I was dreaming.
That was the first thing I knew.
The second was that I had absolutely no idea where I was, which was becoming an increasingly familiar problem in my life. There was no floor beneath me, no walls, and no ceiling. An endless expanse of white stretched in every direction, so uniform that staring at it for too long made my eyes uncomfortable.
I lifted one foot and put it down again.
Nothing changed.
I could move, at least. I raised my hands, inspected my fingers, and found no unexpected injuries or strange transformations. Everything appeared normal, which was reassuring by the remarkably low standards my life had established.
"Hello?"
My voice disappeared into the emptiness.
I waited for an echo, a distant response, or even the faintest indication that something had heard me. Nothing answered. I tried again, a little louder, but the silence swallowed my voice before it could travel anywhere.
Perhaps I was dreaming. That seemed like the safest explanation, so I decided to accept it until something more convincing presented itself.
With nothing else to do, I began walking. There was no particular destination, but standing around waiting for the universe to explain itself had never been an especially effective strategy for me.
After what might have been several minutes, I noticed something ahead.
At first, it was a thin dark line against the whiteness. As I approached, the shape gradually expanded until I could make out an enormous pair of doors standing upright in the empty space.
Their dark surfaces were covered in intricate carvings. A golden dragon wound its long body across both doors, its overlapping scales rendered with extraordinary precision. Its wings spread behind it, its claws curled around the edges of the design, and its narrow eyes seemed to regard me with an expression that was difficult to mistake for welcoming.
The craftsmanship was almost disturbing. The dragon looked less like a decoration and more like something that had been forced to remain still.
I stopped several steps away.
A mysterious door in a place that shouldn’t exist. Naturally. Why would my dreams ever contain something normal?
I circled it, looking for a handle or some indication of how it worked. There was no supporting wall, no visible frame, and no mechanism that I could recognize. The doors simply stood there, occupying a space that otherwise had no reason to exist.
My attention returned to the dragon’s face.
Its right eye was glowing.
I hadn’t noticed that before. A faint golden light shone from the narrow slit, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the carving until I looked directly at it.
Then the light disappeared.
I took a step back.
The eye was nothing more than a carved shape now, identical to the other. I stared at it for several seconds, waiting for the light to return, but nothing happened.
"Very funny," I muttered.
I wasn’t sure whom I was addressing. My subconscious, perhaps. It seemed to have developed an irritating sense of humour.
I approached the doors again and placed my palm against the surface. The material felt strangely smooth and faintly warm, almost like skin beneath a thin layer of paint. I withdrew my hand immediately.
That was enough. I had no interest in investigating whether a giant dragon carved into a door could also possess body heat.
I considered leaving, but the white expanse behind me remained as empty as it had been before. There was no path to follow and nothing to suggest I could return to wherever I had started.
So I pushed.
The doors opened without a sound.
Beyond them lay an enormous room swallowed by darkness. I couldn’t make out its walls or ceiling, and the darkness seemed unusually thick, swallowing even the faint light from the entrance. It felt less like a room waiting to be illuminated and more like an empty space that had never been meant to hold anything at all.
I remained at the threshold.
Something about the place made me reluctant to enter. I couldn’t explain it, and there was no obvious danger to point at. It was simply the uncomfortable awareness that I had walked somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.
Then the whiteness behind me began to blur.
The edges of the doorway dissolved into the surrounding emptiness. For a brief moment, the golden dragon’s wings appeared to stretch beyond the doors, their shadows spreading across the white space.
I blinked.
The shapes were gone.
Wonderful. Even the emergency exit was unreliable.
I stepped inside.
A faint blue light appeared in the darkness.
Then another.
Thin, translucent rectangles gradually materialized around me, floating at different heights and distances. Their cold radiance illuminated fragments of the room, revealing no furniture, pillars, or other recognizable features. The screens seemed to be the only objects in the entire space.
There were dozens of them.
Perhaps hundreds.
I approached the nearest one, keeping my hands to myself this time.
An image shimmered across its surface. At first, it was blurred, like a photograph left out in the rain. Then the picture sharpened, revealing a small boy sitting on the floor of a familiar room, surrounded by toys and pieces of cardboard.
His hair was untidy, his cheeks were round, and he was glaring at a wooden structure that had collapsed in front of him.
I recognized him immediately.
It was me.
Not Kain Valerian, the third son of a powerful noble family. This was the boy I had been before waking up in another world.
The child picked up the fallen pieces and began rebuilding his creation. Someone entered the room, and he looked up, his expression brightening.
The image flickered.
