“The wedding is tomorrow. What brings the groom-to-be to the Institute?”
“I received word from the excavation site that something needed urgent appraisal, so I came at once. I must finish quickly and return.”
The title of ‘groom-to-be’ somehow embarrassed Ernolf, and he smiled sheepishly.
“Has the item arrived?”
“We received a telegram saying it would arrive around one o’clock. Ah, there it comes.”
At the guard captain’s words, Ernolf turned toward the main gate. A carriage slowly approached and stopped before the entrance.
“Welcome.”
The researcher who stepped out of the carriage raised his hat in greeting when he saw Ernolf. Ernolf returned the greeting with a brief nod and opened the door for him.
Men in black uniforms carefully lowered a thick wooden crate from the carriage and carried it inside. Leading them, Ernolf headed straight for the laboratory.
“I heard it is a statue excavated from Sector 82. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
The researcher who had brought the item held out a receipt.
Ernolf was the heir to the Torlier Family, a family renowned for excavating ruins. Once he signed the receipt with practiced ease, the researchers carefully carried the crate into the laboratory.
After everyone had withdrawn, Ernolf stood before the crate containing the statue. When he looked inside, cushioning material had been packed without a single gap to protect it. He took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack, found and put on his gloves, then stepped up to the crate.
“It is small, but rather heavy……”
He slipped his hands between the cushioning material and carefully took the object out.
“Hm? I was told this was a statue of a Transcendent.”
The receipt stated that this relic was a statue of a Transcendent excavated from the Asua Civilization. Yet what Ernolf had taken out was an unidentified, cube-shaped artifact.
“Was there some mistake?”
Puzzled, he put the artifact back into the crate and turned toward the desk with the telephone.
At that moment, an intense light burst explosively from inside the crate. At the same time, the space within the laboratory began to whirl and twist.
“Uh?”
Startled, Ernolf reflexively tried to cast a Mana Shield. At that moment, mana tangled amid an explosion of intense light.
Ernolf screamed and lost consciousness.
***
The dazzling flash vanished, and his vision went pitch-black in an instant. Fortunately, he had not fallen, but his head was foggy, and he could only stand there like a stone statue. A cough suddenly burst from him.
“Cough, cough.”
Ernolf covered his nose and mouth with one hand and looked around. Dirt and stone dust were pouring down from all directions like a waterfall. It was difficult to breathe, and his limbs were as heavy as waterlogged cotton.
“Ghk!”
Had an earthquake struck and brought the entire Institute down? Steadying his dazed mind, Ernolf looked ahead for an exit. Dust hung thick in the air, making it difficult to see.
“It is collapsing! Run!”
“Aah!”
“Tiri, Tiri! Where are you?”
Screams and shouts rang out from a short distance away. This was not the Institute. For some reason, it looked like an old mine shaft.
“What are you standing around for? Move it, now!”
With the sharp whistle of a whip, something struck his shoulder.
“Agh!”
Clutching his aching shoulder, Ernolf turned around with a cry. An unfamiliar man with a jutting forehead stood there, holding a whip.
“Well, well. Who do you think you are glaring at, bastard?”
“What do you think you are doing, attacking me without warning?!”
When Ernolf glared at him in anger, the man became even angrier.
“Do you want to die? How dare you look me straight in the eyes……”
“What unit do you belong to? Bring your superior here at once!”
Furious, Ernolf gathered mana in his hand. Yet he could not feel the mana gathering at all.
‘……What is this?’
His Mana Heart had hardened like a stone and would not respond.
‘I can’t use magic?’
Nothing like this had happened since he awakened. Cold sweat soaked Ernolf’s body.
“Hey, you little bastard. What the fuck did you just say?”
Enraged, the man swung his whip at Ernolf’s face. All Ernolf could do was curl up to avoid it.
That was when it happened.
“Tiri!”
Someone burst through the cloud of dust, ran over, and rammed into the man. It was a thin, tall boy.
As the man holding the whip staggered, the boy struck him in the head with a large rock without hesitation.
With a dull crack of breaking bone, the man stopped breathing.
Leaning against the wall, Ernolf observed the boy. He was gaunt and filthy, yet he carried a threatening air.
The boy set down the bloodstained rock with practiced ease and searched the dead man’s clothes. After taking a dagger and a few coins, he pulled off the corpse’s shoes and slipped them onto his own feet. Since they were loose around his ankles, he wound the laces round and round. His manner was chillingly calm.
