Kingdom of Lugunica — Capital Outskirts | Early Morning
The capital of Lugunica awakened slowly. Its cobbled streets were still cool with morning dew, reflecting the golden-orange light of the rising sun.
Merchants pushed their carts into the squares, while bakers opened their shutters, filling the air with the aroma of rising yeast and crackling crust. The sound of hoofbeats mixed with murmuring voices gradually formed a symphony welcoming the daybreak.
Amidst this, a lone boy walked.
His golden-blonde hair swayed in tousled waves, half-up, adorned with a teal ribbon glimmering in the light. A few stray strands framed his youthful face, softening his aristocratic features. Loose-fitting bard's attire—rich navy and white, accented with gold thread—fell comfortably over his tall, lean figure. A small harp, polished and slung across his back, signaled his care.
Lucien walked with a calm composure, each step deliberate but not overly cautious.
His amber eyes scanned the street as if deciphering a living poem, each passerby representing another stanza. He observed the tension in a merchant's jaw as she clashed with a customer, witnessed a child pilfer a half-eaten pear, and followed the silent farewell of a soldier to his family. He absorbed it all—not with sympathy, nor judgment, but with fascination.
"So this is the world of Re: Zero. Master is so thoughtful, granting me an identity."
His voice, low and smooth, evoked the ambiance of candlelight and wine. He tilted his head to watch a flock of birds cut through the pale blue sky.
And here he was, strolling through the capital.
***
Lucien stopped by a bakery, observing two young girls quarreling over a coin, one of whom was crying. He knelt beside them.
"Share the bread. Half each, double the joy," he proposed, softly placing an additional coin in the girl's hand. She gazed up at him, eyes wide with surprise.
He smiled, ruffling her hair playfully before standing back up, not waiting for any gratitude.
Lucien stepped away and unhooked the harp from his back. His fingers tested the strings lightly as he walked, letting a few warm notes float into the morning air like rays of sunlight. He passed the edge of a plaza, sunlight dusting the rooftops, and stopped near a lamppost where the echo would carry.
He drew a deep breath.
And he played.
The first song was lighthearted—a gentle, skipping melody, like a child spinning in spring grass. He poured emotion into each note, shaping the sound not just to entertain, but to express, to bind, to reflect the world.
This was how the potion would digest. Letting music replace breath. Letting emotion shape sound. Lucien continued to play while digesting his potion by a fifth.
He wasn't just playing.
He was performing—living the role of a Bard. Not as disguise, but as sacred ritual.
The fountain plaza had become his stage. The air shimmered faintly—not with heat, but with presence—as Lucien stood beneath the gentle spill of dawnlight, harp cradled in his arms like something alive. He strummed slowly, letting each note bloom like a petal before fading into silence.
So he played.
And as he played, he acted the Bard: expressing emotion through sound, weaving tone into ambient magic. His eyes softened. His lips parted slightly, whispering a melody only the very attuned could hear beneath the strings.
Children slowed their play.
A passing woman reached for her coin purse, then forgot what she was doing.
A fruit vendor clutched a peach to his chest, breathing in rhythm with Lucien's song.
Lucien's melody did not command—only suggested. It nudged the world's emotion like sunlight nudges a bud to bloom. A nearby boy, tense and squatting near a wall, slowly relaxed and looked up at the sky. A stray cat crawled from the alley to sit beneath the bench, tail flicking once, then going still.
Lucien smiled to himself—genuine, radiant, slightly bashful.
He was enjoying this. Too much, maybe. The way music let him understand people, shape mood, soften pain. He never imagined power could be so… kind.
The digestion stirred quietly inside him.
He felt it as a deepening resonance in his bones, a warmth rising in his chest—not hot, not burning, but golden. His breath matched the rhythm of his harp. His heartbeat became a metronome. With every chord he played, it was as if the world answered back in harmonic alignment. The city didn't change—but it heard him.
His bardic aura had expanded—unnoticeable to most, but real.
The potion within him was recognizing him.
Not just as a host.
But as a Bard.
He played three more verses—one wistful, one tender, one filled with a teasing lilt that made a couple in the back corner laugh and glance at each other bashfully.
Then he ended on a soft high note. He let it hang.
The silence that followed wasn't awkward—it was reverent.
Lucien lowered his harp. A few people clapped. He gave an exaggerated theatrical bow, grinning like a boy with jam on his face. "Thank you, thank you! I'm new in town—please don't throw tomatoes. Unless they're fresh."
Some laughed.
The moment passed.
Lucien sat back down, sighing softly. His fingers still buzzed faintly with power. Not enough to be overwhelming. Just enough to know the digestion was working. The Bard within him was waking.
"One third," he murmured under his breath.
Then he leaned back, watching the crowd, waiting for the next ripple in the world to stir the script forward.
***
Then, he sensed it. A ripple. A presence. Someone felt out of place. Someone who didn't belong in this world.
That "someone" had a name—Natsuki Subaru, and Lucien knew what to look for: misplaced clothes, confusion, and the unmistakable scent of displacement.