Another screen illuminated beside it, showing my childhood home. A classroom appeared farther away, followed by an old photograph of my family. On another, several friends stood together after graduation, grinning at the camera while one of them secretly made a ridiculous gesture behind someone else’s head.
The memories appeared without order. Some were still images; others played in short fragments. The blue screens reminded me of the strange phenomenon that had stopped Asura from taking over my body, but these were different. There were no instructions or messages, only scenes from a life I had thought was beyond my reach.
I moved between them, trying to understand what I was seeing.
One screen showed my father sitting beside me, laughing at something I had said. Another showed my mother standing in front of me, straightening the collar of my shirt before I left the house. She had always insisted that I looked untidy unless someone corrected my clothes. I used to complain about it, usually while standing perfectly still and allowing her to finish.
At the time, it had seemed like an unnecessary inconvenience.
Now, I couldn’t look away.
The next image showed a family trip. We had stopped beside a roadside attraction that nobody particularly cared about, but my father had insisted on taking photographs anyway. I remembered the heat, the food from a nearby stall, and the complaints when he asked us to pose for one more picture.
I approached the screen, almost expecting to hear his voice.
Nothing came.
I could see his lips moving, and I remembered the words he had been saying, but the room remained completely silent. The memories were alive enough to make me recognize every expression, yet they offered none of the sounds that would have made them feel real.
I raised my hand and touched the surface.
My fingers passed straight through it.
The picture did not react.
Then, without warning, the memory stopped.
My father remained frozen in the middle of a laugh. His face became still, his eyes fixed on something just beyond the edge of the screen. For a moment, the image seemed to lose its colour, and thin blue lines appeared across the surface.
I pulled my hand away.
The memory resumed.
I watched my father finish laughing, then turned towards the other screens. Perhaps the display had malfunctioned. That was the sort of explanation I preferred: boring, ordinary, and unlikely to involve ancient beings.
But something had changed.
The blue light around the screens had grown brighter. Faint markings began appearing along their edges, delicate shapes arranged in patterns I couldn’t read. They weren’t words from any language I recognized. Some resembled narrow circles split by straight lines; others looked like tiny branches twisting around one another.
They reminded me of writing, but not writing meant to be read.
I approached another screen, hoping to find a more reasonable explanation.
It showed a corridor.
I recognized the place immediately. It was the corridor outside my old bedroom, with the small window at the far end and a patch of discoloured paint near the ceiling. I had walked through it thousands of times.
But the image wasn’t showing a memory from my childhood.
It showed the corridor as I remembered it shortly before the accident.
The light was dim. The house seemed empty. At the far end, beyond the window, something dark stood against the glass.
I leaned closer.
The shape didn’t move.
It was too indistinct to identify, but its proportions looked wrong. It was taller than a person should have been, with a narrow head that seemed tilted towards the screen.
I blinked, and the image changed.
My childhood home disappeared, replaced by a view of the dark room I currently occupied. I saw the floating blue screens from a distance, arranged around a solitary figure standing in their midst.
The figure had my face.
Not the face I had worn as a child, but Kain Valerian’s.
I stepped back so abruptly that I nearly stumbled.
The figure in the screen remained still, its head turned slightly towards me. Its clothes looked like the ones I wore in this world, but the image was blurred around the edges, making it difficult to distinguish details.
I stared at it, waiting for the scene to change.
It didn’t.
I raised a hand.
The figure did not move.
Instead, the blue light around the screen dimmed, and a narrow line of unfamiliar markings appeared across its surface. The symbols arranged themselves in a sequence, one after another, before stopping abruptly.
I couldn’t read a single one.
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
My voice sounded strangely small inside the room.
The figure on the screen lifted its head.
I stopped breathing.
For the briefest moment, I thought it had looked directly at me. Then the screen shattered into blue fragments, its pieces vanishing before they reached the darkness beneath it.
Every other screen flickered at once.
The markings along their edges brightened, and the low silence that had filled the room seemed to change. I felt pressure in my ears, a sensation similar to the moment before a storm breaks. The darkness around the screens no longer seemed empty. I could not see anything within it, but I had the uncomfortable impression that I was no longer alone.
I turned towards the entrance.
The golden dragon stood on the doors, its carved face unchanged.
Yet its eyes were glowing again.
Both of them.
A sudden chill travelled down my spine.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to push through those doors, return to the empty white space, and wake up in my bed. But before I could take a step, one of the screens flickered in front of me.
The image showed a road.
At first, I couldn’t understand why this memory had appeared among the others. The picture was dark and unsteady, with lights stretching across the wet surface.
