The orphanage building was closer to an old country house than what Loki had imagined when he heard the words "care home."
Weathered wooden walls, but clean. A low fence around a small yard. The smell of stale bread drifting from an open window.
Standing at the door was a man in his middle years, arms folded across his chest. His face didn’t show worry so much as a cold appraisal of anyone who came near him.
"So you came back." The man said without moving from his spot, looking at Loki like he was inspecting a shipment that arrived late.
"After all this time, you chose to come back instead of dying in the forest and saving me the trouble of feeding you."
Loki didn’t answer right away. He studied the man carefully: the dry tone, the complete lack of any real worry that a guardian of a child who’d been missing all day should have, and the way he said the word "feeding you" like it was a burden more than a responsibility.
A man who saw the people around him as either resources or burdens. Nothing in between.
He wouldn’t be easy to fool. But he also wouldn’t be the type to dig deep for the truth. That took attention, and he didn’t seem to have any.
"I’m sorry." Loki said finally, in a carefully measured calm voice. "It won’t happen again."
The Caretaker stared at him for two more seconds, as if he sensed something he couldn’t quite name. Then he exhaled audibly and turned to go inside.
"Come in. We need to talk."
They sat in a small room. A simple wooden table and four chairs that didn’t quite match.
The Caretaker motioned for Loki to sit, while Kaiden and Lucy stood by the door, unsure if they should join or leave.
"I heard you rejected the Academy." The Caretaker started without preamble, eyes locked sharply on Loki.
"And that’s why you ran away."
"Yes." Loki said, trying to balance the honesty the situation demanded with the caution demanded by his complete ignorance of what the original Loki had said in that argument.
Loki expected a scolding or pressure to follow, the way guardian figures did in a hundred other novels he’d read.
But the Caretaker surprised him.
"I won’t control your decisions." He said dryly, like he was reading an official statement, not a personal opinion.
"If you don’t want to go to the Academy, we won’t force you. Your life is yours. Your mistakes will be yours too. And I won’t bear the blame for them."
Kaiden’s eyes widened at the door, like he hadn’t expected this reply as much as Loki himself had.
Even Lucy looked surprised, staring at the Caretaker with something close to disbelief.
Loki thought fast. There was nothing in the Caretaker’s words that sounded like care.
He didn’t try to convince him. He didn’t even ask why he refused.
He just lifted the responsibility off himself, like he was shrugging off a burden and didn’t want to invest any emotional effort into convincing a child he didn’t really care about the fate of.
This type of character sometimes appeared in novels as the silent wise man who let the heroes find their own path. But Loki knew the difference between wisdom and coldness.
This was coldness. Not wisdom.
"Thank you." Loki said in a calm voice, even though what he was thinking was completely different.
_Kaiden will build his harem at that Academy, no doubt. While I’m here trying to figure out why no one cares whether I live or die._
A passing thought, but it reminded him that this world, no matter how familiar its details seemed, would not treat him with the usual kindness given to protagonists.
Lucy suddenly broke the silence, as if she’d been waiting for a chance to ask the question that had been bothering her since they got back.
"Loki, I saw the corpse of a low-rank beast near you in the forest. Near where we found you."
She paused for a moment, eyes examining him carefully.
"Did you kill it?"
Loki knew immediately which creature she meant. There was no point pretending ignorance. The corpse was there. Any attempt to deny it would look more suspicious than a simple admission.
"Yes." He said calmly. "I didn’t plan it. It attacked me while I was lying on the ground. My hand moved before I thought."
A brief silence.
The Caretaker looked at him with new scrutiny, as if the answer had made him re-evaluate all of Loki.
"Low-rank." He repeated the word as if weighing it. "Lucky." He added in a tone that held more warning than admiration.
"If you’d run into a mid-rank beast instead, you’d be dead before you even realized you were in danger.
The difference isn’t just in strength. It’s in speed. A mid-rank beast would have taken your head off before you finished your first sentence."
Loki felt no urge to argue. He already knew he’d been lucky. But hearing it this clearly from someone who seemed to know this world well added a new layer of caution to how he assessed the situation.
Every step he took from now on would have to be calculated more carefully.
The conversation ended there. The Caretaker stood up and left the room without a word of goodbye, leaving the three of them alone.
Kaiden finally exhaled with obvious relief, as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time.
"So, you’re not coming with us." Kaiden said, with a mix of disappointment and curiosity in his voice.
"Alright. That’s your decision."
Then he stopped, and a smile started forming on his face. The kind of smile that always came before an idea that was hard to refuse.
"But before I go, there’s something I want to try."
Loki raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"A sparring match." Kaiden said simply, like he was suggesting a Sunday afternoon walk, not a fight.
"I’ve never seen you fight for real. And you said you dropped a low-rank beast with one punch. I want to see that for myself."
Lucy hesitated suddenly. "Kaiden, don’t you think that’s unfair? You—"
"I’ll hold back, don’t worry." Kaiden cut her off with a confident smile, then looked back at Loki.
"What do you think?"
Loki thought fast. He didn’t know much about Kaiden’s real abilities. But Lucy’s worried tone, and Kaiden’s calm confidence that didn’t waver even when suggesting a fight against a friend who’d just lost his memory, were enough to set off his alarm.
If Kaiden was really the protagonist of this novel, then it was very likely he wasn’t a normal beginner, no matter how he looked on the surface.
"Why not?" Loki said finally, smiling with a confidence he didn’t fully feel.
He had nothing to lose by finding out his real limits early, even if the price was some pain.
That was better than discovering them later in front of an opponent who had no intention of "holding back."
They went out to the backyard of the orphanage. A wide dirt area surrounded by scattered trees. It looked like it had been used for training many times before.
Kaiden stood on the other side, stretching his arms with a casualness that spoke of deep confidence.
A faint ring of blue light began to form around his fingers, pulsing with a calm rhythm, like a natural extension of his body.
Loki’s eyes widened slightly.
Magic. He hadn’t imagined that his orphan childhood friend would already have a visible magical ability like this.
"I’m a low-rank mage." Kaiden said, as if he’d read the surprise on Loki’s face and enjoyed it a little.
"But I broke past the low-rank mage barrier a few months ago. I’m not sure how much that means to you since you lost your memory. But trust me when I say this puts me a good distance above you."
There was no empty arrogance in his words. Just the calm fact stated by someone who knew its value exactly.
Loki felt something like a chill run through his body. A mix of caution and excitement.
One part of him — the part that had read hundreds of novels and knew how these scenes usually went — knew this fight wouldn’t be easy.
But another part, a new part born just now in this strange body, wanted to know exactly where he stood. No matter the cost.
"Then show me." Loki said, slowly clenching his fist, eyes never leaving the pulsing blue light around Kaiden’s hand.
Kaiden grinned wide. The same grin Loki knew well from every protagonist he’d ever read about.
The grin of someone who didn’t doubt the outcome for a second.
"Don’t say I didn’t warn you."
The air between them suddenly shifted.
And the short distance separating the two of them began to close fast, heralding the start of something that wouldn’t end in a few moments.