The student stared blankly at the mirror shop, completely unable to figure out what had happened.

Today was seriously cursed.

Earlier, while he had been browsing the commercial street, some blue-haired person had been mumbling to themself and swaying as they walked, only to stagger straight into him and crash into him head-on. If he had known that person, he would have suspected it was deliberate.

He did not dare curse them out. Judging from their behavior, he suspected they might have some kind of condition.

And now, just as he was about to leave the commercial street and go home, he heard a sharp explosion from somewhere in its northern corner, accompanied by the crisp sound of countless panes of glass shattering.

He had no idea what had happened, but wanting to see the commotion, he rushed over. Only then did he discover that there was a mirror shop hidden in a remote corner of the commercial street. Some kind of accident seemed to have occurred here just moments ago. Mirrors lay shattered all over the floor, and the shelves had been knocked crooked and overturned.

What was going on? Had there been a robbery, or an explosion??

Although he was the first student to arrive at the scene, he had no idea what had happened.

More importantly, this was the first time he had even known there was a mirror shop here. The shop was far inside the commercial street, at the end of a dead-end alley. Because the location was terrible, all the surrounding shops had been left abandoned. Many still contained old belongings that had never been cleared out, and their storefronts were covered in dust.

The student looked outside again.

The mirrors displayed on the stand had shattered across the ground. Hesitantly, he leaned his head inside the shop, only to feel a sudden wave of cold sweep over him.

At a closer look, he saw that shattered ice fragments covered the doorframe. It looked as though something had cleaved through it from top to bottom. The metal door had been split in two, and its surface still bore frost marks from extreme freezing.

What the hell was this? Had someone used ice-element magic to blast open the door?

No way. Could there really be a break-in at Carillian Academy? But what could possibly be worth stealing in a shop like this? Why would someone take such a huge risk?

The student stopped.

Going in now was full of uncertainties. It was too dangerous. Whether there had been a thief inside, an explosion, or a forced break-in, entering would be an incredibly foolish thing to do.

Just then, two more students arrived. They looked strangely at the mirror shop and at the male student standing outside it.

There were few people wandering the commercial street at this hour, but it was not completely deserted.

Seeing them, the student quickly moved aside, making it clear that this had nothing to do with him. Like them, he had merely come after hearing the commotion.

“Hey, do you know what happened here?”

“No idea. I heard the noise and just got here myself.” The student shook his head.

“Should we go inside and take a look?”

“Let’s not. This is too dangerous. Who knows what happened in there? I checked, and it looks like someone broke open the shop’s metal door with ice-element magic. It’s probably a robber who forced their way in.”

“But we can’t just leave something like this alone, can we?” The two students exchanged looks.

“Was anyone in the shop before this?”

“I don’t know. I was already about to leave the commercial street. I have no idea whether anyone was here before the break-in. Probably not? And we don’t know whether the person who broke in is still inside.” The student frowned.

“By the way, what kind of shop is this? It sells mirrors? Do either of you know who owns it?”

“No.” Both students shook their heads.

“How about this? We should get the Academy mentors to come and take a look. If we go in ourselves, we might disturb the scene. That would only make things worse.”

“That makes sense.” The other two students thought his reasoning was sound. “But if the robber is still inside, wouldn’t we be letting them get away??”

“That’s true too, isn’t it?”

The three of them stood before the wrecked mirror shop, staring at one another in helpless indecision.

*****

In a stretch of murky darkness and chaos, Vinny opened his aching eyes.

His eyelids felt as though they had been filled with lead. Opening them took enormous effort, and each attempt sent waves of pain through him. His retinas and brain alike felt as if a thousand needles had pierced straight through them.

It felt as though someone had whisked his brains into a pulp, then poured a pot of molten lava into his skull.

His faint awareness and five senses slowly began to return. He realized he could not stand steadily.

More precisely, his feet could not even touch the ground.

Some strange energy seemed to be holding him aloft, leaving him suspended in midair.

Through the haze of his mind, he vaguely saw several light spheres floating before him. They orbited around him like planets circling a star.

What were these things?

Why was he here?

