Hearing those words, Liam immediately thought about them. Then he realized their meaning.
"Does she know that I'm not the real Zavi? That's impossible... there's no way she knows," Liam whispered in panic.
Liam closed the door once again, dragging his feet back and forth between the window and the door before returning to his chair and beginning to write something down.
Half an hour later, he tore a sheet of paper from the notebook, containing the plan he intended to carry out next.
To recover memories and various other things, he would remain in this world no matter the reason; he had no intention of returning to Earth, even though his memories of his origin were fragmented.
He lifted the paper and read it once more, checking for any mistakes or oversights.
'There are so many problems here; wasn't Zavi originally trying to find a job? Then why did he end up dying because of that place?'
Feeling satisfied with the notes, Liam stood up and walked to the left, heading toward the wardrobe.
The wardrobe door opened, and he slipped the paper into the pocket of his coat. After closing it, he walked to the bed and prepared to sleep, waiting for morning to come.
Yet Liam's eyes refused to close, still haunted by that terrible moment.
'Come to think of it, how did I end up in this body?'
Naturally, with little experience and knowledge that had faded over time from being locked away in prison, Liam Tirarty was confused, nearly hitting his own head.
'What scares me is... what exactly was that shadow I saw...?'
Thinking about those things made drowsiness begin to chase after him. His breathing steadied, and the cool night air drifted through the ventilation gap, briefly helping Liam relax.
A few minutes later, his eyes closed tightly, and he fell asleep with his cheek resting against his hand.
...
October 21. Sunday. 07:30 a.m.
Liam had actually woken up much earlier that day, but for some reason, after having a nightmare about something strange and illogical, he moved to the living room and fell asleep face down on the sofa.
Even Isabelle, who had left the house at 07:00 to go to school, had not noticed Liam's presence in the living room.
By coincidence, at that same moment, his mother entered the living room to retrieve her bag from the hook behind the sofa where Liam was sleeping. Unexpectedly, she found her son fast asleep on the sofa, his face buried in a pillow.
Just as she was about to wake Liam, her foot stepped on something. She looked down and saw a wooden door beneath her feet. From the distinctive carvings on it, she immediately recognized that it belonged to Ren's room.
'Why is this door here?' The question caused Mei's thoughts to stall for a moment.
Confused, she gently woke Liam. "Wake up, sweetheart. Did you stay up all night again writing job applications?" she said while lightly shaking him.
Feeling something touch him, Liam slowly opened his eyes, catching the faint light filtering through the ventilation opening before gazing at the cloudy sky through the half-open window.
He tried to sit up while holding his neck, which suddenly felt stiff and sore, perhaps from sleeping in the wrong position. He wasn't sure, but he tried to hide the discomfort from his mother.
"What time is it now, Mom?" he asked with a yawn.
'It feels like I'm actually talking to my own mother,' Liam thought with a faint smile, even though he still didn't understand how he had entered this body. Somehow, however, it filled a void in his heart.
His mother took a pocket watch from her handbag, glanced at it briefly, then said, "It's already 07:35," while holding the watch in front of Liam's face.
Liam immediately took the pocket watch carefully and checked it himself. Realizing that he had slept for more than two hours after first waking up from the discomfort of the nightmare, he returned the watch and hurried to the kitchen to fill his now-growling stomach.
His mother looked surprised, then smiled at her son's behavior. As she turned around, she suddenly realized she had forgotten to ask why Ren's bedroom door was in the living room.
"Zavi... did you get into another argument with your brother?" she asked, her voice full of concern and gentleness.
Although Ren was not her biological child, she loved him dearly and had treated him as her own ever since her husband, or rather Ren's biological father, passed away.
From the kitchen to the left of the living room, Liam peeked out from the doorway and replied, "No. I think you're overthinking it."
Mei fell silent for a moment before speaking again to make sure. "Then why is his bedroom door under the sofa in the living room?"
Liam's mind went blank for an instant as his pupils widened upon hearing that statement.
'I don't know anything about that either.' His body trembled uncontrollably as the image of the mysterious black figure flashed through his mind.
"I don't know. I'll fix it later myself..."
"Alright... don't do anything reckless. And don't forget to ask other people for help." She shook her head briefly.
"Okay," Liam shouted from the dining room and kitchen.
After that, his mother struggled to lift the door, placing it in front of the shelf where books and various other items were stored, then hurried off to the market in the town square, realizing that it was Sunday, the day when the market there became busier than usual.