Then the headlights came into view.
My stomach tightened.
I remembered the sudden brightness, the realization that something was wrong, and the desperate attempt to react when there was almost no time left.
The image shook.
Then it broke apart.
I recoiled as blue light rippled across the screen. The headlights dissolved into pale fragments, leaving nothing behind.
For several seconds, I stood motionless.
That was as far as my memories went. Afterward, everything became a gap, and the next thing I knew, I had opened my eyes in someone else’s body.
I stared at the remaining screens. They were cracking now, their glowing surfaces breaking into thin lines of blue. One by one, the memories disappeared. My childhood home vanished. The photographs of my family dissolved. The screen showing my mother’s hands straightening my collar went dark before I could reach it.
"No."
The word escaped before I could stop it.
I reached for the last remaining image, but my fingers passed through a surface that was already breaking apart. The memory scattered into fragments, fading before they reached the ground.
The room shook.
The blue markings brightened until I could no longer look directly at them. Somewhere beyond the screens, something made a sound—low and distant, like a heavy door closing far below the earth.
I turned towards the golden dragon.
Its mouth was open now.
I was certain it hadn’t been open a moment earlier.
Then the darkness rushed towards me, swallowing the screens, the doors, and the room itself.
For one final instant, I saw a pair of golden eyes in the blackness.
They were not carved into anything.
They were looking at me.
And I woke up choking.
Something heavy pressed against my face, blocking my nose and mouth. I grabbed at it and tried to shove it away while sharp paws dug into my chest.
"Stop struggling, you useless human!" a familiar voice shouted above me. "You’re making this far more difficult than necessary!"
I twisted my head and dragged in a desperate breath.
Asura was sitting on my face.
I pushed him off.
The black dog landed on the mattress with an indignant huff, his tail flicking as he turned to glare at me.
"What is wrong with you?!" I rasped, clutching my chest. "Do you have any idea how close I was to suffocating?"
"You were screaming."
"I was sleeping!"
"Then do it more quietly."
I stared at him, still struggling to catch my breath.
"Why were you sitting on my face?"
"You were making an unreasonable amount of noise. I decided something should be done about it."
"You decided to smother me?"
"I was attempting to restore peace."
"By killing the person making the noise?"
Asura’s ears twitched. "You are still alive, are you not?"
"That isn’t the point!"
"Then choose a better point."
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. My heart was still racing, and the room seemed strangely unfamiliar for a few seconds. I looked towards the window, then the bedroom door, half expecting to find the golden dragon carved into the wood.
There was nothing there.
Only the curtains, the furniture, and the pale morning light falling across the floor.
I pressed my palms against my eyes.
The dream had felt different from an ordinary nightmare. I could still remember the texture of the enormous doors beneath my hand and the unnatural pressure in the room. Most of all, I remembered the figure on the screen wearing Kain Valerian’s face.
Why had it shown me this body?
And what had been standing behind the glass in my childhood home?
I had no answers. The golden eyes could have been a trick of the dream, and the strange markings could have been meaningless details produced by my imagination. But I couldn’t shake the impression that the images had not all belonged to my memories.
Somebody—or something—had shown me more than I had expected to see.
I rubbed my face and glanced at Asura.
He was examining one of his paws with an expression of profound displeasure.
"Are you going to keep staring at the wall," he asked, "or will you explain why you were screaming?"
"I wasn’t screaming."
"You were producing noises that would embarrass a wounded animal."
"I was having a bad dream."
"How unfortunate. Should I prepare a ceremony?"
I gave him a tired look. "You could start by not sitting on my face."
"Your sleeping arrangements are clearly defective."
"My sleeping arrangements were perfectly fine before you arrived."
"Then you should consider yourself fortunate that I have improved them."
I almost laughed, but the sound caught in my throat. The last traces of the dream returned, bringing with them the image of my mother’s face disappearing behind a screen of blue light.
Asura’s expression shifted slightly.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You look as though you have seen something unpleasant."
"I was sleeping. Unpleasant things tend to happen."
"That is a remarkably poor explanation."
"Thank you. I worked hard on it."
He continued watching me, his usual irritation giving way to something more attentive. I considered telling him about the dream. The blue light had reminded me of the phenomenon that had blocked his attempt to possess my body. If anyone might recognize something unusual about it, he was the most likely candidate.
But I didn’t know what I had seen, let alone how to explain it without sounding as though I had finally lost my mind.
Besides, Asura had a habit of turning every mystery into either a lecture or an insult.
