Tap.
"Voren," his sister said again, a little louder this time. "Your spoon… it's falling."
The metal clinked softly against the edge of the bowl before slipping from his fingers entirely and landing in the soup with a quiet splash.
He blinked.
The dining room came fully into focus. The old wooden table with its uneven legs. The faint crack in the wall near the window that his father always said he would fix someday. The smell of warm broth, herbs, and freshly baked bread. Morning light filtered in through thin curtains, painting the room in a gentle glow.
For a second, Voren didn't move.
Then his mother spoke, her tone calm, practiced, and filled with fond familiarity.
"Leave your brother alone, Lira," she said, reaching over to lightly tap the girl's head. "He awakened yesterday. Spacing out like that is normal. It's just the aftereffects."
Lira puffed her cheeks slightly, but she nodded and climbed back into her seat. "Everyone says that," she muttered. "Awakening this, awakening that."
Voren finally inhaled properly.
The air filled his lungs, warm and real. Not cold. Not empty. Not fading.
He was here.
Not in the arena.
Not dying.
Not bleeding out beneath Aiden Hartwright's sword.
Here.
His heart began to pound, not with panic this time, but with something dangerously close to relief. His gaze drifted across the table, landing on his sister's face. Lira Kaleid. Small. Messy dark hair tied into a loose side braid. A smear of soup on her cheek that she hadn't noticed yet.
Then his eyes shifted to his mother. She stood by the stove, sleeves rolled up, humming softly as she stirred another pot. The same woman he watched cry quietly at night when she thought no one was looking. The same woman who smiled too easily just to keep her children from worrying.
They were alive.
They were here.
And for the first time since regressing, it truly sank in.
He almost lost them.
The thought hit him harder than the sword ever did.
His vision blurred. He swallowed, throat tightening. He told himself to breathe, but his chest ached anyway. The future he remembered—the one where he died—had torn him away from this room, from this warmth, from these people who had slowly become more than borrowed memories.
Before he realized what he was doing, he stood up and stepped around the table.
Lira barely had time to look up before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug.
"Wah—!?" she yelped, stiffening in surprise. "Voren?!"
She wriggled in his grasp, clearly caught off guard. "What's wrong with you all of a sudden?!"
He buried his face lightly against the top of her head and closed his eyes.
"Nothing," he said quietly. "I just… wanted to."
She froze.
Slowly, awkwardly, she peeked up at him. "You wanted to… hug me?" Her nose scrunched up. "Since when?"
He pulled back slightly and gave her a small, genuine smile. One that felt unfamiliar even to himself.
"A brother can't hug his sister again?" he said. "Does there need to be a reason?"
Lira stared at him suspiciously. "Again?" she repeated. Then her eyes narrowed. "Is this another awakening effect? Being weirdly emotional?"
Their mother laughed softly from the stove, the sound warm and light. She glanced over her shoulder, amusement dancing in her eyes.
"If hugging family is a side effect," she said, smiling, "then I'd say awakening isn't so bad after all."
Something loosened in Voren's chest at that.
He released his sister, ruffling her hair as she complained loudly and tried to fix it back into place. As he returned to his seat, his hands trembled just a little.
This time, he didn't ignore it.
He flicked his wrist beneath the table, a familiar motion he remembered from awakening day. His gaze sharpened, and he focused inward.
A translucent blue screen shimmered into existence before his eyes.
—
[Awakened System]
Name: Voren Kaleid
Age: 16
Class: Tri-Elemental Warlock (A)
Level: 1 (0/100)
Title: None
Bloodline: Branch Hartwright Bloodline
Affinity:
• Umbral Ether (Darkness)
• Radiant Pulse (Light)
• Arcane Flux (Pure Mana)
Cultivation: Apprentice Rank
Race: Human
Attributes:
STR: 7
AGI: 9
END: 8
INT: 14
WIS: 12
LCK: 6
HP: 100 / 100
MP: 120 / 120
Skills:
• Steal By Death (Unranked): Obtain the skill of the entity currently ending your life.
• Skill Weaver (SSS): Create any skill by describing it.
• Temporal Regression (SSS): Allows the user to rewind personal time to an earlier point in life. Activation triggered immediately after death when no other survival path remains or by user command. Manual activation consumes significant mana.
Story Progression: 1%
—
Voren stared at the interface.
Tri-Elemental Warlock. A-rank.
That alone placed him well above average. Most awakeners barely managed a single affinity, two if they were lucky. Three was rare.
Still, it wasn't five.
The Hartwright main bloodline inherited penta-elemental affinity. Five elements woven together, the foundation of their absurd SSS-ranked potential. That was what made them monsters from the moment they awakened.
Branch bloodlines didn't get that privilege.
Voren never did.
And yet…
His gaze slid down to the skills section, stopping on a single line.
Skill Weaver (SSS).
The skill he stole from Aiden.
The protagonist's skill.
The thought made his lips twitch.
So that's how it was written.
Aiden Hartwright. The golden boy. The arrogant heir who would start off cruel, untouchable, and painfully full of himself. The kind of character who was meant to fall, rise, and fall again before becoming someone "better" by the end of the story.
A hero forged through suffering.
A protagonist polished by fate.
Pathetic writing.
Voren always hated that kind of character. The ones who trampled over others early on because the story would forgive them later. Who hurt people because it was convenient for their growth.
And now, knowing he lived inside that kind of game?
It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
His eyes drifted to the story progression indicator. One percent.
So that's what this world was. A sequence of events pushing Aiden forward while everyone else played supporting roles or stepping stones.
Not anymore.
Voren exhaled slowly and closed the interface.
He already noticed the problem with Skill Weaver. Even now, creating skills required an enormous amount of mana, and his current MP pool was laughable.
SSS-rank power, locked behind a wall of reality.
Still, that was fine.
He had time now.
"Brother," Lira said suddenly, leaning closer to him with a grin. "Are you excited?"
He glanced at her. "For what?"
"The Oakhaven Mage Academy, obviously," she said, rolling her eyes. "The entrance exam is in three months. Everyone's talking about it. You're finally going to become amazing and famous and stuff."
Three months.
His fingers curled slightly against the table.
"So?" she continued. "Are you excited?"
Voren looked toward the window, sunlight catching in his eyes.
Excited wasn't the right word.
Prepared was closer.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I am."
A chair scraped against the floor.
His father, who had been silent the entire time, stood up. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A man worn down by years of quiet labor and unfulfilled ambition, yet still carrying a presence that demanded respect.
He looked at Voren, expression unreadable.
"After you finish eating," his father said, "come outside with me. There's something we need to talk about."
The room fell silent.
Voren met his father's gaze and nodded.
"I'll be there," he replied.
And somewhere deep inside him, the vow he made in the void stirred once more.