The wooden corridor creaked softly beneath Thaddeus' steps as he moved deeper into the ship. Unlike the eerie darkness he had first expected, the vessel was still caught in the middle of the afternoon. Pale sunlight poured through broken seams in the hull and thin gaps in the upper deck, slicing into the dusty air in angled streaks of gold. It should have been warm. It should have felt like life still existed somewhere beyond the walls of this ship. But instead, the light only made everything more disturbing. It illuminated death more clearly.
The ship drifted endlessly across an open sea with no visible land in any direction. The sails above were torn and hanging loosely, catching whatever weak wind remained. The entire vessel moved forward without guidance, as if the ocean itself had decided to carry it somewhere unknown. Inside, however, there was only silence. A suffocating, heavy silence broken only by the groan of wood and the soft rhythm of waves against the hull.
Thaddeus tightened his grip on the wand in his hand.
It had not been like this before.
When he first obtained it, the wand had simply been an object. A tool but the moment his fingers closed around it properly, something changed.
A faint pulse had traveled up his arm, like a heartbeat that was not his own. It was subtle, but unmistakable. The wand was not just responding to magic. It was resonating with him.
He could still feel it now, faintly, like an echo beneath his skin.
As he walked, he opened his status window again in his mind.
[STATUS]
Name: Thaddeus
Condition: Stabilized | Recovering from Poisoning | Starving | Severely Weakened
Treatment: Antidote Administered
Magic Talent: Awakened
Magic Capacity: Low (Unstable Due to Weak Body)
Physical Condition: Weak but Stable
Recovery Status: Ongoing Healing Process
Unlike the few information awhile ago, now the system provide more information about him. Is it because once he touch the wand he had obtained his magic was awaken?
The change was real. Not theoretical. Not imagined. Something fundamental inside him had shifted the moment he bonded with the wand. His magic no longer felt like a loose, unstable force. It had structure now. Direction. Control.
He exhaled slowly.
"So this is what compatibility feels like."
The wand was not merely a stick used to channel spells. It was a bridge.
Now that bridge had stabilized, his power was no longer suppressed by uncertainty.
Still, even with that realization, the situation he was in remained unchanged. His weakend body disrup the expectations he can do with magic.
He continued forward.
The deeper he went into the ship, the more it felt like walking through a frozen moment in time. Bodies lined the corridors in quiet stillness. Some sat at tables, heads tilted as if they had simply fallen asleep mid-meal. Others leaned against walls or lay collapsed near doorways. Nobles in fine clothing were frozen in place beside servants wearing simple uniforms. There was no sign of panic. No struggle. No resistance.
Just death.
Clean. Quiet. Complete.
Thaddeus forced himself to keep walking.
At first, he tried not to focus on them. He kept his eyes forward, his breathing steady, his thoughts controlled. But the human mind had limits. Eventually, he had to look and when he did, he began to notice details he wished he had not seen.
A half-finished cup of wine still resting in a noble's hand.
A servant frozen mid-step as if about to speak.
A merchant clutching a pouch of coins that would never be spent.
It was not violence that filled this place. It was interruption. Life simply cut off mid-motion, like a story that had been closed before the final page.
Thaddeus swallowed slightly.
If this had been blood and gore, he would have broken long ago. But poison was different. It did not destroy the body in visible chaos. It stopped it quietly, as if turning down a flame until nothing remained but cold ash.
That silence was worse than screams.
As he moved forward, something else began to settle in his mind.
This was not random.
Ships did not become floating tombs by accident. Not ones carrying nobles, merchants, and livestock all at once. Something had happened here. Something deliberate.
Suddenly—
Thump.
Thaddeus stopped instantly.
His entire body stiffened.
His hand shifted silently toward the wand hidden beneath his sleeve.
Another sound followed.
Scrape.
It was faint, but it was enough.
Something was moving inside the ship.
His heart tightened slightly.
A survivor?
The possibility struck him harder than he expected. Until now, he had been completely alone in this floating grave. The idea that someone else might still be alive was both dangerous and comforting at the same time.