I wasn’t ready for either.
I pushed the blanket aside and got out of bed. Only then did I notice how clean Asura’s fur looked. He smelled different, too.
I narrowed my eyes.
"Did you take a bath?"
Asura lifted his head. "I cleansed myself."
"That wasn’t what I asked."
"The distinction is unimportant."
I walked towards the bathroom and stopped in the doorway.
Water covered most of the tiles. A towel lay crumpled near the door, several bottles had been knocked from their places, and the shower curtain hung at an awkward angle.
I stared at the mess.
"What happened here?"
"I bathed."
"I can see that."
"The water resisted."
I turned slowly. "The water resisted?"
"It fell upon me without warning and continued attacking despite my objections."
"You turned on the shower."
"I activated a device that released water onto my body. The details are irrelevant."
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
I had dreamed of an impossible room, seen a figure that looked like me, and woken up with an ancient being sitting on my face. Now I was expected to investigate a war between a dog and a bathroom.
"Stay out of the bathroom," I muttered.
"The bathroom is a hostile environment."
"Good. At least you’ve learned something."
I cleared enough water to keep myself from slipping and left the rest for later. When I returned, Asura was already curled up on my blanket.
"You cannot be serious."
"I am resting."
"You just woke me up."
"That sounds like a personal problem."
I considered throwing him out of the room, then remembered that he had supernatural abilities, an enormous ego, and absolutely no sense of responsibility.
It seemed wiser to save my energy.
I climbed onto the bed, but sleep refused to return. The dream remained too vivid, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw the golden dragon’s glowing eyes and the figure that had worn my face.
I had no idea whether the strange room had been connected to the blue phenomenon, my arrival in this world, or nothing at all. I couldn’t even be sure the dream had meant anything.
But I had seen something that didn’t fit with the memories of my former life.
That bothered me far more than the nightmare itself.
Eventually, I sat up and stared at the floor, turning over the question that had followed me out of the dream.
Could I ever return to my old world?
I missed my family, but missing them didn’t tell me how to get home. The strange screens had shown me memories, not answers. Even their resemblance to the blue phenomenon that had stopped Asura was only a clue, and a weak one at that.
I couldn’t build a plan around a dream.
Still, I couldn’t simply forget what I had seen.
My new life wasn’t entirely miserable. House Valerian was wealthy, my room was comfortable, and I had more freedom than I would once have imagined. I no longer had to worry about rent or overtime, and the food alone was a considerable improvement over some of the meals I used to make for myself.
Of course, this world also had ancient relics, suspicious nobles, and an alarming number of ways to die.
Every paradise had its drawbacks.
I could probably learn to live here, provided the world stopped trying to kill me. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the original novel suggested that keeping my head down might not be enough.
The ending had been bleak. Conflicts spread beyond anyone’s control, powerful factions fell, and House Valerian eventually disappeared amid the chaos. I couldn’t remember the exact fate of every family member, and I couldn’t guarantee that events would follow the novel precisely.
But I was still a Valerian.
Being the useless third son wouldn’t protect me if the same disaster reached my family.
I rubbed my forehead and looked at the Grimoire.
There were eight Ancient God Grimoires, according to what I remembered. I possessed one already, but even the original protagonist had failed to gather them all.
That wasn’t particularly encouraging.
I had no desire to follow his footsteps or become a hero. Chasing ancient relics connected to beings powerful enough to frighten the gods sounded like a spectacular way to shorten my life.
Still, the Grimoires were one of the few leads I had. I didn’t know whether they were connected to my arrival in this world, much less whether they could help me return home. That possibility remained nothing more than a guess.
But if I wanted answers, I needed somewhere to begin.
I glanced at Asura, who was still curled up on my blanket.
There was, unfortunately, one useful thing about travelling with an ancient being trapped in a dog.
He could sense the Grimoires.
I nudged him with my foot.
"Asura."
No response.
I nudged him again.
His ear twitched.
"Wake up."
"Go away," he muttered.
"I have a question."
"Keep it."
"Can we use your ability to begin searching for another Grimoire?"
His eyes opened.
The change was subtle, but his attention sharpened immediately. He pushed himself upright, his ears turning towards me.
"You have already decided something."
"I haven’t decided anything. I’m asking a question."
"With you, the distinction is rarely meaningful."
"Then answer quickly, and we can both return to being miserable in peace."
He studied me before speaking. "What has changed since our last conversation?"
"Nothing. That’s the problem."