It wasn't long before he saw it.
At a nearby fruit stand, a black-haired boy in a tracksuit was in a panic. The boy had a dazed expression, arguing with a fruit vendor, tripping over words and customs. He looked like someone halfway between dreaming and drowning.
Lucien's eyes sparkled, but he turned in the opposite direction. "Found you. But not now. I will wait until it's time."
Meanwhile, while he awaited Subaru to meet Emilia, Lucien decided to sightsee, biding time for the intervention to arrive. A baker advertised the last of his berry tarts as children darted through alleyways, their laughter skipping like stones on water.
"So this is a fantasy world. How fresh." Lucien smiled, glancing again toward Subaru.
And then, after a while, the world paused…
Subaru died.
The world seemed like it had been swallowed by darkness.
"Let's see where I'd end up now... or will I even remember?" Lucien mused as the darkness grew closer and gradually swallowed him as well.
***
Lucien strolled around after giving the two girls bread and a coin. He was about to approach another stall—but stopped.
"Huh? My potion has digested one-third?" Lucien felt déjà vu, though he had no recollection of having done any of it before. It left him confused.
After loitering a while, the revelation came.
[Subaru Natsuki has died. Return by Death has been Activated. Memory Uploading... Complete.]
"I see. Thank you, Master, for your revelation. Praise the Ancestor." Lucien placed a hand over his heart and bowed his head slightly.
[Don't intervene. Not yet.]
"I understand, Master," Lucien whispered.
He strolled about, buying food, sharing it with children, then continued his act and played near the fountain.
While playing the harp, he saw someone with striking red hair in the crowd—Reinhard van Astrea.
Their eyes met.
Lucien nodded casually and continued playing. Reinhard, seeing the nod, returned it, staying until the song ended. Then he walked away.
He left. It's okay. The third loop will be our first meeting.
Lucien continued playing while digesting another third of his potion.
***
After a while, the world paused... again.
Subaru died. A second time.
"Well... my debut is coming soon. Let's get along well, Subaru... Reinhard..."
The darkness swallowed him again. The world began anew...
Only to be swallowed once more.
***
Lucien stood on the same road, but before he could question anything, the Master's voice arrived—just in time.
[Subaru has died again. Return by Death activates. Memory Uploaded. This is his 4th Loop. Find Reinhard and Subaru once you hear Subaru's 'I need a man!' scream.]
Lucien tilted his head. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"'I need a man' scream...?"
He blinked twice, then stifled a laugh behind his gloved hand. "Okay, Master," he said brightly, biting the inside of his cheek. "I'll listen for that."
He strolled toward the center of town once again. By now, the paths were familiar—the bakery with the tilted awning, the alley where the thief boy always ducked, the fountain plaza that still echoed faintly with his music.
Lucien approached it again.
The harp was already in his hands before he consciously chose it. His fingers curled around the polished wood, thumbs finding the strings like homing birds. The laughter of a child chased across the square. A gust lifted his hair, casting gold and teal strands across his cheeks.
He sat on the same old bench and began to play.
This time, the melody was... stranger.
Not in disharmony—but in richness. It had grown a new depth he hadn't intended. A second voice beneath his own. A harmony that mirrored him, echoed him, and sometimes seemed to take the lead.
The Bard persona was asserting itself now—not as pretense, but as identity. His thoughts drifted like fog. Images surfaced unbidden: forgotten lyrics, ancient myths, vivid scenes of lovers dying under the stars and jesters laughing during coronations.
The song shifted. He didn't stop it.
His fingers moved independently, the notes chasing emotion faster than thought. The final third of the potion had begun digesting—demanding expression. He was starting to see things: fractures of sunlight trailing behind people as they walked, emotional residue dripping from their eyes like pigment in water.
He blinked hard.
A ripple distorted his vision—like heat-haze over stone.
A boy in the crowd was crying.
Lucien shifted the melody—soothing now, lower, inviting. The boy calmed. But Lucien didn't stop playing. He couldn't. His breath matched the tempo. His lips parted.
And he began to sing.
Not words. Just a hum. A lullaby the world had never heard but somehow knew.
The final digestion had begun.
He felt heat rise in his chest—not burning, but blooming—like a second heart. He closed his eyes and saw threads connecting everyone around him. Emotions tethered to thoughts. Thoughts stitched to rhythm. Rhythm nested in flesh.
He opened his eyes. A faint golden flicker danced beneath his irises.
No one else noticed.
The harp strings hummed with ambient magic—alive.
He was changing.
Not completely. Not yet.
But he could feel it.
His mind was still Lucien. But his blood was music. His muscles, stagecraft. His bones, rhythm.
The Bard was becoming him.
He finished the song on a soft, descending trill and stood.
Something tugged invisibly at the edges of his senses—like a curtain about to rise on a new act.
He steadied himself.
"One more," he whispered. "Just one more performance… and I'll be worthy."
