Born From a Forbidden Union, Humanity hates me.

The voices caught Orion's attention. He looked around, searching for their origin, but nothing in appeared different in the battlefield playing in front of him.

A moment later, his view shifted. Finding himself in an unfamiliar room with a little furniture, he stared at the center of the room, where a large table stood.

Two familiar beings stood next to that table, somehow familiar to him.

"Orion! He's so tall, so handsome, so wild! I can't believe it!"

A woman with crimson hair grabbed him faster than he could register. Before he even noticed, he was being hugged.

"Orianne, I can't believe you... You said you would wait before jumping at him."

The other person, a man with silver hair, approached them and placed his hand on Orianne's head.

"Who are you?"

Surprised by the two people in front of him, Orion felt something he didn't understand while watching them. They felt somehow important to him.

"Reon, he still doesn't recognize us?"

Orianne looked at Reon with worry painted on her face.

"Something might have happened to the device, or a situation out of his control happened with the Key. The whole process might take a bit to start if that's the case."

He reassured the woman, who breathed a sigh of relief.

"I see. In that case, we have to give him an explanation ourselves."

She stopped hugging Orion, and moved toward the table with Reon. They both sat and told Orion to sit with them with their hands.

Not knowing what to do, Orion stood in place for a few seconds.

'Do I sit? Could it be a trap? I still don't know who they are.'

'But... they look like the two who were fighting on that battlefield.'

After thinking for a bit, his curiosity got the better of him. With a frown, he approached the table and sat on the opposite side.

"He's truly our child, that caution is yours."

Orianne nodded at her words, while Reon only smiled.

"Whose child?"

Orion found himself perplexed. More than ever, he needed answers.

"First and foremost, we need to introduce ourselves."

The first to speak was Reon.

"My name is Reon Feales, leader of the now decimated angel faction. I am your father, so to speak."

"Mine's Orianne Diom, leader of the demon faction. Likewise, our faction disappeared too. I am your mother!"

Reon grabbed Orianne's shoulder before she could jump over the table to hug Orion.

"Let me go! I want to hold my boy!"

"Give him some space, can't you see he's thinking?"

"This is unfair! We don't even know when he's going to be released from this place! Let me hug him more!"

"This is this, and that is that. I won't let you."

While the two people in front of him, who called themselves his parents, bantered, Orion processed the little information he obtained.

'Father, and mother... I can't believe it. I am an orphan, right? So why am I seeing them now? I need more to be certain.'

Orion began to ask a few questions first.

"I don't mean to offend you by any means, but I don't know anything about you. I will need some answers before I can trust anything you said."

The couple looked at each other in surprise before nodding their head lightly.

"Cautious like me, I get your point. Alright, it's fine, you can ask whatever is on your mind."

Orianne who was happy just talking to her son, placed her head between her hands after placing her elbows on the table. She smiled and hummed while leaving Reon to answer.

"First, where are we?"

This was the first question he thought of. If it was a trap, he had to understand where he was before thinking of escaping.

"Simply put, this place is a sealed chamber inside a mechanism we created together. You should have in your possession a bracelet that we gave to you before your birth. We are inside that very bracelet."

Reon answered his first question.

"The one with my name on it? I kept it close to me, since it is the only proof of who I am."

"Reon, did you hear that? He kept it close to him! Our gift!"

Overjoyed, tears formed in the corners of Orianne's eyes. The gift they made for their son before their death stayed with him until now.

"I heard clearly... Ignore your mother, I will answer your other questions."

Orianne began to pout and grumbled something.

"Sorry for being excited. He is still my child, you know?"

Orion couldn't help but smile without thinking. These two looked so different, it was difficult to picture a happy family just by the way they both acted.

The man was serious, but remained gentle in every way, while the woman was overly excited, and expressed her love with so much physical contact it made it hard for Orion.

"What are the angel and demon faction? I have read only a little about them in the books relating to factions, but nothing worth remembering."

