Chronicles of Forgotten Extra-Chapter 194: The World is Cruel?
[SUPREME ABILITY: LIMITLESS ASCENSION IS REACTING STRONGLY]
[SUPREME ABILITY: LIMITLESS ASCENSION IS ACTIVATED]
[INHERITING A RANDOM STAT, SKILL, MASTERY OR A TECHNIQUE FROM HUMAN: GRAVIUS]
[CONDITION: INHERIT THE MOST INTENSE MEMORY OF HUMAN: GRAVIUS]
The glowing notifications floated in front of me, but they barely registered.
I couldn't even focus on them—couldn't make sense of the words. Everything was slipping away.
What's happening...?
My thoughts felt sluggish. My body—numb. Broken.
I tasted blood. Warm, coppery. Filling my mouth. Drowning my breath.
The world was crumbling around me, but I couldn't even lift my hand.
My vision flickered—darkness creeping in from the edges like ink bleeding through paper.
And just before everything faded, I saw it.
A figure—rushing toward me.
A girl?
Eyes wide—terrified. Reaching out.
But the image shattered into black.
And the world vanished.
__
As soon as I opened my eyes a blinding light assaulted me.
The moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was wrong.
My limbs were small. Frail.
My skin was scratched and raw.
But I was still me. I wasn't dreaming.
I couldn't move on my own—but I could feel everything. Taste the blood in my mouth. Hear the rats in the walls.
And smell the stench of rot from the corner of the room.
I was lying on the floor.
What's happening?
Why can't I feel my body?
Just then my body got up. It wasn't me who was controlling.
Someone else was.
My body moved towards a mirror on the edges of the room.
Then–
I saw it.
An unremarkable boy with black hair. His violet eyes stared back through reflection.
He couldn't have been older than twelve, but his eyes held the silence of a lifetime.
I immediately understood who it was.
Gravius.
Am I inside his memories?
I recalled what I had seen before going unconscious. The system had mentioned something about memories.
So am I currently occupying Gravius's body?
The body moved without my conscious efforts.
Just then his eyes fell towards a small kid laying slightly away.
She was shivering. Bones jutting through torn cloth.
I could feel everything. Every emotion Gravius felt. As he looked at the girl his emotions turned even more desperate.
Is that his sister?
Then I heard it.
A cough—wet, jagged, violent.
Someone was dying nearby
Gravius's—head turned, and I saw.
A woman with similar features as Gravius lay on what could barely be called a bed.
I understood she was probably his mother.
Thin and pale.
Her eyes were wide open, but… glassy.
Is she dead?
No. Still breathing. Barely.
She was murmuring something under her breath.
"Don't let them take you. Please… please don't let them take you…"
I could feel Gravius's emotions swirling—terror, hunger, desperation.
So raw they stabbed through me like knives.
I could even feel his strong thoughts.
I couldn't look away.
They weren't my emotions and I understood it.
Gravius turned.
My limbs moved with him, like I was watching through a one-way mirror.
Just one look at everyone and I could guess none of them had eaten for at least a few days.
Gravius gently kneeled down and kissed the forehead of his little sister and whispered, "I'll be back with food, Yuli"
I could vividly sense the desperation in the voice.
Saying such Gravius exited the shack he called house.
I just observed. I didn't know how long the vision was going to last.
Gravius ran through the dark alleys barefoot.
Streets. Mud. Stones that cut into his feet. I felt the pain. It was too much for a small kid to endure.
Yet Gravius didn't flinch.
His mind swirled with only one thought…a thought I could hear.
I will feed my family food today.
I will feed my family food today.
The only thought kept him running.
Gravius ran through the filthy backstreets of the some lower district—barefoot, bleeding, breathless. I could feel his heartbeat—fast, uneven.
The small stones scraped his soles, each step sending sharp pain up his legs, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
He ducked beneath broken fences, leapt over leaking sewage, and slipped through cracks in iron gates like a shadow.
This wasn't a game. This wasn't adventure.
This was survival.
I watched helplessly from within his body as he entered the merchant district—far too polished for someone like him.
The guards nearby were draped in iron and disgust. They didn't bother hiding their contempt.
But Gravius didn't care.
He spotted a stand. Bread. Fruits. A fish hanging on a hook.
No one was looking.
His hands moved fast. Too fast.
