The hours following the outburst in the bedroom crept by with the agonizing slowness and weight of a death sentence. Dinner in the royal castle of Opes passed in complete, stifling silence for Hayjin, who hadn't even met the servants' eyes when a tray was brought to his door. He hadn't touched a bite. The plate of roasted meat and vegetables sat cooling on the desk while he lay sprawled on the bed, staring at the carved stone ceiling illuminated only by the faint glow of the mana crystal lanterns dying down along the corridors.
Now that deep night had fallen and the castle was submerged in an almost spectral silence, Hayjin could no longer bear being trapped within those four walls. The wooden splinters of the shattered chair were still scattered in the corner near the wardrobe mute witnesses to his inability to handle the tangled mess of emotions devouring his stomach.
He climbed to his feet, pulled his black jacket on over his vest, tied his bolo tie with trembling hands, and set off through the palace galleries.
His heavy, blocky gray iron greaves produced a rhythmic, metallic echo against the polished marble floor. Every step felt like an accusation. The walls were adorned with majestic tapestries depicting the legendary heroes of the continent of Exilia knights in gleaming armor capable of cleaving mountains with a single sword slash, high-ranking mages able to summon firestorms with a flick of their fingers.
Hayjin walked past those portraits feeling minuscule. No, worse: he felt like an obstacle, a cosmic mistake that should never have set foot in this world.
He ran his fingers along the stone balustrade of the long east corridor, gazing out through the tall arched windows that overlooked the inner courtyard. The night air was crisp, almost sharp, drying the cold sweat glistening on his forehead.
His mind drifted back, retracing the spiral of memories with vivid, ruthless clarity. Back to that cursed night on Earth, in that foul, dead-end alley drenched in drizzle and trash where it all began. He remembered the smell of wet asphalt, the distant hum of cars on the main road, and then that hooded figure emerging from the shadows with a ritual dagger etched in abominable symbols.
He remembered the cold steel piercing his flesh, the metallic taste of his own blood filling his mouth, and the muffled laugh of his executioner a member of the Cult of the Brand who had slaughtered him for no apparent reason, robbing him of his ordinary life, his studies, and his future as a college student.
He had died right there, alone, like a dog in a dark alley. And then he had woken up in this world of swords and magic.
"A second chance..." Hayjin muttered under his breath, his voice swallowed by the void of the deserted corridor. "A second life... and look at what the hell I'm doing with it."
A bitter chuckle escaped his lips.
Over the course of those months in this ruthless world, Hayjin had met extraordinary people. People who, against all logic, had opened their hearts to him and offered him an affection he had never experienced before.
He thought of Rhaegalur, the titanic, wise figure who had welcomed and guided him, looking at him not as a failure, but as a young man worthy of respect and protection.
He thought of Elara, with her disarming kindness, her infinite patience, and the way she looked at him as if he were the most important person in the world, capable of warming his heart even in his darkest moments of despair.
He thought of Zhilian, the crown princess who hadn't hesitated to risk her life and reputation to protect him, always treating him as an equal and adamantly refusing to view him as a mere "mana-less commoner."
And finally, he thought of Wren. The stubborn little princess who, only a few hours ago, had entered his trashed room, sat across from him, and opened her heart confiding her deepest insecurities just to make him feel better, leaving him with a genuine hug that still warmed his shoulders.
All these people loved him. They loved him genuinely, unconditionally, asking for nothing in return.
And yet, right in the center of his chest, a worm of shadow and anguish kept burrowing deeper.
Hayjin stopped in front of a grand window, pressing his forehead against the cool glass. His hazel eyes stared at his faint reflection in the dark pane.
"I don't deserve it..." he hissed through his teeth, a painful tightness clutching his throat. "I don't deserve any of this affection. Not one bit of it."
He felt like he was never enough. The more love, respect, or devotion those around him showed, the more a paralyzing sense of imposter syndrome grew inside him. He didn't feel worthy of all that regard. In his own eyes, he remained nothing more than a mana-less boy, an F-Class who had survived dungeons solely through dumb luck and the frantic aid of others.
Yet right alongside this sense of inferiority lived an opposing sentiment, ruthless and poisonous: a surge of deep bitterness and selfish rage.
Because the truth one Hayjin struggled to even admit to himself was that he was also terribly frustrated. He had used all his intellect, logic, and university-level knowledge to analyze situations, to find loopholes where others saw only brick walls, and above all, he had put his own life on the line enduring the hell of loops and decapitation just to save Zhilian from certain death.
And what had he gotten for it?
Nothing. He was still stuck in a castle where the nobility looked down on him with contempt. He was still viewed as a liability by figures like Isabelle or Wilder. He felt he deserved so much more than what he was getting, considering his dedication and ingenuity, but reality constantly shoved his powerlessness back in his face.
