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Clara felt dizzy as she tried to get up from the white tiled floor. She placed her right hand against it, feeling the cold beneath her palm, and immediately, a pair of hands took hold of her arms to help her stand.

Standing there with her mind in a haze, the girl didn't know how to make sense of everything she had experienced, and questions kept running through her mind:

Was it a dream, or was it real? Had she really met a goddess? What was happening? Where was she?

That last question became the most pressing when she saw the enormous sanctuary before her.

The young man with the round glasses who had helped her to her feet stood beside her, gazing at her with hopeful eyes.

"Thank you," she said when she realized the boy was still there. "Where am I?"

The young man answered, but his words sounded strange. It was another language, one that for some reason sounded familiar to her.

Clara shook her head to indicate that she couldn't understand him, and the young man repeated his words:

"Vash mihi nomen est. Salve in sacrario Deae Stellarum."

The girl narrowed her eyes as she thought, a habit she had whenever she needed to put some effort into something mentally.

«"Salve" is Italian,» she thought. «Is "est" too, or is that French? "Nomen" should be "name," right?... "stellarum"... "stellarum"...»

Her eyes suddenly widened.

"Is that Latin?"

The boy looked at her with curiosity, then pointed at her.

"Latin?"

"No," she quickly clarified, pointing at herself. "Clara. I'm Clara Adler."

The young man understood and nodded happily. He pointed to his chest and said his name:

"Vash. Ego sum Vash Drusus."

Clara sighed in relief and nodded. Although she didn't know any Latin, she recognized it because many of the scientific terms she had studied in her university degree were derived from Latin. At least the language was familiar and somewhat understandable to her, though that didn't make it any less strange.

"Where the hell am I?" she asked aloud to herself.

The young man in the robe didn't understand and didn't know what to answer. After making a confused face, he walked away while telling her:

"Hic mane; mox redibo."

Before Clara could even think about what he might have said, the young man ran out of the room through a large double wooden door.

"Well... what am I supposed to do now?" she sighed.

Calmly, she began to examine the sanctuary. The high ceiling disappeared above dark wooden beams, dimly lit by the little light coming through vertical stained-glass windows that broke up the continuity of the large white bricks in the walls like narrow slits.

In front of her were two pairs of square columns facing each other. Between them, the floor had elongated openings arranged in rows.

At first glance, Clara guessed they might be spaces for placing one's feet and using the floor as a seat. It was something she had never seen before, but in a way, she found it rather ingenious. What caught her attention the most, however, was what stood behind her.

When the girl turned around, she found herself facing a four-meter-tall golden statue of the Goddess of the Stars.

The statue gleamed as if it had just been polished. Directly in front of it, at its feet, was an altar with lit candles and incense. Behind the golden goddess stood an enormous stained-glass window that covered the entire wall.

The stained glass depicted constellations in the upper portion, while below, an ocean stretched from one side of the window to the other. Boats carrying human figures armed with spears and swords pointed toward the stars, while deep beneath the waters were figures the girl couldn't recognize. They looked like monsters with serpentine necks and shapeless bodies.

Under the faint blue light cast by the stained glass, she felt a shiver run through her entire body.

"Ecce, heros noster advenit!" Vash shouted as he returned through the door.

Clara turned at the sound of his voice and saw the young man enter, accompanied by many people wearing robes identical to his.

They all stared at her in awe, as if she were some famous person. After their initial surprise and a brief exchange of whispers that Clara couldn't make out, Vash approached her alongside an elderly woman with short silver hair and a bearded man whose dark beard reached down to his navel.

"Bene venisti, heros stellae. Honor est coram te stare," the woman said.

Before Clara could think about what she had said, Vash spoke:

"Ea non intellegit linguam nostram. Aliter loquitur."

"Sinite in manibus meis, ego curabo," the bearded man replied.

Clara shook her head, giving up on trying to understand, and didn't know what to say to them.

