The Extra of The Lunerra

As soon as I received Clara's message, I was on my way.

It was my free time, I also didn't have anything to cancel.

I wouldn't have cared even if I had something to cancel, though.

Because the moment I saw that message, I had a bad feeling.

I was in such a hurry that it only took me fifteen minutes to get from the academy to her house. I may have even made the driver break a few traffic rules.

And so I arrived in front of the house.

After becoming a member of the nobility, Clara naturally had to change her home, both moving closer to her school and moving from an apartment to a detached house. So, first of all, I had to enter the garden of the house...

The door to the garden opened by itself as I was approaching it.

She was probably waiting for my arrival.

Yeah, that must be it.

I entered the garden without slowing down. As I approached the house, I could only think of one thing.

Clara had never asked me for anything until now. Even when she had urgent matters, she hesitated to ask me for help, she wanted to deal with her own problems on her own.

That's why the significance of her wanting to meet me 'urgently' was even more than it normally would have been.

And for the same reason, I went inside quickly.

The sight I saw as soon as I passed through the door, which stood open as if waiting for me, caused me to pause involuntarily.

Clara was... inside.

She was sitting on the sofa in the center of the living room, looking at me with an expression that was both quite serious and a bit... timid.

The important thing, though...

She was safe.

As soon as I saw that she was okay, I felt a sense of relief. A weight lifted off my shoulders.

I slowly closed the door to the house. Then, since she didn't seem to have any physical problems, I approached her just as slowly and sat down on the couch right across from her.

I was the first to speak.

"What could be the matter that my dear sister would want us to discuss face to face, that's what I've been thinking since I saw your message."

I couldn't help squinting.

"You scared me, Clara. And my worries are not all gone. So... I think I'm right to ask for a quick and clear explanation."

Clara took a deep breath, then narrowed her eyes.

"I'm sorry for scaring you. But... I have something really important to say."

She straightened herself up slightly and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Listen to me carefully, brother. I don't want you to react too quickly."

At this point, the only thing keeping my body from trembling with nervousness was the Absolute Mind. But I ignored it, nodding my head.

And Clara... continued.

"As you know, I've been receiving training as a seer from Mr. Chazon. But, even without this training, my skill activates spontaneously sometimes, showing me things that are either essential or unnecessary."

So... she saw something important?

"And that's what I want to tell you."

She paused, clasping her hands together and averting her eyes.

"A few days ago, I saw something. Something I'm not quite sure what it was. And I'm also hesitant to tell you."

Normally, I would say, "What are you dragging out? Just tell me." here if someone told me the same things she said.

But... it was clear from her every gesture that she was still unsure whether to say what she wanted to say.

So I just nodded my head and waited patiently.

Eventually...

"I saw a girl, in that vision. A little girl about five years old. She was in a... room, a closed room with some creatures that she had killed with her hands."

My mind started working fast after these words.

A girl, huh...

A girl of about five years old.

Was there a girl in the game who was about five years old at this point in the story and had an important role?

She must have been strong to be able to kill several creatures...

Then she cannot be human.

No, if she is five years old, she cannot be of any race let alone human. Even for other races, a five-year-old is just a little child who knows nothing about the world, who cannot control their abilities properly.

These were my thoughts.

But, then, I paused.

Actually... she could be a fae.

Even the fae as children can be quite frightening sometimes.

"She was dark-haired, I couldn't see her eyes. She was wearing only a white one-piece outfit."

A five-year-old fae with black hair...

Well... I don't remember anybody like that from the game.

In fact, I don't remember any significant character with black hair who is five years old at this point in the story directly in the game.

"Now... please calm down, at least try to be so."

...

Okay, this is a lot scarier than I thought it would be.

"The person I saw... looked like someone. Someone I know. At least when she was younger."

I squinted slightly and Clara, unlike the previous times, went straight to her words.

But...

"She looked like Olivia."

What came out of her mouth, no matter how much she warned me, made me freeze in my tracks.

"No... she was exactly the same."

