Lysander woke up hungry.
It wasn't just the mundane pain of hunger; rather, it was a sharp, hollow ache relentlessly intensified within him, like a living thing slowly tormenting him, as though it had been biding its time until he awoke. His stomach twisted painfully, the sensation spreading upward until it pressed against his ribs and made breathing feel painful.
It was not the hunger that bothered Lys, however, but the fact that he was neither in hospital, breathing his last breath,s nor dead due to his disease right now.
He did not open his eyes immediately.
He lay still, counting the slow rhythm of his breath, listening.
He opened his eyes.
There was no ceiling. No horizon. Only a dim, lightless expanse stretching outward without reference or scale. He could not see his own body, though he could feel it — present, yet oddly detached.
"This is… it?" The words escaped him, swallowed almost immediately by the emptiness.
The murmurs stirred at the sound of his voice, but they reacted without answering. A ripple passed through the pressure in his mind.
He attempted to stand and rose with unexpected ease. Movement came without resistance, fluid and unreal, as though the body were akin more to a set of clothes than a body — something to be worn rather than inhabited.
Instinct urged him to assess his surroundings, to search for structure or meaning. There was little to grasp. In the distance, faint sounds reached him — water dripping somewhere far away, a soft clink of stone against stone, so subtle it might have been imagined. The air carried a trace of dampness, moss, and petrichor.
The voices persisted.
They did not grow louder, nor clearer. They simply were — a layered presence beneath his thoughts, sometimes overlapping them, sometimes trailing behind like an echo.
Then the body shuddered.
Not from cold or motion, but because of attention.
A pressure settled over him, intangible yet unmistakable, as though an unseen gaze had found its mark. The sensation crawled across his skin, sending a chill through him. It came from outside, unmistakably so, and the murmurs in his mind recoiled slightly, as though suppressed or restrained.
This was no passive afterlife, Lysander realized.
Someone — something was aware of him.
Light gathered nearby. Blue particles, no larger than grains of sand, swirled into existence above him, drawing in what little illumination the void possessed. They, however, did not brighten the space; they seemed to take away what little of brightness inside the expanse and coalescing it into form.
A figure emerged from the slow vortex of light — humanoid, indistinct, without features. Yet its presence bent the surrounding space in subtle ways, too faint to define but impossible to ignore.
Lysander felt its attention settle on him, and its weight was gentle but vast, like standing beneath a starry sky.
The murmurs fell silent.
Only then did understanding settle in.
It wasn't until this moment that Lysander looked back and accepted that he was in a new world. This wasn't an afterlife, but a whole new world with a new body and his complete memories — a transmigrator.
It was real.
"You are early." It said, in a slightly male voice, carrying the faintest hint of surprise. The voice slid through the space, calm and steady. It seemed to resonate from everywhere, not from the figure alone.
"This is unusual," the voice mused, more to itself than to Lysander. "Do you know who I am?"
The voice was calm, faintly male, carrying no overt hostility— and yet it filled the space completely, as if the cave itself were speaking. Lysander understood the words instinctively, despite knowing with absolute certainty that they were not spoken in any language he recognized. Was that an influence from the original owner of this body? Lysander wondered.
His heartbeat quickened.
He did not rush to answer immediately.
His hunger pulsed. The silence stretched.
"No, should I?" Lys answered tentatively, voice more confident that he felt.
"Yes, indeed you should," replied the male voice in a curious tone, "How is it that you don't know?"
A hammering string of heartbeats rushed in his body, and all the blood drained away from his face. Lysander involuntarily gulped saliva, his heart beating so loud that he was afraid that the man might have heard it. I can't tell him that I'm a transmigrator. I don't know his motive yet, nor whether he is to be trusted.
"I… don't remember," Lysander said finally, his voice rough. He licked his lips, then added carefully, "Remember much, I mean. I woke up like this."
A lie.
And hopefully a clean one.
The figure tilted its head— not in curiosity, but in mild interest.
"Amnesia," it said, tasting the word. Then, after a pause: "How inconvenient."
Lysander frowned slightly. "I really got no memories," he corrected, choosing the words deliberately.
The figure regarded him for a moment longer. The pressure intensified, not painful, but probing. Lysander held still, forcing his breathing to remain slow, even.
At last, the light thinned.
"It seems that you weren't tired enough from the last session," the man mused idly. The man didn't seem to wait for any response, nor did Lys give him any.
The light from his form thinned, then scattered back into the air, as if a swarm of grain-sized fireflies in the shape of a man suddenly released from cohesion, swiftly dissolving back into the darkness without ceremony.
His disappearance abruptly lifted the strange sensation Lys had felt, as if a gaze were materializing and pressing against his skin. In its place was replaced by something infinitely more immediate and less abstract.
Pain.
The throbbing pain arrived in a chaotic chorus of dull aches layered over sharper throbs. Only then did he remember to examine his body, only to discover it covered with bruises and a cluster of small bleeding wounds that had dried.
His body, which seemed able to move moments ago with deceptive ease, had now asserted its reality in full.
Lysander gasped.
The breath scraped through his throat, shallow and uneven, carrying the scent of damp stone and moss.