The man stood in front of her while Vash gave her a thumbs-up with a big smile, as if to tell her that everything would be fine.

Then the man raised his hands to the level of his head, his left palm open and his right hand clenched into a fist, and chanted words that sounded like a prayer.

"Naast el. Na lun. Na sof."

As he spoke each word, symbols and letters appeared in the air in a golden glow:

"☽❈ NA · AST · EL" "☽❈ NA · LUN" "☽❈ NA · SOPH"

The symbols floated between Clara and the man, and when all three were completed into a sequence, they glowed as a fleeting line crossed through them as if striking them out. Immediately, the characters gathered in the center and formed a sphere of pale green light that illuminated the entire room.

The man, satisfied, looked at the sphere and, with the hand he had kept open, pushed his spell toward it.

The girl had no time to react; before she could even think about dodging, the sphere of energy struck her neck and chest. The contact caused barely perceptible pain, like a small electric shock, which then gave way to a soothing warmth.

When the sensation disappeared, the sphere of energy had vanished.

"What was that? It didn't do anything to me?" she asked fearfully, touching her neck.

"Don't worry, it was simply a language wisdom spell," the man replied, satisfied. "Now we can understand each other."

Clara raised her eyebrows when she heard him. Her ears had understood the Latin he was speaking perfectly.

"It seems I can introduce myself properly now, Miss Clara Adler," Vash said, adjusting his glasses. "My name is Vash Drusus, an apostle of the Goddess of the Stars."

"Vash, leave," the elderly woman ordered with a sigh.

The young man made a face and walked away in small steps, but not before saying:

"See you soon."

Clara smiled at him and nodded. Although the whole situation was overwhelming her, she found that boy adorable.

"Please excuse Vash's manners, noble heroine," the elderly woman said. "I am Aster, the Saint of the Stars, and he is Brion, the Master of the Stars."

«So everything is "... of the Stars",» she thought with a laugh.

"I'm glad I can speak with you. My name is Clara, and I'd like to understand what's happening, but honestly, I don't understand anything," she finally replied.

"That's only natural," Brion said sympathetically. "You will soon learn everything when the heroes meet with the emperor, but first, we must get you ready."

"Yes, as you can understand, heroine, your clothes are not suitable for appearing before royalty," Aster told her.

Clara looked herself over and thought there was nothing wrong with the jeans and sneakers she was wearing. Perhaps the white blouse was rather simple, but before leaving home for university, she had thought she looked cute.

At that moment, she noticed the bulge sticking out of her right pocket. With everything that had happened, she had completely forgotten that she was carrying her phone.

She quickly took it out and saw that it was working normally. The battery was at 30%, but as expected, there was no signal. She turned it off so it wouldn't waste its battery and put it back in her pocket.

When she took her hand out of her pocket and saw her arm, the memory was interrupted.

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Chunks of flesh torn from Clara's arm had opened like a flower, revealing the horrific wound caused by hunger. In that moment, Izan saw the sin he was committing.

No blood flowed from the body that had been decomposing for days, but the wound made by Izan's teeth had turned it crimson. Part of the bone was already exposed, and the boy noticed that he had bitten through and eaten nerves, arteries, and veins.

The sudden image that interrupted his journey into the past caused neither disgust nor remorse; he thought only fleetingly that if he kept eating, he would continue to see his friend's story.

Desperate and with his mind broken, he continued eating, and with it, he continued wandering through her memories...

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"Follow me this way, heroine," Aster said, guiding her out of the sanctuary.

"Please, call me by my name. Being called a heroine feels a little awkward," she replied, following her.

"I understand. I will," the elderly woman nodded. "But you will have to get used to being called that. After all, you, like those who come after you, are one of the Heroes who will save us from the Catastrophes."

Clara smiled awkwardly but didn't argue. She definitely didn't like the idea of being the savior of a world she didn't even know. What exactly were they expecting from her?

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