Who was he, after all? He wasn't the strongest. He wasn't a legendary warrior. He didn't possess an ounce of mana, had no special or unique skills, and hadn't been blessed by any deity with a "cheat power" or a miraculous magic system. He was just Hayjin: a twenty-year-old former college student who could read a few Earth textbooks, knew basic math and elementary physics, but whose academic smarts proved utterly useless when facing dungeon monsters that could rip his head off or armored knights moving at the speed of sound.
Pure Earth logic wasn't enough to survive in a ruthless world like Exilia. Knowing how a lever worked or the chemical composition of air meant nothing when a dark caster hurled a third-tier fireball at your face.
"I'm just throwing it all away..." Hayjin said, his voice rising as he slammed a fist against the window's wooden frame. The blow echoed in the silence. "I'm wasting this fucking second chance! Instead of getting stronger, instead of finding a way to protect myself or those around me, I just keep failing!"
But self-directed anger was only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath that boiling surface lay the creeping terror that had haunted him since the day he arrived at the castle.
He felt hunted. Constantly, relentlessly hunted.
The Cult of the Brand was out there. That cursed, fanatical organization that had already killed him once on Earth wasn't done with him. He knew their shadows stretched all the way into the capital's hallways, that their assassins crept through the dungeons, and that their ultimate target was him.
He didn't know if he would die today. He didn't know if a dagger would pierce his throat as he slept tomorrow night. He didn't know if he would make it to the end of the week or if he'd die like a trapped rat in yet another magical snare. Living with the constant sensation of a noose around his neck, ready to snap tight at any second, was slowly driving him mad.
Hayjin pulled back from the glass, breathing heavily. He felt the castle ceiling crushing him, the stone walls choking him. He needed fresh air. He needed to feel the wind on his skin to keep from passing out again.
With quick steps, he left the inner corridor and descended the marble staircase leading to the grand glass doors of the east royal garden the very place where, just a few hours earlier, his heated argument with Wilder had unfolded.
He pushed open the heavy brass doors and stepped outside.
The night air in the garden was cool and thick with moisture. The sweet scent of wisteria and damp soil enveloped him instantly. The full moon illuminated the lawn with a cold, silvery light, casting long black shadows beneath the trees and around the stone gazebo.
Hayjin walked along the gravel path, his iron greaves crunching softly with every step. He stopped in the middle of the clearing, looking up at the immense moon dominating the sky of Exilia.
A dark, toxic thought, alluring in its terrible simplicity, worked its way into his tormented mind.
"What if... what if I stopped running?" Hayjin whispered, his trembling voice cracking in the night silence.
He looked down at his bare hands. His knuckles were still red from punching the window frame.
"What if I surrendered myself to them directly?" Hayjin thought, his heart thumping heavy and dull against his ribs. "What if I went to the Cult of the Brand and said, 'Here I am. Take me and leave the others alone'? After all, it's my fault Zhilian was put in danger in the dungeon. It's my fault Elara and Rhaegalur have to worry day and night. It's my fault Wren's life got even more complicated. If I gave myself up to them... all this suffering would end. I wouldn't have to be afraid of dying tomorrow or a week from now. It would just be over. No more anxiety, no more feeling like a failure, no more pitying looks from those who are stronger than me..."
That idea, as absurd and desperate as it was, appeared for a fleeting instant as the only logical way out. An unconditional surrender to end a torment he felt incapable of enduring.
The dark water of the basin reflected a face Hayjin could barely recognize as his own. Dark circles beneath his eyes, pale skin under messy streaks of black and white hair, lips drawn into a thin, trembling line.
But as he stared at that moon-distorted reflection, the thought of turning himself over to the Cult of the Brand as a mere sacrificial victim to end the suffering, to put a stop to the solitude and terror began to warp. It expanded, corroded, transforming into something far darker, stickier, and frighteningly alluring.
What if it didn't play out that way? What if surrendering didn't mean death, but a complete reversal of roles?
A cold chill ran down his spine not from fear, but from a sudden, twisted rush of adrenaline.
The members of the Cult of the Brand weren't hunting him down just to slaughter him like common prey. It had taken him time to realize it, but all their actions, their rambling chants, and the obsession with which they had pursued him since Earth pointed to a single truth: to them, Hayjin was special. To that sect of fanatics, he wasn't a mana-less weakling, a pathetic failure, or a pity-worthy misfit. To them, he was the key, the catalyst, the prophesied nightmare, or the incarnate deity destined to shatter the balance of the world.
The idea began to tempt him. It teased his wounded pride with a searing malice that made his breath come in ragged hitches.
If he went to them... if he accepted the Brand instead of fighting it... he would no longer be the wreck needing salvation. He would become their leader.
