Lady Talia sat stiffly, the dimly lit office. Her long black hair, smooth as midnight silk, cascaded over her shoulders, framing a face. Her sharp blue eyes swept over the tablet in her hands.
Across from her, her servant, also the Commander Liora of the Simal Knights, stood motionless, unreadable. The weight of the report pressed into Talia's chest, each sentence dragging her further into the past she had tried to forget. Anthony Gregor had been released.
Silence stretched between them like a drawn blade.
"How long," Eleanor finally asked, her voice low, "has he been rotting in that kingdom?"
Liora answered flatly. " Ragna refuses to disclose that information. No statements. No records. Only the decree."
Eleanor's grip on the tablet turned white-knuckled. The image burned into her mind: Tony—his once-confident frame reduced to a thin one, his face hidden behind his hair, barefoot like a beggar. The headline mocked him: "The Prodigal Returns from Hell."
"Send a retrieval team," she ordered, ice lacing each word.
"Understood, Milady." Liora bowed and turned to leave.
Alone, Eleanor exhaled, her composure cracking. "Tony... what happened to you?" She pressed her palms to her eyes—
Remembering something unpleasant.
[Four years earlier]
Smoke choked the battlefield. Anthony stood silhouetted against the door of his manor's master bedroom... blood coming from his mouth. His eyes, wide with betrayal, locked onto the two of them.
"Even... you two?"
His voice was low and hoarse as if holding in anger or pain. He then walked out.
Similarly she remembered
[Three months ago]
The old Duke had clasped her shoulders after her S-rank ascension... with a small smile and empty, tired eyes, and said.
" I wish you well, dear."
"I'll find Cain," he'd murmured.
He hadn't returned.
"It should never have happened this way," Eleanor whispered to the empty room.
A knock.
"Milady," a guard announced, "the 3rd Prince awaits your audience."
Her spine straightened and she said.
"Let him in."
The door creaked open.
And the one who made Tony wear the green hat stepped inside, smiling.
**********************************************
The hallway stretched endlessly, and the floor was cold. He shuffled forward in line, one among many in identical blue clothes and barefoot. Some muttered vengeance through cracked lips. Others wept silently in relief. Some were scared. A few simply stood, vacant, as if their souls had already fled their bodies long before their release.
The guards silently escorted them, paying no mind to them.
The waiting room is simple, offering basic comfort without excess. White-colored walls create a calming atmosphere, while cushioned chairs provide ample seating for a TV and magazines. Guards were stationed around the room.
After waiting for a little while.
"Prisoner 001."
A guard's voice, flat and disinterested.
Tony stood.
The next hallway was different. He heard a strange, low buzzing sound, the floor beneath his bare feet etched with glowing magic circles that pulsed faintly with each step. A vial was thrust into his hand—a small, unremarkable thing filled with swirling silver liquid.
"Drink."
No hesitation. He downed it in one gulp.
Green glowing veins appeared throughout his body.
His body convulsed as power, a power long suppressed, detonated outward in a maelstrom of wind. Hitting the walls.
The guards didn't flinch. Their faces remained utterly unmoved.
When the storm subsided, they simply gestured forward.
"Move."
And then—light.
Blinding, unfiltered daylight spilled over him as the heavy doors groaned open. He stumbled forward, his bare feet meeting rough earth, his lungs filling with air that didn't reek of damp and despair.
A man waited.
Simple clothes black shirt, and pants with a pair of sandals. A face with a stern and unyielding expression, his mouth set in a permanent frown.
He looked Anthony up and down, then their eyes met.
"Follow me."
No greeting. No welcome. Just a command.
***********************
From the moment he let out his previous mana, his status screen updated, and...
[CAIN POV]
Status
Name: Anthony Cain Gregory
[RESTRICTION LIFTED] Class: Swordman
Age: 24
Attributes:
Strength: C-
Intelligence: D+ [RESTRICTION LIFTED] // Mana: B
Agility: C+
[RESTRICTION LIFTED] Affinity:
Wind element: A
Traits:
Control: B
Focus: B
It's weird that I can understand them, though the words feel completely foreign to my mind. It seems I got a transmigrator starter pack, but I still can't read. Similar to how I learned Japanese from their words but can't read shit.
Also what the hell was in that vial?