"This question, I can't answer it. It's not that I can't, but that is one of the questions that will be answered with many others you might have, in a brief moment."

Reon made a stiff smile, expecting Orion to be angry.

"I see, what can you tell me about that 'short moment'?"

Surprised by his child composure, Reon still answered.

"The bracelet we gave you is a seal, for both our factions. We created it to avoid losing our soul in case the worst would happen. In this case, the worst did happen, that's why we are here."

"You, our child, were supposed to inherit the full knowledge of the factions, our history, what led to our situation, and more importantly, about us before coming here."

"Through the bracelet we gave you, you should have known everything the moment the Key revealed itself. You could also say, the Key was necessary to activate the bracelet, and then you should have learned everything."

Reon explained the gist of the situation as best as he could without going into details.

"This should give you enough detail to put most of the story together, right?"

Orion fell back in his thoughts.

'At that moment, in the fire, I saw a key mark on Amelia's hand. I remember it clearly, but what is supposed to be this 'Key'. Is it only a way to activate the bracelet? I think there's something I'm missing.'

"Do I have to wai-"

"Aah! My Head!"

He grabbed his head, which started to thump horribly, giving him a headache like never before.

"Orion!"

"It has started, prepare yourself fast Orion. Learn everything, and come to us once again."

Reon smiled, restraining Orianne who was trying to catch the Orion, falling backward off his seat.

Orion fell through the white floor, leaving water like ripples behind him.

"Give him a moment, Orianne. I would prefer talking to my son instead of a cautious stranger, too. It was hard for me too, you know?"

Reon let go of her, sat back on his chair, and brought his hands to his face in exhaustion.

"Reon... I'm sorry, I know you've never liked tensed situations like these. I still remember your face when you came to ask my father for his my hand."

Orianne giggled and sat next to Reon while trying to release his bottled stress.

"But, you're right, I- no. We'll wait for him."

She hugged Reon from the side, and both fell asleep like this, while the surroundings faded to dark.

...

'My head, it hurts terribly.'

Orion woke up floating in an empty, dark space. He was gradually falling down, yet he couldn't feel it.

"Memory Storage Number One, playing."

A robotic voice came from somewhere and everywhere. The instant it stopped talking, a sort of projection screen similar to the battlefield he saw earlier appeared, with Orianne's voice being heard.

"Whatever it is, I don't feel like this memory thing will work as intended."

Reon, who walked on screen after she talked, answered her.

"In any case, this is all the stuff we need to safeguard our factions' information. What we'll use it for... let me think..."

"Why don't we use this to teach our future child? This sounds like the easiest way to do it, for you at least."

The woman puffed her cheeks.

"Hey! Are you saying I can't teach our child anything?"

"I didn't say that."

They were both inside a beautiful white room decorated with many flower pots with blooming flowers of various shapes and colors, with a beautiful landscape painting on the wall behind them.

The recording device was on a table. While Orianne poked at it, Reon was behind, watering the flowers.

'It seems like Reon likes flowers? Maybe those painting are from Orianne?'

Orion guessed his parent's hobbies perfectly. The calm Reon liked to grow flowers, and the wild Orianne liked to paint.

"Please watch as your mom's going to teach you everything she knows!"

Orianne grabbed the device with both hands and lifted it above her face.

'Can't she contain herself?'

A smile on his face, he looked at the two enjoying their life. Even if it was foreign to him, he appreciated how easily he could feel the love emanating from the woman's words.

"What are you doing? Do you love him more than me? I don't remember you being this excited ever?"

"Don't compare yourself to our child. You'll see, you won't be able to avoid being a dotting father."

With a heavy sigh, Reon dropped his shoulders.

"I give up, do whatever. But if you miss some explanations, I'll take the device from you. Goodbye dotting mother."

"Wha- you can be so unfair sometimes, you know that?!"

"It's because I know you're going to do it well. Let's stop the recording here."

Reon bent over Orianne's shoulder, and pressed one of the device's buttons before the screen closed to black.