“I’ve been looking for you for ages. Couldn’t you hear me calling?”
The boy spoke as he raised his head indifferently. Blood had splattered across his dirt-covered face, making him look chilling.
“These are too big for you. I’ll find you a suitable pair later.”
Without thinking, Ernolf lowered his head to look at his feet. The small feet, little more than bones, were unmistakably a child’s.
‘What is this……?’
Ernolf frantically felt over his body and touched his face. Not only was he unable to use magic, but his body was different from before.
Only then did Ernolf realize that he was in an unfamiliar body, standing in a place he had never seen before.
‘Could that artifact……?’
Ernolf recalled the artifact that had exploded a moment ago. Could a powerful curse have dwelled within it?
‘This isn’t ordinary magic.’
An ominous thought crossed his mind. Extracting a soul from its body and implanting it elsewhere violated the laws of the Absolute One who had created this world.
This was a Transcendent’s magic that challenged a god. An ominous premonition slowly spread through his mind. Even if he recovered his mana, there was no way to know whether he could undo this curse.
“What’s wrong?”
The boy waved a hand in front of Ernolf’s face, then suddenly slapped his cheek.
SMACK.
The sharp sound echoed through the dark mine shaft.
Covering his stinging cheek, Ernolf looked at the boy.
He was bewildered by the boy’s audacity in slapping the cheek of a high-ranking mage and heir to a distinguished family.
“Come to your senses. We have to escape while we can.”
The boy spoke. His accent and vocabulary were slightly strange, but not so strange that Ernolf could not understand him.
“What do you mean, escape?”
Holding his stinging cheek, Ernolf asked in a dazed voice. Everything that had happened was so shocking that it was difficult to hold on to his sanity.
“Then you’re going to live here?”
The boy sneered at Ernolf.
“Here? Just where is this place?”
Without answering, the boy grabbed Ernolf’s wrist and pulled him into a secluded spot.
The moment the two hid in the darkness, another man appeared around the corner.
Holding his breath, the boy quietly drew the dagger he had stolen earlier.
The man who had appeared from around the corner glanced in their direction, then turned and walked the other way.
The dirt and dust pouring down from above had obscured his view, and he did not seem to notice the body sprawled on the floor.
‘He is gone.’
Just as Ernolf was about to breathe a sigh of relief, the boy crawled out soundlessly, keeping low to the ground.
After he followed the man, a short, sharp scream burst out from somewhere beyond the dust.
A little later, the boy dropped a worn pair of boots in front of Ernolf.
“Put them on.”
He had gone out of his way to chase down and kill the man who had just passed them, then even stripped off his boots. He looked young, but he was no ordinary crazy bastard.
‘He is used to murder and robbery.’
Even so, Ernolf did not refuse the boy’s kindness. He had just experienced how painful it was to walk barefoot through a mine shaft.
When he silently put on the boots, the boy crouched down and tightened the laces firmly.
Only then did Ernolf notice that this unnamed boy was unusually kind to him alone. He had even been slapped earlier, but still.
“Why’re you standing there? Are you scared?”
“N-no…… No. My present circumstances are simply rather difficult. Do not mind me.”
“What’re you saying? And what’s with the way you talk? You sound just like an old man……”
Ernolf was dumbfounded. Thirty-four was not a young age, but it was not old enough to be called an old man.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. Monsters showed up in a newly dug mine shaft, so everyone’s in a panic. This time, we’ll be able to escape without being caught.”
“Monsters? What kind of monsters? And what do you mean, ‘this time’? Was there a time before this?”
Ernolf wanted to hear more about the situation he was in. But events grew urgent before there was any time for that.
“Tch, they’ve already come this far.”
The boy glared into the mine shaft and readjusted his grip on the dagger.
Ernolf focused all his attention in the direction the boy was watching. Small, restless sounds drew ever closer.
“There are a lot of them.”
Having roughly grasped the monsters’ number, the boy muttered under his breath.
The boy’s senses were keener than those of an ordinary person.
‘He’s unskilled, but he wields aura.’
Otherwise, there was no way a child could kill an adult man so easily.
“Would it not be better to run?”
“Idiot. It’s blocked behind us.”
The two stood at the dead end of the mine shaft, at the mine face.
“If we’re getting out alive, we’ve got no choice but to break through those bastards. That’s the only way out.”
The ‘those bastards’ the boy had mentioned emerged through the dust. Ernolf identified them the moment he saw them.
“Is there anywhere we can get water?”
