01.37 - Re:Load - Starting Life in the Same World from One

After what seemed like, and for once probably actually was, a couple of months… if not years, I had finally searched through the list of captured souls to find the others.

Now was the time to reload. The first save point was out of the question. The third and fourth were the ones I had overwritten ad nauseam for the last two decades. Their latest states were set shortly after our encounter with the cats and the other shortly before our untimely demise. Probably not enough time to leave the planet, let alone do anything about the cause of its destruction.

Which left me with save point number two.

I was tempted to overwrite this one for the longest time, but it was my oldest save, not counting number one. I was not eager to relive my very early childhood and had thus overwritten the other saves from back then long ago.

This one was set about a week before my first evaluation ceremony.

Well, here goes nothing.

—

I found myself in my fourteen year old body, back home in Lichtheim, right after the reload sequence was done. I was back in my room, everything was like I remembered. But to be honest, I did not remember much from that time.

The first System message that popped up almost gave me a heart attack and with it almost forced yet another reload.

//========================================

// Notice:

//========================================

Warning: Duplicate UUSIDs recognized within the current space-time scene!

Auto triggered System merge requests resulted in Status OK.

No further soul conflicts detected.

//========================================

I frantically checked the ‘Soul Catcher’ Skill’s inventory.

Sure enough, Tia, Dawn, Alfred, Kentaro, Reiko, Isabella, and Geber’s souls were nowhere to be found.

All souls left in the inventory belonged to the kids and our pets.

I tried to locate Tia, Dawn, or Alfred, but the house was empty.

Sure, my ‘mother’ would be out as usual at this time, but what about the other three?

A note left in the living room reminded me of the current situation.

Alfred, Tia, and Dawn were out, buying outfits for the evaluation ceremony.

Right. Those strange and fancy clothes from back then didn’t buy themselves.

The sights of the house and the smell of the furniture made me a slight bit nostalgic. I didn’t think I’d have that kind of reaction to this temporary home of mine. But there were years of memories with Tia, Dawn and Alfred, all linked to this place. Guess it wasn’t all bad.

I decided to make the best of the situation and restore the kids back to the realm of the living.

Same for our pets.

With some slight modifications.

No way could I just summon a pack of tempest wolves, a whole family of wannabe sabertooth tigers, or a unicorn right into the middle of civilization.

This called for an uplift.

I decided to start with the pets, just in case my Skills were somehow affected by the reload.

They weren’t.

The whole bunch seemed pretty disoriented at first. They couldn’t really speak, nor really stay on two feet without stumbling for more than a few seconds. Guess they were on the level of infants… not too surprising. I guess I would also need some time to adjust if I was reborn as a dog or a cat. At least they could skip right past the real infancy.

I went on to restore the kids to bodies modelled after their own at the time of the cataclysm.

With one exception.

Kei’s body was now female, modelled after her transformed appearance.

They all seemed confused and disoriented at first.

I tried to explain our situation to them, when Tia and the others returned.

The sudden change in time and space had not allowed them to stay unaffected either.

To them, it had seemed like a strange dream.

I would have been confused in their place too.

They hurried back home after confirming each other's stories.

Going by Tia and Dawn’s reactions, they must have feared to have lost the kids for good.

The reunion was touching, although it had only been a few hours for them.

I decided to give a visit to Isabella and Geber’s alchemy shop tomorrow, while Tia would be out trying to find Kentaro and Reiko.

Dawn and Alfred would stay home, in case any one of them would try to find us first.

The kids meanwhile were to be left in charge of our reborn former pets.

I thought about how to explain the whole scenario to my ‘mother’, but thinking back, she might not even return home any time soon or care about anything as long as Alfred could make up some story.

Meeting up with Akane, Koharu, and Loreley was a whole other issue on its own. But I decided to let Kentaro manage a meeting somehow. Otherwise we could just storm the place with the kids while transformed.

The other thing on my mind was the nature of our sudden demise.

Neither Tia nor Dawn had any clue on what could have happened back then in the future either.

Then Alfred spoke up. “I am not entirely sure,” he said. “I’ve never seen it with my own eyes. Well, at least until… Yesterday? But I’ve heard stories of this kind of weapon…”