My system's still flickering like a dying lightbulb. The menu's glitching, stats scrambling, that damn [RESTRICTION LIFTED] notification blinking like it's proud of itself.
Is my system just trash, or was the suppression really that strong?
Nah. If it were that powerful, every two-bit villain in Sapphira would be spamming it or at least the smart ones. And I'd know, cause I sure as hell would've abused it.
King Varian Ragna? Never heard of him. Not in the novel, not in the wiki, nothing. Either I missed a lore drop, or this guy's new.
Not my problem right now.
I expected to get deported out of Ragna the second the 24 hours ended because I thought no one would come for me.
Probably because of a backstory where I had been disowned or some bulshit. But as soon as I passed through those gates. But no, some old man shows up like, "Follow me."
If this is someone from the protagonist's harem or even the protagonist himself… then I would...
I'd take the L like a lil' bitch to be honest.
With no knowledge of the current world and lacking power, documentation, or resources, I will be taking my time to understand the situation. Their help will be helpful.
I still hate the main cast... but I will not go out of my way to get revenge or anything along those lines. I feel bad for Tony, of course, but I'm not like most transmigrators, who would make some wild promise to take revenge for the deceased. I am a victim; I neither asked to be part of this nor wished to take over his body.
I will live only for myself.
I found myself standing before a man who looked like the very definition of battle-hardened. Black hair streaked with silver at the temples, a mustache dark as ink, but a beard gone mostly gray. Wrinkles—not the soft kind, but the ones that looked like they'd been earned through a lifetime of scowling.
Holy shit.
He had that same energy as the meme guy—the one who screams "THINK, MARK, THINK!" like he's seconds away from backhanding sense into someone.
Then it hit me.
Déjà vu.
The oh-fuck-I-know-this-situation kind.
And just like that—memories.
Not a dramatic headache-inducing tsunami, thankfully, but a smooth, almost cinematic playback. Always with him at the center, no one else. the others in those memories had blurred faces, like someone had smudged wet ink over their eyes. But their mouths moved. Their hands gestured. I 'remembered' his smiles and his punishments.
This man was Tony's father as well as a fellow victim of the protagonist who stole his wife.
Does this mean I need to unlock memories?
I also have unlocked common sense from the perspective of a Sapphiran, not as the biased reader...
Good.... I'll avoid annoying situations.
"Follow me." He said after scanning me with his eyes.
I followed the old man in silence.
This world's a weird mix—floating screens and neon-lit billboards plastered over cobblestone streets, magic-powered trams rattling past horse-drawn carriages. Technology here isn't wires and circuits; it's mechanisms, basically magic circles. And of course, the mages live like kings because of it.
When we crossed the city limits without warning—
Alexix's aura erupted. And from the perspective of the victim, it felt physically heavy, and my chest tightened, where I couldn't even breathe as my lungs weren't cooperating. He then adjusted it, and it wasn't as bad.
It wrapped around me like a second skin, thick and heavy, before he kicked off the ground. The earth cratered beneath him, fracturing in the signature a spiderweb of cracks as we shot into the sky.
I'd like to say I kept my cool.
I didn't.
The speed was obscene. The world blurred into streaks of color, but aside from that, everything was fine. I didn't even feel the wind. I couldn't see.
Oh... I had also tried to speak but...
Nothing came out.
My throat hurt. Of course—I was the only prisoner who couldn't talk. Convenient.
The flight was long as hell...
Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
Thirteen.
Thirteen hours of trying to keep myself busy not to lose consciousness, of watching landscapes flicker beneath us like someone flipping through a book too fast. Then, finally, we slowed.
The world sharpened into focus.
Barren mountains. No trees. No life. Just jagged peaks cutting into the sky like broken teeth.
Alexix landed before a massive boulder, seamless and unremarkable. Then, to my surprise, he knelt.
His voice, rough as gravel, spilled words I didn't recognize. A chant? A prayer? I didn't know.
The rock shuddered.
Runes or what I'd like to think they were... flared glowing crimson, and the stone split... not apart, but inward, spiraling into a swirling portal.
And then he stepped out.
A monk.
Not just any monk—the stereotype incarnate. Bald. Orange robes. Beads coiled around his wrist. The whole damn package.
He looked at me.
I looked back.
Silence.
Then the monk smiled.