"With the golden glow of dawn upon his chest and the echo of ancient promises in his heart, a man rose, ready to defy fate and forge a new path where shadows could not reach the light." —Excerpt from Volume 1 of The Reborn Hero.


    In a situation beyond reason… how would you handle yourself? That was the fleeting thought of a young man sitting on a hospital bed.


    Downcast, glassy eyes wandered around the room with a hollow expression. The white walls, with their sterile coldness, seemed to mock him, a reflection of his immature stupidity. The faint tingling on his cheek, reddened and marked by the imprint of a woman''s hand, was a painful reminder that this was no bad dream. That… there was no escape.


    He raised a trembling hand and observed the bandages wrapped around his knuckles. The white gauze, stained with traces of dried blood, felt like a silent mockery of his own recklessness. The wound throbbed with a sharp pain, undeniable proof that this body—though different from the one he remembered—was real. As real as the dense, antiseptic-laden air that forced him to breathe through his mouth. With each inhalation, his bewilderment deepened. As if his very body were confirming, again and again, that this place existed, that his new reality was no fleeting illusion.


    He felt trapped in an invisible prison, where his jailer was none other than himself. He had no other way to describe it.


    A door opened with a dry snap. The figure of a nurse, clad in a white uniform and carrying an impatient air, stepped into the infirmary. The woman, with blonde hair and a face hardened by exasperation, crossed her arms. Her severe blue eyes landed on him.


    "Honestly… I can''t believe your recklessness, Brián," her voice, firm but not devoid of concern, broke the heavy silence. "Look at your hand—you even damaged the nerves. What would have happened if I hadn’t been nearby? You would’ve bled out in minutes."


    Her words barely reached him. His mind remained trapped in a hazy boundary between disbelief and exhaustion. Nothing she said could convince him that this wasn''t an endless nightmare.


    "You need to stop getting into trouble—or looking for it," the nurse continued with a sigh, her voice losing its harshness. "You''re young, and you entered this Academy on your own merit. That says a lot about you, despite not coming from a noble family to back you up. You have an opportunity many would kill for, and you''re simply wasting it."


    He kept his gaze down, staring at the bandage as if he could find some kind of answer in it.


    "And all for that girl. You''re intelligent, but you''re wasting your potential on this obsession of yours."


    That phrase, spoken with a hint of sadness, struck harder than the slap on his cheek. Obsession. That word, heavy with judgment, pierced him deeper than he expected. His jaw tensed, his other hand clutching the sheets with a strength he hadn’t even noticed at first. Why did it hurt so much to hear it?


    The burning in his eyes threatened to become something more. He didn’t understand why, but those words had struck him to his core.


    "I… I''m sorry," he finally whispered. His voice emerged as a distant echo of himself, a murmur that seemed to drift aimlessly in the clinical air of the room. The nurse watched him in silence. Her expression softened, the hardness in her features easing slightly.


    "It''s okay," she said at last, in a gentler tone. "I''ll let it slide for today, but I don''t want to see you here tomorrow, understood? And please, take my advice seriously."


    For a moment, the nurse leaned slightly toward him, a small smile playing on her lips—a fleeting warmth that reminded him of a sun from a lost day. "Ah, and sorry about the slap… that was an accident. You weren’t responding to my calls, so I had no choice," she joked lightly, adjusting the white cap on her head, adorned with symbols he didn’t recognize.


    He didn’t respond. He only turned his gaze toward the window, where the evening light was beginning to filter through the curtains.


    The nurse stepped back with measured precision, settling into place with the same practiced ease she used to heal wounds. With calculated movements, she slid a hand into the small leather pouch tied to her waist and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper—fragile, so thin it seemed on the verge of disintegrating between her fingers.


    "Now, stay still and close your eyes. Just focus on your breathing," she ordered, her tone firm but calm. Then, as if her thoughts had taken an unexpected turn, she added in a low voice, "You know… I''ve been thinking about something. That mirror you broke was of very high quality. And your collapse… there''s something about all of this that doesn’t add up."


    She gave no further explanation. Her fingers, nimble and light, began to move over the paper with precision, tracing invisible symbols at a speed that defied logic, like a painter drawing on an unseen canvas. He obediently closed his eyes, not fully understanding what he had just been caught up in.


    But then, a blue glow pierced through his closed eyelids, pulsing and ethereal. Instinctively, he opened them… and what he saw stole the breath from his lungs.


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    The paper in the nurse’s hands shone with a vibrant radiance—first blue, then a flickering aquamarine green—an energy flow that twisted as if it had a life of its own. The luminescence trembled and danced in the air before fading in a few blinks, leaving behind a set of intricate symbols, mystical scribbles that swirled on the paper’s surface, as if they had been engraved upon it with liquid fire.


    He didn’t understand their meaning, but the nurse did. Her eyes traced each line with absolute focus. And with every word she deciphered, her expression shifted—calm giving way to a mix of disbelief and astonishment.


    Suddenly, she brought a hand to her mouth, as if what she was reading was too shocking to say aloud. She turned to him, and when their eyes met, he knew—without needing to hear it—that something troublesome was coming at him like a bullet.


