.
After burying the fallen and giving them what little peace he could, Yamino returned to the throne room, the heavy iron box tucked under his arm. The glowing throne still cast its radiant light over the chamber, painting long shadows behind him. He sat down on the throne, placed the box on his lap, and slowly pried it open. A soft creak echoed as the lid rose, revealing aged yet carefully preserved contents. Right on top was a folded piece of paper. The writing was rushed, but clearly written in his own handwriting. His eyes scanned the lines with growing confusion and disbelief:
Hi Yamino. I am you from the future. And right now I am near death. I don't have time to explain everything in letters. So I am sending my memory-recorded gem to you. With this, I am sending two more things. Please. Become so strong that my fate will take a turn for good. We need to survive. After all, my fate and your fate are the same.
Yamino stared at the note in silence, heart—or whatever echoed for it in his soul-state—thudding slowly. "Me… from the future?" he whispered. So many questions rose up in his mind. How? When? Why? What had happened to the future him that he was near death? What brought him to send these items back in time? But he didn't have the answers—and he knew better than to sit and guess. He set the paper aside and looked into the box. Nestled in a layer of velvet cloth were five shimmering gems, each glowing faintly with energy. One was green, one pure white, and the other three glowed an ominous, deep red.
Without hesitating further, Yamino reached for the red gems first. He held the first in his hand and, bracing himself, crushed it. The gem shattered like glass, releasing a wave of heatless energy that surged into his head. His vision flickered. Knowledge—refined, practical, and vast—flooded him. Suddenly, the art of forging weapons was no longer a mystery. He could visualize tools, hear the rhythmic clanging of hammers, understand temperatures, and metals, and the balance required to make a blade sing.
He crushed the second red gem. Instantly, a map of knowledge unfolded in his mind—types of stones, ores, elemental compositions, how they reacted, how they could be melted, bent, shaped, and how each metal's memory affected the final weapon. It was like being a master smith and miner all at once.
Then came the third red gem. With its shattering, arcane symbols and blueprints seared into his mind—schematics for forging enchanted weapons, how to fuse mana circuits into blades, bind spells into armor, and even how to forge sentient weapons if the right core was used. The sheer amount of sacred, forbidden, and rare knowledge stunned him.
Finally, he picked up the green gem—slightly warm, pulsating like a heart. He hesitated. Then he crushed it. A wave of memories poured into him—not ones he had lived, but ones that felt frighteningly familiar. Battles waged, sacrifices made, betrayals endured. There were scenes of a future far darker than his own, yet within those memories he could see himself—or rather, the version of him who had sent this gift. It was overwhelming. For the first time, despite his soul form, he felt burdened—like gravity had returned just to push him down. His head slumped for a moment, a wave of fatigue washing over him. "So that's… what happened…" he murmured, fragments of a broken timeline slowly knitting themselves together in his head.
At last, he lifted the final gem—the pure white one. It pulsed gently, unlike the others, as if alive. He stared at it for a long moment. Then, without breaking it, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Guess this is the real reward, huh?" he whispered to no one, the shadows dancing around him as the white gem shimmered quietly in his palm.
.
Yamino sat back comfortably on the throne, his hands resting on the armrests, feeling a strange sense of tranquility. With a quiet resolve, he raised the white gem to his lips, looking at it one last time before crushing it in his hand. The moment it shattered, he felt the weight of the gem's power surge through him.
You have got 1 soul.
You have got 1 soul.
The notifications echoed in his mind, like a chorus of confirmations, but they didn't stop there.
You have got a total of 200 souls.
...
You have got 300 souls.
...
You have got 500 souls.
609...
780...
880...
998...
You have got a heroic soul.
You have gotten a legendary soul.
You have gotten 1000 souls.
The last notification made Yamino freeze. His heart—if he still had one—would have raced. A deep, bone-chilling excitement surged through him. 1000 souls... His thoughts were racing, the weight of this power beginning to settle within him.
A prompt appeared before him, and the voice of the system rang clear in his mind:
Do you want to awaken the dungeon?
Yamino didn't hesitate. The decision felt almost natural, like the culmination of a long-awaited step. He nodded to the empty space in front of him. "Yes."
The moment he spoke, the throne he was sitting on began to glow with an intense, blinding light. A sudden, powerful explosion of energy erupted around him, sending a shockwave through the entire room. The walls trembled, the ground beneath him cracked and shifted, as the ancient stone throne disintegrated into nothingness, replaced by something new.
In its place, a comfortable throne of green metal appeared, elegant and smooth. The color seemed to pulse with life, responding to Yamino's presence. In the center of the room now floated a small, radiant gem, glowing with soft hues that shifted between blue and violet. Beneath the gem, a stone pillar rose from the ground, supporting it like an altar. The room, which had once seemed confined, now stretched out before him, expanded, and limitless. It felt larger, grander, more... alive.
Yamino leaned back into the new throne, feeling an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. He laughed, the sound echoing through the room, carrying a mix of relief and triumph. It was a laugh of someone who had found their place, someone who understood the weight of the future and the responsibilities that came with it. He was no longer just a soul wandering in this strange, endless space.
I know now. His thoughts were calm, collected. Thanks to the memory gem, he felt like a regressor without ever having actually regressed. He knew what was to come, knew his current self, and understood his surroundings. His past, present, and future were all intertwined in a web of knowledge, each strand now perfectly clear to him.
He was in control. And that feeling, that power, made him smile even more.