The sound of turning pages, mixed with the sound of writing, fills a well-lit room. There is a table and two chairs, and a boy and a woman sit face to face.

  A boy who looks pretty handsome with messy black hair wears medieval-like civilian clothes: a light grey tunic and brown breeches with black high boots.

  A woman, who appears elegant, has a face devoid of emotion, which makes her look cold. She has gradient blue and black hair and wears a high-waisted dark blue dress with brown high heels.

  This is Saze and Finty.

  "Alright, I'm just going to teach you about arcane magic," Finty says, supporting her cheeks with one hand.

  "The most basic, easiest, and most common type of arcane magic is elemental magic, including flame, water, wind, and earth," Finty adds, and Saze listens carefully.

  "Also, learning arcane magic grants you arcane resistance. This resistance will help a little bit to resist any type of arcane magic," she explains.

  "For example, you learn wind arcane elements, and after that, you aren't affected by touching those flowers anymore." Finty gives a simple example for Saze to understand easily.

  "Oh! That's why I don't feel anything after touching those flowers," Saze suddenly realizes.

  "Yeah, that's how the resistance works. Also, your resistance improves as your arcane magic improves," Finty says, raising one forearm.

  "If your arcane resistance is not strong enough to be completely immune, it will still help a bit, but if the level difference is too high..." Finty snaps her fingers.

  Suddenly, the room changes. Everything inside is destroyed by a wave of water, the sudden cold water washing over Saze's body.

  The floor of the room vanishes, replaced by bottomless blood-red seawater. The relentless pull of gravity drives Saze down into the depths of the ocean.

  "Gulugulu..." Saze chokes on the seawater.

  Saze's eyes widen with fear as he struggles to get up. A sense of suffocation and cold makes his body tremble. He loses direction in the abyss where he can see nothing.

  A pair of giant yellow eyes appear silently before Saze. As he sees the enormous eyes, his heart pounds wildly in his chest, adrenaline flooding his body as he tries even harder to swim upward.

  However, Saze's swimming is too slow, and the giant yellow eyes close in on him. At that moment, Saze finally sees the body belonging to the giant yellow eyes and discovers that it has not just one pair of eyes, but seven pairs in total.

  It is the overlord of the ocean, a seven-headed serpent. Its colossal form moves around Saze, creating a whirlpool that pulls him even deeper.

  Saze's eyes fill with desperation as he is pulled down by the whirlpool. Suffocating makes him feel his lungs burn and his vision blur.

  The desire to live makes Saze want to try one last time. This time, he tries to use wind arcane to create a turbine effect to swim up, but soon, his plan is destroyed by the serpent.

  The serpent opens its mouth and swallows Saze.

  "Ahh!!!" Saze shouts, sitting up in fear and breathing heavily.

  "Finally back?" Finty asks calmly.

  "Huh...?" Saze looks up and notices a hint of mockery in Finty's expression.

  Saze's eyes glaze over as he glances around the room and realizes he is sitting on the floor. Everything is in its place, except for his chair, which lies on the floor beside him.

  After a moment, Saze's thoughts finally return. He rises, pale and still trembling slightly, with heavy breathing. He grabs the chair, puts it back, and sits down, his movements a bit slow.

  "So... what's that...?" Saze asks with a trembling tone.

  "Hallucination, also a type of arcane magic," Finty answers shortly.

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  "I'm surprised that you can still walk and talk normally; you have a strong will, that's good," Finty praises Saze.

  "Hmpf! Can't you just do a simple hallucination..." Saze whispers to complain.

  "Maybe next time," Finty chuckles softly as she hears Saze's whisper.

  "Alright, it's enough for today's lesson; you're free now," Finty says.

  "Hooray!" Saze immediately cheers and rises.

  Seeing Saze leave the room as if escaping from jail makes Finty chuckle again. She notices his notebook left on the table and picks it up. Reading the words in the notebook quickly, she rates his words.

  "Horrible."

  .....

  Outside the room, in the long corridor leading to the throne, many spiders lie on the ground with a beautiful girl.

  "Mon! I miss you!" Saze shouts and pounces on the giant spider.

  This is the first creature Saze sees in this world and also the first one to scare him so muchthat he nearly loses control. This spider is called Mon, and it is the only spider that knows the human language.

  "Oh, you're back!" the beautiful girl says happily as she sees Saze pounce on Mon.

  "Yeah, Moty, I'm back!" Saze answers while nuzzling Mon.

  "Gruu...?" Mon grunts with confusion as Saze nuzzles against him.

  The spiders here are called dark web spiders. As the name suggests, these spiders can create black spider silk but also normal spider silk. The smallest spider is about the size of a dog, while the biggest is about the size of a truck.

