Location: Unknown. The Void Lands Border.
The sensation wasn't one of transport, but of an infinite fall followed by a brutal stop. Satoru opened his eyes, expecting to vomit on the concrete floor of his garage. But the air that filled his lungs was... pure. Delicious. Charged with static electricity that made the hair on his arms stand up.
He was alone. The Voyager had vanished. Satoru stood up slowly, dusting off his clothes. He was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a titanic forest. The trees weren't green; their leaves were deep violet, almost black, and their bark looked like rusted metal. In the sky, two moons—one blood-red, one silver—faced each other like two giant eyes.
"Incredible..." Satoru whispered.
He forgot the fear. He forgot the convenience store and the humiliation. The engineer in him took over. He crouched down to touch a flower pulsing with blue light. Bioluminescence active... Probably an adaptation to low solar luminosity...
Suddenly, a massive shadow veiled the moons. Satoru looked up and froze. A dragon, long as a freight train, serpentined silently above the canopy. It didn't flap wings; it seemed to swim through the air currents, manipulating atmospheric pressure. It was terrifying. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"I made the right choice," Satoru murmured, a smile dawning on his lips. "Even if I die here... it is better than a whole life back there."
He didn't know yet that he was right about the dying part.
15 Minutes Later.
The scientific wonder was shattered by a smell. The stench of rancid meat and sulfur. CRACK. A tree, thick as a concrete pillar, was crushed ten meters away from him. From the shadows emerged an abomination.
The creature resembled a wolf, but it was an insult to biology. It was the size of a van. Its skin wasn't made of fur, but of black bone plates that clashed together like medieval armor. Its eyes burned with a red, hungry, demented light.
"Canis Lupus... armored?" Satoru analyzed by reflex, his voice trembling. "Estimated mass: 2 tons. Speed..."
The Armored Wolf roared. The sound vibrated in Satoru's ribcage. Speed: Too fast for me.
Satoru didn't think. He threw his notebook and ran. He wasn't an athlete. He was an engineer who spent 18 hours a day sitting down. After fifty meters, his lungs burned like acid. His cotton legs stumbled over giant roots. Behind him, the ground shook with every leap of the monster. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. It was getting closer. Satoru could hear the wet snapping of its jaws.
"I won't die here! Not after leaving everything behind!" he screamed, tears in his eyes, tumbling down a muddy slope.
He slipped, rolled for ten meters, scraping his hands, and landed violently on a dirt path. He looked up, covered in mud. In front of him, two hundred meters away: Torches. A wooden palisade. Smoke. Civilization.
"HELP! HELP ME!"
The Wolf burst from the forest, snapping branches like matchsticks. It opened a maw capable of crushing a car. Satoru closed his eyes, raising his arms in a pathetic gesture of protection.
WHISTLE. THUMP. THUMP.
No pain. Just a wet sound. Satoru opened one eye. The Armored Wolf was frozen in mid-leap, then crashed heavily a meter away from him, raising a cloud of dust. Two heavy crossbow bolts, thick as spears, pierced its skull and neck.
Silence fell. Satoru, breathless, looked at the smoking corpse, then at the wooden walls ahead. The gate opened. A group of five men came out. They didn't wear shining armor. They wore patched leathers, dark hoods, and visible scars. They looked rough, but to Satoru, in that moment, they were angels.
"Holy sh*t..." Satoru whispered, trying to stand up, his legs shaking. "Thank you... Thank you!"
The leader of the group stepped forward. A tall man, shaved head, with a spiderweb tattoo on his neck. He helped Satoru up with an iron grip. "You're lucky, newbie. One second later and you were a snack for that beast."
Satoru smiled nervously, wiping his cracked glasses. "I... I just arrived. I got lost. My name is Satoru." "Satoru, huh? Weird name. I'm Vargas. Come on, let's get you to safety. It's dangerous out here."
Satoru, relieved, followed them inside the compound. Border guards? Hunters? It doesn't matter. They saved me.
Inside the "Crows" Camp.
As soon as the heavy oak gate closed, the atmosphere shifted. It wasn't a village. It was a makeshift military camp. No houses, but empty cages. No women, no children. Just armed men playing dice on crates marked with a royal seal crossed out with red paint.
Satoru stopped. His analyst brain, finally calming down after the run, rebooted. Variable 1: The crates are stolen military goods. Variable 2: The cages are too small for animals, but perfect for humanoids. Variable 3: Vargas isn't smiling anymore.