He envisioned the scene with ruthless clarity: subterranean altars bathed in purple flames, hundreds of hooded figures kneeling in the dark, their faces hidden behind iron masks bowing down to the earth at his mere passing. People who would never look at him with Zhilian's nauseating pity, nor with Isabelle's aristocratic dismissal, let alone Wilder's gilded condescension. There, among the cult's fanatics, Hayjin would be loved and revered.
Sure, it would be a warped, twisted, perverse love built on the false premises of religious madness yet an absolute affection nonetheless. An unconditional adoration where no one would ever dare tell him he was "useless," where no one would offer him a sword lesson so as "not to offend him," and where his name would be spoken with reverent terror and pure devotion.
His fists tightened against the stone edge of the basin until his knuckles bled white.
But what truly set his blood ablaze, what turned that thought into an almost irresistible temptation, was imagining what it would mean for everyone else.
"Imagine the looks on their faces..." Hayjin murmured beneath his breath, his voice reduced to a venomous whisper that dissolved into the night air.
He pictured returning to the capital of Opes no longer as the bottom-tier adventurer needing protection, but commanding the Cult's black legions. He imagined marching through the royal palace gates cloaked in a power no one in that castle could fathom or contain. He wanted to see the look on Isabelle's face when she realized the "mana-less commoner" held the power to level her chambers to the ground. He wanted to see Wilder's eyes his perfect crimson-red eyes wide with terror and remorse upon realizing how badly he had underestimated the boy he had offered a fake duel of honor to. He wanted to force every single noble, every guard, and every tailor in that castle to swallow every single look of disgust they had thrown at him since day one.
Everyone had always underestimated him. On Earth, at school, in college, and now even in this shitty fantasy world where without mana you were nothing. His sharp intellect, his ability to analyze reality, and his strategic mind hadn't been enough to earn him the respect he deserved. But if he joined the Cult, if he gifted that sect the tactical mind of an Earth student combined with their devastating madness, he would make the entire continent of Exilia swallow its words.
In that moment, the darkness inside him felt like a far warmer, far more welcoming sanctuary than any chamber in the royal palace. The temptation to blow it all up, to betray everyone's trust, and to embrace ruin just to achieve that cathartic revenge made him tremble.
Then, like a blade piercing his chest, the thought crashed into the faces of those who truly loved him.
Rhaegalur, with his deep voice and unwavering loyalty. Elara, who had tended to his wounds so gently. Zhilian, who looked at him as if he were her sole lifeline in a sea of responsibilities. And Wren... little Wren, who just hours earlier had walked among the splinters of his shattered chair to hug him and tell him he had worth simply for who he was.
If he became the Cult's monster, he would destroy them too. He would tear them apart or force them to look at him with the same terror as everyone else.
Hayjin yanked his hands from the stone and pressed his palms against his eyes, pressing hard enough to see flashes of light in the dark. A groan of pure frustration tore from his throat. He was torn in two: on one side, the childish, selfish, desperate craving for payback and supreme power to silence those who humiliated him; on the other, the visceral bond with the few people who had given him a reason to remain human.
"I'm sick... I'm out of my fucking mind..." he wheezed, head bowed against his chest, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
The temptation was still there, alive and throbbing in the shadows of his mind, ready to resurface at the first sign of pain.
It was at that very moment of peak vulnerability, as Hayjin desperately tried to banish the ghosts of vengeance and the Cult from his mind, that the soft sound of crunching gravel echoed behind him. It wasn't the brisk step of a maid nor Wren's light tread. It was a heavy, measured stride, rhythmic with metal.
Hayjin stiffened instantly, his right hand dropping by instinct to the hilt of his ordinary iron sword.
"I didn't expect to find anyone else taking a walk at this hour," said a deep, clear, unmistakable voice from the darkness of the pathway.
Just as Hayjin closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the weight of that terrible thought, the soft crunch of gravel beneath a heavy boot abruptly shattered his silence. Hayjin snapped his eyes open and turned toward the garden entrance.
From the shadows of the palace's long arched portico, stepping forward at a slow yet steady pace, emerged an imposing figure.
It was Wilder.
The knight was no longer wearing the heavy silver battle armor he had worn that morning. Instead, he wore a simple dark wool tunic with gold trim, riding trousers, and soft leather boots. His thick blond and red hair was lightly tousled by the night wind, and in his crimson eyes lay no trace of anger, resentment, or offense over the insults Hayjin had hurled in his face hours prior.
There was only a deep, quiet, and attentive concern.
Wilder stopped a few meters away from him on the gravel path, letting the moonlight illuminate his face.
"I knew I'd find you here, Hayjin," Wilder said in a low, calm voice, breaking the night's silence.