realised that he didn't know what time period this was and, by extension, how much time he had until the destructive events of the main story. All the conversion pathways took too much time as well, which was a factor to consider.
"Wait..." He muttered under his breath. "There was that thing."
Owen immediately shook his head to dismiss his thoughts, remembering that he had to move with the protagonist in mind. Somewhat indignant at having to stifle his choices, he looked back into the mirror.
"Aside from the intense focus thing, this relic's other function should respond to my will..."
On cue, the reflection was covered by predominantly black and grey visuals. Coloured dots were peppered across what appeared to be a map. However, it was too plain to be used for navigation, instead being more aptly described as a grid.
Gaiskas's Mirror was capable of locating other relics that were within its range. The black-grey grid was a rough representation of the area, and the coloured dots were the items of interest. The appearance of the dots provided an additional wealth of information, which honestly made the mirror a handy tool to possess, if not for this function being one-time use only.
Owen searched for anything that caught his eye. There were upwards of hundreds of dots visible on the mirror, unsurprising since this was a city of trade and commerce. In some places, relics were clustered tightly together. He surmised that those were the ones located in marketplaces, and after combing through as much as he could, decided it was all worthless to him.
Swiping as he would on a touchscreen, he looked toward the edges of the mirror's range, immediately locking onto something that stirred shock and excitement in his core. The nervous smile that formed threatened to split his face apart entirely.
'Regalia?!'
"Why are you in the middle of the street smiling to yourself?"
A voice snapped him out of his stunned jubilation. Four kids had stopped in front of him, about the same age as the boy he'd met earlier… and now that he thought about it, he was that age too.
'That'll take some getting used to…'
They all wore the same black uniform, further convincing him that this was no random gathering, but part of something organised.
He smiled at them. "I was just realising that the world is much wider than I thought."
"Ha. Guess he finally lost his mind," one of them said—a brown-haired boy with a scar across the bridge of his nose.
"Can you blame him?" another replied. A girl with short pink hair and closed eyes smiled faintly. "He put in a lot of work during our escape."
'Escape?' Owen's eyebrow rose.
"There's no need to keep bringing it up…" the brunette muttered, barely hiding his annoyance.
"We told Cisco to make sure you stayed in the hideout until we got back," a grey-haired boy added, his demeanour aloof and distant. Something about him felt oddly familiar to Owen. "Figures he couldn't be trusted."
"It wasn't his fault," Owen said immediately. "He was flustered when I woke up, and I didn't give him any time to gather himself before I ran off."
The group stared at him.
Owen cursed inwardly. Had he slipped up? If they attacked him now, he had no idea how he'd handle it.
"You… something really is off about you," the brunette said, stepping closer.
Owen tensed.
Before the tension could escalate further, the last of the four—a girl with long lavender hair—stepped forward and grabbed the boy's shoulder.
"Hugo. That's enough."
For a moment, it looked like the two might actually fight. Then a pulse of energy burst from her body, her hair whipping violently in the sudden surge.
Hugo winced, brushing her hand off roughly before backing down.
The girl turned to Owen, a sympathetic expression softening her features.
"Are you okay, Reoloy?"
It took him a fraction of a second to register that the name referred to him. He nodded, forcing a smile.
"I'm fin—"
"You guys~!!!"
Cisco's voice came screaming from the direction Reoloy had come from.
"We need to go!"
Reoloy turned just in time to see the green-haired boy stumble to a stop beside him, panting heavily.
"What's wrong with you?" Hugo snapped, still visibly irritated. "Why are you yelling like that? We're supposed to be staying low."
Cisco grabbed him by the shoulders, sweating profusely and trembling.
"They're here!"
The air seemed to freeze.
Everyone broke into a cold sweat—even the grey-haired boy who had looked perfectly composed moments ago.
Owen frowned slightly.
'What the hell is going on with these guys?'