1 Trickster's Rebirth
He was flying...
He could feel the chilly wind seeped through his body. It should have left him shivering, but for a reason he couldn't infer, he was benumbed. He tried to move but couldn't. He tried opening his eyes—as much as he could—only to part a slit, revealing a portion of his frazil-silver pupil. Gyro Freq was enveloped by darkness. 'Aha! It's nighttime.' He was feeling dizzy and confused, unable to register everything.
Beside him were hazy silhouettes of two men with a white concentric energy disk swirling below their feet. These energy disks propelled the two figures as they zoomed through the air.
'Yes! I am really flying.' he concluded. No, he was hovering in the air, enveloped by an unknown energy like magic. 'I must dreaming! This could be one of those dreams with magical people in it.'
He wanted to speak, but his jaw was locked in place and his throat felt dry. He couldn't even swallow his saliva when he tried to. Frustrated, he peered through the slit between his eyelids.
He was feeling weak, so he pretended not to see them. He didn't try to move nor assay; he knew it would be useless.
A few minutes later, the two figures alighted on the ground. However, the hovering boy beside them plunged with a — thud! Fortunately, it was a soft ground, and Gyro was still feeling numb.
• — • — •
"Mavrkuzs, shoyuzld wew rewavlly droyp thixs kixd's boydy hewrew? Ixsn't thavt toyoy cruzewl? Lewt's juzt buzry hixm, ixt woyn't toyoy loyng." One man spoke in a different language.
"Tsk! You're too soft Glenn. This kid had given us enough trouble just by bringing his body here... Let's just leave him here to rot... I hope no beast will wander around here so that he could have an intact corpse. Hahaha." The man named Markus chuckled as he eyed the rigid body of the kid. He was too lazy to bury the boy. Shaking his head, he said, "Let's go... We've been out for too long, people might get suspicious." The white disk rematerialized beneath his feet and impelled him to the air.
Glenn glanced at the body and murmured, "Sorry kid, I hope you'll be lucky in your next life... Please don't curse us in the underworld—we're just following orders." Glancing at the body one last time, he sighed and ascended to follow Markus.
• — • — •
Lying on the ground, Gyro peered through his eyelids, his sight followed the speeding white disk until it vanished.
He was puzzled.
'Did they just left me here? Who are they and what language was that? Hmm... They probably thought I died and left me here to rot? Why do I feel that something is not right here? Wait! What?!..I died?!' He suddenly realized what was wrong.
'I died? But—I'm alive... Tsk! This must be one of my nightmares. I hope I'll wake up soon.' He had several of those nightmares where he was being pursued by monsters or unknown creature trying to kill him. He believed he was having nightmares again and would soon wake up—drenched with sweat.
He gazed at the sky as he lay motionless on the ground. It was full of stars glittering in dark, forming bizarre patterns. He wasn't familiar with these constellations; and the Big Dipper and Belt of Orion which he could normally see in the sky weren't among them.
'Strange dream indeed.'
First, he was trapped in a strange room for six months. Then, he met people who could fly and was dumped in the middle of nowhere to rot, then... He discovered the unfamiliar and strange constellations in the sky. 'Tch! I really do have a great imagination. Perhaps, I should write a novel about them.'
'Oh! Hahaha... Since I can't do anything, I... should analyze my latest Yo-yo trick. It has full of flaws, and I haven't succeeded even once.' Just as he thought about it, a torrent of information surged through his brain.
Then, headache. A splitting headache assaulted his senses. Only now did he realized that he had regained his other senses as the numbness of his body disappeared.
He felt like his skull was being grind down. Wincing and rolling, he clutched his head with two hands and tried to stay conscious while enduring the pain. Then everything went blank. He finally succumbed to the searing pain and lost consciousness.
• — • — •
A few hours later, the dark night had begun to turn dark blue. As the sun rose over the eastern horizon, the dark blue skies turned azure blue with red-orange tint. Sunlight was refracted by the cumulus clouds cascading like pink cotton candies.
He awoke with a start. The mental pain he had experienced earlier was gone. However, his body was too weak. He gritted his teeth as he endured his aching muscles.
'What was that earlier?' That was his first time feeling so much pain while dreaming. 'Wait! Wait! Wait! What are these informations? Are these memories?'
He couldn't remember having such memories. They weren't his and belonged to someone else.
'Could it be? No... No. Nooooo. Please no!'
He was drowned by overwhelming emotions. He panicked and didn't know what to do. After a few minutes, he calmed down and tried to understand what was happening. Although he was not as smart as top student in his class, he had a good analytical ability. Every time he encountered a problem, he would systematically analyze and solve them.
After laying out everything, he knew he wasn't dreaming. He had occuppied someone's body—no, his soul somehow merged with someone's body who happened to have the same first name as him—Gyro. He had been reincarnated like the MCs in the novels that he had read online.
He was musing over the reason of his death, and remembered walking on his way home after watching the show of the youngest Yo-yo Grand Master in history, then...
'Ah! I'd saved that granny from the speeding truck. So I died from that accident!'
Finally, realizing his death, a heavy sigh escaped his thin lips. He even thought of a bizarre idea that one could be reincarnated by helping a granny. He shook his head thinking of his crazy idea as the aftereffect of his rebirth.
