When he was first caught in the black curtain, Yurian had thought, So this is how my life ends.
Well, whatever.
It hadn’t been a bad life.
Dying a dog’s death stung a little, and there was some bitterness to it, but every grave had its excuse.
When he thought of the comrades who had gone before him, he didn’t feel much regret.
He had lived his whole life without really harming anyone and had carried himself with a certain rough honesty.
No regrets.
Well… maybe it was a little painful to leave behind the hazard pay and the fortune he’d worked his bones off to save.
Still, if he’d suffered this much, maybe the next life might be a decent one.
He didn’t believe in reincarnation, but maybe this was as good a time as any to start.
With that thought, Yurian opened his eyes—
and his mouth fell open at the sight before him.
“What is this?”
The world had literally been turned upside down.
The damp, foul canyon was gone, replaced by dry, barren land stretching before him.
White dust like drifting ash floated through the empty air.
At the muggy heat, he lifted his head slightly and saw a crimson sky with no sunlight anywhere.
“Umm…?”
He scratched his head.
What.
What is this?
What the hell is this?
As he stood there blankly frozen, a yelp rang out behind him.
When he turned around, he saw a pack of Hellhounds looking just as dumbfounded as he felt.
Even the Hellhounds panting harshly seemed utterly shaken by the situation.
They couldn’t speak, but somehow Yurian felt like he understood exactly how they felt.
He’d never imagined the day would come when he could understand monsters.
Life really did throw everything at you.
He subtly widened the distance between himself and the monsters.
They weren’t attacking now, but there was no telling when they’d lunge.
First strike wins.
Repeating the creed engraved into his bones, Yurian began circulating mana.
“…Huh?”
The shocking change wasn’t limited to the space around him.
The mana that had been scraping the bottom suddenly overflowed inside his body.
He had never felt this full before.
Yurian raised his sword and coated the blade in aura.
The sensation was twice as sharp and precise as usual, enough to send chills racing down his spine.
Before his mind could process it, his body moved first.
With mana overflowing like this, a pack of Hellhounds was no longer a threat.
Yelp!
With only a few swings of the sword, the Hellhounds dropped one after another.
He drove his blade straight into the bloodshot eye of one monster.
Then he stomped another charging beast down with his foot.
As he twisted his body and swept the blade sideways, the Hellhound’s eyeball burst free and blood sprayed in a wet splatter.
Yurian flicked the blood off his sword.
Maybe he’d poured in too much mana.
Or maybe Hellhound skulls were just that hard.
Either way, a crack now ran down the middle of the blade.
Carefully inspecting it, he let out a sigh.
“I can’t do without this.”
It was his favorite sword.
After carefully sliding it back into his waist belt, he looked around.
A total of seven Hellhounds had encircled him.
Not bad odds.
Compared to the battlefield right before the black curtain swallowed him, this was practically paradise.
Taking on seven was easy.
Rolling his neck side to side in a stretch, Yurian suddenly charged without warning.
Mist rose from the fingers gripping a Hellhound by the scruff.
Without even a trigger chant, he manifested a second spell.
Crackle.
A tiny spark snapped in the air.
Riding the mist, hundreds of bolts of lightning crashed down around the monster.
The Hellhound was roasted alive.
Yurian’s indifferent gaze swept over the rest.
By the time the last one collapsed to the ground, he nudged the corpses with the tip of his boot and wiped his forehead.
“Ah, that hits the spot.”
Now that the immediate danger was dealt with, all that remained was exploring this unknown place.
Looking up at the crimson sky, Yurian began walking slowly.
He hadn’t gone far before he spotted a man approaching from the distance.
The hood pulled low over his face made him suspicious no matter how you looked at it.
Definitely human, though.
Then maybe this person knew where this was.
Maybe he knew what the hell was going on.
Yurian felt both relieved and wary.
Preparing for any possibility, he gripped the sword at his waist once more.
“State your affiliation and your name.”
The language that came out of the man’s mouth was one Yurian had never heard even once in his life.
His eyes widened.
He definitely didn’t know the language, and yet the meaning slid directly into his mind with perfect clarity.
It wasn’t Imperial.
It wasn’t Eastern Continent speech.
He ran through every language he knew, and none of them matched.
There was something else strange too.
Without any trigger chant, the man shaped ice at his fingertips.
Ice spears. Handcuffs.
The way he manipulated freezing magic so freely had to be at least 7-circle.
To cast 7-circle or higher magic without a chant?
Anyone capable of that could be called an archmage without exaggeration.