He moved carefully toward the source of the sound, lowering his steps to avoid making noise. The corridor gradually widened as he approached the lower section of the ship. The air changed here, becoming warmer and slightly more humid. The sunlight from above faded into softer tones of amber, filtering through wooden slats and casting long, trembling shadows across the floor.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound grew clearer.
It was rhythmic. Repetitive.
Alive.
Thaddeus slowed his breathing.
His grip on the wand tightened.
He reached a heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor. It was slightly ajar, creaking faintly as the ship swayed. The sound was coming from inside.
For a brief moment, he hesitated.
Then he pushed it open.
The door swung wide.
"BAAAH!"
A loud bleating sound erupted immediately, echoing through the enclosed space.
Thaddeus froze.
Inside was not a survivor.
It was a cargo hold.
Dim light filtered in through small openings in the ceiling, revealing rows of animals tied and contained within crude enclosures. Goats shifted restlessly near wooden posts. Chickens clucked softly inside broken cages. A few pigs lay in the corner, snorting and shifting their weight lazily as if unaffected by the death surrounding them.
The source of the noise was not human at all.
It was livestock.
For a long moment, Thaddeus simply stood there in silence, letting the realization settle.
Then he exhaled slowly.
"…So that's what I heard."
No survivors.
Just animals.
The tension in his shoulders loosened slightly, but the relief did not last. Instead, something colder replaced it. He stepped fully into the cargo hold, eyes scanning the space carefully.
The animals were alive. Clearly unaffected.
Which meant something important.
The poison had not been universal.
It had been selective.
Thaddeus crouched slightly, observing the nearest goat. It blinked at him slowly, chewing without concern, completely unaware of the corpses above and around it. He reached out carefully and tapped the wooden post beside it.
Nothing happened.
No reaction.
No sign of contamination.
His expression darkened slightly.
"This wasn't random?"
Thaddeus stood still in the cargo hold, the thought forming slowly rather than becoming an immediate conclusion. It lingered in his mind like something half-formed, not yet fully understood.
His eyes moved across the animals again.
Goats chewing lazily. Chickens shifting inside their cages. Pigs breathing calmly in the corner. Alive. Completely unaffected. Unbothered by the death that had swept through the entire human population of the ship.
If this had been a general poison, they should have died too. If it had been released into the air, mixed into water, or spread through food supplies, nothing living onboard should have survived.
But they were alive.
That contradiction made his expression tighten slightly.
A colder thought followed.
"A selective poison…"
Not chaos. Not accident. Not some uncontrolled outbreak.
Something precise.
Something designed.
Something that only erased humans while leaving livestock untouched.
That meant intention and intention meant intelligence behind it.
Someone had known exactly what they were doing when they set this in motion. They hadn't just wanted death—they had wanted specific death. Clean. Controlled. Untraceable.
Thaddeus exhaled slowly.
Only the passengers had been meant to die.
Just the people.
He turned away from the animals. Behind him, life continued without awareness. The goats chewed. The chickens clucked. The pigs shifted slightly in their pen. No fear. No understanding. No concept of what had happened above them.
Only existence.
Thaddeus stepped back into the corridor.
The ship creaked as it drifted through the afternoon sea. Sunlight still poured through broken gaps in the hull, spilling warm golden lines across the wooden floorboards. It should have looked peaceful from a distance. Almost normal.
But now it didn't.
Now it felt wrong.
Too calm for something that had become a floating grave.
His fingers tightened around the wand his hand.
Fear was still there—but it had changed. It was no longer blind panic. It had sharpened into awareness, into calculation. Something that observed instead of collapsed.
Because if this had been deliberate, then it meant something else existed beyond this ship. A person. A group. A hidden world where this level of precision was possible.
And if such power existed…
then it could be understood.
And if it could be understood…
it could be surpassed.
Thaddeus took a slow breath.
His grip on the wand tightened slightly.
He would not survive this world by luck alone.
Not by ignorance.
Not by fear.
If the system could accelerate spell mastery, then he would use it. If knowledge could be gained faster, then he would take every advantage it offered. If magic could be refined, then he would refine himself until there was nothing left of the weak boy who woke up on this ship.
This era felt more dangerous than the one in the movies…
That only meant power mattered more than ever.
And he ... intended to obtain it.
TBC
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