In the room connecting the kitchen and dining area, Liam sat in a chair, his thoughts in turmoil as he stared blankly at the dining table covered with various delicious dishes.
'Now that I think about it again, why was that door there? This is strange. Really strange,' Liam thought, trembling slightly.
'As for the shadowy silhouette I saw yesterday, after thinking about it more carefully, I'm sure it wasn't a human shadow.' He had felt something was wrong from the very first moment he saw it, and the nightmare had only added to the burden he had already been carrying.
The shadow was different from an ordinary human shadow, slightly larger, with a pair of wings folded tightly against its back.
Honestly, he didn't want to think about it anymore.
He immediately raised his head. After a moment of thought, he began eating, tasting flavors he had never experienced before on Earth and also... inside a prison cell. The food was wrapped in a unique native Moran leaf called Kele, containing rice, pieces of meat, eggs, and vegetables such as peas, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and celery leaves.
At exactly 08:00, he finished eating, carried the dirty dishes to the sink, washed them until they were spotless while thinking about the earlier events, then neatly arranged them back on the rack afterward.
His breathing and stomach felt far calmer than before. He walked to the living room, picked up the door, and returned it to Ren's room.
After placing it there, he searched the storage room for tools to repair it. As the storage room door opened, dust flew into the air and struck his face.
When the dust entered through his nose, he couldn't suppress the reaction rising within him, and the dust went deeper into his lungs.
Huff...
Just by looking at it, it was obvious that the storage room had not been entered or cleaned by Zavi's family for a very long time.
"Are those tools still in here?" he muttered softly.
'Yeah, I know this is strange. About what happened to me this morning, I heard the sound of heavy rhythmic footsteps accompanied by a long whistle echoing with every step, and regarding that memory of death, it seems I'll have to investigate it myself so I won't keep being haunted by fear,' he thought, confused by what had happened before dawn. Liam's body suddenly stiffened, and he trembled all over at once.
Liam repaired the door himself. Although it was difficult and he had only a little experience from Earth, he kept trying. Twenty-five minutes later, the door was back in place as if nothing had happened.
'Damn. This is harder than I thought. But where is he now? Could he be wandering around again?' Liam could not find an answer to his brother's behavior.
Even though he knew Ren was only his stepbrother, Liam would still try to treat him like a real older brother.
After struggling for so long, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He thought about checking whether the small repair had made the door function properly.
Doing all of that turned out to be enough to erase the strange thoughts haunting him. He decided to lie down in his room for a while, feeling as though there was nothing else left to do. Everything felt quiet and directionless.
However, the moment he entered, his gaze landed on the desk. A notebook lay there.
His eyes widened. Liam immediately remembered what he had written the previous night: he would recover his memories from Earth, along with the faint fragments of Zavi's memories that overlapped with his own, and once that was done, he would enjoy his life.
He immediately opened his wardrobe, took out a black jacket, and put it on with careful movements.
Two minutes later, he left his room and locked the front door to prevent his younger sister from entering and discovering the secret, that he was no longer the older brother they had once known.
Liam dressed in a classic style, wearing a black jacket and shirt.
His fingertips touched the cold metal for a moment before he took a deep breath and stepped out of the narrow alley that separated the house from the street, where people and horse-drawn carriages passed by.
The city air greeted him with a mixture of horse scent, faint smoke, and damp earth. He walked toward the library on Cosdever Street No. 01, which was quite far from Vica Street No. 11, where he lived.
Liam's steps remained steady amid the crowded sidewalk. Shoulders brushed against one another. Conversations overlapped. Along the stone road, horse-drawn carriages rolled past, hooves striking dry stones mixed with mud, wooden wheels creaking loudly around the bends.
'It feels like I've moved to a world similar to nineteenth-century Earth,' Liam thought as he observed his surroundings.
Rows of houses stood close together, each with chimneys still releasing thick black smoke, their windows tall and narrow. Yet they still seemed comfortable enough to live in. There was no morning fog, as factories were very rare in Chapena, especially in Moran. Some men wore formal suits and round hats or top hats, while women wore dresses and classic clothing with long, wide skirts.
A few seconds later, he arrived at an intersection where horse-drawn carriages usually stopped and gathered. One horse flicked its tail restlessly, its breath lightly misting in the air.
'David Havertson's rule over Chapena does have its benefits.'
