The sound of impacts echoed as hundreds of mosquitoes crashed into something invisible.
They buzzed loudly and clung to an unseen wall, hoping they could somehow pass through it.
Amid the swarm of mosquitoes, the sound of rustling paper came from Van as he turned another page of the book he was reading.
He sat on a chair in front of the tent he had pitched in the middle of a dark savanna.
He didn’t bother lighting a lamp because he didn’t need one.
What he needed was only a barrier against mosquitoes the size of an adult’s thumb.
Van whistled a few times.
He nodded while speaking to himself as he read a book titled How to Fly a Drone.
After reaching the final page, he closed the book with a smile before pinching the air to summon a cold can of beer.
"Ahh... I never imagined my first experience flying a drone would happen two million years in the past."
Van smiled as he raised the cold beer toward the sky.
Above him, countless colorful stars served as nature’s own light.
"Thanks to the old man for leaving me the Sunset Space... and thanks for copying the drone store there too."
Van leaned back in his comfortable camping chair, even without a campfire.
He scratched his exposed thigh, dressed only in a pair of shorts and sandals.
He remained silent for a while before pulling his cellphone from his shorts pocket.
A voice sounded the moment he opened the application.
"Proceed straight west for fifteen kilometers..."
Van tapped the phone against his forehead.
’t’ll take several days to travel from the first Artium location to the second...’
’Good grief... at this rate, I might end up traveling around the entire world.’
Van’s eyebrows furrowed.
’But where are ’they,’ the ones the old man mentioned? Are they on another continent?’
Van argued with himself inside his own mind.
According to the countless stars watching overhead, he had already finished one pack of cigarettes and over a dozen cans of beer.
His gray eyes had become bloodshot, while dark circles now decorated his face.
Van let out a long sigh.
The sky had already turned pink.
Birdsong gradually filled the area around him, replacing the constant buzzing of mosquitoes.
Van rubbed his watery eyes.
"Whatever happens, happens... whether it ends in a fight or not, I’m ready."
Van slowly stood up.
He stretched his body while yawning, then shouted to mark the beginning of his day.
"Don’t worry, old man!! I won’t embarrass you!! I’ll do my best to accomplish everything!!"
Van began dismantling the tent he no longer needed, sending it, together with the chair, back into the Sunset Space.
He then put on a pair of black boots while brushing his teeth.
After that, he slipped on a dark green jacket over a white T-shirt.
He also applied sunscreen to his face while standing beneath the sunlight, which felt even harsher despite it still being morning.
He finished everything within only a few minutes before taking off in a low flight.
He left the place without a trace, as though he had never been there.
Van flew away from the sun, which seemed to be chasing him.
The fresh wind caressed his long golden hair as it streamed behind him.
To break the monotony of seeing nothing but endless forests, he eventually landed among them.
"This area is warmer than that rainforest... I wonder where exactly I am."
After walking through the dense forest for several minutes, Van finally emerged from it.
He began descending a gentle grassy slope.
Soon, he started noticing strange-looking rocks.
He even stopped for a moment, crouching down to touch a rock that clearly hadn’t formed naturally.
Van frowned before continuing his journey.
As he walked farther, he encountered more and more rocks with unnatural shapes, none of them covered in moss.
Van began mentally tracing the scattered positions of the stones one by one.
"What’s this? These rocks look like they’ve been thrown from far away... and their texture..."
He tilted his head.
"...is pretty strange."
He took out his cellphone.
"Proceed straight for 1.5 kilometers..."
Van entered the forest ahead of him.
Inside, there were even more rocks.
They had crashed into trees and shattered them, making Van increasingly certain that the stones had been hurled from somewhere.
"Is this the effect of that meteor...? Even so... it still feels strange..."
Van gradually left the forest.
A blinding light greeted him, forcing him to squint.
A large rise of land blocked his view.
Van climbed it, only to freeze the moment he reached the top.
His mouth fell open on its own.
His eyelids blinked several times, as if trying to confirm what he was seeing.
Reflected in his eyes were hundreds of tightly packed stone houses, forming a single settlement.
Van pressed a hand against his forehead.
His gray eyes took in even greater devastation as they reached the houses farther away.
"Huh...? What is this?"
Van swallowed.
His feet moved on their own toward the ruins.
He began running his hand across the stone walls of the houses.
They felt exactly like the rocks he had seen earlier.
"Wasn’t there supposed to be no civilization at this point?"
Van looked around.
"But this... isn’t this far too advanced for two million years ago? Was there an unknown civilization?"
Van scratched his head as he continued walking toward the collapsed settlement.
"Is this like Atlantis? A lost civilization."
With a face filled equally with curiosity and caution, Van made his way through the rubble.
He created an invisible space around himself as a safety belt.
However, that invisible space failed to detect something small watching him from behind the ruins... and quietly following him.
After wandering for several minutes, he found numerous corpses already rotting beneath the collapsed buildings.
