On the market floor, Lucien quickly ran into the dark elf Razor had mentioned. She was leaning against a wall not far from the door he had just come through, one knee raised with her boot braced against it. A stiletto dagger spun lazily between her fingers, catching the lantern light every few turns.
The moment her blood-red eyes landed on him, the dagger stopped spinning. She pushed herself off the wall in one smooth motion, lips curling into the same suggestive smile he had noticed earlier.
“You Lucien?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. “You kind of hurt my feelings back there, ignoring me like that.”
Her voice carried a rough, smoky undertone, completely different from what he had imagined in his head. That alone caught him a little off guard.
Lucien rubbed the back of his neck and let out a faintly awkward chuckle. “And you must be Ava. Sorry about that. I figured if I started talking to you, I might get a little too distracted.” He gave a helpless little shrug. “Razor was calling for me, so I couldn’t exactly keep her waiting.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed with amusement before she let out a low, sultry laugh. She twirled the dagger once more, then slid it neatly back into a sheath strapped to her thigh.
“Do I really give off that kind of impression?” she asked, one brow lifting playfully. “Well, I’m flattered. I’ll forgive you.”
“I appreciate that.”
Lucien glanced around out of habit, scanning the market floor. The crowd had thinned out compared to earlier, leaving the dim basement quieter than before. When he looked back at Ava, she was watching him with open curiosity, her arms loosely folded beneath her chest.
“Are you Inferni-blooded?” she asked. Her crimson eyes flicked across his face. “Red eyes are rare for ordinary humans.”
“Well, yeah.”
Because of the Asterian Empire’s religious views, Inferni were heavily discriminated against by society. Their nature stood in direct opposition to many of the Empire’s beliefs.
That said, for someone like Lucien, who had grown up in the Eastern Slums, discrimination had always been the least of his problems. Disease, hunger, getting beaten up—those things often happened to every child there regardless of race.
“I’m only a half-blood, though,” Lucien continued with a small shrug. “My mother was from Zharokkan—she’s a pure-blooded Inferni.” His gaze drifted for a moment as he recalled the fragmented memories. “I heard there are cities on that continent where Inferni hold most of the power and humans are the minority instead.” He let out a faint huff. “Never met my father, though.”
“Huh.” Ava tilted her head slightly, studying him with a quieter expression this time. “You must’ve had a rough time growing up here.”
Her tone stayed casual, but a hint of irritation crossed her face as her eyes swept over the people moving around the market floor.
“These folks are too influenced by those so-called ‘pureblood elves.’” she muttered with visible annoyance. “They treat races like ours as cursed, then the Eclipse happens and suddenly they depend on us because we survive Corruption better.” She clicked her tongue softly. “And somehow they still manage to hate us at the same time.”
Lucien noticed the faint tension in her jaw as she spoke. For someone who acted relaxed so naturally, there was clearly genuine resentment underneath it.
Personally, Lucien didn’t think much about how society treated him. Between the kind of work he did and the way he’d been raised, he rarely cared about social standing or fitting into society in the first place. Most people avoided him, and he preferred it that way.
He had never met a dark elf before, either. From what he had heard, dark elves mostly lived within the Hollow Realms—the vast underground expanses stretching beneath the surface—and tended to keep to themselves.
He had assumed Ava would be even more indifferent to this sort of thing than he was, but clearly he was wrong. Maybe she had some personal grudge against the high elves.
“I’m curious,” Lucien said, deciding to shift the topic. That immediately pulled Ava’s attention back to him. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. You’re an outsider?”
While he didn’t have particularly high hopes for the surface dwellers, maybe the Hollow Realms had fared better.
He was also curious about the place’s nature. If this really was the same world he used to live in, then the Hollow Realms had never existed there—or at least, he had never heard of them.
Ava adjusted one of the belts around her waist before giving a casual shrug.
“Yeah, I only got here yesterday.”
“Really? From where?”
“Skyspear Mountains.”
Lucien blinked, surprised.
That was pretty far.
From the knowledge Lucien had, even traveling nonstop on foot, the journey would’ve taken well over a month.
Ava noticed his expression and smirked faintly.
“I didn’t come here through the surface, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said, sounding amused by his reaction. “So I can’t tell you much about the Empire’s capital either. I traveled through the Hollow Realms with help from the dwarven cities in the mountains.”
“Well, I don’t really care about that part,” Lucien admitted with an easy shrug. “I was assuming you came from Hollow Realms anyway.”
That earned him a short laugh from Ava.
“The Corruption reached the Hollow Realms too,” Ava continued after a brief pause, as if she could already tell what he was thinking. She lightly tapped a finger against her arm while speaking. “Not as severe as the surface, but still bad enough.”
“I see…”
Lucien lowered his gaze slightly in thought.
There were too many things about this world that reminded him of his old one. Enough similarities that part of him still wondered if they were somehow connected—maybe even the same world under different circumstances.
But there were just as many differences that made that conclusion hard to believe.
Even if it was the same world, though, simply knowing that wouldn’t solve anything.
What mattered more was why he had ended up here in the first place.
For now, survival came first.
Lucien let out a slow breath, then looked back at Ava. She was still wearing that relaxed grin, her crimson eyes fixed on him with easy amusement.
He gave her a faint smile in return.
“Let’s get moving for the mission.”
Ava swept a hand lightly to the side in a small, elegant gesture.
“After you.”
Lucien shook his head with a chuckle and started toward the exit. As he passed by her, he caught a faint scent of smoke mixed with something floral lingering on her clothes.
A moment later, Ava casually fell into step beside him, her movements quiet enough that her footsteps barely made a sound against the stone floor.