Escape—was escape a trait of men? Absolutely not! Did Alan care? Absolutely not!
He darted through alleyways and melted into the crowd, but it was no use. A pair of invisible eyes clung to his back.
There didn't seem to be any good options on the horizon. Leaving town would make him easy prey, while staying would keep him under watch until the right moment to strike. It was still early in the day, around noon, he guessed, at least it meant he still had some time.
Alan: 'I don't think they'll do anything in front of all these people.'
Two armoured guards on the roadside caught his attention, casually chatting. It seemed like a good idea to stay near them, for one, they looked quite strong, and there was a decent chance they were skilled magic users.
Despite constantly denying his weakness and helplessness, Alan had to admit the reality: he couldn't become stronger overnight. Not by any means he currently knew of. Who knew what surprises this world had in store?
In yet another attempt, he leaned against a nearby wall, pretending to relax while scanning the road and buildings for anyone watching him. It did nothing. At this point, he didn't even know what he was doing, or why he was being followed in the first place. Or if he was being followed at all. Maybe it was just paranoia. He hoped, with all his heart, that it was the latter.
'Let's say someone is watching me... why go to all this trouble? If it's because I'm from another world, how would they even know? Is there some kind of mark?' he wondered, twirling his staff absently.
A thought sparked in his mind. He slowly and cautiously activated [Surgeon]. He didn't want to overload his brain right away, so he took it slow. The skill enhanced all his senses, but he focused specifically on sight. Smell and touch were useless here, and amplifying hearing in the middle of this crowd could render him deaf. He slowly removed his glasses, a tingling itch spreading around his eyelids. He lifted his gaze carefully, and sunlight reflecting off his surroundings burned his retinas.
People now looked like bundles of bones, blood vessels, and other internal parts beneath the skin. He quickly averted his gaze and focused on the rooftops, places a potential observer might hide. To his disappointment, or relief, there was nothing.
'Hey... what's that glowing thing in everyone's body?' Something caught his eye: a web of faint glowing threads in the passersby, mostly concentrated in their chests. Dim in most, slightly brighter in others. It was a good distraction from his spiralling thoughts, so he inspected it further. He noticed a near-invisible stream seeping from them, merging into the air. 'No, wait. It was already in the air to begin with.'
He looked at his arms, like blood in a vein; those threads were coursing through him, glowing much brighter than in anyone else.
'Wait... is this magicul—AAGH!"
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head in pain. The flood of information was, at the very least, ridiculous. [Surgeon] struggled to keep up with the inferno in his brain.
From Alan's perspective, it was like being slapped with a ton of liquid colour that completely drowned his consciousness. Left and right, up and down, everything flipped. The colours were... alive. Red was redder. Blue was deeper. Black was darker.
People noticed him collapsing to the ground. Some kept their distance, thinking him mad or a drunk throwing a tantrum. Others mustered the courage to approach his writhing form. But Alan didn't hear a word of what they were saying. No, he heard them too clearly.
Yet he was already overwhelmed by another wave of data.
His entire body had entered a state of emergency. It was like trying to mute a TV that had suddenly blasted to full volume. Except there was no magic button to turn it all off.
Drowning in an endless stream of sensory data, millions of neural signals, diagnostic overlays, and magical interference maps, his consciousness teetered on the edge of collapse.
He activated [Surgeon] again, directing its precision inward. Using [Internal Mapping], he visualised every glowing synapse and overloaded neural circuit, tracing the chaos back to its source. Then, with the scalpel-like precision of [Microsurgical Control], he silenced the storm, suspending the key cortical nodes responsible for sensory processing and conscious thought. Blood flow was stabilised using [Blood Regulation], keeping his body alive while his mind faded to black.
For exactly three seconds, the world ceased to exist, no light, no sound, no thought. Just... nothing. And then, with the same precision, the circuits reactivated. His mind rebooted into a clean slate of silence.
"Son, are you alright?" a middle-aged man asked with concern.