    "Brián… what I’m about to tell you, you must not repeat to anyone." The nurse’s tone had changed. It was grave. Firm. Laden with a weight he could not yet comprehend.


    "Your trait and your abilities… they’ve strengthened. Far more than they should have. And moreover…" She hesitated, unsure if she should say it out loud. Finally, she took a deep breath and continued. "You’ve awakened an innate ability. Something extremely rare among humans."


    The silence that followed was heavy. Almost suffocating.


    The words innate ability hung between them, dense and weighted with a meaning he couldn’t yet grasp.


    What the hell was happening?


    The reality he thought he knew was unraveling before him in an unexpected, dizzying way. The situation was overwhelming him, driving him mad.


    He felt no joy. No excitement. Only a deep unease, a sharp sting of pessimism that darkened what, in another context, might have been a moment of discovery.


    His mind buzzed with questions he couldn’t voice, trapped in the whirlwind of uncertainty that engulfed him. The light. The paper. The ability. And that uncertain fate that, without his knowledge, had been calling to him from the very beginning. But the fear of the unknown, of the truth barely hinted at in the shadows, paralyzed him.


    The nurse’s blue eyes settled on him with a softer expression. In his dimmed gaze, she saw a shadow of something familiar. A reflection.


    Selene—named after her late mother—sighed. She couldn’t help it. There was something about Brián that stirred a deep compassion in her. Not just because of his story, because of the tragedy of being an orphan who had lost everything in the blink of an eye… but because, in some way, she saw in him a version of herself.


    A reflection of her own past, of that time when her own obsession had led her to make too many mistakes she now regretted.


    Her gaze softened for a moment, as a wave of empathy washed over her.


    Brián Morningstar… A boy who had survived something that had condemned him from the moment it happened. Originally from a small town, he was one of the only two survivors of a devastating attack. A tragedy, a massacre that had erased countless lives due to the proximity of his home to the border of the war-torn nation of Berkroa.


    Seraphim Academy, recognizing his intellectual talent, had granted him a privilege reserved for a select few: free lodging in the school dormitories. Only those with exceptional merit—or families wealthy enough to ensure their children stayed away from home—enjoyed this benefit. For Brián, this opportunity would last until his graduation, as long as he maintained an impeccable academic performance. But the young man sitting before her seemed further and further from reaching that standard.


    Brián was caught in something far more dangerous than mediocrity: an obsession. An emotional fixation that, in Selene’s eyes, did not bode well. He had clung to the only other survivor of that fateful attack as if his very existence depended on her, as if he found in her presence an echo of the life he had lost.


    Selene was not unfeeling; she understood, to some extent, where those emotions came from. Loss, trauma, the need to hold on to what remained of a shattered past… But that didn’t change reality. She knew the price of his distraction could be devastating. If Brián failed to meet academic expectations, he would lose everything. Oh, it wouldn’t be a formal expulsion, of course. The Academy would simply revoke his right to lodging, leaving him with nowhere to sleep. And without connections, without a family to support him, survival would become a challenge in itself.


    Deep down, Selene knew exactly what that meant. Without a place to sleep, the daily burdens and worries would consume him. His studies would suffer, his performance would plummet, and before he even realized it, the Academy would spit him out like worthless waste.


    Selene sighed, narrowing her eyes as she observed him carefully. The young man, sitting on the bed, seemed oblivious to the shadow of his own fate, caught in the tangled web of a desperate infatuation—one that, by all appearances, was not reciprocated. It wasn’t hard to see what was happening: his gestures, his distant gaze, the way his mind wandered to a place beyond her reach.


    She couldn’t interfere directly. She had no right to decide which path this young man would take. But she could at least make sure Brián became aware of his reality before it was too late.


    "Listen, Brián," she said, her voice soft yet firm. "You and I need to have a long conversation about this situation… about the new complexity ahead of you."


    As she spoke, she idly played with the folds of her uniform, as if smoothing the fabric helped her organize her thoughts. She knew that what she was about to say could affect him deeply, so she chose her words with care.


    "After what I’m going to tell you, it’ll be up to you whether you reveal it or keep it secret," she continued. "But if you ask me… I think it’s safer if you keep it to yourself."


    Selene knew the Academy all too well. She knew Brián had no noble lineage to back him up, no powerful connections to protect him. And above all, she knew the greed of the Headmaster. If the truth about the boy’s innate ability came to light too soon—without the proper preparation—he could become a pawn in someone else’s game.


    Thus began a long conversation—an exchange of confidences and warnings about the world Brián had unknowingly plunged into. Where Selene had completely misread the situation, because the young man’s real worries were not about his now-forgotten infatuation, but rather…


    How the hell did I end up in this absolute mess?


    Brián, with his aquamarine-green hair and eyes dulled by exhaustion, listened more out of inertia than true intent. The nurse spoke with a mix of bluntness and genuine concern, a tone that felt foreign to him—but in some way, it disarmed him. He hadn’t expected someone like her to care so much about his future.


    And so, little by little, the harshness of reality began to push aside the shadows of his daydreams.


    At least, for a moment.