  "So how was your class today?" Moty asks while teasing a small spider on her thigh.

  "Horrible... Finty made a hallucination, and I saw the overlord of the ocean," Saze complains.

  "Finty is evil!" Saze adds.

  "Yes! She is evil! Let's talk about her," Moty says happily.

  Saze sits down and listens to Moty's discourse. He becomes bold and starts saying bad words about Finty. Moty just chuckles and encourages Saze to talk more.

  "One day! I will smash her into the ground!" Saze declares, raising a fist in the air.

  "Gruu!" Mon grunts in agreement.

  "Hehe... Mon, you agree that she is evil, right?" Saze looks at Mon and grins widely.

  "Yes! He probably agrees!" Moty says, laughing.

  This makes Saze keep complaining about Finty while Moty keeps smiling and Mon keeps grunting. As Saze sees Moty's smile grow bigger, looking like she is about to burst out laughing, and hears Mon's grunting become louder, he begins to feel weird.

  "Gruu! Gruu!" Mon starts to use his forefoot and pushes Saze gently.

  "What's wrong?" Saze asks, confused, and turns back.

  A beautiful woman in a blue dress sitting on a ruined block comes into Saze's sight. This beautiful woman is none other than Finty. Right now, she smiles warmly and gazes at Saze.

  Although Finty smiles warmly, Saze feels his whole body freeze. His body trembles, and fear makes him unable to move.

  "Hahaha!! You finally turn back," Moty bursts into laughter, tears falling from her eyes.

  "Do you think Mon agrees with your thoughts or just warns you that I'm behind you?" Finty asks with a smile.

  "Perhaps... the latter," Saze gulps and moves closer to Mon.

  "Well then, let me think about which legs of yours I should break," Finty says, supporting her chin with her palms and thinking deeply.

  Hearing those words sends a chill down Saze's spine. He quickly rises and tries to run away to escape the consequences.

  As Saze stands, Moty stretches out a hand and points at him with her index finger. A white spider silk erupts from her finger and lingers on Saze, preventing him from moving.

  "Quick! Finty, I caught him! Go and break his legs!" Moty shouts happily, pressing Saze down onto the floor.

  "Traitor!!!" Saze yells.

  Saze tries to stand up and resist, but Moty is too powerful; he cannot get up. As Finty rises and steps closer, Saze's heart pounds wildly in his chest.

  "Ah!! I'm sorry! Finty! Mistress! Spare me!!" Saze shouts out of fear.

  "Heh, starting to beg?" Finty crouches beside Saze.

  "Let me teach you another lesson: never say bad words behind someone's back..." Finty whispers in Saze's ear.

  .....

  Night falls, the glowing stones shine brightly to illuminate the ruined palace. Many spiders form circles in the long corridor, and each of the circles has a campfire roasting meat. The smell of roasted meat wafts through the corridor, making Saze gulp.

  Moty, Saze, Mon, and two small spiders form a circle to eat their dinner.

  "How are your legs now?" Moty gets a roasted meat skewer and passes it to Saze.

  "My left leg is broken..." Saze takes the food from Moty with a sad expression.

  "Haha, seems Finty is mad. Just apologize, and she will forgive you." Moty grabs another piece of roasted meat and starts eating.

  "I was kneeling and bowing my head to beg her to spare my life..." Saze says as he eats.

  The sound of high heels walking reaches Saze's ears. They don't even need to turn their heads to see because they know it is Finty.

  "How are your legs now?" Finty asks, repeating the same question.

  "I-It's good..." Saze's body trembles obviously.

  "It's good? Then later I make it worse." Finty sits down as she speaks.

  "Alright, Finty, just forgive this little cutie," Moty says in amusement.

  The word "cutie" makes Saze's lips twitch a bit, but he agrees with her. After all, Saze is too weak to go against them; they can easily make him their plaything.

  "Fine... How is your memory now?" Finty changes the topic.

  "My memory? It has recovered a lot: earth... Jonas... and... fog," Saze replies.

  When Saze first comes to this world, his memory of Earth is vague. Then, a few years later, he finds that his memory is recovering.

  Every year, his memory recovers. Right now, Saze is eleven years old, so his memory recovers until he is eleven years old on Earth.

  "Earth is the place you lived before, Jonas is your friend, and fog is the last thing you saw before coming to this world," Finty whispers.

  In these four years, Saze has told them that he is from another world. At first, they doubt him, but the language he speaks and the clothes and pants he wears prove that he is from another world.

  "Mmm... Let's just eat first; we can talk about that later," Moty suggests, giving more roasted meat to Finty and Saze.

  "Thanks," Saze and Finty say.