He had been a slave from the moment he reincarnated in that world. The underground mines had molded him with hardships, had marked him with humiliations. His existence offered no value in any market.
"This is not human territory. Places like this are governed by different laws from those of human territories..."
Mavis observed him attentively.
Her gaze showed no contempt, but neither empathy. Upon noticing his youth, she explained with simple words, as if speaking to someone who had never known the real world.
"The life of people who are at the edge of death passes to be property of whoever shelters them..."
Atom frowned.
The phrase left him disoriented.
Was she referring to the stellar beasts? Or was she speaking of herself? The ambiguity disturbed him more than the threat.
"What is it that you do not understand? Your life belongs to me now."
Mavis pointed at him with her index finger.
She did not raise her voice. She did not need to do it.
The certainty in her tone was enough for Atom to understand that she was not speaking in metaphors.
"But I do not have money..."
The phrase came out like a whisper.
It was not an excuse. It was a confession.
Atom not only lacked resources. He lacked value in that system. His life, until that moment, had not generated wealth, only wear.
Before Mavis could respond, the night sky altered.
A spiral formed over them, composed of dozens of creatures that descended from the heights. At first glance they seemed like birds of prey, but their appearance revealed a much more sinister nature.
The scene already resulted horrifying, but the most terrifying was not the way they moved, but the fact that all of them directed themselves directly toward Atom.
Each one had the size of an eagle, with wide wings and dark feathers. But their bodies showed impossible deformities. Human hair, dirty and tangled, covered their heads.
Their faces presented multiple eyes aligned horizontally, and their jaws exhibited rows of curved fangs like those of a shark.
There was no doubt that those creatures did not hunt by instinct. They hunted by design.
"I have already told you that here the laws are different from those of the human territories, right?"
Atom cowered on the ground. He did not do it by strategy. He did it by desperation.
He had no weapons, nor strength, nor magic. He could not offer resistance. All his life had been a sequence of impotence. This time would not be different.
His only defense was his body, fragile, vulnerable, exposed.
But before the creatures could pounce on him, Mavis appeared in front of him like a ghost.
"Those are Alaplagas of the forest. Their specialty is devouring human bodies. In exchange, they carry souls to the kingdom of the dead. They are hungry, did you know? All because they cannot eat you."
Her voice did not tremble. She showed no fear.
But Atom was not surprised by her explanation but by what happened next.
Upon seeing her, all the creatures stopped. Then they turned in the air and moved away without emitting sound. It was not about respect. It was about recognition.
None dared to approach.
It seemed that not even they had the courage to face the woman who now found herself next to Atom.
"Hurry up and get moving. You will come with me. I explained it before: now you belong to me."
Atom opened his mouth, ready to respond, but his world darkened without prior warning. Reality faded as if someone had turned off the light from within his mind.
"Atom... Come... Atom..."
A feminine voice called him from behind. It was not any voice. It was that voice. The only one that could pierce his armor without effort.
Atom's heart lost control.
He recognized the timbre with a certainty that left no space for doubts. He froze. Then, slowly, he turned around.
"Atom... Come..."
In front of him appeared a figure that should not be there. Reddish brown hair, brilliant like mahogany, gathered in a braid that descended gracefully over a back covered by a dark dress. Emerald eyes that evoked the exuberance of nature, clean, deep, alive.
The woman he had tried to forget for so long. His mother in this life.
"Mama...?" he murmured, incredulous.
His deceased mother was there, as beautiful as the day he lost her. Exactly as he remembered her in his most painful dreams.
Vanessa had not aged. She had not changed. She conserved that sweet smile that he had adored since childhood.
Atom gritted his teeth with such force that he felt pain in his jaw. He knew it was not real. He understood it from the first moment.
But he could not look away.
He could not.
She approached with that expression he had longed for during years, and he had no strength to resist it.
On the other side appeared his deceased father.
Will. A corpulent man, of little more than twenty-five years. Attractive, with gray eyes, gallant, slender. His presence imposed respect, but his gaze transmitted warmth.
Atom closed his eyes tightly.
Silent tears descended down his cheeks. His rational mind tried to resist, but his heart had already yielded. The internal battle became bitter, melancholic, impossible to win.
And next to his father, in front of him, was the most adorable girl he had seen in his life.
Her eyes confirmed what his soul already knew. It was Aurore. His younger sister. The girl who had been kidnapped in front of his eyes shortly after she awakened as Illuminated.
The girl he had not been able to protect.
The long hair, disheveled, white like a freshly bloomed rose, fell over her shoulders. Up close, that disorder seemed more swan plumage than hair. Soft, wavy, as if the wind had touched it delicately.
The bangs barely covered half of her forehead, leaving uncovered an oval and tiny face. Her round eyes, silver, moved restlessly under Atom's perplexed gaze.
She radiated an innocence so pure that she could melt the most hardened heart. She seemed like a doll, not for her beauty, but for the fragility she inspired. She urged whoever saw her to hold her, to protect her, to never let her fall.
Atom trembled. His body impelled him to approach, to touch her, to embrace her one last time.
Aurore was there.
Not in a memory. Not in an image.
In front of him.
He clenched his fists tightly trying to control the anguish that drowned him like black roots climbing up his throat.
It was too much weight tied to his back, too much regret in his conscience that crushed him like a wall of laments over the soul.
Five years.
Back then, Aurore had been five years old. An age when the world still seemed safe, when innocence knew no limits.
Atom did not formulate common questions. Those that arose in his mind could only be directed to God.
Why did He allow the Holy Church to take her away?
Why did He let Aurore reach five years?
Why did He not remove her from the world before, when the bond had not yet formed completely?
Why did He allow her existence to intertwine with his?
Why did He make her be born in his family?
Why did He make her his younger sister?
Each question did not seek comfort. It sought meaning in the midst of pain. Atom did not desire explanations. He desired a reason that justified the suffering.
But he did not find it.
He only found silence.
His crystalline eyes filled with tears. Soon, he began to shed copious tears with a profoundly anguished and desolate expression.
He approached more. His face reflected a sadness he could not hide. A misfortune that drilled his chest like a crow pecking at the heart.
He extended his arms. He wanted to embrace his mother. He wanted to feel her. He wanted to return to that instant when everything made sense.
But just when he was about to touch her, the illusion dissolved. What before had been Vanessa's arm revealed itself as a claw. An alaplaga claw that held Atom's hand tightly.
The creature had deceived him.
It had trapped him in his most vulnerable memory. And now it held him with the intention of dragging him to the kingdom of the dead.