"Sit there," Vargas said, pointing to a stool in the center of the camp. It wasn't an invitation. It was an order.
Satoru took a step back. "Listen, I don't want to intrude. I'll just take some water and head to the nearest town..."
Two men positioned themselves behind him, blocking the exit. Vargas turned around, a predatory grin on his lips. He pulled a curved dagger from his belt. "Head to town? You don't understand, Satoru. You're not a guest. You're a find."
Vargas approached, grabbed Satoru's chin, and forced his mouth open. "Perfect teeth. No deficiencies. Soft hands, no calluses... You're not a peasant. You're a lost Noble, or better... an Outworlder."
He released Satoru roughly. "The Elves in the Capital pay a fortune for exotic slaves like you. You're going to make us rich." "What? No! I'm an engineer, I can—" "You can shut your mouth and get in the cage," Vargas cut in, delivering a violent punch to Satoru's stomach.
Satoru folded in half, breathless. The pain was real. Sharp. Humiliating. He fell to his knees in the dust. Blood trickled from his lip. The men laughed. To them, he was just a bag of meat with a price tag.
Satoru stared at the ground, his eyes wide with pain and rage. Is this the new world? The Voyager lied to me. I am not an Architect here. I am cattle. NO.
A blinding pain shot through his skull. As if someone had plugged a USB cable directly into his brain. His vision blurred. The world went black, then... green. Lines of code, cold and angular, superimposed themselves over reality.
> KERNEL: PHYSICAL TRAUMA DETECTED. > SYSTEM INITIALIZATION "VOID ENGINEER" v1.0... > Neural Connection: ESTABLISHED. > Ambient Mana: 100%. > STATUS: IMMINENT DEATH DANGER.
Satoru blinked. It wasn't a hallucination. It was an interface. Vargas raised his heavy boot to stomp on him. "Go to sleep, newbie."
> ANALYSIS: Physical Attack Incoming. > ACTIVATION OF EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: [CEREBRAL OVERCLOCK]. > DURATION: 1.00 SECOND.
The world... glitched. Sound disappeared, replaced by a low-frequency hum. Colors faded to gray. Vargas's boot was suspended ten centimeters from Satoru's nose. The bandits' laughs were frozen in grotesque grimaces. A fly hovered, motionless, near his ear.
Satoru, still on his knees, tried to move. Impossible. His body was a statue. But his mind... his mind was free. The interface displayed clearly in front of his eyes.
[TACTICAL PAUSE ACTIVE] Time Remaining: 0.98s
Satoru panicked for a fraction of a second, then the engineer took over. He rotated his mental "camera." Situation: Vargas is about to kick my face. He has a dagger in his right hand. He is off-balance on one leg. Solution: I cannot dodge (body too slow). I must redirect.
His eyes landed on a new blinking icon at the bottom of his vision: [SKILL: QUANTUM GATE (Lvl 1)] Description: Opens a short-range spatial tunnel. Max size: 30cm.
30 centimeters... That's too small to fit my body. He looked at Vargas's boot. Then at Vargas's own face. But it's big enough for that.
He visualized the vectors. It was pure geometry. Point A (Input): Directly under Vargas's descending boot. Point B (Output): Directly in front of Vargas's jaw, angled upwards.
> PROGRAMMING COMPLETE. > EXECUTION IN 0.00s.
Time resumed with the violence of a whiplash. SNAP.
Satoru snapped his fingers (an instinctive gesture). A black circle, vibrating with violet energy, opened beneath Vargas's foot. Vargas stomped... into the void. His leg entered the portal on the ground.
At the same instant, a second portal opened at neck height. His own leg shot out of the top portal. His heavy iron-toed boot, moving at full speed, smashed violently into his own jaw.
CRAAAACK.
The sound of breaking bone echoed through the camp. Vargas was lifted off the ground by his own kick, did a grotesque backflip, and crashed to the ground, unconscious, his jaw hanging loose.
Absolute silence. The four other bandits stared at their leader who had just self-destructed in a split second. They didn't understand. They had only seen a violet flash.
Satoru, still on his knees, lowered his smoking hand. He lifted his head. His glasses were broken, his face bloody, but his eyes glowed with an electric blue light. The interface displayed a new message, cold and satisfying:
> TARGET NEUTRALIZED. > EXPERIENCE GAINED. > MANA REMAINING: 10%.
Satoru smiled. A terrifying smile. "Who's next?"