The snow has a way of silencing things — not just sound, but memory.
It's been four days since I woke in this world, and I still forget who I am when I sleep.
Not who I am here.
I remember that just fine.
Ashen Valtor. Son of Taron Valtor, hunter of the Blackwood. Greylatch village. Seventeen. Trained in tracking, bow, and survival.
That's who this body belongs to.
But I… I am something else. Something buried under layers of false memories and someone else's scars.
The Samsara Curse hasn't just thrown me into a new world — it's shackled me to a life I didn't live. One where pain has history, and comfort is foreign.
But I've started to remember what matters.
I need to grow stronger. Fast.
Because Vale is somewhere out there.
And if he gets ahead of me in this world — if he awakens first — I may not get another chance.
[Samsara Interface]
Host: Ashen Valtor
Cycle: 1 / 9
World Type: High Fantasy – Mana Resonance
Memory Integrity: 47%
Skill Bonus: Soulbound Slayer – Passive aura tracking unlocked at 10 meters
Penalty: Memory Bleed – False Past Integration
Objective: Locate and eliminate Vale
Status: Opponent reincarnated – Location unknown
Note: World's Power System: Mana Veins + Resonant Cores
That last line. It's what I've spent the past few days decoding.
Mana Resonance.
It's not just magic here. It's life.
Everyone's born with a Core — a kind of spiritual organ that grows with experience, affinity, and near-death survival. Magic isn't cast with spells, but with harmony. The stronger your "Resonance" with the world, the more mana flows through you. It responds to emotions. To intent.
In other words: I can't just learn it. I have to live through it.
I've started small.
Cutting my skin to feel my body push against death. Sitting in frozen streams until I can hear the ice hum. Sleeping alone in the Blackwood, daring it to eat me.
My Core is starting to stir. Only faintly — like an ember that hasn't caught.
But it's a start.
Yesterday, the village's old herbalist — Maelin — found me meditating on top of a half-dead elk. She laughed and handed me a scroll.
"You're either very stupid," she said, "or trying to wake something you don't understand."
I didn't respond.
She sat beside me and said, "The Core doesn't bloom for those who chase it. It blooms for those who bleed for it."
I asked her what she meant.
She just looked at me and said: "You'll find out. Or you'll die."
I think I respect her.
At night, I try to recall my past lives. The ones I lived during the Death Game.
But they're blurs. A sword through the stomach. Fire in my lungs. A girl's voice. Someone crying my name as I fell. Did I kill her? Or did Vale?
The game has taken so much already. I can't let it take more.
Elsewhere
A boy coughs into a blood-stained cloth.
His skin is pale. Eyes gray. The bedroom is quiet, save for the crackle of the fireplace and the servants whispering outside.
"He's the Duke's third son, poor thing. They say he won't live the year."
"Born sickly. Not a drop of magic in his blood."
"At least he's beautiful. Maybe the gods will pity him."
The boy does not respond.
He stares at the ceiling, his fingers trembling. Something echoes faintly in his head — a voice with no mouth.
"Ashen."
He doesn't know what it means.
But it makes his heart race.
Back in Greylatch
I've started mapping out the land around the village.
Greylatch lies on the edge of the Blackwood — a cursed forest older than the empire. To the east lies the Frostback Mountains. South, far beyond the woods, is the border of the Galvren Empire — a name that made my Samsara Interface flash faintly when I heard it.
That's where he is, isn't it?
Vale.
It fits. Distant. Protected. Reborn into nobility while I scrape my hands raw just trying to feel my Core pulse once.
Unfair.
But the Game was never fair.
Taron, the man who calls himself my father, has started teaching me archery again. He says I "forgot everything" after I fell into the Blackwood as a child.
Funny how convenient memory loss is in this world.
He's not unkind. Just tired. Just broken. Like everyone here.
Even the trees creak like they remember being alive once.
Today, Maelin let me hold a mana crystal — a small, flickering blue shard from a dead beast's Core.
I felt it hum against my skin. Like it knew me. Like it wanted to speak.
"You feel that?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Then your Core isn't asleep. Just scared."
Scared of what?
Of me?
Of who I used to be?
The villagers speak of monsters deeper in the forest. Ones that whisper memories back into your ears — even memories that aren't yours.
I wonder if one of them would show me my real face.
[Samsara Interface Update]
Core Compatibility: 8%
Path Progression: Unlocked – Initiate Tier
Resonance Ability (Flickering): Pulse Echo – Sense mana disruptions nearby
Note: Next Skill Unlock at 20% Core Growth
My first resonance ability.
It's weak. I can barely sense birds unless I concentrate.
But it means I'm progressing.
Every cut, every chill, every breath of raw air is mine. Not this Ashen's. Me.
I may not have Vale's head start.
I may be alone in a dead-end village, hunted by the gods and chained to another man's life.
But I remember one thing he doesn't:
The Game isn't over.
And I don't care how noble his new name is.
I'll find him. And when I do—
He dies.