Edard suddenly found himself standing in the midst of a strange orchard. Rows upon rows of coconut trees stretched out before him in perfect, haunting symmetry. Each line consisted of exactly one hundred trees—no more, no less.
The rest of the landscape was eerily barren. Aside from the trees, there wasn't so much as a single pebble to be found. The ground was unnaturally smooth, as if a giant hand had swept it clean and leveled it like a tabletop.
He began to walk cautiously, his footsteps soft against the level earth, until he reached the very edge of the grove. There, in the distance, a massive structure loomed. It looked less like it had been built and more like it had simply fallen from the heavens.
Behind the building, there appeared to be nothing at all. As Edard peered past its silhouette, he felt a void; it was as if the world ended right there, and if he tried to walk past it, he would simply strike an invisible wall, though no such barrier was visible to the eye.
At first glance, the building resembled a high-security prison. It was encircled by a colossal fence of heavy wire. The wire itself looked ancient—so weathered and rusted that one felt years passing just by looking at it. Edard felt certain that if he were to give the fence a firm shove, the entire thing would crumble into dust from sheer age.
The most striking detail, however, was that the main entrance to this gargantuan facility stood wide open. Even from a distance, Edard could see a solitary guard standing watch. He focused his gaze, activating his skills to analyze the sentinel. Immediately, a box flickered into existence:
Edard was struck by a wave of bewilderment. Then, a sudden, jarring realization hit him like a physical blow: he had "fried the fish but forgotten the oil." In his haste to explore this dimension, he had left his "corpse"—the girl who was his only life—in the cave.
His heart began to hammer against his ribs. He glanced frantically at his watch. The numbers were ticking down with ruthless precision. Only four seconds remained. From the moment he had entered the dungeon and walked across the grove to the building, he had consumed twenty-eight seconds of his life.
Had time moved at the same rate here as it did in the outside world, he would already be a dead man.
Edard didn't even wait for the prompt to finish. He smashed his foot into the "YES" option. Instantly, he was jerked back into the cave. He scrambled through the shadows until he spotted the girl's body. Lungs burning and heart racing, he lunged for her, wrapping his arms around her in a desperate, bone-crushing embrace. He squeezed so hard he could hear the faint creak of her joints, as if the corpse itself were protesting the intensity of his grip.
He leaned back against the cave wall, rubbing his forehead in a daze of exhaustion and lingering terror. It was the feeling of a man who had felt the cold breath of death against his skin and barely stepped aside in time.
His eyes remained fixed on the girl. She was undeniably beautiful, but her beauty was the last thing on his mind. To him, she was a beautiful burden—a "corpse" he was tethered to. It had been made clear to him multiple times now: he could not part with her unless he found a way to significantly increase his Longevity.
Yet, she was his greatest complication. How could he explain to anyone that he was wandering the world with a dead body that possessed supernatural properties? This wasn't just a random body he'd stumbled upon; she had been hidden away in a warded cave, protected by magic. The fact that she could halt the very flow of time proved she was anything but ordinary.
"A Necromancer," he thought. "Only a powerful practitioner of the dark arts would preserve a body like this." Even before arriving in this world, he knew of legends regarding those who used the dead for forbidden rituals. This world only confirmed those fears.
If his suspicions were correct, a Necromancer was likely hunting him right now. Such valuable "assets" are rarely left without tracking charms or hidden marks. He adjusted her weight on his lap, scrutinizing her every detail, looking for any hidden seal that might give away his position.
Her hair was a deep, lustrous black—shockingly clean and perfectly styled, looking more like a bride's hair on her wedding day than that of a deceased person. Her skin was pale and bloodless, yet it lacked the grayish, sunken pallor typically found in the dead.
He noticed a small emblem on the edge of her sleeve: a depiction of the cosmos, but with a jagged bolt of lightning striking through the center, splitting the heavens in two. He scowled at the mark and turned his attention to her neck, where a heavy collar was fastened. He tried to pry it open with both hands, using all his strength, but the metal didn't budge.
He summoned a small blade of Dragon Essence and struck the collar. Immediately, a box appeared:
He realized then that traveling with this body openly would be social suicide in any village. But perhaps he could use it to his advantage. If he found even one person, he could use his Intimidation skill to force the truth out of them—to find out where he was and what this world demanded of him.
Edard set out, searching for any sign of civilization. He traveled for what felt like hours, but the landscape remained desolate. There were no people, no huts, not even the faint smoke of a distant campfire.
Then, he remembered the prompt from earlier: 501 kilometers to the Northeast lay a Dungeon Entrance. If there was an entrance, there were bound to be people. Furthermore, the immortal dais had told him that all the dungeons he had siphoned were being pulled toward that specific entrance.
He wasn't entirely sure what Dungeon Entrance implied in this world's context, but a destination was better than aimless wandering. By siphoning those dungeons, he had essentially robbed their owners. But no one had seen him in the act. How could they possibly link the theft to him?
In the stories he had read, dungeons were places of both immense treasure and lethal danger. If a hundred dungeons had suddenly converged on a single point, it would create a spectacle that no cultivator or adventurer could ignore. Even if the area was empty now, it would soon be crawling with people.
He paused his journey for a moment, setting the girl down and dragging the carcass of the horned lion toward him. He recalled the watch itching when he was near the beast. He pressed the watch against the lion's fur, rubbing it against its various limbs, but nothing happened. He even began to dissect the creature further, searching for "Magic Crystals" but found only cold flesh and bone.
Sighing in disappointment, he turned to his enslaved gorilla.
"Which way is East?"
The gorilla blinked, looking confused. Edard realized then that his concepts of North, South, East, and West might not translate to a beast's mind. The gorilla stood silent for a long moment, trying to formulate a response that wouldn't earn it another Intimidation.
Finally, it spoke with agonizing slowness. "East... East... East is... East." It looked immensely proud of this answer.
"Shut up!" Edard snapped.
This was why he hated asking animals for directions. Their world was small—limited to survival, avoiding predators, and finding food. They didn't understand maps or cardinal directions. However, he looked up at the sky. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon. If the laws of physics held true here, the sun set in the West. By watching the shadows cast by the mountain, he could triangulate his path.
He used scraps of cloth and sturdy vines to lash the girl firmly to his back. Once she was secure, he broke into a sustained run toward the horizon. By his calculations, if he used his speed skill, he could reach the Dungeon Entrance in about two hours.
Dylas.
Since childhood, Dylas had been plagued by dreams. At first, they were a source of amusement. They were mundane dreams, but they had an uncanny habit of coming true. He once told his friends that a girl named Nadia would confess her love for him on the 25th of August. When the day came, she did exactly that.
But as he grew older, the gift became a curse. The dreams began to interfere with his life, growing darker and more prophetic. Eventually, Dylas became so terrified of what he might see that he tried to stop sleeping altogether. Who wouldn't tremble at the thought of seeing a catastrophe and knowing it was inevitable?
But sleep is a persistent creditor; it always finds a way to collect. One afternoon, exhaustion finally claimed him. In his sleep, Dylas saw a vision: he found Dungeon Crystals—rare, magical stones—lying by the edge of a small pond near the boundary of his village.
As always, the dream was a command. Dylas woke up and tried to resist the urge to go to the pond, fearing that these crystals were a harbinger of misfortune. But destiny is a heavy tether. Later that day, when he was sent to fetch water for his family, he found himself standing at the water's edge. And there, glinting in the mud exactly as he had seen them in his dream, were the crystals.