Some of them were covered in hundreds of maggots feeding on their flesh while swarms of green flies endlessly circled above them.
Van swallowed.
He held his breath as he glanced at them, but he didn’t stop walking.
He continued navigating by following the direction given by his phone.
’Is all of this the result of the Artium crashing down?’
’If it’s the same size as the one beneath the sea... then it would be the size of a hill.’
Van looked around while continuing through the ruins.
’But I can’t see it from here...’
The farther Van followed the route shown by his phone, the more devastated the settlement became.
A sound suddenly reached his ears.
Van’s ears twitched.
The noise repeated over and over, as though something was striking against stone.
Van slipped his phone back into his pocket and slowly began sneaking forward.
His heart pounded rapidly from not knowing what he was about to find.
Sweat trickled down his face beneath the increasingly scorching sun.
The sound of many voices gradually reached him, while his gray eyes finally caught sight of piles of rubble that seemed to form a long wall.
Van slowly climbed upward.
The sounds of voices and repeated impacts against stone clearly came from beyond the wall of rubble.
This time, Van didn’t use his flying ability.
He climbed one step at a time, even though it dirtied his hands.
Half of his forehead had already risen above the ruined wall.
Next came his pair of gray eyes.
His heart instantly stopped beating the moment he saw the scene beyond the rubble.
A gigantic crater stretched far below.
The ruined walls formed a massive circle surrounding it.
At the center of the crater stood an Artium even larger than the one Van had seen before.
Van swallowed.
His gray eyes swept across the area.
He saw a massive campsite with dozens of tents surrounding it.
One of his eyebrows rose as he watched hundreds of figures mining the Artium.
"Huh?"
Van scratched his eyebrow.
Seeing those hundreds of figures felt impossible.
Some of them had beautiful faces, long silky hair, and pointed ears.
Some were short, muscular, and had thick beards.
Others resembled animals that walked upright like humans.
"Elves? Dwarves? And what’s that...?"
Van stared at one figure resembling a black bull standing on two legs with muscular arms.
"A Minotaur?"
Van shook his head.
"No, no... there are others too... there’s a cheetah, there’s a tiger..."
Van exclaimed in amazement as he spotted the largest one carrying an entire sack of Artium across its back.
"That! That... an elephant that can stand upright!!"
Van fell silent for an unknown amount of time.
He simply watched the mining operation.
"What is this? Are these the ones the old man was talking about?"
Van glanced behind him.
"Then... what city is this? Or whose city is it?"
The creaking of wood suddenly broke Van’s concentration.
He slowly looked upward.
The sunlight disappeared for a moment as an enormous flying wooden ship sailed directly above his head, nearly making him shout.
The wooden ship landed beside the campsite.
Several figures disembarked from it, while Van finally jumped back down from the rubble.
"Damn... what the hell is this? That’s practically an entire army... what exactly was the old man thinking? Am I supposed to compete with all of them—"
Van’s words abruptly stopped the instant he landed.
He simply stared at the rubble before him as he sensed something small standing beside his left side.
Van blinked several times before finally gathering the courage to turn his head.
Once again, his heart nearly leaped out of his chest.
A small figure was staring at him while pressing a tiny index finger against her lips.
Van frowned.
"Huh?"
A little girl wearing worn gray clothes looked back at him with curious black eyes.
Her gray hair was tied into two braids that bounced each time she tilted her little head.
Van and the little girl simply stared at one another.
Van wanted to speak.
But a shout interrupted him first, making him turn around.
A gray-haired teenage girl came running toward the little girl.
"Arsy!! I told you not to play over here!! It’s dangerous here!!"
The teenage girl stopped beside Arsy and looked at Van with the same confusion Arsy had.
Arsy pointed at Van.
At the same time, Van’s ears twitched as he heard the sound of unnaturally fast footsteps approaching.
"Good grief..."
Van quickly touched both Arsy and the gray-haired teenage girl.
The sunset tattoo on the back of his hand flashed briefly before silently swallowing them.
A cheetah-like humanoid with two arms and two legs climbed over the ruined wall and looked toward the spot where Van and the two girls had been standing.
It was now completely empty.
Darkness enveloped Van, Arsy, and the gray-haired teenage girl.
The darkness ended when countless stars lit up above their heads.
A cool breeze swept across them, making Arsy shiver.
Being the smallest among them, she was also the most fascinated by her surroundings.
Her straw sandals touched the sandy beach.
Then something even brighter than the stars caught her attention.
In the darkness of the night stood rows of brightly lit supermarkets... and a shopping mall.
The sound of crashing waves made Arsy turn her head.
She saw the dark beach reflecting the starlight.
Then something made her mouth fall open.
Something as large as a hill, glowing jade green, rested in the shallow water along the shore.
Arsy pointed toward the Artium.
The gray-haired teenage girl hugged her tightly.
At last, both of them looked toward Van.
Van silently stared back at them, burdened by countless questions.
Finally, Arsy opened her mouth.
"Mister... are you a god?"