Hugo carefully looked around. The mountain, the slowly fading ritual circle, the collection of people he hadn’t seen in a year. It all pointed to him traveling back in time. But evidently something had gone wrong in transit.

He hadn’t traveled back into his own body, he was in someone else’s body. He didn’t recognize who exactly, but it was clear that no amount of time travel would change his skin color and height. He was about six inches taller now, and several shades paler. The portion of the ritual beneath his feet stopped glowing. A glance showed that the circles beneath the hopefuls that died in the ritual were still glowing.

He overheard the ritualist muttering something about soulmarked and ritual nodes behaving strangely.

Hugo looked over and found his own body lying on the ground a few paces away. The circle beneath his body wasn't glowing. It was jarring, looking at his own dead body. He couldn’t help himself, he walked over and stared at it. Parents around him were yelling and crying, but he couldn’t look away.

He was dead, right there in front of him. And yet, he stood there, alive and breathing. This body felt weird, much weaker than he was used to. He had a sudden thought, was this body even soulmarked? He quickly gave the mental command to pull up the stat screen.

Cristian Fieraru [Domainless]

Strength 11

Dexterity 20

Resilience 8

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 11

Rank 0

0/100 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 2/2

Skills:

He sighed with relief when the blue screen popped up. As he glanced over the numbers, he noticed that they were unbalanced. He felt weakened, having the stats of a rank zero again. But then, why did he have twenty dexterity? Was this new body just that much faster and more agile than the average person? Then he did a mental double take. That wasn’t his name.

It must be the name of the body he was in. He pulled a strand of hair forward to double check. Black. This was the guy with the knives that tried to murder everybody along with that jerk boy, Florian. Hugo was sure that the tall guy with black hair had been killed along with the other seven people. So why was he in his body?

Hugo walked over to his bag. He was still trying to figure this out. Had the ritualist messed up his job that bad? There was a vague memory of some time runes strewn about this ritual circle. Was the ritual to blame? Hugo had been flung back in time one year, but instead of his soul entering his own body, the ritual had missed, and placed him into a recently unoccupied body. This Cristian fellow. Instead of his own body.

Hugo felt like he was mentally stuttering. His thoughts would race ahead, but then the reality of being in someone else’s body sent him looping back to the beginning.

He did a few simple exercises to see how this body moved. It was strangely responsive. Weaker, of course. But he didn’t stumble or misstep. He could tell that Cristian was taller and thinner than Hugo was. The difference in operating the new body should have thrown him off, but strangely he was almost unaffected. Perhaps that was the effect of a high dexterity. Even when a new soul entered your body, you still didn’t falter.

Speaking of souls, how was he going to get back into his own body? He didn’t particularly mind restarting this last year, considering how it had gone, but he wanted to do so in his own body. Now that he had the thought, he realized that is what he should have thought in the first place. He shook his head, ordering his thoughts.

He looked around to see if he could find the ritualist. That moron needed to fix his mistake and move his soul back to where it belonged. While Hugo was getting used to this body the ritualist had stopped arguing with Florin’s parents. They watched their son get taken away by the red vested guards. They were taking the bodies to the funeral pyre.

Hugo stepped into action, he grabbed his bag and hurried over. He needed to have the ritualist switch him back before his own body was taken away and burnt. But the bastard was already gone. From one moment to the next, the ritualist had disappeared. Hugo ran around the plateau looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. He talked to a few of the parents, but they didn’t know where he had gone.

Hugo swore internally. That was the second time that the bastard had escaped right after the ritual. It was obvious now that the ritualist had some secret way off the mountain. That guy, what was his name? Alexandru? He must have known that something would go wrong with the ritual and he left right away.

He felt strangely detached as he watched the mountain guides pick up his own dead body and carry it off to the funeral pyre. He stood there silently as he watched it be burnt. He could have said something. He could have stopped them from burning the body and carried it down the mountain to a competent ritualist. Two things stopped him.

First off, he didn’t want to try and convince anyone of the truth. Time travel would be hard enough to believe in the first place. But even if he only focused on the soul swap, he doubted anyone would believe the fantastic truth.

The other reason was that he couldn’t make himself care too much about that body. If he was honest with himself, he was starting to get suicidal towards the end there. He had made a lot of bad decisions and didn’t like who he was becoming. This was his chance at a new start. Not just starting over, but starting completely fresh. No ties to a greedy mother, a thankless friend, or a murderous gang. This was a completely fresh start.

That made him think, was he supposed to call himself Cristian now? That was a dumb name. He much preferred the name his father gave him. Hugo was a strong, manly name. He decided to stick with Hugo. Most people couldn’t read people’s stat screens. He could just tell the few light mages that asked that Hugo was his nickname. New start, same name.

That is not to say he forgave Alexandru. If he ever saw that ritualist again, he would throw punches before he said hello.

When he returned to the ritual circle, he only saw one bag he didn’t recognize. It must be Cristian’s. He grabbed it, along with his own and Marion’s bag. He realized that the three of them were the only ones that didn’t have friends or family nearby. That certainly was sad.

Marion’s letter home and his portable effects went into Cristian’s bag. Hugo didn’t have much that he wanted from his own bag. Just a few coppers and his dad’s letter. It occurred to him that it shouldn’t be this easy to cast off his old life. But it was. Cristian’s bag even fit him better than his old one ever did.

In short order he was packed and ready to go, standing at the trailhead, waiting for the group to head down the mountain. He hoped his new body would be able to handle the run. It probably could. His stats were about the same as before, and he had made it fine last time. The much better dexterity made him stop worrying about it altogether.

