Chapter 4

* * *

Fortunately, when he opened his eyes again, it was reality. As the fog clouding his mind cleared, his vision became sharp. The moment Nain opened his eyes, he gasped at the scene that unfolded before him.

'What's that? A corpse?'

A man whose entire body seemed covered in black fog was being carried on a stretcher, drenched in blood. His hand, which hadn't been properly placed and hung limply below the stretcher, was utterly pale. Each time the man coughed faintly, blood splattered in the air. Judging by the density of the fog, he was someone who would die soon.

'But that person, where have I seen him before?'

The glimpse of the man's features felt familiar.

'...Or not...'

His mind was still completely hazy.

<Hey, he's awake! Quickly bring another blanket!>

<Are you coming to your senses?>

People belatedly confirmed that Nain had regained consciousness and approached to speak to him. But Nain just moved his lips in bewilderment. It was a language he had never heard before in his life. He rolled his eyes, absently listening as several people in identical clothing spoke to him.

'This place...'

Where on earth was this? This wasn't the alley where he had lost consciousness. It was a completely unfamiliar place. The strange language, people wearing clothes of unfamiliar style, and the cold sensation felt beneath his palm was...

'...Snow?'

Nain muttered internally while fingering the crunching snow beneath his hand. Come to think of it, his whole body was cold. His fingertips on the cold ground were red and swollen, numb to sensation.

The Blanche Empire of the Eastern Continent where Nain lived was a country with distinct four seasons. It hadn't been that cold when he set out in the morning. Especially this year, spring had come earlier than usual. The flowering trees were in full bloom with fresh green shoots and fragrant flowers, and as the weather warmed, people's coats naturally became thinner.

But for this much snow to have accumulated... It would have required at least a full day of snowfall. Nain tilted his head in thought.

'Could this be the Northern Continent?'

The Northern Continent, where half the year was winter, was snowfields everywhere you went. But Nain glanced at people's faces and shook his head slightly. No kingdom in the Northern Continent used that kind of language.

What was strangest of all were the magical tools everywhere. There were too many things he'd never seen before. Everyone was holding strange objects in their hands. They made clicking sounds and emitted light.

The banners stuck to the exterior walls of buildings constantly flashed brilliantly while changing their content. In the dazzling streets, Nain felt dizzy. He was nauseous.

'There are no spirits either. Did it return?'

He couldn't sense the presence of spirits anywhere. The low-level protective spirit that Cheche had attached to him had a playful personality. The spirit never left his side even when Nain slept, tickling his hair.

While spirits were beings that couldn't die, they had a habit of returning to the spirit realm when faced with unmanageable power. Since Nain wasn't a spirit summoner, he couldn't call it back either.

'No, am I dreaming right now...'

Nain muttered blankly without any sense of reality even as people lifted him up and pushed him into an unfamiliar carriage. However, before even a day had passed, he instinctively knew that what Cheche had often talked about had happened to him.

'Nain, did you know that travelers have a different soul color from other humans?'

'What's a traveler?'

'A traveler is one who freely crosses dimensions. There are spirits, birds, and rarely, humans too. Nain, I call them travelers.'

It was absurd talk. Humans crossing dimensions? The existence of other worlds was unbelievable to begin with.

'You're kidding! You're making things up again, aren't you?'

'Oh dear, here we go again. How should I fix this impudent little one's speech habits... Nain, you need to learn again how to respect transcendent beings. Do you think the great dragon of the Eastern Continent would lie?'

'You do lie. You do!'

Though Cheche was a being who had lived for over a thousand years, she was a dragon who didn't act her age and constantly joked around. Nain had been fooled by Cheche into believing the tooth fairy existed until he was twelve years old. There was even a time when he thought babies were born from fig trees and would endlessly lie under orchard trees when the fruit ripened, hoping a sibling would be born.

The thousand-year-old dragon enjoyed herself, holding her belly and laughing whenever the ten-year-old child fell for her words, asking if he really believed that. Even among Cheche's words, the story about other dimensions was the most unrealistic. So he thought it was another made-up story, but...

'How can humans cross to another world? We humans already dominate space, don't we? You said magical power spreads everywhere and humans can control space by handling magical power. If Cheche's words were true, there's no way the professors wouldn't have told us about the existence of other worlds. Even Great Mages can't do such things.'

'Humans dominate space? ...Is that what they teach you?'

'Why? Isn't it true?'

Cheche snorted "Ha!" and answered.

'Not at all. Such arrogant things. That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in nearly a hundred years.'

Cheche whispered more seriously, lowering her voice.

'Nain, travelers exist. I've actually seen travelers with my own two eyes.'

'...'

Was it real? Or was she teasing again and I just couldn't tell?

Nain, who had been struggling not to fall for the dragon's pranks, soon widened his eyes with a blank expression. The being close to the source of magic often lied to Nain, but this time might be real. Nain's ears perked up again at Cheche's words.

'...Really? Is that person really a Great Mage?'

'No. Just an ordinary human who couldn't use magic at all. Though he seemed to have no memory of what happened to him.'

'He doesn't remember? Why?'

'Who knows. Maybe he erased it from his memory because it was a bad memory, or maybe he just forgot for no reason. It was an accident, after all.'

'An accident?'

'Yes, an accident.'

What else would you call something that happened without warning?

Cheche's voice mixed with laughter from their childhood conversation kept echoing in his ears.

* * *

'Did Cheche know this would happen to me?'

Nain muttered internally, half out of his mind. Of course that wasn't likely, but being in this situation made all sorts of thoughts come to mind. Because the dragon, though she always seemed to live lightly, ultimately had meaning in all her actions when time passed. Except for pranks meant simply to tease, of course.

If I'd known this would happen, I should have asked more questions.

'I never thought such a thing would happen to me!'

Naturally, he couldn't communicate with the strange people in the strange city. The language system itself seemed different. People were somewhat troubled by the unfamiliar language flowing from Nain's mouth, but Nain himself, the person who couldn't communicate, wasn't too worried.

He searched for the ring he had received directly from the dragon in the spatially expanded pouch hanging at his waist and secretly slipped it onto his pinky finger.

The black ring, made by carving minerals and infused with the dragon's magic, had a rather crude appearance despite its value. It was plain without a single gem decorating the surface, but ancient characters like hieroglyphs were engraved on the inner surface that directly touched the finger.

Magic sourced from the dragon's power instantly made him fluent in a language he had never encountered before.

'I received it so long ago that I'd forgotten I had it...'

This ring, which he had received from Cheche when he was so young he couldn't even remember now, was a treasure with overlapping high-level magic powerful enough to understand even dragon language.

A magical tool infused with dragon language itself. There wasn't a single text he couldn't read, from languages of other continents to ancient languages.

Thanks to that, this artifact had been extremely helpful when borrowing ancient texts from the library. The professors were amazed at the assignments Nain submitted, with their unique topic selection different from other students and traces of extensive research.

Even the professors couldn't imagine that Nain could read ancient languages. They didn't even know such books existed in the library. That's how valuable an artifact it was, its very existence generally unknown.

Nain had wondered his whole life why Cheche only gave him a protective spirit and such precious gifts.

'Simply because she likes me?'

It was a narcissistic thought, but it was true. Cheche, called not only the dragon of the Eastern Continent but also the guardian dragon of the imperial family, liked humans very much, but she particularly cherished Nain. Something about him being fun to play with or whatever.