He was a noble who governed several regions of Chapena, including Vica and Cosdever.
As he turned his head, his gaze suddenly froze. On the dimly lit porch of a shop crowded with passing pedestrians, someone was behaving strangely. His face was hidden within the building's shadow as though harboring malicious intentions toward one of the passersby. Only his eyes were clearly visible, open and silent, staring directly at Liam as if observing him.
"Hah!?"
Liam instinctively quickened his pace. He moved toward the crowd ahead, slipping between two men in flat caps leaning beside a carriage wheel. One of them was calming a horse that had begun neighing softly for no apparent reason.
Partially covering his face with his arm, Liam spoke calmly. "Could you take me to Kyomi Library?"
The man in the flat cap lowered the brim of his hat before replying in a hoarse voice, "The fare might be a little expensive. Around 3 Pace, maybe 5 Pace from here to there."
Liam fell silent for a moment, calculating in his head. "Alright. We'd better leave right away."
'5 Pace? If I convert it into Earth's currency, it's probably about the cost of two meals back where I lived during school,' he thought, trying to interpret the relationship between this world's currency and the Earth he once lived on.
The man stretched his stiff back, patted his companion on the shoulder, then informed him of the destination. He signaled for Liam to get in before the horse started moving.
The interior of the enclosed carriage was decorated with intricate symbols belonging to the Kingdom of Norn carved into its outer frame, carvings that looked unfamiliar yet symmetrical, like ancient emblems that had existed for ages. And all of it originated from the proposal of Moran's main church, Morotuane, which worshipped one of the nine gods: Auneron, the bearer of fortune and virtue.
As he sat down, something pressed against his chest. Reflexively, he opened the small curtain behind him.
'Where did that person go? Is he watching me, or is this just my strange intuition?' Liam thought suspiciously, then knocked twice on the carriage wall from the inside before the carriage truly began to move.
Yet that misunderstanding could have proven fatal if it had not been properly clarified. The man Liam had suspected earlier had merely been waiting for a pamphlet from his friend, too embarrassed to show himself to others while receiving it.
At last, the carriage moved forward.
'Now that I think about it, I remember the logo on that man's clothes. But where did it come from?'
Several minutes later, he got off at the intersection of Cosdever Street No. 1. He paid the agreed fare and walked away without looking back.
The sidewalks here were cleaner. The buildings appeared larger, their windows decorated with thin stained glass. In the distance, two cathedral towers rose high into the pale sky, their bells ringing every ten minutes, mourning the mysterious deaths that had occurred in Moran yesterday, Saturday.
After walking for several minutes, he arrived before a massive iron gate. Beyond it stood a magnificent building and beautiful facilities that left him stunned and speechless for a moment.
A grand structure with a gleaming stone façade. A beautiful garden surrounded it, neat and symmetrical. In the middle of the pathway stood a tall fountain, its water flowing peacefully, becoming the center of attention for every visitor.
After waking before dawn about an hour earlier, he had dreamed of two things. First, Zavi's death. Second, a dream that had awakened him drenched in sweat after hearing a strange whisper that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, though afterward he could no longer remember it.
Liam could not hide his fear, forcing himself to remain calm and act normally while conducting his investigation alone.
'This can't be a coincidence.' That thought alone strengthened his resolve not to panic.
He stood before the open iron gate, watching elderly people, teenagers, and children accompanied by their mothers pass through the entrance and enter Kyomi Library.
Liam smiled politely at the guards and continued toward the main entrance. The moment he stepped inside, the first thing that greeted him was a gigantic chandelier.
He glanced over the layout of the building, then moved to the left, passing rows of towering bookshelves in search of informative texts. After a long search, he found a book that seemed suitable.
"Is this really the right one?" he muttered softly.
However, after only ten seconds of reading, a cold voice pierced his ears. His body instinctively froze as he slowly turned to the side, facing a man and a woman.
"So you finally came too, Zavi," Leo murmured, his former classmate.
Leo Zilvera, together with a woman named Forn Vinora, walked toward him, both of their gazes fixed on Liam. They had been Zavi's classmates at Vamaeora High School in Tezny District, the city center.
Liam fell silent for a moment before asking hesitantly, "Were the two of you looking for me?"
'Weren't they Zavi's classmates during his second and third years of school? Why are they here?' Liam thought nervously, unsure of what to do, feeling that something unpleasant was waiting for him.
