[Northern Dock of Aethelgard – 04:30 AM]
Thick fog crawled across the surface of the black sea, carrying the sharp scent of salt and a cold that bit straight through bone. In the silence before dawn broke, the wooden docks of Aethelgard Port creaked beneath the heavy footsteps of dock laborers chasing a single thing—survival.
A young man stood at the ramp of a massive merchant ship that had just docked.
His name was TSUF.
He wore nothing more than a thin cloth shirt, patched countless times, and dull trousers whose hems were tied with rough hemp rope. His face was ordinary—neither handsome like a prince nor fierce like a soldier. Yet his eyes were different. They were as calm as an abyssal sea, hiding a fatigue so deep it could not be erased.
“TSUF! Why are you standing there? These sacks of wheat won’t unload themselves!” shouted a stout man with a protruding belly wrapped in an expensive leather belt.
That was Foreman Barkas, the man who held their daily wages in his thick fingers.
TSUF lowered his head slightly—a gesture of sincere respect.
“I’m sorry, Sir. I was catching my breath.”
“Breath is free! Labor is not!” Barkas snapped. He cracked his small whip through the air, the sharp sound slicing through the quiet harbor. “Move it, before the Western merchants lose their patience!”
TSUF said nothing.
He stepped toward the towering stacks of wheat sacks—each weighing nearly one hundred kilograms. Most workers struggled to carry even one, faces flushed red with strain.
TSUF did something that always made others shake their heads.
He lifted the first sack.
Then the second.
Then the third.
He stacked them all onto his broad left shoulder.
Three hundred kilograms.
The wooden planks beneath his feet groaned, threatening to collapse—yet they held. TSUF walked forward with steady steps, passing through rows of laborers who stared at him with a mixture of pity and mockery.
On his rough, cracked fingers—hardened by years of merciless labor—rested ten dull silver rings. Under the faint glow of oil lamps, they looked like cheap scrap metal. Other workers often mocked him behind his back.
“Look at that crazy TSUF,” they whispered.
“Can barely afford food, yet he wears ten rings like some fallen noble.”
They did not know.
If even one of those rings were removed, the three hundred kilograms on his shoulder would feel lighter than dust. In exchange, the entire city would collapse under the pressure of his existence—an existence that defied logic.
Those rings were not ornaments.
They were stakes, anchors driven into reality to prevent this fictional world from shattering under his presence.
He wore them not for vanity, but so he could remain human—so he could still come home tonight.
[09:00 AM]
After four hours of relentless labor without rest, TSUF sat at the edge of the damp dock. He unwrapped a small cloth bundle containing a piece of hardened wheat bread, already cold. He chewed slowly, savoring every grain as if it were a luxury.
Foreman Barkas approached and tossed a few copper coins onto the dirt at TSUF’s feet.
“This is your pay for today. I deducted the cost of your delay this morning,” Barkas said disdainfully.
TSUF did not respond to the insult. He calmly picked the coins up from the dust.
Their number did not match the sweat he had spilled—but he smiled faintly.
“Thank you, Sir. May God bless your business.”
Barkas snorted and walked away. To him, TSUF was merely a replaceable tool.
TSUF slipped the coins into the safest pocket of his belt.
Five copper coins, he thought.
Enough for Mother’s cough medicine, half a liter of milk for Father… and maybe a little left to save for fixing the leaking roof.
To a being who held the authority of God’s Left Hand, those five copper coins were worth more than any golden throne across the multiverse.
Because these coins were earned through devotion.
[06:00 PM – TSUF’s Dilapidated Home]
TSUF stepped into his small wooden house at the quiet edge of the city. The house leaned, its walls riddled with gaps—but inside, it was warm with affection.
“I’m home,” he whispered.
An elderly man with a hunched back sat on an old rocking chair. His clouded eyes turned toward the door with relief.
“TSUF? My son? You’re late again.”
“Yes, Father. Another ship arrived at the northern dock,” TSUF approached, knelt, and reverently kissed his father’s rough hand.
“You work too hard, my boy. Your body will break if this continues,” his father murmured, trembling fingers brushing TSUF’s hair.
“My body is strong, Father. Don’t worry,” TSUF replied gently.
He walked to his mother’s room.
An elderly woman lay weakly on the bed. TSUF pulled out a small bottle of herbal medicine bought from the market.
With hands capable of crushing the laws of the universe, he lifted his mother’s head with infinite care—as if she were made of the most fragile glass—and fed her the medicine drop by drop.
Heaven is not on the thrones of gods,
nor at the tip of an architect’s pen,
TSUF thought as he watched her breathing calm.
Heaven is here—beneath these aging feet.
Suddenly, within the stillness of Aethelgard’s night, TSUF felt a tremor from another dimension.
A killing intent—razor sharp.
Something profoundly alien had pierced the boundaries of his world.
The ring on his right pinky finger vibrated violently, radiating heat only he could sense.
TSUF turned toward the small window facing the city center. In the distance, the sky began to turn an unnatural purple.
A shadow stood atop the city’s clock tower, emanating an aura of death that silenced every nocturnal creature.
“It seems my rest will be interrupted again,” TSUF murmured.
He gently adjusted his mother’s blanket, then stepped into the night—ready to face an intrusion capable of erasing his world.