'I see, so they really are my parents...'

Orion felt relieved in accepting this fact.

'Why am I relieved?'

A hand on his chest, he couldn't understand this sudden feeling.

"Memory Storage Number Two, playing."

'How many recordings am I going to watch through?'

The screen lighted up again, showing the device being moved roughly.

"Alright, is it registering what I say? That green light, right?"

Orianne appeared with a book in her hands after she placed the recording device on the table.

"Yes, you can start."

Reon's voice was heard from the side.

"Today's subject will be... BAM! Our current world's state!"

Lifting the book, she winked at the device while showing the cover of the book.

"The continent of Triazils."

'I learned that already. This was one of the books Dylan brought me.'

Orion was expecting something boring, since he already knew about the continent he lived on.

"This contains the continent's map, most of its important locations, and a description of the fourteen factions. Wait, it's thirteen now..."

'Thirteen? I only remember seven from the book I've read?'

Curiosity once again caught his attention.

"First, the continent. As you can see on this map, this big island is separated from the mainland by a sea."

"This big island is Eogis, our home. It is where the demons and angels fought each other for centuries, before signing a peace treaty because, well. Death sucks?"

"Oriaaaanne?"

"Sorry, sorry. Stop giving me that stare."

*Cough*

"Anyway, both factions were on the brink of destroying each other. Too few survived. Around three thousand people remained from the conflicts."

"It was enough for both sides to stop fighting for a piece of land that wouldn't do much without enough people to live on it."

"Instead of remaining stubborn, they agreed to share the land, and started cohabiting together. What happened after was the union of angels and demons, which displeased the humans greatly."

Orion took the short silence to think.

'This island. It doesn't exist on today's map. I wonder how far that was for it to be so far from the land. I do remember a massive chunk of land that doesn't exist on her map. Maybe it has merged with the mainland?'

"Next lesson will be on the humans. I hope it helped you understand part of our history. If you want more, this book here will help you."

Orianne pressed the device's buttons, before the screen closed once again.

'I see, I'm going to learn everything they knew in their time...'

"Memory Storage Number Three, playing."

"Hi, time for the human history lesson."

"What we'll see here is basic stuff."

...

Orianne explained in five minutes that humans colonized the whole mainland, pushed other factions away, and refused to coexist.

"Now, the main problem isn't the humans. It is the man leading them. You could even say that, before that man showed his face, they were a peaceful bunch."

"That man, Elliott, is a real threat. The world supposedly backs up his energy. What we can tell you is that it isn't entirely true, but we don't know the details."

She displayed a serious expression, unusual compared to her grinning and excited mood.

'Is it that serious? Who is this man that I have never heard of, either?'

"We honestly have no idea who or what is backing him, but his power is so outrageous, he sent extinct one faction by himself. Or if they're not extinct, only a few survived, but are in hiding. The giants are no more from what we know."

'This powerful? I wonder what our continent would be today if he were alive.'

"I think we'll stop there for today. There's still a lot to learn in this book."

'Bring me the next one.'

Engrossed in this new knowledge, Orion began to lose track of the time he spent watching the recordings.

"Memory Storage Number Four, playing."

"Woo, another le- Don't look at me like that, I haven't done anything yet."

"I don't like That 'yet'."

Ignoring Reon's comment, she grabbed the book next to her.

"Today, I'll talk about the factions. We don't have much information on a lot of them except the humans, the beastmen, and our factions, so it's going to be relatively short."

"Originally, fourteen factions existed. Recently, it dropped to thirteen due to Elliott's carnage. This leaves ten factions to talk about."

Instinctively, Orion nodded. He attentively listened.

'I know a few of them already: the beastmen which I live with, the fairies that hid themselves, the lamias in the city far away from Auro, the dragons that woke up a century ago, and the kelpies in the Carmel Sea. This amounts to six with the humans.'

"I'll start by listing everything."

Orianne opened the book and showed the first page to the device.

'This is going to take a while...'