Richard Astherson
I never grew up in the Goldcliffe City Slums. I was born in the dragonoid-friendly city, Vanilla City. My father was the private bodyguard of Duke Geralt Fleuret, and my mother is a housewife. We had a tiny bungalow and my family's finances are generally high if you compare it to an average dragonoid family.
When I was four, my father would take me to the Fleuret Manor. Duke Fleuret would hire a sword instructor for me to study basic sword combat for the reason that I will be the successor of my father's position. Also, Duke Fleuret would want to have me as a bodyguard for his only daughter.
Duke Fleuret has a beautiful daughter, named Reina. Her golden blonde hair looks like jewelry, and her emerald green eyes also look like gems (spare me this description, dragonoids like me didn't have any education on Literature and Advanced English.) She is the best treasure of the Fleuret household. She had the same age as mine at that time, and unlike me who only studies to become a powerful dragonoid, she studies to be an elegant lady. (She had a background on Literature and Advanced English.)
Reina would often watch me in the distance. A keen observer, she watches me train and train until my sword skills get better. Days, and weeks, and months have passed. I noticed that she was practicing the very same sword lessons on an empty library, or sometimes in the training hall. She hid it to her mother and father in fear of being unaccepted. No parents would want to have their daughter fight in the battlefield after all.
When I caught her practicing, I decided to teach her whatever I learned on my lessons. Because of this, we became closer and closer until we're finally teenagers. That's where I learned a lot from her.
She has an incredibly high rate of pick up on theories and applications of sword arts. Even though she's a lot better in sword plays than me, she's not a tomboy. In fact, all her etiquette is more ladylike unlike most duchesses out there. She's very aristocratic and very picky about food. She would wear white gloves every time she goes out of the manor, and avoid any skin contact with anyone as possible.
But there are exceptions.
We were fifteen when she first held out my hand.
After a one-hour sparring on their garden, we managed to sit on their vast grass field and stare on the falling sun on the horizon. Our spar resulted to her win, even though our skills are evenly matched. I held back because I don't want to hurt the woman I would protect in the future. And the duke might kill me if I did.
"Hand." Reina immediately said out of the blue.
"Huh?" I tilted my head, completely unaware of what she's talking about.
"Hand." She repeated. It's like a master who's commanding her dog to raise its paws to her.
I leant out my hand to her. To my surprise, she took off those gloves and locked hands at me. At that very moment, the two of us were blushing. My heart quintupled in speed, and there's a butterfly on my stomach. Actually, our chests are glowing bright. Literally. The only missing is the oath in order for us to activate Vesryn Pulse at this state.
"I am planning to enter the Dragon Knight's Academy. I'm commanding you to stay by my side for the rest of your life." She said in a joyful manner. "Don't worry about my parents. They would understand my life choice as time goes by."
"Yes, milady." I softly clenched our locked hands. "I would follow you to the depths of hell, or to the gateway of heaven. Until death do us part."
This promise might sound like some lines stripped off from a marriage ceremony, but who cares. I love her.
But our love has been cut.
The Crimson Dragonfly; the black gargantuan high-tech robotic dragon that has the wings of red eternal flames. No one knows who or what it was, nor its origins or its proprietors. It just emerged in the center of Vanilla City without warning.
The Crimson Dragonfly charged a particle bomb on its mouth and released a photonic light beams that reduced the whole city into ashes. After making a catastrophe, it immediately vanished into thin air.
Among the fifty-thousand victim of this calamity is Reina's mother. That is why she has a grave grudge on the Crimson Dragonfly. She pledged on her dead mother that she will get her revenge, no matter what.
After a few weeks, a new disaster happened. The massacre of two-thousand helpless dragonoids in a mall in Highwind City. This ignited the Third Dragonoid War, and the birth of the terrorist group Arcadia.
During the war, my mother was slaughtered by unidentified Dragon Knights, even though she's just a civilian and didn't have any faction in that war. At that time, I hated Duke Fleuret and my father for not able to do anything just to save my mother. From my eyes, they appeared like a lion who kept running away from an angry antelope.
I wanted to do something, to get vengeance for my mother. My hate for Dragon Knights is just as colossal as Reina's hate for the Crimson Dragonfly.
That is where my life changed.
I met Airelina Frembell, who is the second-in-command of the Arcadia. She recruited me and promised to help me grant vengeance. At that time, Reina has been preparing for her entrance to the Dragon Knight's Academy, and hone her skills to finally hunt and kill the Crimson Dragonfly.
We last met three years ago, in Airelina's inn in the slums, a few months before the operation of blasting power plants in Goldcliffe City.
"I heard that you've joined Arcadia." Reina said. Unlike before, she looks more composed and stricter. "We may be fighting, not sparring, next time. We might end up killing each other. I know your reasons, but are you really sure about it?"
"I have already cemented my resolve. I would eliminate every last one Dragon Knight, except you." I said with a fake smile. "I hated Dragon Knights, but even if you're already one, I can't have you killed. I promised to protect you until my death, and I'm planning to keep that."
"The Arcadia certainly knows something about the Crimson Dragonfly. I will catch every last one of them, except you too." Then she left bitterly.
That was the last time we saw each other. On my first life, that is.
I wanted to know more about the Crimson Dragonfly in order to minimize the casualties of Arcadian members on Reina's hands, but everyone is denying that they know something.
I know that Reina investigated about the murder of my mother, but it would certainly lead to dead end. There were no proof, identity, or anything that would help me know who's the definite killer. Dragon Knights will never remember the names, or the faces of the countless ones they killed during a war.
That is why I have to kill them all, just to be sure.
Now that I've been revived, I am now questioning myself why would I be gifted with a second life?
Was it to fulfill my promise on murdering the Dragon Knights?
Was it to finally give up and let go, living in peace for the rest of my new life?
Or was it to continue my sweet memories with Reina, and fulfill my promise to protect her till the end of my last breath?