The moment Vinny tried to remember what had happened before, pain flared in his head as though a red-hot brand had been driven into it. His thoughts were a muddy mess, as if countless unrelated things had been stirred together.

After an unknown length of time, his consciousness cleared a little, and the pain finally began to fade.

The warped magic mirror had broken into countless pieces. The illusion had collapsed in an instant. The other him in the mirror had possessed bloodshot eyes filled with hollow deadness.

Those scenes flickered through Vinny’s mind one after another, with no apparent order. Still not fully awake, he spent a long time sorting them out before he finally understood what had happened first and what had come after.

It was like this chaotic space itself.

There was no concept of a timeline here.

Right.

He should be...

Vinny recalled what had happened just before he lost consciousness.

The hands extending from the mirror had dragged him inside. Then the Vinny in the mirror had stepped out of it, switching places with him.

So he should be inside the mirror now.

Mirror Vinny had pulled him into the mirror.

As his awareness gradually returned, Vinny looked around at the place he was in.

It resembled dark-red and pale-pink paint mixed together, slowly writhing like the insides of some creature’s organs—or a mass of corrosive stomach fluid.

Suspended within it, he drifted like a speck of flotsam in an endless sea. The unchanging colors and chaos gave him no reference point at all. He could not tell whether he was still in the same place as before.

No. Perhaps this place did not even possess a concept of time.

Or perhaps that concept was incomplete.

Perhaps because he had already been to the true Demon God Abyss and witnessed Demon Pillars and their minions, this sanity-draining sight did not make him overly uncomfortable. Once he recovered from the initial dizziness and nausea caused by his feet failing to touch the ground and the endlessly writhing colors around him, he began examining the many little light spheres before him.

Thanks to all he had experienced and his long-term dealings with Demon Pillars, Vinny had developed a strong resistance to bizarre worlds and grotesque incidents. He adjusted quickly.

There was no point in digging into where this place was.

What mattered now was how to get out.

The little light spheres floating before him varied in size. The larger ones were as big as a palm, while the smallest were only the size of a fingertip. Their colors varied as well. Some shone a bright gold, while others were a dim, dark violet.

Looking more closely, Vinny realized there were far more of them than he had first thought.

They formed a miniature starry sky.

He did not know what they meant, but his intuition told him that the key to leaving this place lay in these light spheres.

Was he supposed to choose one?

Vinny did not understand. Following his instinct, he reached out and touched the brightest, most dazzling golden sphere.

The instant he touched it, the sphere flickered several times. Then the other light spheres orbiting around him vanished one after another, leaving behind only that palm-sized golden sphere.

Next, the sphere released a violent, blinding golden glow that enveloped Vinny completely.

The intense light made him raise a hand to shield his face. He moved his lips, but no sound came out.

The overwhelming dizziness returned. Then he felt the mana within his body begin to churn restlessly, as though it could not adapt to the new environment he was about to enter.

His veins felt ready to rupture. Vinny thought he was about to burst apart from the rampaging mana.

Fortunately, it did not last long.

Half-conscious, Vinny felt his feet finally touch the ground. He spun in place a few times like a top, lost his balance, and fell over. His vision whirled wildly.

“Ow!”

Vinny pushed himself up, clutching his head. At last, he was on solid ground—and he could speak again.

Where the hell had it sent him this time??

Ever since transmigrating, Vinny had lost count of how often he had asked himself that question. So many accidents had thrown him into entirely unfamiliar and bizarre worlds.

Still, this world looked fairly normal. It probably was not some place like a Demon God domain. Compared to somewhere like the Demon God Abyss, this place was much more like the world of the living.

At the very least, there was wind, a river, woods, and a small stone bridge. It looked no different from the Tyrelis Continent.

Had he chosen correctly just now?

After leaving that chaotic starry space, Vinny felt much better. His feet were on the ground now, so the nausea and dizziness no longer had the upper hand.

But he still had no idea where he was.

It had not sent him to demon race territory, had it? Who knew how far away he was from Carillian Academy now??

Vinny looked around. A river lay before him, with a stone bridge spanning it. Many pedestrians crossed back and forth.

