A cold breeze swept over Van, who was dressed entirely in black. He floated beneath a sea of stars that had been an ordinary sight two million years ago.
The golden hair left uncovered by the black cloth mask he wore began to flutter in the night wind.
He stopped right at the edge of the ruined city. His gray eyes could clearly see the enormous crater that nearly covered half the city, even in the darkness.
Van’s breathing became heavy, not because of an enemy’s attack, but because the mask covering his entire face made it difficult for him to breathe.
Van finally gave up and removed his mask. He greedily inhaled the fresh air as the night breeze brushed against his sweaty face.
"Good grief... this thief’s mask doesn’t suit me."
Van wiped his face, his gaze still fixed on the circular crater where many ruined buildings stood around its edge like a natural wall.
"What is this? I thought it would be bright... I mean, there’s an Artium there. Aren’t they guarding it? Don’t they need light, or can’t they make fire?"
Van stroked his chin and cleared his throat.
"They have a ship that can fly, but they can’t make fire? That’s strange..."
Van immediately pinched the air with his right hand, the one with the sunset tattoo on the back of it.
A camera with a zoom lens appeared out of nowhere.
Van whistled as the night wind continued to blow around him while he floated beneath the stars.
He quickly used the camera to get a closer view without having to float any nearer to his destination.
The camera’s screen showed only darkness, but Van’s gray eyes could see everything clearly because of his adaptation ability.
He could see the Artium glowing faintly in the darkness, looking rather small compared to the crater where it rested.
He slowly moved the camera in different directions. He could see hundreds of carts used to mine the Artium. He could see the tents he had seen before. He could even see a massive gray boulder near the Artium.
The only thing he couldn’t see... was life.
There wasn’t a single living being guarding the Artium they had worked so hard to mine during the day.
Van frowned, checking again and again until even a bat flying past laughed at him.
"There’s no one? Huh? What is this?"
Van stood frozen in midair, but his thoughts were noisy.
"No guards? No patrols? There’s not even someone staying awake outside at three in the morning, thinking about life?"
Van threw the camera away. It disappeared before it could hit the ground.
"This is strange... but it’s also an opportunity..."
Van carefully calculated what he was about to do.
"Should I sneak in while making quick jumps, or just dive straight down from the sky and touch the Artium? How long would it take? Five seconds? Ten seconds?"
Van clicked his tongue as he tried to remember how long it had taken him to collect the Artium at the bottom of the sea.
"But this one seems bigger..."
A sudden cold gust made Van shiver. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he shook his head.
"But... is there really nothing here?"
Van frowned while scratching the back of his neck.
"This is so strange... there’s really no one guarding it at all?"
Van remained floating silently for quite a while. He kept arguing with himself until he finally couldn’t take it anymore.
"Ahh, damn it!! This is all because of that old man!! He should’ve trained my thief instincts too!! Three years, and all I got was getting beaten up everywhere... ahh!! Now I’m annoyed."
Van removed the mask covering his entire face. He chose to wear a black face mask instead, along with a black cap turned backward so it wouldn’t fly off in the wind.
"Well, what else can I do? I just have to go down, touch it for a few seconds, and if any fantasy race wakes up, I’ll hold them off for a bit before flying away once I’ve got the Artium..."
Van immediately floated across the boundary of the ruined city.
"So it’s actually this easy..."
Nothing stopped him. There was no alarm barrier or magical net that reacted as he flew above the crater.
He immediately dived like an eagle spotting easy prey on the ground.
He flew straight toward the large gray boulder, intending to use it as cover if something unexpected happened.
He continued hovering without touching the ground, while the massive gray object concealed him from the dark campsite where no signs of life could be seen.
Van reached out with his right hand to touch the Artium, which was far larger than himself.
But his hand stopped just before it could make contact.
Something moved beside him on his left.
Van’s left eye shifted toward it without his face having to turn.
The gray boulder hiding him suddenly moved, as if turning to look at him.
Van’s heart pounded violently. He finally gathered the courage to turn his head.
His gray eyes widened, and his shoulders jolted slightly in shock as he looked at the gray "boulder" beside him.
It wasn’t a gray boulder.
It was an elephant sitting in a curled-up cross-legged position, staring at the Artium.
The two of them were both facing the Artium, yet they stared at each other for several moments.
Neither of them said a word until Van cautiously looked downward—
...and became even more shocked.
The elephant was wearing gray shorts that seemed to blend together with its skin.
Van swallowed.
’Good grief... I thought it was a gray rock, but it turns out it’s an elephant sitting down, not wearing a shirt, and wearing gray shorts—’
Van’s thoughts were cut short as he quickly created an invisible barrier that covered his entire body.
