Chapter 81: The Moon Swallowed by the Sun (3)

The morning after my brief moonlit meeting with “Yuren,” I woke up unusually early. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to begin my daily mana cultivation routine, which I had never once skipped. Instead, I was lost in a spiral of thought.

“What the hell is Yuren thinking?”

It hadn’t taken me much effort to figure out that Yurina was, in fact, Yuren. It was evident from the smallest gestures to the gait, to even speech patterns and quirks. Yuren had tried to act differently, to avoid suspicion, but there was no way he could fool me, not after we had spent ten years together in our past lives, constantly facing death side by side.

As if that wasn’t enough, Yurina’s very presence in the academy didn’t make sense. Even if I were to believe for a moment that the story of Yurina Helios’s death from a fall eight years ago was a lie fabricated by the Helios family, why would Rosanna Helios, who had faked her daughter’s death just to hide the existence of a Moon God’s soul stigmata, suddenly bring Yurina to the academy? That too on observation day, of all days, when the academy was swarming with the most heroes it saw all year?

Yuren surely had to be aware of this. Despite that, he had shown up in front of me, playing at being Yurina, putting on this half-baked act. Why? Two possibilities immediately came to mind.

Either he didn’t care if he got found out, or the situation was so urgent that he had no time to worry about being discovered.

I frowned and let out a heavy sigh. No matter how hard I racked my brain, I couldn’t come up with a single reason urgent enough for Yuren to disguise himself as Yurina and show up in front of me like that.

“Still…”

I recalled his appearance last night—the silver hair that looked like moonlight braided together, skin as white as snow, and features so delicate as if they were crafted by a master sculptor’s hands. Sure, Yuren had always been absurdly handsome, but even with that as a baseline, the transformation was beyond incredible.

“Where the hell did he learn to do that?”

It wasn’t amateur cosplay like Jules had tried. It was a full-blown transformation, from skeletal structure, chest size, hair color, and even voice. Unless Yuren had used an advanced magical device used by government agents or guild spies for disguise, it wasn’t possible for him to look like that.

Moreover, I hadn’t even considered where he could have gotten that kind of magical device. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was why Yuren would use such a professional-level magical device just to impersonate his dead sister.

For a second, Jules’s face popped into my mind, but I quickly shook it off. “There’s no way it’s just a weird hobby…”

Yuren never had any hobbies like that in our past life. We were a party for ten years. Not once had I seen Yuren crossdressing. And who the hell would use a top-tier magical device just for a hobby?

“A high-grade magical device for disguise, huh… Wait a second.”

A sudden thought struck down my spine like lightning. I pressed my palm to my forehead, trying to recall last night in clearer detail.

“Where… was the magical device?”

An item capable of altering skeletal structure couldn’t possibly be small, definitely not something like a ring or earring. Even with the most expensive mana stones, it would need to be at least the size of a pendant to function properly.

“But I’m sure I didn’t see anything on him last night.”

Back then, I had been too shocked by the sudden appearance of that silver-haired beauty to pay close attention to her. But when I recalled the scene more carefully, I realized Yuren wasn’t wearing any artifacts anywhere. And he was not capable of casting a Polymorph spell or anything similar either.

Yuren was a genius with the sword, but when it came to magic, he was worse than me. Practically hopeless. I knew that for sure, especially since we both learned magic from Senior Sophia.

“Wait, then… that really was Yuren’s sister last night?” I asked myself.

No, that couldn’t be right. The “Yurina” I met had every tell, every mannerism I knew from Yuren. Even if they were siblings, there was no way they would be identical down to their smallest habits and quirks.

“What the hell is going on?”

My thoughts were a mess, and everything was tangled in confusion. Then, a memory surfaced, one from when I had gone to the bathhouse with Yuren recently.

“What’s that pendant?”

“Eh? T-this? I-it’s… It’s my younger sister’s keepsake.”

Yuren had an awkward smile on his face as he had protectively clutched the pendant around his neck. If that pendant was the disguise device, then it all made sense.

“No, no, no. That doesn’t make sense.”

That would mean Yuren wasn’t a man to begin with and that he had always been a woman, pretending to be a man using a disguise device.

“Yuren couldn’t have been a woman.”

We had spent a decade together. Even if Yuren was emotionally distant, how could I not realize he was a woman all that time? During combat, when his clothes were torn apart, when we had to cram into tight sleeping spaces, and when I had to tear off his gear and pour potions directly onto his skin to treat his injuries. I had seen it countless times, enough to know that Yuren was a man.

