His blue eyes gleamed as the bullets pierced through his bones. Strangely, death did not come. He was still alive. Still able to move as before, as if what had just happened was nothing more than a dream that would fade once someone woke from a long sleep.
The white fog began to react, forcing the three of them apart as if something was pushing their bodies. But it was not a push.
'Hah? His heart should have been destroyed by those heated bullets, right?' The shooter woman's thoughts spun chaotically. Questions collided in her mind, about how she could be in this place, and about what she had just witnessed.
She gave a small nod, a meaningless reflex. Sweat slowly dampened her face, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. Her breath was held in her chest, as if she was restraining something that could not be explained with words.
She did not want to find an enemy, but a companion.
"Where are you from?" she asked loudly, forcing her tone to sound firm, trying to intimidate, and hoping the two would give up information without resistance.
The white fog was too thick for her to see clearly. However, Moreira caught her subtle movements, her fingers repeatedly twitching restlessly, like someone trying to suppress nervousness. Or perhaps pure fear.
'He's a man. The other one is a woman too? That swordsman… his height is almost the same as mine, maybe not.'
Moreira's brow twitched as he thought.
The Western Continent?
That fact struck him slowly. If this shooter woman truly came from the Western Continent of Karanda, a land separated by thousands of miles from the Eastern Continent, his homeland, then this place was far more than just an isolated space.
The corner of Moreira's lips lifted. Not a smile. More like shock that had not fully formed.
'So, in this place… I'm not alone. There could be hundreds. Thousands. Or even millions of people dragged here from other continents, or from the same land as me. From the East. Chynoria.'
"Come out," Moreira finally said in a restrained tone. "Don't be afraid. I'm not an enemy, at least for now." At the end of his words, he lowered his voice so the two of them would not hear clearly.
The voice did not truly reach their ears. Yet the sentence entered directly into their minds.
The dagger returned to his coat pocket. Moreira decided to step forward, unwilling to hide anything or make suspicious movements, ready to face both of them at once if the situation turned hostile.
Meanwhile, the woman's eyes moved left and right reflexively, or perhaps due to confusion and fear after being in this place for too long, enough to erode her sanity.
"Before that, there's something I want to ask," the woman said hesitantly, her voice wrapped in forced confidence.
Both of them remained silent, unwilling to utter a single word. They let the sentence hang in the air while continuing to walk closer to each other.
'Ck. How strange. I didn't die. My heart should have been destroyed by now?' The blue-eyed man glanced at his chest.
'And I don't want to talk to you, you damn bitch,' he added inwardly.
His sword vanished instantly, like dust carried by the wind as he straightened his gaze.
The white fog was pushed away by the three of them, forming a small circle just enough to contain them, though the fog still remained, thinner than before.
They stood facing one another, staring at each other, remaining vigilant in case any of them made a suspicious move.
The woman stood upright without moving, her gaze slightly lowered. Her body was wrapped in a long dark coat reaching her calves, with a layer of golden-yellow fabric at the bottom that looked soft yet heavy. Her long black hair fell messily, partially covering her face and neck.
Her posture remained calm, mysterious, and melancholic, as if she merged with the white fog around her to conceal her true emotions.
"So… where are we now?" the man asked, stretching his muscles and legs, feeling stiff after wandering aimlessly without finding any clues.
The woman remained silent. Meanwhile, Moreira still did not understand anything, choosing to stay quiet and observe the two first.
He gave a small nod reflexively, raising his hand—more precisely his index finger, cold from contact with the white fog—pointing toward the woman standing to his left. Right.
'Hah? Why me?' The woman lifted her gaze, finally able to see the two men clearly, one with a confident expression, the other looking at her indifferently as if he did not care about the surroundings.
She exhaled briefly and said in a calm tone, "I've been here for one year. Just like you, I don't know anything. When I realized it, I was already here."
"Searching for a way out is useless. That's all I can say. Believe me," the woman added quickly.