He grabbed a small apple and ran.
A shout erupted behind him.
"Thief!"
Panic surged.
His chest tightened.
Boots thundered behind him.
A chase began—dirt and desperation against armor and authority.
I could feel the fear clawing at his throat. The need to breathe. To survive. To get back.
He slipped through narrow alleys, weaving through rusted barrels and drunks slumped in corners, heart thundering like war drums.
But it wasn't enough.
A hard boot slammed into his back.
He fell face-first into mud.
The apple rolled away.
Rough hands seized him.
"Street filth," the guard spat. "Think you can steal from the blessed district?"
Gravius screamed. Kicked. Fought.
But a second guard came. Then a third.
They didn't just restrain him.
They beat him.
I felt every blow.
His nose cracked. His ribs groaned.
Blood filled his mouth. Mud mixed with tears.
But none of that compared to the moment the first guard leaned down and whispered—
"Your kind never learns. Let's send a message."
I didn't understand at first.
Then I saw where they dragged him.
Not to prison.
Not to a cell.
But to a display post.
A wooden platform in the middle of the city square.
They shackled him there.
Stripped his shirt. freēnovelkiss.com
And hammered a sign into the wood above.
"THIEF – PUNISHMENT IN PROGRESS"
There were three other signs nailed to the posts that week. Gravius's was the smallest
People passed.
Some stared.
Some laughed.
Some threw scraps. Some insults.
One even threw a rock.
Gravius didn't cry.
But he didn't need to.
I could feel it from inside.
He wasn't humiliated.
He was shattered.
And as the sky turned dark, the guards finally unshackled him and kicked him into the mud.
He didn't even have the apple.
I couldn't understand.
Why?
Why were people so cruel?
Just for one apple?
Couldn't they have just left him?
But I understood it well.
In this world the poor. They weren't people. They were problems.
The guards didn't beat Gravius because of the apple. It was because he was poor and weak.
The best person to make an example out of.. without any resistance.
Instead of the pain and humiliation Gravius felt something entirely different.
He felt sorry.. sorry cause he couldn't bring food for his sister…for his mother.
Sorry because he was going empty handed.
He staggered home, every step dragging.
The cuts on his feet had turned to gashes. He was limping. Eyes unfocused.
I wanted to look away.
But I couldn't.
He returned to the shack.
I saw something.
There were boot prints. The door had been kicked open. But there was no sign of robbery. No message left behind.
"No..no…please no." Gravius desperately opened the door—
And the world ended.
Smoke.
Char.
Blood.
The house was burning.
Bodies lay motionless inside.
His sister.
His mother.
All gone.
Choked by the smoke. Collapsed from hunger.
Or…
No.
I saw the blade marks.
The footprints of boots.
They didn't die from hunger.
Someone had been here.
They came while Gravius was gone.
Gravius stood there, unmoving.
No scream. No tears.
Just silence.
And then—
A single breath.
The last breath his sister ever took.
Yuli was still alive.
Barely.
She reached out with one hand toward him.
He rushed forward, falling to his knees beside her.
I felt it. Her fingers—small and trembling—clutched his bloodied shirt.
"Brother…" she whispered. "I waited…"
"I'm sorry," Gravius choked.
She smiled. A real smile.
"It's okay… I wasn't hungry anymore."
And then she died in his arms.
Just like that.
Like the final candle in the dark had gone out.
Gravius didn't scream.
He didn't cry.
He simply sat there, in the ash, blood, and ruin.
And I—Alden—I felt it all.
His guilt.
His hatred.
His wish that he had never left.
That he'd stolen more.
He'd ran faster back home.
That he'd died instead.
That the world had chosen him to punish—not them.
The memories didn't fade.
They intensified.
Flashes of what followed.
Digging graves with torn hands.
Sleeping under the ashes.
Growing colder. Harder. Emptier.
Until one day—he stopped speaking.
And something inside him broke.
Not loudly.
But quietly.
Like a whisper you can't unhear.
The memory began fading.
But the pain stayed.
Like an echo. A brand.
Suddenly a system windows appeared in front of me.
[MEMORY HAS ENDED]
My vision started distorting. Everything twisting.
But before everything vanished. I heard a cold voice.
"If the world is cruel…I will burn it whole down."
Even as my vision started to turn dark, my mind only had one thought
The world is too cruel.
