'I was Alex, then I died after getting shot, ended up in that weird afterlife place and…was reincarnated as Leon?'
Rubbing his chin, Leon continued to organise the timeline.
"But I didn't have any memories of being Alex until just a few minutes ago. As for why…"
He sifted through his memories as Leon and understood why.
"The current me has always been inexplicably sick from birth. Though I would be considered a superhuman to anyone from Alex's world, I am quite weak in this one, weaker than I was supposed to be, considering my age and level.
No one knew why, but my Trait activated late and my Core Skill awakened even later."
He remembered how distraught he'd felt when even after his Core Skill hadn't awakened, even after he'd turned 12.
Said skills usually awakened between the ages of 10 and 12 without fail, but he was an exception, and not a good one.
"Mother likely knew why I was sick, though she never explicitly told me. She did, however, spare no effort to treat me.
Sadly, this treatment couldn't be rushed, as it was quite a delicate matter, so it took years…"
A sigh escaped Leon's lips as he remembered all the years he'd been sick, as well as the mental drain that had caused him.
His condition had left doctors stumped as all check-ups showed nothing wrong with his body, yet the reality was starkly different.
"But now, I know exactly why I was always sick as Leon…it's something that I know because I now know I was once Alex."
He thought back to that afterlife realm with the giant pillar of light, and then to the two unknown beings who fought on the day he'd been there after his death as Alex.
"The shockwaves generated by those beings as they fought damaged my soul. So I was reborn as Leon, with a damaged soul from birth.
As the soul is the root of one's existence, damage to it is reflected in the physical body.
My inexplicable sickness was a reflection of my wounded soul…something my mother naturally realised after the inconsistency between the results of doctor check-ups and my actual state."
Leon hadn't known it, but his soul was affected by the energy those beings had released, so his mother had to first remove all that residual energy before she could heal him.
It could be likened to shrapnel stuck inside healed flesh. She had to cut the flesh open, remove the shrapnel, and sew it shut before healing it.
"Last night, the last of my soul damage was healed, and I regained all memories of my time as Alex as a result.
As for my body…"
He clenched a fist and drew it back before throwing out a casual punch.
There was a small shockwave that scattered everything in one section of the room, and even flipped over a shelf.
"…it's completely healed. I can now exert the strength expected of someone on my level."
A small smile spread on his lips at this realisation, but it quickly faded when he looked up and saw the flipped-over shelf.
"…drat. I should have gone to the training hall to test that out."
Sighing, he jumped out of his bed and walked over to the fallen items. One of them was a mirror, and when he picked it up, the reflection that stared back at him was that of a handsome boy with black hair, a slender face, and a pair of violet eyes, all of which came together to accentuate his good looks.
He was a lot less pale than he remembered being, naturally due to being healed of his wounded soul.
"I've sectioned off my memories as Alex, but there are certain memories of Alex that stand out quite a bit."
Memories that stood out because of how similar they were to the life he'd lived so far.
"It's not just one or two things that are the same. Everything is."
It was naturally Alex's memories of a game called Deity Rising.
"How the hell does a game in another world have such detail about this one, and more importantly, that DLC…everything in the DLC's prologue is the exact same as my life so far."
Not a single detail was different.
At this, Leon thought about everything that happened after the Prologue.
Naturally, his expression turned dark, and he clenched his fist so tightly that he nearly crushed the plastic cup he'd picked up from the floor.
For this strange game that not only had the history of his world, Citera, exact, down to the minutest detail, as well as its current state…
"…then the future in that game, is it also true?"
Leon didn't want to believe it.
And not because he ended up as the final antagonist of the game, who ended up dying at the hands of the protagonist.
It was because of why he ended up as the antagonist.
A rage similar to the one he felt at his death as Alex welled up within him, and with it, he unconsciously released some of his magic power, which had just increased to a level he couldn't control.
But while his room was soundproof and no one heard the shelf turning over, it was not magic-proof.
As such, those who were outside not only sensed his magic power but also the deep, hostile intent that seeped into it.
This naturally caught the attention of the two who had just been about to enter the room, prompting them to barge in, eyes sweeping across the room for threats, while also holding great amounts of concern.
Their sudden intrusion snapped Leon back to his senses, and he blinked in confusion, his violet eyes meeting the hazel-brown ones of the woman who had a frightening amount of magic power condensing in her palm.
By the time Leon's eyes moved to her hands, however, the magic power had dispersed.
She rushed up to him, her tone worried, as she asked, "Is your body okay? What happened? Why are all these on the floor?"
As she barraged him with questions, the other woman who had stepped in after her snapped her fingers, and the scattered items all levitated and then rearranged themselves.
Leon then set down the lamp he was holding on the shelf and turned to answer the woman who was patting him down while scanning his body for any abnormalities.
"I'm fine, mother. Better than ever, even. As for this…"
He turned his gaze to the shelf and continued, "…let's just say I conducted a test I should have reserved for the training area here."
"Test?"
Leon's mother echoed his words, and Leon nodded in affirmation.
"Testing how much stronger my body is now that I've fully recovered."
His reply made the woman freeze for a bit, but she gave no response and just scanned him with her magic power one last time.
Except, this time, she wasn't scanning his physical body, but his soul.
While she did that in silence, Leon quietly studied the woman he called his mother.
She had waist-length dark brown hair that had a light curl, making her bangs a bit curly. Still, it framed her face very well.
Her hazel brown eyes were tinged with a light white glow as she carefully checked the state of his soul.
Suddenly, she blinked in confusion, and seeing this, Leon instantly became worried.
"There's nothing wrong with me, right?" he asked.
While Leon did feel like he was completely fine, his mother was the expert on soul-related matters, so upon seeing her confusion, he thought that there might have been something that he might have missed.
However, she shook her head and gave a response that relieved him.
"No. You're fine. I was just surprised since I thought you would need a few more days."
"Oh. Well, earlier is better, isn't it?"
Leon tilted his head and asked, and to this, the woman nodded lightly, her expression still betraying her surprise at his earlier-than-scheduled recovery.
'The first time I was wrong about an estimated recovery in nearly 20 years, and it was about my own son…'
The thought crossed her mind just as Leon suddenly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug.
His chin came to rest on her shoulder, and in a quiet voice that only she could hear, he murmured, "Thanks, Mum."
At this, the woman blinked, and then a small smile appeared on her face. She ran her hands through his dark hair as she responded.
"Anything for you, my boy."
Leon smiled, happy that with his condition, he had been born as this woman's son, otherwise a full recovery as he had just made would have been quite the pipe dream.
His condition had been 'horrible', to say the least.
Only a handful of people in the world had the power to completely heal him, and one of those was the woman he called his mother.
Correction, the best of them was his mother.
She was a woman of many titles, one of the most prominent being the 'Healing Angel'.
And no, it wasn't a metaphor.
Lucia Raviaz was quite literally an Angel.
That made Leon a Half-Human, Half-Angel Nephilim.
At the thought of his Angelic side and its origin, Leon's arms tightened around his mother's body, but not due to the joy of being healed.
It was because of the other bit of information that crossed his mind at that moment.
What he had been thinking of before she had stepped into the room.
The woman he was hugging now, his mother, Lucia, was not only the one who had healed him, but also the reason why the Leon of Deity Rising had gone down the path he did and ended up as the game's final villain.