The familiar smell of food drifted into the quiet room.
Kei frowned slightly.
It was a warm aroma, carrying the softness of rice and a hint of saltiness. It didn’t resemble the hastily bought meals from outside. Nor did it resemble the cold rice mixed with kimchi that he had reluctantly swallowed over the past month.
This scent reminded him of the kitchen in his memories over the past month, and also of Grandma Kim.
Kei opened his eyes, the old ceiling appearing before him. Fine, winding cracks ran along the faded paint, lying there silently as if they had existed for a very long time.
He stared up at the ceiling, but his gaze wasn’t really seeing anything.
In Kei’s mind, old memories slowly surfaced from the deepest part of his consciousness, thick and heavy.
Fields covered in monster corpses. The pungent smell of blood mingling with damp earth, and expeditions that stretched on day after day, as he and the hero’s party traveled through ruined cities, forests corroded by dark magic, and endless Dungeons.
Kei still remembered Daniel’s demeanor back then.
That hero, who always stood at the front of everyone, wore gleaming armor, held a blessed sword in his hand, and always had a smile on his face that made the people around him believe that as long as Daniel was there, all disasters would be resolved.
As for Kei, he usually stood at the back. He used magic to clear the path, destroy monsters, set up barriers, and save the lives of others in the party.
He wasn’t remembered much by the people. There were no cheers and no praises. No one would call him a hero; in the ballads passed down among the folk, they called Kei the nameless magician.
Kei didn’t really care about those things.
At least, that was what he had thought, until the day Daniel looked at him with completely different eyes.
"Kei, do you know what the people are saying?"
In the memory, Daniel stood beside a dying campfire. The red-orange light cast across his face, twisting the smile that had always been friendly into something distorted.
At that time, Kei had just finished a battle with the Demon King. The mana in his body was nearly depleted, and he was covered in wounds that hadn’t been treated yet.
"Are they saying something strange?"
"They’re saying that if it weren’t for a Legendary Magician like you, we wouldn’t have survived the Dungeon and successfully destroyed the Demon King."
Daniel laughed.
"They’re saying you’re the strongest one in the party."
Kei was silent, not understanding why Daniel was bringing that up.
"So what, hero?"
"So what?"
The smile on Daniel’s face disappeared, his expression becoming twisted and vicious.
"Do you really not understand? I am the hero. I’m the one the entire kingdom has been waiting for. I’m the one who has to defeat the Demon King and earn the admiration of the whole continent. Not you, a common-born magician!"
Kei looked at the companion who had journeyed with him through countless battles, feeling sorrow and deep hurt inside.
"I never competed with you for that title."
"But you’ve stolen everyone’s attention!"
Daniel’s voice trembled with anger.
"As long as you’re there, no one cares about me anymore. They’ll only see your beautiful magic!"
That was the first time Kei saw jealousy in Daniel’s eyes, an emotion so irrational that he couldn’t comprehend it.
Kei had never wanted to be praised; he only wanted to complete the mission, survive and return, then find a quiet place to rest and live out the rest of his life.
But to Daniel, Kei’s existence had become a thorn that he couldn’t pull out by ordinary means.
"You can’t kill me."
Kei remembered saying that.
"Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t kill me."
A Legendary Magician, even with all mana depleted, as long as the surrounding world was still filled with magic elements, Kei’s soul would always be protected by those magic elements, and his soul would never die.
Daniel didn’t answer.His gaze at that moment was so cold that it made Kei feel a stranger, and the two female teammates standing behind him also said nothing.
Luna lowered her head, her hand tightly gripping her staff.
Aliya turned her face in another direction, her fingers still resting on the bowstring but with no intention of intervening.
Kei had waited for one of them to speak up, just one sentence would have been enough, one sentence saying that Daniel was wrong. One sentence saying that they had fought together for too long to easily abandon a teammate like that.
But no one said anything.
"Then I will take you to a place from which you cannot return."
Daniel said.
After that, everything happened too fast, the spatial formation was activated beneath Kei’s feet. Chains of light wrapped around his body.
The mana within Kei exploded with everything he had left inside him, but it was already too late. He was pushed by Daniel’s sword into the opening spacetime tunnel, falling into a place without direction, lost in endless space.
Before being swallowed by the darkness, Kei could still see the three of them.
Daniel stood at the front, with Luna and Aliya behind him. No one chased after him, no one regretted it, and no one called his name.
Kei had always known that no one truly cared for him, but being betrayed by the very people who had journeyed alongside him was another matter.
His heart shattered that day.
Yet after arriving in the new world, he met someone who loved him with all the gentleness she had.
Mrs. Kim didn’t ask where Kei came from, nor did she force him to talk about his past, and she didn’t care whether he had power or not.
She just saw a child left behind beside the dump, then took him home, cooked for him, and scolded him when he refused to dress warmly enough.
She saved the best piece of meat in the bowl for him, then lied that she didn’t like eating meat. That warmth came too late and left too quickly, to the point where Kei hadn’t even learned how to accept it before he had to watch it disappear.