"Beginning to get impatient here. Get me some of those, will ya?"
"Hey, don't disturb the guy."
"What?!"
"He's trying to focus, I observed...!"
The other man slid closer. "What's this about?" he whispered, softer than the sizzling of the campfire within the cave, but still just as raspy.
"What is, is, and what to know is not yet known," he said sarcastically. "He's a legendaryadventurer so we can trust in whatever he's doing, yes."
"Aren't we, too?"
The other man shook his head.
"Legendary adventurer, you say..." he turned to the person of interest, who was looking out of the cave's gap with nothing but a frying pan in his right hand. He even wore no armor, just casual wear. "Is Antoni even our legendary adventurer? Or just our private chef?"
"Of course he's— uh... Come to think of it, we are only making him cook for us, I recall..."
The two men looked to each other in silence.
"Antoni," the other said in a deep voice. "What do you see?"
Antoni was unresponsive.
"Hey. Antoni. What's out there?!"
Antoni took a deep breath... before slowly looking back at them.
"SNAKE," he said
Suddenly, the ground began shaking in tremors.
The cave walls cracked, and a deafening hiss tore through the stone. From the shadowy veil of the night, a Snake was slithering into view.
Without hesitation, the two men rolled to their weapons—one a battle axe, and the other, a lantern. Antoni stayed focused, both hands gripping the pan's handle.
The snake lunged, jaws gaping six feet wide, unsheathing fangs as big as a man's head.
As its attack closed in, within milliseconds, Antoni's pan crackled with a thunderous aura.
He swung.
BOOM.
The impact exploded outward. The stone walls gave out as everything was swallowed by dust and debris… Lightning surges crackled around the dust cloud.
A few seconds passed of just the sounds of the cave's gradual collapse... Then a shapeless object hovered from above.
"Hah! And so it seems!" exclaimed the warrior with the battle axe. There, a translucent purple cloud was carrying the three men atop it, and their armor became illuminated.
The warrior stood tall, as his bearded face lit up in excitement. "You okay, Antoni?"
"Oh sure he is, just take a look at what he did to that snake! Poor thing, yes!" announced the party's support, his eyes gleaming with curiosity through tinted glasses. A large backpack towering over his small frame was strapped onto his back as he held the glowing lantern seeping purple material. The cloud grew denser the brighter the lantern glowed—for it was his Lodiac ability.
|| Lodia Out, Dim Transport.
"The night is young~" Antoni lilted playfully. He knelt down from the cloud's edge and looked below. His pan exuded static electricity. "Ready up, boys. We've got a snake to hunt!"
The snake's long tail could be seen extending a couple of meters, its scales glimmering crimson beneath the moonlight. However, from within the dust cloud, the crackling and clicking of hard scales could be heard.
"Its wings are growing, eh?" exclaimed the warrior.
The support brought out a notebook and pen and started to write.
"67. Snake in Land Sixty-Seven, it seems? Intere-"
"Interesting, yes! Yes!" the warrior interrupted. "Just speak normally for a change!"
He suddenly dove towards the fog of debris, laughing, and battle axe readied above his head.
At the same time, the snake's gigantic head lunged from the covers of the dust. But there were now wings covered in scales at the side of its head, and its eyes were painted with blood.
The warrior shouted his battle cry, the support extended his lantern forward, and the legendary adventurer threw his pan with a thunderous force— mana lingered everywhere as the battle came to an end right then.
Elsewhere, other battles were being fought. It was perhaps inevitable on the arch planet Vel.
In a world filled with sorcerers, monsters, Lodia, and forces beyond known limits, such clashes could only multiply. Vel holds countless terrifying and unpredictable endings.
And one beginning.
Mine.
****
However… this world will come to an end—it will be eviscerated into ashes deep in the depths of hell. Not even a hero could have avoided this inevitable fate...
Not even the hero.
The hero.
But before that happens, there is a story one must tell—my story, the story that started it all.
Six years ago, near a town beneath the floating dungeon— the town of Zhaya of Azura—there was a family living in a secluded manor a kilometer away. It was a rather standard family. They went by their days like any other family.
However, on one particular day, everything would start to change—especially for the oldest son.
The days became numbered as his story began: the first chapter of the only human in the world born with the cursed eyes that could see Mana.