Stepping beyond the protected perimeter of the royal castle, the grandiosity of the capital stretched out before their eyes. The cobblestone streets of pale stone wound through a labyrinth of imposing architecture, marble arches, and soaring steeples that reached toward the morning sky. The city was a bustling human anthill: merchants shouting the prices of their wares, gilded carriages drawn by caparisoned horses clattering across the stones, and citizens from every walk of life crowding the main thoroughfares.
Walking at the very front was Isabelle. Her broad plum-purple cloak billowed with measured grace at every step, revealing flashes of the golden spine-shaped accents on her black dress. Her high golden-blonde twin ponytails bounced rhythmically beneath the large fuchsia bows and the black tiara.
Behind her, lagging a couple of meters back, trudged Hayjin.
The boy walked at a sluggish pace, completely devoid of his companion's morning energy. His heavy, blocky gray iron greaves produced a rhythmic metallic clack-clack with every contact on the stone, sounding almost comical next to the maid's light stride. Hayjin's hazel eyes were half-closed, his head drooping with exhaustion, and one hand pressed against his stomach to digest the slices of bread and honey gulped down on the fly during his absurd "flight" out of the dining room.
Isabelle never stopped talking for a single second, keeping her head held high and her chin tilted up with the posture of an imperial tour guide.
"Look at that dark stone facade up there, plebeian," Isabelle said, gesturing elegantly with her arm toward the structure of a grand tower rising above the rooftops. "That is the Eastern Gate of the capital of Lundene. Many ignoramuses of your strain see only a pile of old rocks, but that structure withstood the bloodiest siege in the history of this continent. During the Great War, the Demon Kings wiped out half of the defenses, reducing nearly every residential district to ash. It was an unprecedented massacre."
Hayjin stifled a colossal yawn, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and cracking his neck vertebrae.
"Fascinating..." Hayjin muttered in a raspy, drawn-out voice. "Truly a thrilling tale..."
Isabelle continued, entirely indifferent to his lack of enthusiasm. "Our ancestors did not surrender. They managed to survive the Demon Kings' assault and rebuilt as best they could, stone by stone, channeling underground magical ley lines to raise new barriers. Lundene is not merely a city; it is the symbol of resilience against utter destruction. Every single cobblestone your crude iron boots step on carries a history of blood and rebirth."
Hayjin paused for a second, scratching his messy nape right above the white streaks falling over his forehead. He stared at the little girl's back with a visibly exasperated and bored expression.
"Listen, Isabelle..." the boy began, his voice laden with a nearly comical apathy. "It's all very nice, really, a top-notch history lesson. But can you explain to me what this entire history lecture about the capital of Silva has to do with shopping? Did we leave at dawn to buy herbs or to go on a school field trip?"
Isabelle stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly toward him, her cloak's ochre lining rustling softly. Her large crimson-red eyes narrowed into two slits loaded with sheer superiority.
She raised her right hand to chin level, joined her thumb and middle finger with surgical precision, and delivered her signature sharp, disdainful finger flick outward.
"Your ignorance is almost painful to listen to," Isabelle replied sharply. "It serves no purpose for the shopping, obviously. It serves to illustrate the legend of the capital a gem of culture and history that an individual of your strain will never know nor understand unless someone of superior rank instructs him. Consider it an act of intellectual charity. Now move, and do not waste any more of my time with your whining."
The two resumed walking, turning onto a tree-lined avenue leading toward the merchants' district. The shade of massive, centuries-old holm oaks cast a pleasant play of light on the stone pavement.
Isabelle, however, did not immediately launch back into her monumental monologue. Staying a step ahead of Hayjin, she seemed to reflect on something. Her long golden-blonde ponytails bounced more slowly, and her posture was less rigid than usual.
After a few dozen meters, the small maid turned sideways, scrutinizing Hayjin with an unusually serious look, stripped of her customary theatrical arrogance.
"Say... thinking back," Isabelle began, her voice dropping an octave. "Where are you from, exactly, Hayjin?"
The question landed like a sudden hammer blow. Hayjin, who had been absently checking the brown leather buckles on his black vest, froze for a fraction of a second before picking up his stride again. His "dimensional traveler" brain instantly went on high alert. His Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and constant paranoia surrounding the Cult of the Brand caused his hands to unconsciously clench into fists at his sides. He couldn't reveal the truth to anyone; the last time he had tried or someone had dug too deep, his mind had been decapitated in a surreal limbo.