“And he wasn’t wearing a disguise device back then, either…”

The pendant, the “keepsake” from his sister, wasn’t something he wore during the ten years we journeyed together.

It made me wonder: So, was Yuren originally a woman… who became a man later?

I let out a dry laugh and shook my head. A woman who had turned into a man? That sounded ridiculous. Despite that thought, a memory from last night flashed through my mind.

“Because I’m a direct descendant of House Helios, but I bear the soul stigmata of the Moon God.”

When Yurina, or rather, Yuren, had opened her shirt, the soul stigmata of the Moon God was clearly engraved on her chest. The Yuren I knew definitely bore the soul stigmata of the Sun God on the left side of his chest.

I immediately burst out of my room and rushed straight to Professor Bastion’s lab. The door flung open, and there he was, slumped over his desk, fast asleep.

Professor Bastion blinked groggily, rousing from his nap due to the noise. “Hmm? What’s the matter, brat?”

“The soul stigmata replacement technique,” I said.

“What?”

“Do you have research materials on the soul stigmata replacement technique?”

“Well, I do have some, but…”

“Please. Let me see them.”

At first, it seemed he was going to ask why, but when our eyes met, he paused and gave me a long look. “Hmph, alright, wait here a moment.”

He turned to rummage through a drawer and soon returned with a thick stack of documents and handed them to me. I snatched the stack and immediately flipped through them.

The soul stigmata replacement technique wasn’t an unfamiliar name to me. I had looked into it once long ago, hoping to rid myself of the Blessing of Resurrection. However, the technique was obsolete. Very little information about it remained in records. Eventually, I had lost interest in it upon learning that even if the soul stigmata were replaced, the awakened blessing wouldn’t disappear.

As I went over the documents, I came across something relevant and bit my lip, reading the words printed across the page. “Common side effects of soul stigmata replacement include memory loss and physical transformation…”

I turned to Professor Bastion. “Professor. This physical transformation, does that include the possibility of a change in sex?”

Professor Bastion stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Normally, one would die from seizures long before that, but… in theory, yes. It’s certainly possible. The stronger the transferred soul stigmata is, the higher that probability becomes.”

I kept quiet.

“But what brought this on so suddenly?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. My teeth clenched tightly. In my past life, Yuren had always kept a strange wall between himself and others, even to those of us in his party, who were like family. He insisted on a personal tent during missions and private rooms at every inn. He would cover himself in towels, face bright red, whenever we bathed at hot springs with Berald.

Even in this life, when we skipped class and went into Valhalla City, he stood before the women’s clothing store, gazing blankly at the displays.

Yurina Helios, the switched soul stigmatas, the sun, and the moon—all the scattered pieces began falling into place. It wasn’t Yuren, it was Yurina. At last, everything made sense. Why Yuren had avoided speaking of his past, and why there was always an invisible distance around him. He had been changed, from moon to sun.

Yurina was born with the soul stigmata of the Moon God engraved on her chest, and at some point, by someone’s hand, she had been turned into the “Sun.”

I tried to deduce when it could have happened. Last night, I had personally seen the Moon God’s soul stigmata on her. But in my previous life, when she joined my party, which was twelve years from now, she bore the Sun God’s soul stigmata.

That was too large a gap. How the hell was I supposed to pinpoint when her soul stigmata was changed? A deep breath slipped from between my lips.

First things first, Yuren… no, Yurina and I need to talk, I thought.

I thanked Professor Bastion for lending me the research and headed for Yurina’s dormitory. Its gleaming door, far more extravagant than that of my crummy dorm, loomed as I knocked hard.

“Yuren! Come out for a sec!”

I knocked forcefully, but no answer came. The messages I sent her through the Hero Watch also didn’t get a reaction. Even a call returned with the same “Unavailable” response.

I frowned, checking the time on my Hero Watch. It’s not even time for class yet. Where could she have gone?

Suddenly, a sinking suspicion hardened my face. “Don’t tell me…”

I scrolled back through my messages. Last night, Yurina had sent me an unexpected message, asking to meet.

“Dale, can we meet for a bit right now?”

A wave of dread crawled up my spine and spread through my limbs.

“Damn it!”

I sprinted through the academy until I arrived at Professor Kane’s office. Slamming the door open, I marched in, face grim. Professor Kane blinked at me in confusion.

“Where is Yuren right now?” I asked

“Yuren? He said he had urgent business at home, then signed a leave form and left this morning.”

I bit down on my lip. “Professor…”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Which warp portal leads fastest to House Helios from here?”

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