They were Red-Spotted Spiders.
Though smaller than other spider monsters, they had sharp teeth and potent venom that dissolved flesh.
They traveled in swarms, making them dangerous, but their aversion to water should make them easy to avoid.
“What?”
“Water. We need water.”
Unable to use magic, Ernolf had to ask the boy to get water for him.
“There’s a puddle at the end of the shaft……”
“Let us go.”
Ernolf grabbed the boy and ran toward the end of the mine shaft. His mind was in turmoil because he could not make sense of what was happening, but he had to survive first.
“I told you it is blocked!”
The boy shouted. Behind them, he heard the swarm of spiders chasing after them and shooting webs with a whoosh, whoosh.
“They are afraid of water. If we drive them away by splashing water on them, we can secure an escape route.”
“How could we…?”
Trailing off, the boy shook off Ernolf’s arm and raced ahead like the wind. When it came to surviving, he was more nimble than anyone.
‘That little brat!’
Ernolf gritted his teeth and ran after the boy’s back as it was swallowed by the darkness.
However, the body he had possessed was so wretched that his legs would not move as he wanted.
“Ugh!”
A web wrapped around Ernolf’s ankle, and he tumbled hard.
More webs flew toward him as he fell. The more he struggled, the more tightly the webs constricted his body.
“Damn it……”
Ernolf concentrated to awaken his Mana Heart. There was no other way.
‘Please, move!’
A mage was not something one could become through effort alone. One needed a Mana Heart, the core that sensed and controlled mana.
Though his body had changed, fortunately this body also had a Mana Heart. And Ernolf was one of the Empire’s foremost high-ranking mages.
One who had awakened once could awaken again. Given time, he would be able to revive this Mana Heart.
The problem was that he did not seem to have enough time.
‘Wake up already, you damned heart!’
Ernolf hurled curses at the Mana Heart that would not move at all.
It had once awakened earlier than anyone else and made him lose his ordinary childhood entirely. Now, when his life hung in the balance, it would not budge.
“Hup!”
At that moment, a vigorous shout rang out from deeper inside the mine shaft. Then cold water poured over Ernolf’s body.
“SKREEEE!”
When the cold water engulfed them, the monsters leapt and fled far away. The boy who had run ahead first had scooped up water and splashed it this way.
“Phew……”
Ernolf let out a breath of relief. The water soaking his body felt like holy water.
‘He has some loyalty after all.’
Ernolf had thought the boy had run off to save only himself, but that was not it. Since he was faster and stronger, he seemed to have run ahead to fetch water.
After the boy spent some time carrying water over and splashing it here and there, he returned to Ernolf’s side. Then he nudged Ernolf’s side with his toes and mocked him.
“You look awfully comfortable. You aren’t dead, are you?”
“Stop kicking me. I am not dead.”
“Then get up already.”
When Ernolf remained facedown, the boy slipped his toes beneath Ernolf’s stomach. He seemed to be trying to kick him up onto his feet.
“Do you know how Red-Spotted Spiders hunt their prey?”
Lying there as if he had fallen while running, Ernolf spoke.
“Once they capture prey, they paralyze its limbs, slowly dissolve it, and suck it dry.”
“How do you know that?”
It was a difficult question to answer.
‘Oops, I was showing off how much I know.’
In his current state, it was not appropriate to reveal that he was a mage who had possessed an unfamiliar body. So Ernolf simply decided to bluff.
“I just know. They look like spiders, so they probably act like them too.”
The boy merely looked down at him and did not question him further. That was fortunate.
“So what? You’re paralyzed too?”
“Yes.”
“Why now?!”
The boy grew angry as if the situation were absurd.
‘Exactly. Why did it have to be now……?’
Ernolf felt the same way. Who would want to become a monster’s prey in such a state?
“Your mouth moves just fine!”
“I can move above my chest. That is why I can breathe and speak.”
“So how long do you have to stay like that?”
“……Who knows?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I wish this were a joke too.”
It was the honest truth, without a trace of a lie.
‘If my chest becomes paralyzed, breathing will become difficult. I must undo the paralysis before I lose consciousness from a lack of oxygen.’
From a distance came the cracking of timber breaking and the sound of rocks pouring down. The screams that had echoed through the mine shaft were gradually diminishing, and it seemed that quite a few people had fallen victim to the spider monsters.
“Once they finish hunting, they will come back to collect their prey.”
“You know you have been strange since earlier, right?”
The boy said Ernolf seemed like a different person.