Chapter 2: An Unexpected Transfer (2)
I awoke to an indescribable stench.
My head throbbed, probably due to the aftereffects of mana depletion.
But what is this smell…?
It didn't smell like blood or gunpowder—it was just downright foul.
Not even the sulfur and rotting flesh clogging the Demon Lord's catacombs came close.
Rotten food, grease, stale sewage, and unfamiliar odors mixed together to violate my nose.
I gagged on a stench so vile I would've believed it was the Demon Lord's curse.
I managed to pry my eyes open.
As my blurry vision slowly cleared, my surroundings came into focus.
"?"
I was at a loss for words.
My body was crammed inside a metal container, its rusty lid propped halfway open above me.
I felt something damp squish and burst behind my back.
Slowly, I raised my hand.
An unidentified brown liquid dripped from between my fingers.
"Ugh…"
I quickly shook off the disgustingly sticky liquid.
"Where am I…?"
The coordinates I had specified were definitely a small village on the outskirts of the Demon Lord's castle.
A place with low stone walls, a windmill, and an old well at the entrance.
The safe zone where Leon, Eileen, and Miria were supposed to arrive.
But this wasn't that place.
Nothing like it.
I grabbed the edge of the metal container and hauled myself up.
A sudden wave of nausea swept through me.
My legs buckled, almost sending me right back down, but I managed to catch my balance just in time.
First, breathe.
Next, check senses—sight, hearing, touch, and mana perception.
A mage who lost control of their emotions always died.
I immediately sank my consciousness deep within myself.
I needed to verify if anything remained of my mana circuits—the pure pathways of energy I'd spent a lifetime honing.
Moments later, I let out a brief breath.
They were still there.
But obviously, they weren't in good shape.
"…At least it's not the worst-case scenario."
I muttered softly.
The circuits hadn't completely burned out, which meant I could recover.
Having dodged one crisis, I focused on my current situation.
Coordinate error.
Possibility one.
The mana turbulence right before the massive explosion distorted the teleportation coordinates.
Spatial interference.
Possibility two.
A residual barrier from the Demon Lord—or the castle itself—interfered with the teleport spell.
Time axis deviation.
Possibility three.
The hypothesis I wanted to avoid the most.
I raised my head and scanned my surroundings.
It was a narrow alleyway.
The walls looked like they were made of stone, but they weren't natural stone.
Tapping them lightly with my hand brought back a hollow echo.
I didn't know the exact name, but I could guess their purpose.
Cheap, lightweight, and easy to stack in a hurry.
Not good enough to be used for the outer wall of a Magic Tower, but suitable for mass-producing an entire city.
Glowing blue characters floated up and vanished across the walls outside the alleyway.
Runic characters?
No, they were different.
They looked like runes, but the flow of mana was shallow.
It was more like a device continuously projecting information using light.
A display-type illusion formula?
Whatever it was, I could see the principle behind it.
The magic of this city was different from what I knew.
I placed my hand against the wall.
Cold.
I felt a faint vibration humming within.
Mana was flowing.
Though it wasn't the natural flow of mana I was used to.
The mana was refined and broken down into standardized units.
It felt as if someone had taken the mana and pumped it through pipes like water.
Is the entire city one gigantic magic circle?
Right then, a low roar echoed from high above the alley.
Vrooong.
I instinctively snapped my head up.
And once again, I was rendered speechless.
The sky was nowhere to be seen.
No, to be exact, there were too many things blocking the sky.
Buildings towering on both sides of the alley pierced the clouds.
They couldn't even be compared to castle towers.
Monolithic towers—resembling dozens of royal spires stacked on top of each other—stretched toward the dark sky as if in a race to scrape the heavens.
It wasn't an impossible construction.
In theory, it was possible with an anti-gravity formula and load distribution circuits.
The problem was that they had applied it not just to a single building, but to the entire city.
There must be a separate mana source.
This was far beyond the scale of an individual mage or noble house.
This city received power centrally.
Some buildings sparkled entirely like giant crystal pillars.
Other buildings were covered in black metal, with golden circuits spinning endlessly along their surfaces.
At the very top, unfamiliar crests floated.
A winged gear.
A crystal eye.
A staff entwined by a snake.
Each looked like the coat of arms of a different noble family.
But it was weird.
They weren't flags.
The crests hovered in midair.
Illusion magic?
I frowned.
Then who on earth is wasting power like this—running a continuous illusion spell just to show off a noble house's crest?
Are they flaunting their wealth?
Inside a track resembling a transparent tube, a silver monster glided along seamlessly.
I instinctively ducked—unable to tell if that thing was a creature, a golem, or a siege weapon.
But I saw people inside that silver monster.
Dozens… no, hundreds.
They sat there casually.
Is it a military transport propelled by levitation magic?
Beneath it, flying carriages—no, lumps of metal too ridiculous to even call carriages—zipped back and forth through the air.
Characters glowed on the side of the vehicles too.
[Archeon Genetics]
[Lumendyn Fuel]
[Seraph Industries]
I stared at them blankly.
A giant woman floated between the buildings.
To be exact, the translucent upper half of one.
Her figure was half-human, half-mechanical device.
Smiling, she held a tiny crystal bottle levitating over her palm.
Beneath her, text flashed brightly.
[Suffer no longer from mana depletion.]
[Legal awakening supplement, Etherlyn.]
I pressed my lips together.
Solving mana depletion with drugs?
Nonsense.
Insufficient mana wasn't the only cause of mana depletion.
Because multiple complex factors were intertwined, recklessly meddling with it was a taboo no one dared to break.
But even so, it wasn't a completely impossible concept.
If it wasn't a potion that restored mana, but a stimulant that forcibly squeezed out the residual mana left in the circuits, it might have a temporary effect.
Of course, the user's circuits would be ruined.
I stared at the smile on the illusion's face.
That's not a cure, it's poison.
I let out a dry laugh.
"What a crazy place."
But there was no time to marvel.
First.
This was not the village I had designated.
Second.
The surrounding environment was completely unlike any city on the continent where I had lived.
Third.
The level of magitech was abnormally high.
Fourth.
The mana concentration in the air was high, but its flow was artificially controlled.
Based on the facts verified so far, no place existed that matched these observations.
At least, not in my mind.
And so…
This was not the world I used to know.
It took a day to accept that fact.
A month to accept the fact that I might never be able to return.
Finally…
A year to give up struggling to go back.
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