Time seemed to stop. I couldn't hear much anyway because we were inside the house, but I felt like I was in a place where sound couldn't reach.

"What...?"

Sue?

I don't know why, I just stood up on my own.

I didn't even reach for my cane. I simply walked in front of Clara, ignoring the pain in my foot, barely even feeling it.

I crouched down, put my hands on her shoulders, and looked into her eyes, just as she did, without blinking my own for a single moment.

"Clara... did that vision show you Sue?"

She nodded her head up and down as lightly as she could without saying anything.

"When she was little, about five?"

Again.

"In a room where she had killed some 'creatures'?"

And again.

...

My mind refused to work.

I wanted to think, I wanted to replay what she said over and over again in my head.

But... I couldn't.

I just stood there like that.

"..."

"At first, I thought about not telling you. But then I realized that not telling you was causing other problems on their own."

Sue.

When she was five years old.

Killed creatures?

As a 'human being'?

...

Impossible.

"Clara... tell me every detail of what you saw."

And she did. Everything, from beginning to end, even if it was quite short. Even what the creatures whose bodies she saw looked like.

And the more I listened to her, the more illogical it all seemed.

The creatures, if my guess was right, would have been at least around D grade.

It was literally impossible for Sue's five-year-old self to kill them.

And even if she could, she was... an ordinary person.

If she had that kind of power, she would have been a very different person. It would have been just as absurd for her to die in Wiathen.

Then... there was only one scenario.

That this was the future, not the past.

"Sith…"

Sith suddenly appeared beside me, glancing briefly in Clara's direction. Clara looked back at him.

"Correct me if I'm wrong."

But then they both focused on me without exchanging a single word between them.

"In this universe... there is no way to rewind death, right?"

He never changed his expression, he kept looking at me with the same eyes. And he answered in the same way.

"There is not."

His voice echoed directly in my ears, not in my mind, for he did not bother to disguise himself like he usually did.

"For spiritual death, at least."

He continued without even giving me a chance to think.

"But remember this, Aiden. That girl died in your arms. I watched her soul fade with my own eyes."

He floated slowly in front of me, closer, as if he didn't want me to focus on anything but him.

"There is no way to restore a soul that has been extinguished. The closest thing that can be done is replication. And even then, the person who emerges is not 'the same' as before. It is a clone of that person. You should know that well."

...

I know.

That's why I started my question by saying 'Correct me if I'm wrong'.

On Lunerra, death is an inevitable end.

The soul, once it has reached its end, cannot be brought back into existence in any way.

Even what the phoenixes do follows these rules. They prevent their souls from being completely extinguished, and then they use their techniques to create the perfect body for these souls to inhabit before they disappear completely.

Then...

Why did Clara see such a thing?

Is it really possible that what she saw was actually 'the past'?

My eyes involuntarily turned toward her.

Clara was experimented on as a child, and I still don't know exactly what happened to her.

She was even younger than Sue in the vision if I'm not mistaken.

So much so that her heart was changed, and even though she's not really talented, her special heart allows her to do things that no one else can do at her level.

But... it wasn't long ago that her powers woke up.

Only recently has she begun to see the benefit of past experiments.

"Ah..."

Was it the same for Sue?

Was she subjected to some experiments too?

Only, unlike Clara, she died before her powers could awaken...

Is that it?

...

Is that why Paul's connection with Saligia was not random?

Suddenly, my mind was filled with different possibilities. Tons of possibilities that could have happened or could not have happened.

Yes, maybe Sue was... gone.

Paul wasn't alive either.

Their past was of no use to me now in any way. No matter how much I learned about them, all I would havein the end... was information that no longer mattered.

Nevertheless.

Despite this...

I need it.

My eyes squinted. My mind cleared with the small amount of mana I had purposely poured into the Absolute Mind.

I slowly turned to Clara.

"Thank you for deciding not to hide what you saw."

I want to know.

"If you see anything about Sue or... Paul, from now on, tell me. Okay?"

I want to know what Sue went through... even if it won't do me any good.

"Okay."