Hayjin kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, forcing himself to adopt his usual sluggish expression.
"I come from very far away," he answered simply, his voice flat and devoid of detail.
Isabelle raised a golden eyebrow, clearly dissatisfied with such a vague response.
"'Very far away' is not an acceptable geographical answer," the girl countered, stopping dead in the middle of the pavement and forcing him to stop as well. "Do you happen to come from the continent of Sudria? Or one of the southern lands? Your light-brown complexion and your bizarre, etiquette-lacking way of speaking somewhat recall the southern merchants, though your accent sounds nothing like their tongue."
Hayjin shook his head, running tired fingers through his black hair and its white patches.
"No. In truth, I come from much farther away than that," he said, and for an instant his hazel eyes dimmed with sadness, brushed by pov of his first life on Earth the silent, chilling exclusion he had faced, the invisible wall he had built to completely isolate himself from people who had already shut him out, his crippling agoraphobia, and that magicless world that now felt like a distant, distorted dream.
Isabelle took a step toward him, her large red eyes trying to decipher the boy's mask. Her aristocratic curiosity was yielding to a deeper suspicion.
"Much farther than Sudria?" Isabelle pressed, leaning forward slightly. "Beyond the Great Null Wastes, there are no known realms. What is your country of origin? Who were your parents before Master Rhaegalur found you? You cannot keep acting mysterious, as if you were a ghost fallen from the sky."
Hayjin realized the conversation was taking a dangerous turn. Social anxiety made the collar of his white shirt feel far too tight around his neck, and the thin bolo tie felt like a crushing weight.
"Isabelle, enough," Hayjin said, his voice losing all trace of irony, turning sharp, firm, and absolute. "I don't want to answer any further. I said I come from far away, and that's the truth. My past concerns only me, and it has no bearing on what we're doing here. Can we drop this interrogation?"
Isabelle was caught off guard by the abrupt shift in tone. This wasn't the boy's usual arrogant or childish pushback; it was the firm closure of someone guarding a wound or a secret far too immense.
The little maid grew slightly suspicious. "He's hiding something," she thought to herself, studying the way the boy avoided her gaze. "An F-Class with no mana, capable of surviving the collapse of a training tower and walking away unscathed when even the princess collapsed... and now he refuses to say where he comes from."
However, seeing the tension etched across Hayjin's face, Isabelle decided to let it drop for now. It was neither the time nor the place to press him. She raised her chin once more, resuming her impeccable posture.
"Hmph. Keep your secrets if it makes you happy, plebeian," Isabelle said, turning her back on him with a rustle of her cloak. "Your history doesn't interest me in the slightest, after all. We have other things to attend to."
After another ten minutes of walking, the two finally reached the capital's central market, specifically the section reserved for medicinal herbs and rare spices.
The atmosphere here was completely different from the rest of the city. The air was thick with a potent fragrance a liquid blend of dried lavender, magical ginseng root, mountain thyme, and alchemical resins that tickled the nostrils. Dozens of dark wooden stalls were arranged in neat rows beneath large white canvas awnings, laden with glass vials, burlap sacks, and bundles of rare plants hanging to dry.
Isabelle guided Hayjin toward the largest and most elegant stall in the sector, run by an elderly man with a thick white beard and a worn leather apron.
"Ah! Your Grace!" the vendor exclaimed the moment he caught sight of Isabelle. The man immediately scurried from behind the counter, bowing deeply and ceremoniously, his beard nearly brushing the ground. "What an immense honor to have the royal house's personal maid at my humble shop! How may I serve you today?"
Isabelle drew a small parchment scroll sealed with royal wax from beneath her cloak. "I require the mixture of Silver Sun Roots and dried Moonflowers for Princess Zhilian's therapy. I was informed you possess this season's prime harvest."
The merchant's eyes widened, and he nodded with impressive eagerness. "Most certainly! The finest yield in the kingdom, kept in temperature-controlled storage!"
The elderly man rushed to the back of the stall, emerging seconds later with an inlaid wooden box. Inside lay three fine linen sacks tied with golden cords, emanating a soft bluish glow and an extraordinarily fresh scent.