Lucien was in the middle of a swelling verse—his fingers dancing delicately across the harp strings, coaxing out a soft, melancholic tune—when the air shifted. It wasn't dramatic. It didn't crash like thunder or bend like wind. But something unseen passed through the square, stirring the stillness, warping the rhythm of the plaza like a ripple across glass.
His gaze lifted instinctively.
There, just beyond the lazy swirl of midday pedestrians and fruit vendors, stood a man whose very presence seemed to part the crowd around him. Crimson hair glinted beneath the sunlight like burning silk. A white jacket hung effortlessly over his shoulders, immaculate despite the street dust, and his sword—too elegant to be a mere weapon—rested at his hip with the ease of something alive.
Reinhard van Astrea.
Lucien's hands didn't stop. But the next chord trembled ever so slightly beneath his fingers. His heart skipped, not in fear, but in quiet awe. There he was—again. The Sword Saint. The Dragon's Fang. A man whose name rang through the annals of the world like a heroic refrain.
Only, he wouldn't remember.
For Reinhard, this was the first time their paths had crossed.
Lucien dipped his head with slow grace, acknowledging the knight with a gentle, practiced nod. A bard's greeting to a patron. A performer's bow to a silent witness.
Reinhard's expression didn't shift at first. He simply stood, arms crossed behind his back, chin slightly tilted. Watching. Listening.
But not idly.
No—his gaze was scrutinizing. Calculating. Calm, but never inattentive. His blue eyes followed every movement of Lucien's fingers, noted the unnatural calm that settled around the plaza, the way birds paused mid-preen on windowsills, the way idle chatter lowered by instinct as if not to interrupt the music.
And Lucien? He played on, but not to impress. It wasn't pride that filled his chest—it was duty. This was his digestion. His devotion to the Ancestor. His purpose for his Ancestor.
Still, Reinhard's presence made him sit straighter.
They stood like that—bard and blade—separated by a crowd but locked in subtle exchange.
Then, slowly, Reinhard nodded. A single, clean motion. Not approval. Not quite curiosity. Recognition, maybe. Of something.
Lucien's smile was soft, brightening the moment like dawn kissing a mirror.
Just as Reinhard began to turn away, he paused mid-step. The knight glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes sharp.
"You're not from around here," he said—not quite a question.
Lucien blinked, the harp still humming under his fingertips. "Ah. That obvious, is it?" he said lightly, tone warm but not flippant. "Well, I suppose I wear it on the sleeves. My Master says I have a traveler's gait. It gives me away."
Reinhard didn't respond to the jest.
Lucien continued, smiling anyway. "I'm Lucien. Lucien Veyne. Just a wandering noble with more songs than sense."
"A noble?" Reinhard asked, his gaze briefly narrowing. "From where?"
"House Veyne. Small. Inland. We're mostly known for our dull taxes and impressive vineyard spiders." Lucien gave a half-shrug. "I left to follow music. Didn't seem like I was needed."
Reinhard's silence stretched, but there was no accusation behind it.
Finally, he said, "Your melody. It carries weight. Not just skill."
Lucien tilted his head. "Weight?"
"Magic. Or something like it. I've felt it before, during blessings. Divine ones."
Lucien's fingers stilled.
Only for a second.
Then he strummed a slow, rich chord, allowing the tone to answer in place of his words. "That's... kind of you to say. I just play what I feel. I try to reflect what's around me. Happiness. Sorrow. Hope. Regret. If people feel it... then maybe the song is doing its job."
Reinhard said nothing. But his eyes lingered.
A moment passed—measured by silence and the faint rustle of leaves.
Then, Reinhard nodded once more. "Be careful."
Lucien's brows lifted slightly. "Of what?"
Reinhard's voice dropped lower, almost thoughtful. "Of what listens when you play."
Lucien blinked, momentarily unsure whether he heard a warning, or a prophecy.
But before he could ask, the Sword Saint had vanished into the crowd like smoke in wind. No spectacle. Just absence.
Lucien let the final note fall from his harp like a drop of ink into still water.
"…So you can hear it," he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.
And then—
Off in the distance—
A shrill, desperate voice cracked through the square, ringing like a trumpet blast against the still air:
"I NEED A MAN!"
Lucien blinked once.
And then he laughed—quiet, delighted, a grin blooming across his face like the opening verse of a familiar tune.
"There's my cue," he whispered, setting the harp gently against his hip.
*
*
*
The system screen slowly dimmed as a golden thread unfurled, flowing through the void like liquid sunlight. It arched elegantly before disappearing into a shimmering veil of light.
Elias sat by the bed, looking at the system's newly formed bright screen, arms folded. His gaze lingered on the amber letters glowing on the interface.
Full Name: Lucien Veyne
Species: Human (Beyonder Clone)
Gender: Male
Age: Appears 17–18
Birthday: Unknown (Registered under House Veyne calendar)
Origin: System-Created; Inserted into Lugunica as the heir of a minor noble family
Affiliation: Beyonder Society, Loyal to Elias Veyne (referred to as "Master" or "Ancestor")
Profession: Wandering noble, Aspiring bard, Secret Beyonder