'But wait! Why do I have a memory of having been trapped in a strange place for six months? Was that a memory or a dream?'
Gyro then jerked as he remembered his parents back on Earth. Tears suddenly swelled in his eyes and flowed down his pale face. He was their only son. Losing him must have devastated them. He was hoping they were okay and had accepted what happened to him; and he wanted to tell them that he was alive and well.
Then, a thought came into his mind. There was magic in this world...Then perhaps he could return to Earth through magic. Suddenly, his azure blue eyes lit up with his soaring confidence. There was hope... He had to learn magic and return home—to his parents.
As the sun rays kissed his pale skin, he felt a soothing warm sensation washing away his weariness. He was still too weak to move, though. An hour later, he crawled up. He staggered several times and shambled with his weary and weak body to an unknown direction. One thought was ingrained in his mind, 'Survive and learn Magic!'
He surveyed his surrounding and waddled through the towering, verdant trees and thick, lush shrubberies. Despite faltering several times, he kept on dragging himself without a clear destination in mind. 'Survive and learn Magic!'
As he trudged across the forest, he heard roaring and growling from afar. Although he was weak, he still had basic mental fortitude and would cautiously hide behind trees or shrubbery every time he felt a beast approached.
Boom... Boom...
He heard a beast drew nearer, so he hid behind a tree. The dark circles around his eyes stretched when he tried to fully open them. He sighed and leaned on the tree, but was dumbfounded to see his skinny arms and legs for the first time. He was malnourished to the point that only a bag of skin was holding up his bones. 'What really happened to this guy?'
Trudging across the forest felt like forever. He was too tired, thirsty and hungry—and was starting to feel dizzy.
Not eating anything made him felt nauseous and was about to puke something.
Pwaak!
Stingky and gross black liquid showered out of his mouth—it was like an acid, hot and bitter.
Pwaak!
Another torrent of black liquid poured out of his mouth. He didn't know what it was, but he finally felt a little better; so he continued to walk and walk until his feet sore. Only now did he noticed that he had no shoe or anything protecting his feet. His toes were already bleeding, swelling and had bruises all over them. He gritted his teeth as he winced and endured the pain.
Hssst!
Hissing the pain out, he continued to walk until he couldn't take a single step anymore. His subconscious, however, was telling him to continue moving forward. Crawl if you had to. So he crawled. He crawled until he passed out. 'Survive and learn Magic!'
• — • — •
Hours later...
"Father! Look! There's someone here!" A small high pitch voice sounded. It was from a girl, strolling along with a middle-age man. She was around 13-15 years old with long purple hair, a cute and charming purple eye which sat on her oval face.
"Who could it be? Oh! He is still breathing and had a pulse, albeit weak. He is dying. Fortunately, you have noticed him Zy. You really have a sharp eye, my little girl." The middle-aged man praised adoringly.
"Father, stop calling me little girl. I'll be 15 in a few months you know." The girl named Zy pouted.
"Hahaha. In my heart, you are always my little girl." The man grinned while ruffling her hair. He applied some medicine to Gyro's swelling feet and put a pill in his mouth.
"Alright, let's go. We need to bring him home, so he could rest and recover. It's too hot here in the open." He lifted Gyro carefully and placed him over his shoulder.
"Father, why don't you just use a Levitation Art? It's too troublesome to manually lift him like that." She suggested. It didn't make any sense to her. With such easy method to lift the boy, why should her father insisted on carrying him like that?
"Zy, remember this, if you can do something without using the Art, then don't use it. People tend to go lazy because they always depend on it to do simple things. It's a total waste of Messence."
"But wasn't that the purpose of Messence and Arts, to do things easier?" She really couldn't understand his reason.
"Yes, but not to everything, that you forget the purpose of your hands and other parts of your body. Using your body could let you feel alive and know that you are still human. Remember, Mystical Arts isn't everything, it is just a tool. Being human is still important. People tend to lose their humanity in pursuit of power and rely on Arts too much. You can't be like them, understand?" He advised, while his expression turned downcast as he thought of something.
"Yes, Father." She nodded, although she only understood a part of what her father had just said. She noticed her father's expression, so she comforted, "Father, you're thinking of Mother again? Don't worry, I have a feeling that she is okay. Everything will be okay, father, " she assured.
"Hahaha. As long as I have my baby, I'll be okay." He knew that thinking about those things was useless. Even being a Diamond Mystician, he was helpless against them. He could only sigh as they continue walking.
• — • — •
Gyro suddenly woke up with a jerk of his legs. He stared at the ceiling, feeling confused. He knew he had passed out due to fatigue. His mind still hoped that everything was just a dream. But when he was expecting to find his room after waking up from a strange dream, he found himself in an old medieval-like room. 'So I wasn't dreaming.'
He glanced at the glittering crystalline stone hanging at the light brown and gray brick wall. It was the only source of illumination in the room.
"Magical!" He exclaimed and sat up, but he suddenly felt dizzy.
"Oyh! Yoyuz avwavkew!" That was last sound he heard as he passed out again.
'Eh! He passed out again?' Zy thought as she exited the room.
After an unknown time, Gyro woke up with aching head. Earlier, he tried to access the memories of his predecessor but was assaulted by another mental pain. He decided to delve into it later.