"I already know that, idiot." Moreira's brow furrowed as he thought.
He continued, "Since the first time I arrived here, I counted it myself. Recorded it. Made sure a year had passed. Even my pocket watch doesn't function here. Or maybe this strange world is the cause."
He took a watch from his coat pocket, opened its lid, and showed the long hand frozen at twelve and the short hand at eight as proof.
'Hmm. So that shooter lady has been in this world for far too long. I don't remember how long I've been here, but one thing is certain. On December 18, I was supposed to meet someone.' The blue-eyed man's thoughts became chaotic, cursing his own foolishness for underestimating what had happened to him.
He turned, his blue eyes filled with vigilance as he looked at Moreira, who had been silently observing him as if planning something.
"Hey. How did you end up in this world?"
The man's gaze remained fixed on Moreira, unable to leave the question unspoken.
'This man… he's not what I imagined. He's very different from him.' he thought as he glanced toward the woman.
Moreira nodded slowly, then said in a low voice, "Chynoria. That's all I can say. As for the rest… I'm curious about the beautiful and cold lady standing there."
The woman's eyes widened as she reflexively pointed at herself, whether out of confusion or instinct.
"Curious about what?" she muttered, slightly clenching her teeth as she slipped her hand into her coat pocket, preparing herself.
Moreira fell silent for a moment, scratched his head, then said with a slight pout, "No need to think about it. By the way, have either of you met anyone else?"
Shuisa Kaityln, a woman around twenty-five years old, lived in the far left region of the Southern Continent of Chynoria, within the Intim Empire, in the city of Bulkan. Her daily life was simple. She lived with her younger sibling and her nephew after losing her parents, had no permanent job, and took on odd jobs with decent pay.
Her sudden arrival in this place happened after she decided to leave an influential area in her city, a small region in the highlands with a large abandoned building, surrounded by rows of massive ancient castles, as if enclosing the building itself.
Very few people were there. Murmurs could be heard, the sound of the mountain winds of Nandessa, and the voice of someone, a friend calling her name, right as her consciousness suddenly faded, pulled by something mysterious. Northerlheim.
"Yes. I met two others besides the two of you," Shuisa said, gesturing forward.
"Around five people," the man added calmly, as if he did not care about the existence of others in Northerlheim.
Moreira remained silent, his right hand holding his chin. His heartbeat increased, as if something was wrong after thinking everything over again.
About the previous location at the roadside connected to the square, and the fact that the buildings there were completely intact. Strange.
His eyes blinked repeatedly, failing to find the source of the problem. He straightened his posture and said in a restrained voice
"Northerlheim has no time. So I only have one question. What date were the two of you dragged into this world, and did you receive any information about the destruction of Moran?"
'Moran… isn't that city on the Eastern Continent? So far from the Western Continent, yet he's here with me and that damn woman? What kind of place is this?' The corner of his lips curved upward, not in a smile, but in shock after realizing that what the person he met before said might be true.
"I don't know," the woman replied, her tone as sharp as a newly honed blade, as she had never received any information from outside the empire.
"I see. That's unfortunate," Moreira muttered, letting out a short breath.
After that, no more questions or words were spoken. As if the three of them had given up, having no choice but to remain in this world forever, letting their sanity erode, or worse, letting their bodies rot.
A quote from a book Moreira had once read. It might sound strange or unreasonable, but in Northerlheim, the concept of "death" did not apply as it did in the original world. Death did not come from outside, but from within, a complete mental collapse.
When a person's mental state was destroyed, eroded, or trapped in an abyss of despair, their body and soul would be erased at the most fundamental level, leaving nothing behind, forgotten by family, friends, and everyone who had ever known them.
But Moreira did not know this. He had not even finished translating a single line from that book, or more precisely, he did not know how to translate it into the Talazze language.
"So… there really is no way out of this foggy world?" the man asked, seeking certainty.
Moreira gave a faint smile. "More or less."
'What's certain is, there is a way out, even if it's nearly impossible.'