Chapter 2: Soul Rendering
Metal chains dug into Alden’s wrists.
The stone wall behind him was cold through his shirt, and every time he shifted even slightly, pain shot up both arms.
’How long has it been.’
The iron door groaned open.
Footsteps clicked on the stone.
Alden lifted his head.
Sierra walked in.
She stopped a few feet from him, and the smirk on her face was the same one he’d seen in that room right before everyone decided he was guilty.
"How are you doing, Alden~?"
His jaw locked.
’You—’
He had lost everything because of her lies.
A few sentences and a few tears. That was all it had taken to destroy him.
More footsteps clicked behind her.
Nicholas walked in.
The moment Sierra registered the sound, every trace of that smile vanished. Her shoulders pulled inward. Her hands came up slightly, trembling at her sides.
She turned toward Nichola and her voice broke on the first syllable.
"N-Nico..."
She glanced at Alden, head dropping immediately after.
"He keeps threatening me..." Her voice barely made it out. "I’m scared. If he gets free, I don’t know what he’ll do to me—"
’What?’
Alden stared at her.
Sierra was looking at Nicholas with wet eyes and a shaking voice and saying things that never happened.
"She’s LYING!" Alden pulled against the chains. "Everything she just said! all of it! none of it is true, Nicholas, you have to—"
Sierra stepped backward and pressed herself against Nicholas’s chest.
Her whole frame shook.
"Please don’t let him hurt me. I don’t want to die."
Nicholas’s hand settled on her shoulder.
"It’s okay." He looked at Alden over the top of her head.
"I won’t let anyone hurt you."
The warmth he’d used for Sierra was gone when his eyes landed on Alden.
"I never imagined someone could sink this low."
"She’s lying." Alden kept his voice as steady as he could get it.
"Nicholas. She has been lying from the beginning. Every single thing—"
"Enough." Nicholas reached for the sword at his waist.
The blade caught the torchlight as it cleared the sheath.
"Every time you speak, you only get worse." He started walking forward. "You aren’t just filth—"
Alden pulled hard against the chains. Both wrists screamed. "Nicholas — LISTEN to me—"
"You’re the kind that poisons everyone around it."
The sword came up.
"And poison needs to be removed."
"NICHOLA—"
The blade came down.
"NOOOOOO—"
______
Alden shot upright.
His chest was heaving. Cold sweat had soaked through the back of his shirt.
He sat there with both hands braced against the mattress, staring at a wooden ceiling he didn’t recognize until his heartbeat found its way back down to something normal.
’A dream. It was just a dream... But my head hurts like I got hit.’
"He’s awake, Grandpa."
He turned his head.
A girl about his age stood near the doorway, watching him. She had brown hair and blue eyes.
An old man came in behind her, moving slowly, one hand on a wooden staff.
He looked at Alden.
"How are you feeling, young man?"
Alden looked around the room. It was small with wooden walls.
It wasn’t a prison cell or the Astral Academy.
"I’m fine," he said. "But where am I?"
"We found you unconscious near the edge of the forest, so we decided to Bring you in. You’ve been asleep for a few hours." the old man said.
Alden got out of bed and bowed before the man could say anything else.
"Thank you. I mean that. I’ll repay this somehow."
He straightened up and looked toward the window.
The forest outside had gone black while he slept, with sounds of some wild beasts.
The girl watched him look at it and didn’t try to hide that she found it funny. "You won’t get far tonight."
The old man smiled. "She’s right. Stay until morning." He gestured toward the girl beside him. "My name is Darius. This is my granddaughter, Claire."
"Hello!" Claire waved.
"Alden," he said. "Thank you for taking me in."
_____
Dinner was simple and warm and Claire did most of the talking, which suited Alden fine because he had nothing to say that he could actually say out loud.
She asked where he had come from. He answered in the most general terms possible, avoiding any mention of the academy or his past life.
After dinner, Alden stepped out onto the small wooden porch and sat down.
The forest stretched ahead of him in every direction, sounds were moving through it.
’What am I supposed to do.’
He’d been avoiding the question ever since he ran away from the academy.
He had no memories of this body. No family name. No home to go back to. No idea who Alden was before he woke up in that room.
On top of that, it was his own name from his past life.
He never put his own name on the page, and he never designed a skill.
He was a character who shouldn’t exist in a story he had written.
Then his mind wandered back to the status screen. It had appeared when he first woke up in that room.
"Status" he said.
The blue interface appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━
STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━
[Name: Alden]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 17]
[Title: None]
[Class: Undefined]
[Rank: F]
[Level: 1 — EXP: 0 / 100]
[Skill: Soul Rendering (SSS+ Rank)]
━━━━━━━━━━
He looked at it for a long moment.
’Class is Undefined?’ That was strange. In his novel, every person had a class from birth. Undefined wasn’t a thing that existed in the system he’d built.
But the part that bothered him more was the skill.
Soul Rendering.
He had written every skill in this world. Every class, every hidden ability, every rare technique that only appeared in specific arcs.
He knew this world the way a person knows a room they’ve lived in for years.
He had never written anything called Soul Rendering.
Not in any draft or in any outline.
It didn’t exist in Eternal Sword of Destiny.
So where had it come from.
"Soul Rendering," he said.
A new panel opened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Soul Rendering [12.5%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Soul Extraction — [Available]
??? — [Locked]
??? — [Locked]
??? — [Locked]
??? — [Locked]
??? — [Locked]
??? — [Locked]
??? — [Locked]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eight Acts total.
’Eight Acts? Also, why are there question marks on them?’
Only one was available, all other Acts were locked.
He stared at the screen for a while.
Soul Extraction. He didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t know what Soul Rendering meant in the first place.
An idea came to him.
"System. Can you answer my questions?"
A soft chime.
[Yes. Questions about your status, skills, or the world can be answered.]
"Why was I transmigrated?"
[Question unavailable.]
’I guess my question is beyond this world, so it can’t answer.’
His eyes went back to the panel.
He looked at the skill.
"What exactly..." he said,
"...is Soul Rendering?"