Unfamiliar clothing.
An unfamiliar language.
And an ability he had never once encountered.
After rolling through every battlefield imaginable, Yurian’s hyper-developed instincts moved fast.
Danger signals were everywhere.
The thing more dangerous than the Hellhounds might be something else entirely.
Until he figured out this man’s identity, the best strategy was to lie flat and play along.
Even when the ice cuffs had first clicked around his wrists, he’d wondered if this was really the right call…
But less than ten minutes after traveling with the man, he was certain.
Like always, he had made the right decision.
After riding in a vehicle several times faster than a carriage with an absolutely insane ride quality, they arrived at a massive building.
Everything in existence here was bizarre enough to make his head spin.
Yurian let out an amazed sound at least once every minute.
Who knew how much farther they went.
He had only just finished being disappointed that the door ahead looked like an ordinary wooden door, when he stepped inside and found a whole group of people gathered there.
“So… he’s the one you picked up inside the dungeon?”
The man who had dragged Yurian all the way here, Gong Siyoung, nodded with exhaustion plastered all over his face.
He’d already been thoroughly battered by Yurian’s constant amazement on the way over.
Even now, it almost felt like he could still hear the phantom echo of Wow, this is insane!
Siyoung shuddered and turned his head away.
“I’m leaving.”
With that irresponsibly blunt declaration, he headed for the door.
Just before stepping out, Gong Siyoung glanced back and pointed at Yurian in warning.
“That guy is definitely not in his right mind.”
Whether it was a warning or an insult was hard to tell.
Bang!
The door slammed shut mercilessly behind him.
An odd silence settled over the room after Gong Siyoung disappeared.
Feeling all eyes on him, Yurian instinctively smiled.
There were five men facing him in total.
Every single one of them was watching him with clear wariness.
Given the situation, even he could make a guess.
He had been sucked into the black curtain, and the place he came out in had humans and civilization unlike anything he had ever seen.
‘Could this really be that so-called another world?’
Whether it was another world or some other world, it definitely wasn’t the world Yurian had lived in.
He lifted his hand high and waved brightly at the people of this strange world.
“Hello?”
What he really wanted was to wave properly, but his wrists were still locked in those thick frozen handcuffs.
He tried to make the gesture as friendly as possible with what little movement he had, but somehow the silence only deepened.
Was that not right?
Only then did Yurian really study their reactions.
At a glance, the man standing directly in front of him looked like the person in charge here.
He wore black glasses, hiding his eyes.
Tall. Broadly built.
But he didn’t look like a swordsman or a warrior.
More like… a mage?
“Why don’t we sit down and talk first?”
The man gestured toward the table.
Yurian obediently followed him and sat down.
As if they had been waiting for it, the other men took seats around him, placing him squarely in the middle.
The open caution in their posture should have been irritating, but Yurian’s attention was on something completely different.
“The chair… has wheels?”
He cautiously pushed off with his foot.
The chair moved smoothly with just the slightest force.
What is this soft, smooth feeling?
The flat cushioning and the way the wheels glided were astonishingly refined.
Had they enchanted the chair with magic?
But no matter how closely he checked, there was no sign of mana stone refinement or spellwork.
It felt like sliding across clouds.
Filled with wonder, he kept pushing himself around in every direction.
The chair rattled noisily across the floor.
Then, in the middle of his blissful circling, it abruptly stopped.
Startled, Yurian turned around.
Following the hand gripping the backrest, his gaze rose to find the black-glasses man smiling at him in warning.
“Now that you’re done playing, can we talk?”
Yurian nodded obediently.
Better not act up.
With that thought, he neatly folded his hands.
“Let me introduce myself first. Though you may already know. I’m Gong Sijin, Guild Master of Rapture Guild.”
Was he asking for a handshake?
Without much thought, Yurian held out his hand.
Gong Sijin gestured to one of the men behind him.
The man stepped closer and clasped Yurian’s hand.
More precisely, the ice handcuffs around it.
The man’s expression changed instantly, and Yurian felt the flow of mana.
Warmth bloomed over his hands.
Clink!
The cuffs shattered into glittering fragments.
Only then did Yurian finally regain his freedom, absently rubbing his wrists.
It was definitely like magic.
But it wasn’t magic.
How was that even possible?
His sparkling eyes turned toward the man.
The other man instinctively took a step back under that unbearably bright stare.
Just as Yurian was about to open his mouth and ask something, Gong Sijin moved first.
With a fox-like smile, he began in a calm, gentle tone.
“So then, sir… your name?”