When he saw that they were all ordinary humans, he let out a breath of relief. It seemed he had not been sent to demon race territory, much less to the Demon God Abyss. This appeared to be a normal human world, though he still could not be certain.

“Young man, why are you lying here? Did something happen?”

An elderly woman passing by noticed Vinny and asked.

“Ah, no, I’m fine.” Vinny stood and dusted himself off.

“Are you really all right?” The old woman with a headscarf still looked unconvinced. “Young man, if you are in trouble, go to the church and ask for help. At the very least, they will not let you go hungry. The clergy will give you food and a place to stay, and help you find work enough to make a living. Don’t feel ashamed about it.”

“Uh...”

Vinny scratched his head. He had not expected to be mistaken for a young man at rock bottom.

“Wait, ma’am. A church? Which church are you talking about?” Vinny caught the key word.

“What other church could I mean? The Cathedral of the Dawn, of course.”

The old woman’s expression grew strange. She wondered whether the young man had hit his head so hard that he had lost his memory.

“The Cathedral of the Dawn offers that kind of aid??” Vinny’s expression changed slightly.

Benefits like that seemed to have disappeared since his grandfather’s generation. At least, he had never heard of them. He himself had once gone hungry more often than not. If such a good thing existed, would the original Vinny have starved every day because he enjoyed it?

“Young man, where are you from?” The old woman looked even more puzzled. “Why do you seem completely out of touch with society?”

“Uh... I’m from the Camella Royal Capital,” Vinny said.

“Oh, so you’re from the Camella Kingdom? This is quite far from the Camella Royal Capital. Did you come here to travel?”

“Traveling? Ah, more or less. Ma’am, where exactly is this? How far is it from Carillian Academy?” Vinny asked.

“You came here to travel without even knowing where you are? And are you traveling, or are you trying to get to Carillian Academy?” Though the old woman found the young man before her strange, she answered anyway. “This is Holy Fall City.”

“Holy Fall City??”

Vinny froze for three seconds. No matter how many times he searched his memory, he could not recall a place called Holy Fall City.

“That’s right. And if you want to go to Carillian Academy, you still have a long way to travel. Besides, you cannot enter Carillian Academy unless you are a student there,” the old woman said.

“Holy Fall City? Holy Fall City?”

Vinny crossed his arms, his head full of question marks.

Damn it. He had never taken geography seriously. Now that he had been randomly teleported somewhere else, he had no idea how to return.

“Are you a Carillian Academy student, young man?” The old woman looked Vinny over from head to toe.

“Yes.” Vinny glanced down at his Carillian Academy uniform, which was filthy and had lost all resemblance to anything respectable.

“Really? Then you did not come here to travel. You are trying to return to school?”

“That’s right. I came here during break, but something happened on the way back and delayed my return to the Academy,” Vinny explained.

“Is that so?”

The old woman assessed his clothes. She had never seen a Carillian Academy uniform before and had no way to know whether he was telling the truth.

Still, there seemed to be no reason for him to lie. The boy was strange, but he looked sincere enough.

“Ma’am, what kind of place is Holy Fall City?” Vinny asked. “I grew up in the Camella Royal Capital, so I’m not very familiar with this area.”

“Young man, you have never even heard of that? The Holy Capital of the Church lies north of Holy Fall City. Back then, Saintess Sophia returned in triumph, but her injuries were too grave. She suffered a holy fall on the road back to the Holy Capital. To commemorate Saintess Sophia, the people established this city-state here. At first, it was only a small village. It took a long time to grow into what it is today.”

“Wait, what??”

Vinny listened in a daze.

If he had thought earlier that he might simply lack the geographical knowledge to know where Holy Fall City was, then now he was certain.

He had never heard this piece of history before in his life.

“Wait, hold on.” Vinny stopped the old woman before she could continue.

“What is it, young man?”

“Ma’am, which Saintess Sophia are you talking about?” Vinny was completely bewildered.

“Which one could it be? Saintess Sophia, who defeated the Demon King, the Myriad-Demon Fox King.”

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