When Everlearn resolved his level-ups, something else caught his attention, and that was one of the system rewards for completing the quest of defeating Narold.

Some talk of a special artifact.

He willed for it to appear, and in the next moment, a brilliant flash of light erupted, slamming onto Everlearn's forehead.

"Ow?" He cried, rubbing the place where it had hit him, but then turned down and found an object.

The sight of it made his eyes widen in shock.

"Isn't this... the earring!?"

It was the ruby-red earring that the girl, Penelope, had taken, the same one that Narold had been guarding.

The object had rolled away on the ground during the fight, quickly ignored by them, yet who could have thought the system would possess it?

And now, it was right before him.

"Just what does it even do?" He mused, looking at the earring.

It was anything but normal.

The fact that a powerful being like Narold had been its protector was enough proof of that.

The ruby-red gem it was made of and its magical effect on the surrounding lighting made it clear to Everlearn it was an Arcane Artifact, and looking at its sharp needle tip, he had an inkling of how to activate its power: by wearing it in his ear.

But in the end, it disappeared from Everlearn's palm and was returned to the system.

He had no idea what an Arcane Artifact would do to him, a soul without the ability to use Arcana, nor did he want to use himself as an experiment for that.

At least not while he was still crippled on the bed, unable to feel his own waist.

Maybe later, when he gained a deeper knowledge of Arcane tools, and could confirm that wearing it won't backfire.

When he stored away the Arcane earring, his attention drifted to the rewards they had been told would be given to him.

He unconsciously reached for his device, but it wasn't on him, and that made sense.

They never took their device or entrance cards on the mission. All of that has been passed to Sir Lycathrope on the jet.

He would need to go back and collect it.

"Just a nap, and hopefully, I'll be back on my feet when I awake," he mused to himself, eyes slowly drifting closed, and soon enough, he was completely out.

__________

HOOOOOOWWWWL!

HOOOOOOWWWWL!

The sound of the howling wind was the first thing that reached his ears.

FLICKERRR!

A ray of blue light pierced through the dimness as a pair of icy blue eyes opened.

The next moment,

BOOOM!

The ground shook as he slid backward on both feet, landing in a fighting stance.

The figure was none other than Everlearn, whose eyes darted around cautiously, but then he paused, blinking twice before disbelief crossed his face.

"It's this place."

The gnawing breeze.

The mechanical-looking mountains towering into the gloomy sky.

The wasteland with those ginormous mechanical bodies sticking high up into the air, along with the dusty, sooty atmosphere, on the far side.

This was his nightmare from around three months ago, the one that had almost killed him the last time.

Though he had obviously grown stronger compared to then, the air brushing across his skin still chilled him to the bone.

'Hey, system.'

He tried to speak, but there was no reply.

'Initiate MDS Protocol,' he ordered once more, only to be met with silence.

Just like last time, it had stopped listening to him again.

At least the last time it gave him a quest before disappearing.

This time, there was nothing.

He turned behind, seeing that graveyard, and made his choice.

'I will continue forward.'

There was no way he was going back into that place.

Moving forward, Everlearn walked on, deeper and deeper through the mountains.

The skies were gloomy and dark, the illumination dim, somewhere between evening and night.

He moved toward one of the mountains and touched it.

It was just like it looked, metallic.

'This is not an ordinary mountain. None of these are…'

He mused to himself, looking at the endless range of mountains before him.

All of a sudden—

STEP!

He picked up the sound of a step.

"Huh?"

He turned to look into the distance where he heard that step.

For some reason, a strange storm of air had surrounded that area.

Everlearn stepped forward, entering into the storm.

The visibility was poor, but he could make out the shape of a silhouette.

A humanoid silhouette.

'Could there be people here?'

He wondered, his steps unconsciously speeding up, but just about ten meters away from that silhouette,

BAANG!

He stepped on the ground, but the sound it gave was completely different.

It was like he had stepped on metal.

BAAAANG!

BAAAAANG!

BAAAANG!

The sounds of metal clanging shut echoed one after the other, and Everlearn quickly took notice.

All around him was a metallic cube of some sort.

"A trap!?"

It instantly occurred to him as his hand gripped the cold metallic cage.

"But… by who?"

He muttered, and in the next moment, he was given his answer.

All of the stormy air around him was suddenly pulled forward with great speed toward the human silhouette he had seen.

They continued, moving toward him, and soon they had completely cleared off, allowing his vision to return.

Everlearn found there a man, holding in his hands what seemed like a half-open ball.

In that ball, all those stormy winds had been sucked into, and in the next moment, the ball was shut tightly in the palms of that being.

Now he could properly see him:

He was a giant.

A ten-meter-tall giant of a man, with dark skin that seemed to have been carved from the same material as the mountains around them.

Its body was covered in a draping dark robe as it stepped closer to Everlearn, crouching to see him clearly.

His eyes were blue, like Everlearn's.

Frigid blue, with a snowy white beard.

He had only one eye, the other having a blade scar running across its length.

"What a weird beast."

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