Two weeks had passed since Quân had "passed" his psychological evaluation.
Exactly twenty-seven days had gone by since he first arrived in this place.
A young man wearing a black T-shirt with a massive eagle printed across the back walked defiantly down the street, hands stuffed into the pockets of his matching black shorts.
Winter was slowly giving way to spring, but Quân seemed completely indifferent to the lingering cold.
The streets themselves felt hollow.
A winter town always carried that strange sensation, as though the world were quietly draining warmth from the people trapped inside it.
And yet, despite the bleak atmosphere surrounding Quân like a personal curse, there were still ordinary people laughing nearby.
Children running.
Couples talking.
Life continuing.
The complete opposite of him.
"Old man Keil, two silver for the meat."
Quân brushed back his silver hair and handed the coins to the butcher behind the stall.
The man wore a grease-stained apron that struggled heroically against the existence of his beer belly.
"Up screaming at that haunted mansion all night again?" Keil muttered while taking the coins. "Neighbors already called the guards a few times. Thought ghosts moved in."
As he spoke, he casually brushed sauce across several skewers roasting over the fire.
Quân swallowed instinctively.
"Old man," he asked carefully, "you do credit?"
"Cash upfront." Keil snorted. "Fat doesn't slide down the throat for free."
Quân instinctively checked his pockets again.
Empty.
Somehow, even across different lives, poverty still clung to him with supernatural dedication.
Guess this is the part where Ron expects us to 'go make money.'
God knows what kind of lunatic work that bastard actually does.
Quân let out a sigh and glanced toward a nearby playground.
Several children were playing a game similar to shuttlecock kicking, shouting and laughing beneath the pale afternoon light.
A strange exhaustion settled inside him.
The dark circles beneath his eyes had grown worse lately. He had not slept properly in days.
His gaunt face looked completely out of place beside the lively children nearby.
"Hey, Keil," Quân asked suddenly, "anywhere around here sell cigarettes?"
The butcher narrowed his eyes slightly.
Without speaking, he pointed toward a narrow alley deeper within the district.
"Not many places sell tobacco around here. Regulated almost as hard as alcohol."
He paused.
"And if you're buying, better bring an ID."
Quân groaned.
He dropped onto the stone bench beside the stall and rubbed his forehead.
"How old do you need to be?"
Keil stared at him.
Was there seriously someone left who didn't know the smoking laws?
"Eighteen," he replied slowly. "Though I guess it makes sense if you're a nomad."
"Nomads usually don't smoke, though."
Quân immediately felt irritated hearing that word again.
To survive in Jinlus Village, he had temporarily registered himself as a wandering nomad from outside the Empire.
Nomads, according to local law, were people born in the wilderness who returned to the earth upon death. No birth records. No permanent citizenship. No legal roots tying them anywhere.
Conveniently, that status also kept most people from digging too deeply into his background during his time at the scrapyard.
Still, to maintain the lie, Quân had registered his actual age: seventeen.
Apparently there were officials capable of estimating age through mana.
Which sounded deeply unfair, honestly.
So he casually told Keil he had only smoked a few cigarettes before after getting one from someone else.
"Oh, right..." Quân added. "You know anywhere around here that sells furniture? Or scrap metal?"
"Oh, if you're looking for goods, you should-"
Keil suddenly stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes shifted toward the opposite side of the street.
Then he sighed heavily.
That alone was enough to make Quân turn around.
"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
A woman came sprinting down the road while clutching a child tightly against her chest.
Tears, mucus, and sweat covered her skeletal face. She looked half-dead already, like someone whose body had long since been hollowed out by addiction.
Yet despite her screaming, nobody moved.
Nobody even looked surprised.
"What the hell is this?" Quân asked.
Keil barely reacted.
"Another junkie getting hunted down," he replied casually. "Normal day."
"Hunted?"
"Junkie?"
Quân frowned, and Keil reluctantly elaborated.
"Sensitive topic around here. Guess outsiders wouldn't know."
"The missionaries and scholars claim narcotics drag human consciousness closer to demons. Some idiots end up awakening Paths through drugs."
He shrugged.
"Most either kill themselves or get picked up by cults afterward."
"Not exactly people worth crying over."
After a short pause, Keil added:
"Relax. Hound-Guards will handle it soon."
Quân immediately caught the mocking undertone behind the title.
Hound-Guards, huh?
Interesting.
He picked up his skewers and leaned back against the bench, deciding to watch the situation unfold.
He still knew very little about Jinlus Village.
Which meant every incident mattered.
Every faction mattered.
Especially the armed ones.
And then reality broke apart.
Crack.
Snap.
RIIIP—
Quân's pupils contracted violently.
The cobblestone street began peeling open.
Not breaking.
Peeling.
As though reality itself were a sheet of paper being torn into separate layers.
A literal frame of existence split apart before his eyes inch by inch.
And within the gap between those torn layers...
Were endless sheets of shimmering violet-pink glass.