His ears angled backwards.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "We have a Grimoire. You can sense others under the right circumstances. I don’t know whether they’re connected to whatever brought me here, but they’re the only real lead I have. So can we actually use your ability to find one?"
Asura was quiet for a moment.
"I can attempt to detect a trace," he said. "That does not mean one will be present within range, nor does it guarantee that any trace I detect will lead us to its source."
"I remember. You explained the limitations yesterday."
"And yet you ask as though I can point a paw towards the nearest Grimoire."
"I was hoping your abilities had improved overnight."
"They have not."
"That’s disappointing."
"You are welcome to attempt the search yourself."
"I’d rather not spend the next several years wandering around and hoping I accidentally trip over an ancient relic."
"Then your first sensible decision would be to gather information before departing."
I blinked.
That was annoyingly reasonable.
"Such as?"
"Your available resources. The locations you can investigate without attracting unnecessary attention. The means by which you intend to travel. The circumstances under which I can detect a trace. I should not need to explain that a search requires more than announcing that you intend to begin one."
I stared at him.
"You could have mentioned that before insulting me."
"I assumed you would discover it eventually."
"That is not how advice works."
"It is how advice works when the recipient is determined to learn everything through avoidable mistakes."
I dragged a hand down my face. "Fine. Suppose we find a trace. What do we do then?"
"That depends on what we discover."
"And if the Grimoire is hidden in some ancient ruin guarded by a monster capable of tearing us apart?"
"Then you should avoid approaching it without preparation."
"Wonderful. And if we can’t avoid it?"
"Then you will have to make a decision based on the circumstances."
I stared at him for several seconds. "You are remarkably skilled at making an answer sound like no answer at all."
"I cannot provide you with certainty where none exists."
That silenced me.
For all his arrogance, Asura wasn’t pretending that finding the Grimoires would be easy. His ability gave us an advantage, but it couldn’t tell us what waited beside a relic or whether we could survive reaching it.
I appreciated the honesty, though I would never tell him that.
"Can you at least tell whether a trace is strong enough to investigate?" I asked.
"Sometimes. A clearer trace is easier to recognize, but strength alone tells me little about the danger surrounding its source."
"So even if you sense a strong trace, it doesn’t mean the Grimoire is nearby or easy to reach."
"Correct."
"And a weak trace might still lead to one?"
"Yes."
I exhaled. "You have a gift for making this sound worse every time you speak."
"It is a gift to be able to describe reality accurately."
"No, it’s a gift to make someone regret asking a question."
Asura settled back on his paws, looking entirely satisfied with himself.
I couldn’t blame him for the limitations of his ability. I could, however, blame him for the way he enjoyed explaining them.
"One more thing," I said. "Can you sense a Grimoire while we’re travelling, or would you need to concentrate on searching?"
"That depends on the strength of the trace and the circumstances. A presence may draw my attention without deliberate effort, but actively searching may require more concentration."
"So we don’t have to stop every few minutes while you sniff the air."
His eyes narrowed.
"Do not compare my ability to a dog’s sense of smell."
"You’re currently a dog."
"An unfortunate physical condition, not an invitation to insult me."
"Then stop giving me so many opportunities."
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The morning light had moved across the floor, and somewhere beyond the bedroom door, I could hear servants beginning their daily work.
The estate was waking up. Soon, someone would bring breakfast, and I would have to explain why I was asking about travel plans without giving away too much about the Grimoire.
I wasn’t ready for that conversation.
I looked back at Asura. "Then we’ll start by looking for another one. We don’t have to decide what to do about all the others now."
His expression grew wary. "You are aware that the Grimoires are not ordinary objects."
"Yes."
"And that their locations may expose us to dangers you are not equipped to handle."
"Yes."
"And that nearly every decision you make eventually becomes my problem."
"That last part sounds personal."
"It is."
I almost smiled.
"I don’t know if finding them will help me return to my old world," I admitted. "It might not. But I can’t keep waiting for an answer to appear in front of me. We have a lead, and I want to find out where it goes."
Asura watched me without speaking. His usual expression of contempt had softened into something harder to read, though it disappeared before I could decide whether I had imagined the change.
At last, he let out a displeased huff.
"Your lack of preparation remains deeply concerning."
"I’ll take that as agreement."
"It was not agreement."
"Then I’ll take it as a complaint and proceed anyway."
I rose from the bed and grabbed the blanket, tossing it over his head.
"Get ready. We have things to do."
His furious barking followed me across the room.
I had no destination, no proper plan, and no guarantee that the Grimoires would help me find my way home.
But I had a lead.
For now, that would have to be enough.