A long yawn escaped his lips as consciousness gradually returned. His eyes fluttered open to dappled sunlight filtering through leaves above, casting dancing shadows across his face in a surprisingly pleasant warmth.
He raised his hand slowly, flexing his fingers one by one as if testing whether they still belonged to him. After a moment of this careful inventory, he sighed and looked down.
"Did someone drop a nuclear bomb here?" he muttered, staring at the ground below. Everything was charred black.
He dropped down from his perch in the tree, underestimating the distance and landing with an ungraceful grunt. As he dusted himself off and looked around, the full scope of the devastation became clear. Where a lush forest had presumably once stood, now only ash and the occasional glint of bone remained scattered across the blackened earth.
Ether beasts, most likely. It was the only explanation that made sense for this level of destruction.
He began walking deeper into what remained of the forest, his footsteps crunching on the brittle remnants of whatever had once grown here. The devastation was thorough and methodical—everything had been reduced to nothing except, curiously, the tree he'd been sleeping in.
"Ahh... haah... AHHH!" The sound of ragged sobbing drifted through the air, broken and desperate. He frowned and followed the noise, his curiosity overriding any sense of caution.
Eventually, he found an opening where the destruction seemed to have paused, everywhere was frozen... literally. At the center of this strange tableau knelt a girl, surrounded by countless corpses of creatures that looked like they'd been flash-frozen in their final moments. She was crying, her hands clutched around her throat, gasping for breath that seemed to come only with excruciating pain.
Her appearance was... concerning. Most of her pink hair had been singed away, her clothes were little more than charred scraps, and she was essentially naked. Her eyes held a hollow look that spoke of someone who'd been pushed far beyond their breaking point.
With some thoughts, he found himself walking toward the dying girl with practiced ease.
She looked up at his approach, her eyes dilating with terror. She scrambled backward desperately, though her movements were clumsy and pained. Her state of undress was impossible to ignore, but strangely, he felt nothing. No desire, no embarrassment, no awkwardness—it was as if those particular human responses had been deleted from his programming entirely.
All that remained was a cold, burning focus on one thing: revenge.
"I feel... strange," he murmured, looking at his palm where a tattoo now glowed with fierce intensity. "I wonder if I can still feel sexual pleasure?" The question was purely academic.
Before she could scramble any further away, he had coated his body with ether and grabbed her by the neck, slamming her against the ground with casual brutality. "Look at me," he commanded.
Tears streamed down her face, her terror evident in every trembling breath. She was completely exposed and vulnerable, yet she gradually realized something that horrified her more than her nudity: he wasn't looking at her with any hint of desire. His gaze was clinical, empty—as if she were nothing more than a tool to be used.
"I. Can. Kill. You," he stated matter-of-factly, and finally, mercifully, she stopped fighting.
Fighting was pointless anyway. She'd tried her best, but her body kept betraying her. For some inexplicable reason, she couldn't harm him—she'd become a slave to this seemingly ordinary young man, and the realization was almost worse than the physical pain.
"Now," he continued conversationally, "you can obey me and save yourself the pain, or keep deceiving yourself and we can stay here all day. Your choice."
Was there really a choice? She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, more tears flowing freely. She hated this situation, hated her helplessness, but she couldn't bear the agony any longer. She'd endured it all night, and her mind was already breaking.
"Please," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Make it stop. I beg you..."
He studied her for a long moment, then spoke a single word: "Breathe."
And she did. Oh, how she did. Her eyes rolled back as if she'd been intoxicated by the simple act of drawing air into her lungs without pain. She trembled with relief, finally able to fill her lungs properly.
"Hm," he mused, then manifested some clothing from a spatial ring. "Wear this. Quickly." He tossed the garments to her and walked over to lean against a nearby tree, arms folded, gazing up at the sky with apparent disinterest.
After a few minutes of rustling fabric, he glanced back to find her dressed in a form-fitting gown that emphasized her curves perhaps more than was necessary. The white fabric with blue trim at the middle and bottom was clearly expensive, and the jacket-like top with its prominent belt seemed designed to draw attention to her figure.
"Interesting fashion choice," he commented dryly. "Were you planning to wear this for someone special?"
She looked away, clearly uncomfortable. The reason for her discomfort became apparent when she shifted nervously—he'd apparently only given her the outer garments, leaving her feeling exposed despite being technically clothed.
"Good. Where are we?" he asked, looking around at the devastation with renewed interest.
"At the border of... Montelia," she replied after a lengthy pause, her voice carefully neutral.
"Montelia? You brought me all the way out here?" He seemed genuinely surprised by this information, though not particularly upset. "That actually makes sense. No one lives around here—you could do whatever you wanted. Worst that could happen is ether beasts."
She continued looking away, and he couldn't quite figure out why. "Do you have a way to get back?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied reluctantly.
"A scroll?"
"A spell..."
"Teleportation?" His interest sharpened slightly.
"Not completely. There have to be anchors where we—" she began to explain, but he'd already heard what he needed.
'Get a teleporter, then head to the north pole,' he thought, already planning his next moves. "Let's go," he said, then paused as she continued fidgeting uncomfortably. "What now?"
She looked increasingly agitated, biting her lip as if trying to work up the courage to speak. His patience was wearing thin—if she proved useless or continued trying to kill him, he'd simply order her to end her own life and move on.
"Please... you... didn't give me all the clothing," she finally managed, her face flushed with embarrassment.
"Huh?" He looked her up and down with the same clinical detachment he'd shown earlier. "What's wrong? I see no issue with it."
A vein throbbed on her forehead. Was he blind? The fabric was practically transparent in places, and without proper undergarments, she might as well be naked. Was he stupid, or was this intentional?
"My..." she started, then bit her lip again, too ashamed to continue.
"Let's go," he said, clearly done with the conversation. "Use the spell to get me to the nearest city." He began walking away without waiting for her response.
"WAIT!" she screamed after him.
He paused and turned back. "You are not to talk unless I ask you a direct question. Your only job is to cast spells when I tell you to. Also, twenty meters is the furthest you can stay from me, and if I die for any reason, you die too."
Her teeth ground together audibly. How could she walk in public like this? How was she supposed to maintain any dignity while essentially naked under a transparent gown? The humiliation was almost worse than the physical pain had been.
But as she looked at his retreating figure, she realized she had no choice but to follow. After all, what other option did she have?