Path of the Extra

Sitting opposite the silver-haired boy, Azriel didn't know what to say.

From the moment he arrived, it had been one surprise after another.

'What a crazy person... I mean, who almost attacks the person they invited!?'

Perhaps he should have just stayed with his father...

Unable to bear the silence any longer, Azriel spoke.

"...What is your name?"

The boy blinked at him a few times as if still processing what Azriel had just said.

A look of understanding came to his face as he nodded.

'What is up with this guy...?'

"...Nol. My name is Nol."

Azriel nodded in acknowledgment.

"Alright, Nol. My name is-"

"Azriel. Azriel Crimson. I know perfectly well who you are."

"R-right..."

'I guess that makes sense; otherwise, he couldn't have exactly sent me an invitation.'

But the question still remained.

Why?

"You really don't remember, huh..."

'Remember?'

Azriel looked confused at Nol.

"You are the one who named me Nol."

"...!"

Azriel's eyes widened.

Named him?

How was that possible?

He was sure he had no memories of such a person, let alone naming him.

Besides...

'Did I name him when I was a baby or something...?'

That was impossible.

Azriel was convinced that Nol was simply... crazy.

"You don't believe me?"

"I don't."

How could he?

It was ridiculous, to say the least.

"I don't remember meeting you ever in my life."

"I thought as much..."

Nol went silent for a few seconds until a tired sigh escaped his lips.

"...I guess we should start from the beginning."

"Sure."

No matter what Nol said, Azriel was sure it was just crazy talk.

Honestly, he had already accepted the invitation, so couldn't he just go back?

But how?

'How troublesome...'

"You and I met for the first time more than a year ago."

"...!"

Azriel almost stood up in shock hearing his words.

'W-what... a year ago?'

Impossible.

He was supposed to be dead...

He was about to speak until Nol continued.

"Let me finish. It will all make sense after I'm done, or at least kind of..."

"..."

In the end, Azriel reluctantly nodded.

"Ever since I can remember, I have always been here."

Azriel looked at him in shock again but didn't interrupt.

"I had no name, no dreams, nor any will," Nol continued.

Simply put...

"I was an empty shell."

His eyes gazed above Azriel while his lips gently curved upward, reminiscing about his distant past.

"Locked in this prison, a warden and an inmate at the same time. Time here is weird. It flows slower than outside, but a day here feels like ten years while ten years feel like a day."

What he said confused Azriel, but at the same time, he felt like Nol was right.

It felt like his perception of time was getting messed up in here.

'I need to leave soon...'

"Then one day, you came here... the first person I ever laid my eyes upon. You looked beaten and battered yet relieved after finally finding a place to rest."

The more he spoke, the more Azriel became confused.

He had already figured out that this was a separate space.

How did he manage to arrive in this place?

It didn't add up...

"I didn't have any means to heal you, so you spent your days here with me until you recovered. If I had to guess, it took four whole months for you to recover from those injuries."

Azriel sucked in a cold breath.

Four months...

Just how injured was he?

"In those four months, you taught me everything there was to know about the void realm and earth. You named me, mentored me, and gave me dreams."

He spoke passionately about their time together, to the point that Azriel was starting to believe him.

"Unfortunately..." Nol suddenly grimaced.

"nothing lasts forever. Your injuries healed, and you made a full recovery. It was time for you to leave. Of course, you couldn't leave this place without my permission, but..."

His eyes locked with Azriel's.

"You made me a promise."

Saying that, Nol suddenly raised his right hand and then removed a ring from it.

"...!"

The ring... It was Azriel's.

His storage ring that he had gotten from his parents on his 13th birthday.

Clink-!

The ring spun briefly on the marble table before finally settling with a soft, resonant chime.

Its obsidian surface almost sucked all the light in the hall.

Azriel looked at him in shock and confusion.

"How...?"

"You gave it to me as a promise. A promise that you would return and a reminder of you, who I consider my master,"

Nol spoke calmly, but each word made Azriel feel the opposite.

"With your help, I even learned more about what I can do in here and how this place is my unique skill, White Haven. I can invite people to come here, though it takes a toll on my mana, and anyone who accepts is not allowed to use their powers here."

Nol narrowed his eyes dangerously toward Azriel, making him break out in a cold sweat.

"Yet whenever I invited you, you never accepted. I was starting to think that you abandoned me."

"But... it wasn't that you abandoned me; you simply forgot about me. No, not just me—you forgot a lot, didn't you?"

Azriel nodded his head this time. He had no memories of the last two years. He had thought it was because he was dead, but...

It seems he was wrong.

He didn't die.

Somehow.

"This chessboard... you were the one who taught me how to play,"

"Saying that the one who taught you how to play was your father,"

Azriel froze.

He felt his throat go dry because...

"...What did you just say?"

His father, Joaquin, never taught him how to play chess.

No.

It was Leo's father who taught him how to play chess.

"That your father taught you how to play chess..." Nol repeated, looking confused.

'What does this exactly mean...?' Azriel thought, his mind racing.

"How did I arrive here if you didn't even invite me?"

Azriel asked, trying to piece everything together.

Nol merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Beats me. You arrived here out of nowhere. At first, master, you were acting all weird and stuff, saying how you didn't belong here and were about to die from void creatures when you were just reading some kind of book mere minutes ago."

"After almost dying, you lost consciousness and arrived here,"

"Heh, I think that was the first time I actually laughed... you were so weird at first."

Azriel was getting a headache.

What did all of this mean?

Didn't he teleport to Europe when he first arrived in this world?

'Those two missing years... that wasn't because of the previous Azriel being dead. No... it was me taking his body, but...'

He had lost his memories.

'How...?'

Just what happened in those two years?

"I told you my name was Azriel Crimson, right?"

To his surprise, Nol shook his head.

"Not at first. Only after an entire month did you reveal your name to me."

Right now, it felt like Azriel was trying to complete a puzzle without having all the pieces.

'I need to find a different approach...'

"How can you invite a person?"

"There are two conditions I need to meet for inviting a person to White Haven. First, I need to have a little bit of their blood, and second, I need to know their full name."

'That's...'

Inconvenient.

Wasn't it basically impossible to invite someone when he couldn't even leave this place?

How was he supposed to acquire one's name or blood?

'Yet I somehow arrived here without those conditions...'

But Nol couldn't invite him this entire time until today.

"If I'm honest, after you left, someone else managed to get here without meeting those conditions."

"Huh? Who did?"

"A person that goes by the name Dante."