Using his staff as a support, Alan slowly rose to his feet, staggering like he'd just chugged a barrel of wine. Sweat poured from his forehead, his eyes wide like he hadn't slept in weeks.
He quickly activated [Accelerated Thoughts] and processed what had just happened.
The first thing he noticed was... a difference. Not in his body, but in his soul. Inspecting it, he found something new, something that wasn't [Surgeon], though it didn't seem quite as deep.
——————————
Extra Skill: [Magic Sense]
A perceptive ability that allows the user to sense their surroundings by detecting magical energy (magicules). It grants spatial awareness, enabling the detection of movement, shape, energy levels, and magical presence with precision. It can function even in total darkness or through solid objects that obstruct normal vision.
——————————
'Whoooa... okay. That's... good, I guess.' He stood up while still thinking about the skill, deactivating [Accelerated Thoughts], dusted off his coat, and picked up his glasses.
"Here, have some water, son." An elderly man held out a waterskin, which Alan gratefully accepted. "Oh, thanks... Pfha!"
He nearly choked on it, barely managing to swallow in time. He turned to speak to the old man but stopped, realising something. He wasn't the only one. Everyone was speaking clearly.
'You know what?' He drank the remaining water while thinking. 'I will leave this puzzle to myself in half an hour.' Some people tried to help, asking if he needed a doctor, but he politely refused.
Alan: 'People here are certainly kind.'
He turned and continued walking, as passing eyes kept sneaking glances at him now and then. He found a nearby shade, sat down quietly on the ground, and rested. After a few minutes, he decided to review the current issues. Two main concerns:
First, the feeling of being watched had vanished by now, but he didn't want to let his guard down and get stabbed in the back.
Second, that [Magic Sense], he'd only use it in dire situations. Not that he really could use it, anyway. Ever since gaining the skill, he'd understood the surrounding language, which delighted him, but the headache that came with it was a painful reminder of the cost. He was still puzzled by how a sensory skill was related to language.
Alan: 'Was this some side effect of [Magic Sense]? Or... did magic itself carry meaning in this world?'
He looked skyward with a heavy sigh. The clouds were thickening, gradually hiding the sunlight. The wind was cooling and growing stronger. He guessed rain was near when an idea popped into his head, which he thought would be a good one.
"If I don't risk, I won't win." He gathered his strength to stand and walked quickly back to his horse. Retracing his steps wasn't hard. Once he arrived, he unhitched the horse from the cart and began to move it slowly. It looked very tired, but Alan mounted it anyway. They slowly made their way toward the same gate they had come through earlier. The guards noticed him as he approached.
"Hey, aren't you the kid from this morning? Where's your friend—hey!" The guard didn't finish his question before Alan sped forward, breaking through the space between the guards. But instead of going back up the road he came from, he kept descending toward the forest below, despite the steep slope that nearly caused the horse's hooves to lose grip, especially with the heavy, moist soil.
He ignored the guards' yelling and calling from behind, pressing deeper into the forest. When he was far enough from the town of Zarethun, he dismounted and gently patted his horse's head.
"Go on, get out of here." He removed its saddle and bridle as he spoke, then pointed it in a random direction through the trees. Alan went the opposite way with cautious steps, glancing around, gripping his staff tightly as if preparing for a fight.
Darkness began to fall as thick clouds completely blocked out the sun. The wind howled with the first drop of rain. A flash of lightning crackled across the sky, rattling the canopy like a war drum.
As Alan kept walking, his boots sank into the mud, squelching with each step. The sound of the rain was so loud he couldn't hear anything else around him. His soaked glasses blurred his vision, and even with his thick coat, he couldn't escape the freezing grip of the cold.
He didn't know that death was already crouched behind him, silent as breath, like a coiled snake inching toward its prey, waiting for the right moment. In front of a weakened target, bloodlust and the urge to strike were impossible to resist. And that's exactly what happened.