"Oh. Leo happened to see you," Forn replied. Her black hair was tied back, and her brown eyes remained calm as she continued, "Actually, he was planning to visit your house, but he changed his mind after accidentally seeing you enter the library. It's rare to see you wanting to read."
Liam chuckled softly, behaving like a true friend.
'Uh, I don't know. He probably wants to invite me somewhere, right? A reunion to strengthen our friendship?' Liam frowned, unable to believe how quickly the situation had changed.
Their meeting was brief. Liam chose to excuse himself because he did not want too much interaction, fearing that his identity as someone else would be exposed. However, they did not let him leave so easily.
Instead, they immediately revealed their true intention of spending time together somewhere, since it had been about two and a half years since they had last met, chatted, and laughed together.
His fingers became sweaty, and his breathing caught in his throat from the discomfort of being constantly pressured to go with them, irritated because the people inside the library were beginning to focus their attention on him.
Then, hesitantly, he decided to back away, leaving his two friends with somewhat awkward expressions.
Liam stopped and turned around. For a moment, he saw an indescribable and somewhat gloomy expression on their faces. He let out a long sigh and reluctantly said, "Alright, alright. When is this outing going to happen?" he asked while looking at their cheerful expressions filled with happy smiles.
They approached Liam, and Leo whispered the meeting location, a mystical place, a sacred and pleasant place. The meeting point was a park in Tezny District, Ahiston Street No. 12.
Liam nodded and paused for a moment to memorize the location. After that, they said their goodbyes, reminding him not to be late for the meeting point.
The two of them returned to what they were supposed to be doing, preparing themselves.
"Yeah, alright," Liam replied with a flat expression.
From a distance, Liam watched their backs as they exited through the library's main entrance. Then he returned to the bookshelf where he had been reading earlier and continued until he finished the book.
"What does all of this mean?" he muttered in shock while holding his chin. "What kind of strange conflict is this? And the discovery of corpses with black spots on their necks?"
'Could this have something to do with me?' he thought suspiciously.
'Underground organizations, terrorists, cults, and groups of strange people attacking important facilities throughout Moran, including cathedrals. Chaos in Sanerva. The downfall of a noble. What exactly are they thinking?'
Liam's eyes widened slightly. He did not know whether events like these were common in this world.
Then he flipped through the book further, surprised to discover that it recorded both past and present events. Unlike his home on Earth, the history written in the books here was incredibly strange and diverse.
The book Liam held, titled "Mysteries and the Inverted World," detailed the beginning of the Star Calendar era around the 550s. It was an age of war, cultural discrimination, and religious conflict everywhere, and more specifically, hatred toward brown-eyed people who tended to be tall with somewhat straight hair, people referred to as the "Demons of Hell," who existed during the Star Calendar era, an era known for tailed stars, or comets.
"Isn't that cruel?" Liam nodded and muttered unconsciously.
"But there must have been a reason for it, or perhaps it was simply to satisfy their own desires and impulses?" he continued softly, his body shuddering after reading several paragraphs on page fifty.
The war and the mystery surrounding those petrified corpses were clearly recorded in the book.
A beautiful world hidden beyond the mountains had emerged during that era, along with the appearance of nine extraordinary figures, each bearing a unique title:
King of the Chemical Prisoners.
The Elusive Sorcerer.
Rhythm Mystical.
Black Flame Ordeal.
White Foggy Night.
The Banishing Naraka.
The remaining three figures were never officially recorded, yet their existence was still known to the public through the six documented figures, although the matter was kept secret and only a handful of people truly knew the details.
'Heaven of Inevitable Descent. Monarch of Shaman. Lord of Chaos. They became fairy tales and even popular stories among children and adults alike.'
Liam knew of those three figures, while the other six were completely unfamiliar to him. That knowledge came from Zavi's memories, along with faint fragments that were difficult to recall.
Events from more than five hundred years ago were described clearly in the book; a single line on page fifty recounted brutal massacres carried out across various regions by the brown-eyed human race against numerous blue-eyed races, including Zavi's people, as well as races with dark brown, gray, amber, green, and black eyes, all of whom were said to have ties to non-human beings.
'If I want answers, there's only one way; investigate the documents and written secrets kept by the rulers out there. I know it's foolish, but this world is no different from that one.'
Liam smiled bitterly and was about to close the book, but stopped himself when he accidentally turned another page.
'No way. The largest continent in this world, Karanda, didn't originate from this world?'