The First Arrival

He was a nameless wanderer.
A stranger who set foot for the first time on a land where magic reigned at the height of its power.

His hair was black, his eyes the color of blood. Barefoot, he walked through a forgotten forest.

The night wind howled. Storm clouds swallowed the sky.

The boy staggered forward, each step slow and unsteady. His vision blurred. His skull throbbed with a sharp, splitting pain.

What... what is happening to me?

In his heart he muttered, Wasn't I in my own room? Where am I now? 

Confusion churned inside him. He hardly noticed the branches stabbing into his soles or the mosquitoes bitting at his skin.

---Then the rain came—sheets of it, driven sideways by the gale.

The boy stopped. He slipped beneath the shelter of an ancient redwood, its massive trunk shielding him from the storm. His gaze was hollow, fixed on nothing. Questions crowded his mind, swelling until he could no longer breathe.

Where was this place?
Who was he here?
Why had he been brought to this alien land? 

He sat beneath the tree, trembling , teeth chattering as the cold rain seeped through his skin. Yet he paid no mind to his own shivering body. The only thing that consumed him was the unanswered riddle of his existence.

---Time passed. The storm finally eased, but the air was still heavy, the forest dripping and drowned.

He rose again, body soaked, and forced his feet onward. Each step squelched against the mud. His chest burned with exhaustion, but he pressed on.

And then he noticed. The silence.

The storm had taken every sound with it. No crickets. No owls. Not even the rustle of leaves. The forest was dead quiet—so quiet his own heartbeat rang in his ears.

That silence shattered. 

A scream tore through the night. An animal's death cry, raw and broken.

The boy froze.
"That... sounded like something being torn apart."

He turned, but the forest behind him was only blackness. Still, his pulse quickened. Whatever stalked the night, it wasn't something he could face.

The cry came again, closer this time.

He stumbled forward, faster, faster—until he was running , breath ragged, lungs aching, every nerve screaming at him to flee. His legs wobbled. His vision spun.

At last he burst through the trees and stumbled onto the edge of a river. Mist rose from the current, freezing and sharp. He bent down to drink, but stopped. The water's chill was unnatural, like liquid ice. Even his thirst shrank back in fear.

"Maybe... it didn't follow me." He tried to steady his breathing, clutching his knees.

But fate was not so kind.

From the crimson trees behind him, a shadow lunged.

The boy twisted away, but too slow. Claws ripped into his arm, tearing deep. White-hot pain exploded down his side. Blood sprayed into the rain-soaked earth.

He gasped, body trembling, vision swimming. And then he saw it.

A beast stood before him. The frame of a man. The head of a wolf. Thick fur matted with fresh blood, its jaws dripping red as it growled low and hungry.

“Tch… this body is so weak.” His mind cursed itself. “Damn it… I don’t want to die!”

His strength failed. His knees buckled. The beast loomed closer, saliva spilling from its jaws. The boy stared up at it, powerless, despair filling every corner of his heart.

There’s nothing I can do.

The monster lunged—

—and a silver blade split the night.

Steel flashed. Black blood burst into the air. The beast’s head tumbled into the river with a splash, its massive body collapsing at the boy’s feet.

The boy blinked, stunned, his face wet with blood that wasn’t his. Slowly, his gaze rose.

A figure stood before him. Tall. Broad-shouldered. The stormlight caught golden hair that gleamed like fire, and eyes sharp and blue as sapphire.

The man’s expression was cold, even annoyed. He flicked his blade, spattering black blood into the mud.“Tsk. I tracked it all this way… and this is all it amounted to.”

He sighed, turning away, as if the boy bleeding on the ground wasn’t worth a glance.

“W-wait…” The boy’s voice cracked. “What’s your name?”

The man froze, then glanced back. His brows lifted slightly, as if he couldn’t believe the question.

Theo. That was his name. A swordsman of the Yureka Guild, one of the most famed guilds in all of Imperion. He had arrived expecting to see a child torn apart by a Chaos Beast. Instead, he had witnessed that same child dodge a killing strike and glare death in the eye.

It amused him. For a moment, he had let the scene play out, curious to see how long the boy would last. Only when the boy collapsed, helpless and trembling, did Theo intervene.

And then—rather than weep, or beg, or curse—what the boy asked was his name.

Theo brushed a hand through his hair, exhaling in disbelief. He said nothing more. With cold detachment, he turned and walked away, leaving the boy bleeding at the riverbank.

The boy’s lips trembled. Then, against all reason, he smiled. Tears streamed down his face, washing with the rain. Relief crashed over him. That golden-haired man had saved his life.

“My life belongs to him now,” the boy whispered. “Someday… I’ll repay it.”

With shaking limbs, he forced himself to stand. His wounded arm burned, blood soaking his sleeve, but he didn’t care. Step by step, he stumbled after the man named Theo, refusing to be left behind.

Thus began the story of a stranger cast into a world of mystery and magic.

Lucias—a transmigrator, reborn in the frail body of a black-haired boy with eyes the color of blood.

And though the gods had long since fallen silent, the pen of fate had already begun to write his tale.

A tale that would not end until the very sun itself died down.