He did it because the sitting elephant suddenly swung its right fist toward Van’s head.
Van’s invisible barrier vibrated from the impact of the elephant’s punch. Van’s gray eyes were once again shocked when he realized the elephant had five fingers like a human.
Van’s invisible space was finally pushed back by the elephant’s powerful punch.
For the first time since returning to two million years ago, Van was sent flying.
He had to land on the ground after being thrown several meters away.
Van looked at the elephant as it began raising its trunk, while Van gritted his teeth.
’Shit!! So this is what it feels like to get punched by an elephant.’
The elephant immediately let out a mighty roar through its trunk.
Its cry echoed throughout the entire crater.
Van clicked his tongue.
From the camps scattered across every corner of the crater, hundreds of figures emerged almost simultaneously.
They came from various races, with all kinds of body sizes.
Van immediately leaped into the sky, trying to escape by flying.
But something chased him from the ground, making Van glance downward.
There, more than a dozen roots larger than his own body burst out of the earth, causing Van to frown.
He was startled, but instantly created an invisible space that wrapped around his body.
’Potential? Wait... is this a Potential?’’
Van’s body was slowly swallowed by the wooden roots.
Fortunately, his invisible space protected his skin from the rough roots.
Van looked around until he finally spotted a female elf wearing a white dress with white hair.
One of her hands was stretched toward him, while her white eyes remained fixed on him.
Van carefully observed every movement the female elf made.
He swallowed after staring at her intensely for three seconds before his vision was completely covered by the wooden roots, leaving darkness as the only thing he could see.
"...That’s not a Potential."
Van took a deep breath, his stomach expanding within the darkness.
’What was I thinking? I should’ve escaped first, damn it...’
Van exhaled forcefully.
Hundreds of thousands of tiny ice particles burst from his mouth, instantly freezing the wooden roots surrounding him.
The frozen roots cracked and shattered into hundreds of pieces.
The freezing didn’t stop there.
The roots froze and broke apart all the way to the portions still buried underground.
Van’s vision returned.
But the once-dark campsite was now becoming visible because several figures were carrying torches.
Van was surrounded.
He sensed something flying toward him at incredible speed, accompanied by an explosion from the ground that headed straight above his head while he was still hovering.
Van looked upward.
There stood a black-furred bull standing upright, gripping a massive axe with both muscular, human-like hands.
Black lightning flowed across the axe.
Van once again created an invisible space.
The bull immediately swung the black lightning axe as if trying to split apart the largest tree of its life.
The axe collided with Van’s invisible space, sending Van crashing into the ground face-first, even though he wasn’t injured at all.
The sound of Van’s impact was immediately followed by cheers from the surrounding figures and the clashing sounds of weapons striking against one another.
Van stood up amid the cloud of dust.
He saw the silhouettes of thousands of figures surrounding him while hearing their cheers and the constant ringing of weapons.
The dust soon dispersed as a cheetah wearing light armor sprinted around him on two legs.
The crowd of various races shouted the same name over and over, making Van shiver because he couldn’t understand it.
"Commander Bartaz!! Commander Bartaz!!"
"Commander Bartaz!! Crush his head!!"
Van felt like his heart was about to stop.
Then he heard the shrill voice of the cheetah running circles around him.
"An intruder?... A thief?... Or an assassin? Pick one."
Van also heard approaching footsteps belonging to the black-furred bull that had knocked him out of the sky.
Then he heard the elephant’s roar—the same one that had punched him first—along with the synchronized shouting of the thousands surrounding him.
He also noticed a shadow descending from above, covering his own.
There, a male elf aimed directly for his head while flying with winged boots.
’They... they can speak.’
Van remembered the stories Andis and Arsy had told him.
’It’s just that their language is different...’
The chaos at the end of the night finally came to a halt when the largest tent opened.
A woman with horns on her head stepped out.
The crowd surrounding Van naturally split apart, like a school of small fish making way for a shark.
The woman’s long straight black hair swayed together with her black dress, while her eyes resembled the red eyes of a reptile.
She was followed by a short, muscular man whose muscles bulged beneath his sleeveless clothing.
The woman with the crimson reptilian eyes opened her mouth.
Her voice echoed through the crowd, which had fallen silent.
"Who are you?"
The wind blowing across them answered first before Van had the chance to speak.
His expression changed behind the black mask.
’Huh? What did she say?’
Van began calculating every possible route he could take to escape the encirclement of thousands of people and beings with unknown powers.
’Damn it.’
’That damn old man!! He never told me I’d be facing this many enemies!!’
’I just hope I survive.’