"AAAGH!" A thick, heavy arrow with a metal tip tore through Alan's right shoulder at over 330 km/h, pinning him to the slick bark of a twisted tree. Rain hammered the forest, flooding trails, pounding leaves, and pooling in moss at his feet. Through the curtain of water, two figures emerged. They stepped out from behind the bushes; one was a heavy-set man wearing mismatched armour, already reloading his crossbow and breathing heavily as if unaccustomed to pursuit in such conditions. The other, skinny and wiry, wore a dark cloak and held a short blade low by his side. His eyes were sharp, like a trapped fox. They didn't look professional—no emblems, no coordination—but they moved with enough resolve to be dangerous. And they knew he was stuck.
"Damn it! That really hurts!" Alan's scream was swallowed by the rain. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he gathered enough strength to pull the arrow from his shoulder. His legs moved in a desperate attempt to flee, but he suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. The mud beneath him mixed with rivers of blood pouring from his shoulder, soaking the right side of his coat in deep crimson.
"What a shame. You were easier than expected," said the thin man with the dagger, mocking as he approached. Behind him, the large man followed slowly. "Just finish him already. I'm tired and want to rest," he said in an annoyed, exhausted tone.
Alan turned toward the mercenaries from the ground and slowly raised his staff. "Back off, or—" The thin man kicked the staff away with a mocking smile. "Or what?"
Alan's heart pounded, pain spreading through his chest. "Why are you trying to kill me? I didn't do anything at all..." his voice was too low, like a whisper, his eyes lowered; he was too weak to look them in the eye. His lips and limbs began to tremble as blood poured from his wound.
"Eh? Why the hell would we care? Anyway, it was a good hunt. Goodbye," said the thin man, holding a dagger in his hand as he closed in on Alan. He raised it high above Alan's chest.
"W–wait—AAGH!" That was the last thing Alan said before the dagger was plunged directly into his heart. He stopped moving. The light vanished from his eyes. The thin man pulled the blade from his chest after making sure he was dead.
"Finally. Now we can head back." The heavy man slung Alan's cadaver over his shoulder, and the two disappeared into the forest.
— • — Back in Zarethun — • —
At the tavern, Julian had finished all his daily cleaning duties. Customers usually didn't arrive until evening, so he was used to sitting behind the counter and taking a nap. The old man had gone to fetch supplies: liquor, wheat, and the like. It had been a rather eventful day for him, meeting Alan and Elrik, an unexpected encounter that had shaken his thoughts. Maybe lying to Alan hadn't been the best choice... but he was too torn to make a rational decision that would sit well with his conscience.
The sound of rain filled the air, loud and relentless. The empire had always seen heavy rainfall, so this wasn't new to him. He could see that the road outside was empty; everyone had returned to their homes.
'It will take a while before it stops,' he thought, leaning back in his chair and placing his feet on the table. He was startled by the sound of the short wooden door creaking open. He guessed someone had come in to escape the rain. He straightened up in his seat and looked at the figure standing there. A chill ran through his entire body. Julian felt every bone in his body tighten. His breath caught halfway to his lungs.
The man carried himself with the quiet elegance of an old aristocrat, though his clothes spoke more of refined utility than of wealth. He wore a tailored black suit over a crisp white shirt, artfully frayed at the cuffs, the kind that spoke of purpose rather than vanity. His stance was upright but never stiff, and every movement, from adjusting his gloves to the soft tap of his cane, felt practised. His hair, silver at the temples, was neatly combed back, revealing a sharp widow's peak and a deliberately shaped brow. His face bore fine lines carved by age and experience, not weariness. His pale, ash-grey eyes, steady and unreadable, looked out from beneath dark lashes, giving him the air of a man who observes more than he speaks. Unlike most his age, time had only made him more formidable, not less.
His hat was made of wide-brimmed black felt, slightly tilted downward, its edges worn by time and travel. A thin silver thread encircled the base, a quiet mark of distinction. It shaded his eyes just enough to render his expression obscure.
Luthern Varn removed his hat quietly, placed it against his chest, and gave a slight bow forward. "Long time no see, Mr. Julian. I'm afraid to inform you that your holiday is... over"