The Cursed Soul Reaper

Human souls were very abstract, and for most of his former life as a soldier, Harry didn't believe that humanity had a soul. You were born, you lived as you wished and then you died, that was all Harry believed. But after reading the textbook, he had no choice but to believe it. According to the book, the soul is the driving force of everything in the world. Everything that the Yofou could do and the technology that they used were all powered by the Soul. Once humanity understood this, the tables slowly began to turn.

Humanity discovered that they possessed very powerful souls. Far more powerful than the Yofou. The boost in strength provided by the discovery of the soul and its uses allowed humanity to retrieve technology from some Yofou ships, reverse-engineer it, and begin to make the technology work for them. Humans who activated their souls also gained stronger bodies and the ability to control the elements, just like the Yofou.

As time progressed, humans slowly gained the upper hand against their invaders until they had successfully repossessed the Earth.

Afterwards, humans came together under a banner and decided that they were going to begin moving toward greener pastures. Humans moved away from the Earth and slowly began to colonize other planets using the technology that was salvaged and improved on from the Yofou.

That was where the book ended the explanation of the war. Harry read a few other books last night, but the basic explanations of what happened a thousand years ago remained the same, and Harry figured that they were either true or there was some form of global conspiracy going on where all the children were lied to about what happened in the past.

"Put the vegetables in the fridge and help me start the washing machine. And make sure you don't forget the weed in the back. I saw it there this morning, but I'll overlook it since I know you were tired from yesterday. How is your stomach? Does it still hurt?"

Veronica spoke up as she entered the kitchen after Harry and began to move to make their meal for the day. Harry told Veronica that his stomach didn't hurt as much anymore, and Veronica raised his shirt to see if the bandages were red. There were no red patches on the bandages, and Veronica patted Harry on the cheek before going to the stove.

As Harry worked, he wondered about what he had read and the possibility that all of it was real. If it was true that the soul was the source of all power, then why didn't Harry see anyone using it around him? His grandmother lit the stove using a gas lighter; the house ran on electricity.

Was the soul something that only a few people could harness and use?

None of the memories of the previous Harry showed him any instance where he noticed someone using some supernatural power like what they explained in the book. This told Harry that the world had split into two distinct groups over the last thousand years. There were those who lived here on Earth without any form of power and those who went out to explore other planets after they activated their abilities.

Harry's mind swirled around the idea of what this meant for him and his situation. The condition he found himself in at that time wasn't something that could be explained through regular science, and Harry found the concept of souls and the supernatural to be a more reasonable explanation for why he had been thrust through time and into this arcane future.

Did somebody with the ability to control time bring him here?

'No, the book never mentioned anything about being able to control time.'

But Harry knew just as well as everyone else that there were some things that you couldn't find inside of a book. If something like the Soul existed and was now commonly taught in schools as a real thing, then why should time be an unreachable concept?

Harry decided that his next task was going to try and find out the limit of what the soul could do. Thankfully, there were a lot of books around the house, mainly in the living room where an entire table was just filled with them. Harry didn't remember owning any of them, so that meant they either belonged to his grandmother or to his father.

"If I find out who owns the books, I could ask then about things that aren't in the books or things I don't understand. But I'll have to be discreet about it so they don't suspect anything.'

Harry came back from putting the vegetables where they were meant to be, and Victoria told Harry to help her put the rest of the groceries in the cupboard while she finished breakfast.

"You finished your food last night?" 

Veronica asked in surprise as she saw the lack of food on the table. Normally, Harry always left some food behind on his plate. Veronica always put a lot of food for him since she knew that a growing boy was supposed to eat at least that much, but he never had enough of an appetite to finish it. She was surprised that Harry had one now.

Harry just shrugged.

"The food was nice, and I was really hungry. Can I get some protein shakes from the grocery store next time?"

Victoria hummed in surprise and turned to her grandson when he asked this.

"What do you want something like that for?"

"I want to start working out."

Harry got the rest of the groceries and walked off to the cupboard while preparing himself to see if his theory about time travel was even feasible in the first place.

Behind him, Veronica was stuck staring at Harry as he left the kitchen before she just shook her head and turned back to the food. Veronica would get him the protein shake, but she was sure that he would forget all about it soon. That was just how teenage boys were.

The next few days went by in a blur for Harry. His mornings and nights were filled with him helping his grandma in the kitchen or around the house, and his afternoons were filled with reading. Harry had never been a stellar student before, but he had learned discipline and persistence in the army, and he knew that when put in an unfamiliar situation, the only way you can survive is by acquiring as much information about what was around you as possible.

The textbooks that Harry found around the house were mainly very high-level textbooks that spoke about science concepts and ideologies that were beyond anything Harry had the ability to understand. All of the books had the initials G.B. on them, and this told Harry that they belonged to his father. Had his father been in the academic sector once?

Whenever he had free time in the mornings and nights, Harry began to work out. It started small. He would jog for a kilometer in the morning after helping Veronica around the house, and then he would go back home and eat his breakfast. As the days passed, Harry upped the training, making one kilometer into two and then into three.

By the time a week had passed by, Harry could see some muscle developing in his legs and arms, and the ribs that had once been obvious were now being covered by growing muscles as well.

'It's good that this body is so young. At this age, it's easy to change fat into muscle.'

...

A/N: Please tell me what you think in the comments!