Isabelle reached into her leather pouch to pull out gold coins from the royal treasury, but the merchant made a firm gesture with his hands, refusing outright before she could even touch the money.
"Oh no, no! Please, Miss Isabelle, do not even think of pulling out those coins!" the man said with a warm smile, pushing the box toward her. "Knowing these herbs will aid in the recovery of our beloved Princess Zhilian is payment far exceeding the value of any gold coin! Consider it a gift from my entire family to the crown. Please accept it with our most sincere devotion!"
At that spontaneous and deferential gesture, Isabelle's mask of aristocratic coldness shattered completely.
The small maid reacted with a broad, radiant smile of pure happiness a genuine, brilliant, and incredibly sweet smile that lit up her entire face. Her large crimson-red eyes sparkled with a near-childish light, and her cheeks flushed faintly with joy.
"I... I thank you infinitely," Isabelle said, her voice briefly stripping away its arrogance to become that of a genuinely moved young girl. "The princess will be exceedingly grateful for your generosity. I shall personally ensure your name is mentioned at court."
A short distance from the stall, Hayjin stood leaning his back against a wooden post, taking in the scene.
His hazel eyes drifted from the merchant who kept bowing to Isabelle's radiant smile, then landed on the three sacks of rare herbs that were likely worth more than a common citizen earned in a year of labor.
"Unbelievable..." Hayjin thought to himself, a wave of cynical reflection taking root in his mind. "Must be nice to be a noble or a prince of a kingdom, or even just their right hand. You walk down the street and people hand you priceless stuff just because of the name you carry or the crest on your cloak. Everyone gives you whatever you want with a smile on their face. If I'd walked up here on my own, that guy probably would've called the guards or charged me triple the original price."
The thought stemmed not from true malice, but from the painful awareness of how steep an uphill climb his life had always been both in his old world as a victim of bullying, and in this new world as a "expendable resource."
Before he could sink too deeply into those dark thoughts, Isabelle's voice yanked him back to reality.
The small maid had just turned toward him. The radiant smile from moments ago was already gone, replaced by her usual commanding mask, though her cheeks still retained a faint rosy tint.
"Hey, plebeian! Stop daydreaming and staring at flies!" Isabelle ordered, pointing at the heavy wooden box and the sacks of herbs on the counter. "Take these herbs and follow me. You didn't think we were finished, did you? This is going to be a long day of shopping! We still have to visit the royal weaver, the alchemical blacksmith, and the northern spice merchant. Move!"
Hayjin froze for a second, looking at the wooden box, then the sacks, and finally at Isabelle's pocket-sized figure already marching triumphantly toward the next section of the market.
A deep sigh escaped his lungs. Gathering his remaining strength, he stepped forward and hoisted the box and the herb sacks, loading everything onto his shoulders with a metallic clatter from his greaves.
Then, he raised his head, looked at the girl's back, and reacted with exaggerated, sarcastic delight.
"Oh, hooray!" Hayjin exclaimed, throwing his arms out and opening his eyes wide in theatrical ecstasy that would have made a court actor jealous. "Shopping all day long! How wonderful! My grandest dream is finally coming true! I couldn't wait to act as a pack mule for all of Lundene! Please, Mistress Isabelle, lead the way to the next torture session I'm ready to break my back with a smile!"
Isabelle paid his sarcastic performance no mind whatsoever; she simply raised her hand and executed a final, lightning-fast finger flick in mid-air, dragging her unfortunate "porter" along into the colorful chaos of the royal market.
The central market of Lundene continued to roar around them like an uncontrollable tide. Vibrant colors, the shouts of merchants selling overseas spices, and the sharp scent of fresh bread blended into the warm morning air.
Yet, for Hayjin, all that visual and auditory chaos slowly began to lose its clarity, blurring into a distant, indistinct background hum.
His body moved purely on momentum. Stacked upon his arms and shoulders was an absurd quantity of inlaid wooden boxes, linen sacks tied with leather cords, and bolts of fine fabrics that Isabelle kept loading onto him. His heavy, blocky gray iron greaves produced a dull metallic thud with every step on the pale stone pavement, marking his status as a "royal porter" with ruthless precision.
Ahead of him, Isabelle marched on with her customary posture of a miniature queen. Her plum-purple cloak swayed gently, and every three steps the girl would pause before a new stall to berate a merchant or demand preferential treatment in the name of the crown.