“Alright guides, time to earn your keep,” the guide leader yelled, “Pikes up front, shields to the sides, ranged behind. Let’s see if we can catch up with the main group a little quicker this year, yeah? Everyone else, listen up. We don’t stop for nothing. Doesn’t matter what comes up on us, doesn’t matter who falls behind. We don’t stop. We will be running all night, and we won’t rest until we are safe in the stronghold halfway down the mountain. I don’t care who you are, we aren’t stopping for anyone, not until we are in that stronghold.”

They passed out lanterns and formed up. Slightly more than two hundred people jogged down the trail, the soulmarked protecting the unmarked in the middle of the pack. They were almost immediately beset by monsters. Eight acid ants and three goliath beetles attacked their group in a frenzy. Based on their size, Hugo guessed that they were all above rank twenty.

The guides didn’t even break their stride.

As one, the soulmarked in front stabbed forward with their long spears. Three ants were instantly turned into light blue sparkles. Two of the goliath beetles were impaled and tossed to the side as the group ran by.

Barrier mages manifested a small transparent blue shields directly in front of the attacking insects. The monsters hadn’t expected the sudden appearance of the shields, and tumbled to the ground. Formation mages holding physical shields stepped forward to bash the monsters back.

From the rear of the formation came a flurry of mana bolts, targeting and destroying the downed monsters. The final goliath beetle was downed with an overlarge arrow.

Hugo could certainly see the difference between these trained professionals and the culling teams he had been on. When his party was all at rank twelve, they could probably take on one of those acid ants. But not without injury. They would have certainly died if two ants attacked at the same time, let alone this huge group. The guides had killed every single one before they shot a single stream of acid. Hugo couldn’t even begin to calculate the draw weight needed on a bow able to kill a goliath beetle in one shot.

They ran on. Hugo had guessed correctly, he was able to keep up with the group. The pace was testing his strength and endurance, but he didn’t stumble once. It was pushing him, but not too far. If it wasn’t for the constant threat of death, this would feel like one of Hanna’s athletics classes.

The leader in his blue vest yelled out, “We can walk for a bit, take a drink, eat a light snack. Don’t stop, don’t fall behind.”

Everyone slowed to a walk, taking drinks and gasping for breath. Hugo rummaged around in his bag, only to find an empty water bottle. He felt like cursing out Cristian, but then again if Cristian’s soul was still about, he would certainly be cursing out Hugo.

Before long they were running down the mountain again. Hours passed, and Hugo slipped into a meditative run. He enjoyed the scenery. Shimmer mountain had a kind of stark beauty. He wasn’t worried about the constant monster attacks, he knew without a doubt that he would survive the trip. After all, he had before, he would again.

They kept moving through the entire night. They did take a brief pause shortly after the sun rose, but then they were moving again. Hugo was startled when he saw a grove of trees. He had forgotten about this part. Giant shadow spiders were poorly disguising themselves as trees just ahead. The guides were about to attack and kill them, but a few people were going to die in the attack. He had to do something about it.

He looked around for the expedition leader. He found him arguing with the alchemist again. They were looking at a green flask she had in her hand.

“You have to throw it, it’s our only chance.”

“It works up to rank fourty. Do you know how much it costs?”

“I will ask the commander to reimburse you when we get back.”

“You know he will only give me half of what it is worth.”

“Look. Look at that. You can see what I see. If you don’t throw it, we will all die. And you can’t spend your gold if you are dead.”

“... Fine,” she said.

“Is it going to be hard to hit the middle of the monsters from here?” Hugo said. The last time around, the alchemist shot too soon and missed one of the giant spiders, and that monster had killed someone. He wanted to make sure all of the spiders got hit with this slowing attack. Asking that question was the best he could do on such short notice.

“Hrmph, just watch,” she said. She loaded the flask into a specially made slingshot and launched it. It soared through the air, landing in the middle of the grove and bursting. A green mist billowed out, covering most of the forest in less than a second.

Hugo frowned. It was just like last time. When their illusion dropped, six spiders were slowed and two on the edge escaped the effect. Hugo shoved his way to the front of the formation as the spiders skittered towards the group on their knife legs.

Out of the corner of his vision he saw barriers pop up, but he knew they wouldn’t be fast enough. A guide was too slow and was skewered right through his midsection. The spider tried to lift him away, but the two mages to the side of him pulled him off the leg blade and kept him grounded. Blood gushed from the wound. A parent with the black robes of the life domain shouldered his way to the front to try and heal him.

Hugo knew that the guide would survive, so he ignored him and turned towards the giant shadow spiders. They stabbed at the blue barrier, a staccato rhythm that quickly cracked through shield after shield. With the barriers gone, the two spiders attacked in earnest. Some attacks were turned away with physical shields, but the spiders attacked so quickly that dozens of wounds seemed to just appear on the guides.

“Aim for the face!” Hugo yelled.

Some of the guides listened, arrows and daggers heading for the monster's mouth and eyes. One spider backed up, annoyed by the daggers to the face. But the other blade spider leapt high over the front line. It pointed its dagger legs down, aiming for the humans in the middle.

Suddenly, Hugo knew exactly where the monster was going to land. The memory of two hopefuls dying last time around was suddenly fresh in his mind. He took two steps and leapt with all his might. He was able to push the teenagers out of the way as he fell.

Not a moment later, the spider legs came down slicing through where they had just been standing. Hugo was unable to move out of the way in time and the leg went right through his stomach.