Hayjin, however, had stopped listening to her. The physical weight of those boxes was nothing compared to the sudden, suffocating boulder that had just settled in the middle of his chest.
A simple, mundane, yet devastating thought had invaded his mind, piercing through his paranoid defenses and his usual self-deprecating sarcasm.
"University..."
The word echoed in his brain like a funeral toll.
Until that moment, swept up in the horror of time loops, mental decapitations, dungeon monsters, and the constant struggle for survival in that brutal fantasy world, Hayjin had never had the time or perhaps the willpower to stop and think about what he had left behind in his original world. He had buried his Earthly past beneath tons of trauma and adrenaline.
But now, walking among the ordinary citizens of the capital, watching youths his own age heading to work or studying maps and parchments on marble benches, reality slammed into him with the force of a warhammer.
"Damn it..." Hayjin thought, his fingers tightening against the hard wood of one of the crates he was carrying. "Right about now, back home... I would've been in the middle of summer exams. I'd be locked in that damned study hall with the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, chugging cheap vending machine coffee and stressing over textbooks until four in the morning."
Memories of his previous life resurfaced with terrifying clarity. He remembered the monumental effort it had cost him just to enroll for that academic year: sleepless nights battling social anxiety and agoraphobia, the overwhelming struggle to step outside his home and face a world where he walked completely unseen, choosing to isolate himself before others could push him away entirely, and the persistent feeling of inadequacy that haunted him through every exam. He had pushed beyond his own limits, fighting his personal demons to claim a small slice of normalcy a viable future.
And now?
"An entire year..." he muttered to himself, his voice dying in his throat, swallowed by the noise of the crowd. "I lost an entire year of university. Nobody knows where I went. To the professors, the administration, the whole world... I just vanished into thin air. A missed grade, a ghost student."
A sense of bitter, raw injustice gnawed at his stomach. All that sweat, all those hours spent studying notes highlighted to the point of exhaustion, the financial sacrifices, the tension before oral exams... all his academic pursuits were literally down the drain.
They were useless in this world. Discrete mathematics, literature, contemporary history, or economics wouldn't save his life against a cult of fanatics or a Class-S monster. In this place, the only things that mattered were mana, the sword, the capacity to endure pain, and the cold logic of survival.
"Years of hard work... thrown away for nothing, only to end up working as a servant for a meter-and-forty kid and risking my head every three days," Hayjin whispered, a bitter, humorless smile curling his lips. "What a fantastic deal I made."
"Hey! Plebeian! Daydreaming again?"
Isabelle's sharp, piercing voice shattered his train of thought with blade-like precision.
The small maid had stopped outside the entrance of an elegant royal fabric boutique and turned to face him, hands planted on her hips, her black tiara gleaming in the sun. She raised her right hand to chin level, joined her thumb and middle finger, and delivered her signature sharp, disdainful finger flick.
"What is with that funeral face?" Isabelle demanded, scrutinizing him with her large crimson-red eyes. "You are walking as if you have just been sentenced to death. If the box on your left shoulder falls and ruins the golden silk, I swear I will turn you into the entrance doormat."
Hayjin snapped out of his dark thoughts. He took a deep breath, swallowing the knot of anger and nostalgia tightening his throat, and donned his usual mask of brazen irony. He couldn't afford to show his cracks not to her, not in this place.
"Don't worry," Hayjin shot back, his voice intentionally sarcastic and drawn out as he adjusted the load in his arms. "I was just reflecting on life's grand ironies. Like how back in my world, people expected me to achieve big things for my future, and now my sole purpose in life is ensuring your spices don't gather dust. Quite a fascinating evolutionary arc, don't you think?"
Isabelle stared at him for a few seconds with a narrowed, probing gaze. There was something in the boy's tone that sounded off an echo of melancholy far too deep to be entirely fake but she chose not to push it.
"Your mental ramblings do not interest me," the girl declared, turning her back on him and stepping across the shop's threshold with an elegant sweep of her purple cloak. "Hurry inside. We still have half the list to cross off before Princess Zhilian wakes from her afternoon rest."
Hayjin followed her inside, letting the shadows of the shop swallow him up. He cast one last glance at the blue sky above Lundene rooftops, acutely aware that his old life, his studies, and his world had never felt so distant and that the only thing left for him to do was to keep walking, one step and one breakdown at a time.