His chest slightly protested with each motion, throbbing with a muted but persistent ache, and when he instinctively tried to sit upright, his arms trembled with soreness, failing him near instantly. Lys collapsed back onto the cold ground.
It seemed whatever had forced the pain this body was feeling away had just vanished along with the strange figure.
The surface was stone. Rough and uneven.
He could not see his own hands in the darkness, but he could feel them. The raw knuckles, trembling fingers and the scraped and swelling skin. His legs appeared in better condition, albeit not by much — a deep ache was radiating from his left knee up to his hip, joints akin to rusted metal.
Bruises too. Many of them.
Minor wounds — small cuts, split skin and the faint sting of drying blood — could be found nearly everywhere along his body.
There was enough damage to make him scream. It was present, unmistakable, yet strangely blunted, not as sharp as it should feel.
I've felt worse, Lysander thought dimly, concluding without effort. Between the pain he was feeling and the process he had gone through with his treatment, his current state was undoubtedly better.
Chemotherapy, injections, and needles. The numb exhaustion came and left his limbs unresponsive and heavy. Compared to that, this pain — this pain was familiar. It was manageable.
Not kind — never kind — but manageable.
The thought settled down in his mind with somewhat eerie ease.
Lys had no time to ponder more, however, since the cavern around him started to stir. Or rather, the space in the cavern. The same feeling he felt moments ago returned — a presence filled the cave again. This time, less forgiving and more oppressive.
The ground stirred as well, not from the strange man's peculiar presence that shifted the space but from people.
Just then, Lys realized he wasn't alone.
A body shifted somewhere to his left, stone scraping against fabric. Another breath sounded nearby, sharp and panicked, followed by a low groan that cut off abruptly.
Someone coughed, wet and strained, and further away, a child's voice whimpered before being silenced.
He stayed still.
Not entirely out of fear, but also his body needed a rest. Based on the reactions the others around him gave, he thought it'd be best if his body had some pause to rest before whatever was to happen.
He lay on his side, cheek pressed to cold rock, breathing slowly, cataloguing sensation the way he once catalogued game environments: hazards, limitations, unknowns.
Darkness. Uneven ground. Multiple bodies. No immediate restraint. Lysander analysed. The last detail mattered.
There were no chains, no bindings. Not on himself and, by the looks of it, not on the other people around him as well.
That could suggest that whatever existed here, which the man — who was presumably a leader or supervisor — relied on to control the people here, did not rely on physical confinement. At least not yet anyway.
Sounds of footsteps.
They were unhurried and not careful, and heavy with authority. The sound echoed slightly in the cave, yet none seemed to dare breathe too loudly, as if afraid of disturbing the man.
Fear, Lys thought, is prominent here. The source stems from the man — the reason he would soon find out.
The footsteps stopped, and with them, the cavern fell into a tense, expectant quiet.
The man spoke. "Stand."
Echoing, the word was not raised, nor emphasized. Yet, it did not need to be. Something in his voice, perhaps the flat, resonant and utterly disinterested in compliance, made it clear to the people that this was not a request — it was merely as if he was stating a whim, and to comply is simply expected.
Lysander watched the silhouettes of people shift as their figures struggled to be upright. Some of them were scrambling too quickly and ended up falling again, while others rose with clenched fists and unsteady legs.
It was a remarkable observation already, given the lightless environment. Lys rolled onto his back, pushing himself to a seated position, pausing to rest his sore hands and to calm his adapting vision — dark spots, even darker than the lightless environment, quickly blooming on his vision before receding just as swiftly.
Somehow, his eyesight in the darkness seemed to be improving rapidly, not enough to see as if under daylight, but enough to make out figures.
Slowly, he thought, don't waste strength.
He pushed to his feet in stages, using a nearby outcropping for balance, legs trembling but holding. Around him, dozens — no, nearly a hundred — of silhouettes stood scattered across the cavern floor, their outlines uneven, postures tense, breaths shallow.
The center of the cavern was the man. The sound of his voice cut through the low murmurs.
"Silence", he says. Even in the darkness, Lysander could tell he was tall. Not imposing in the exaggerated sense, but well-proportioned. He had a kind of effortless symmetry and an authoritative confidence that made the objects and people around him feel smaller by contrast.
His presence was not overwhelming; it was compressive, like pressure on one's lungs increasing gradually until one noticed it was difficult to breathe.
The man wore no mask.
And his expression, more than anything, unsettled Lysander.
The man's face, from what Lysander can make out, was plain. Not scared. His expression was not cruel, yet not kind either. It wasn't anything really, as if how a divinity would look at a mass of mortals — detached, and just devoid of care.
Perhaps he was divine.
His gaze swept across the gathered people with indifferent focus, borderline uninterested, lingering nowhere for long, as though the individuals did not matter to warrant memory. Every place his eyes landed, the people shivered from the pressure on their skin.
The man said slowly, without haste, "As we elaborated three days ago, you shall try to kill me with the weapons on the floor. However, the newly arrived acolytes may ask "Why?'"
A pause.
"It is a valid question. Albeit one for weaklings," The man continued. "For the very idea of challenging a stronger foe should be of enough motivation. However, I am sure this would not be a sufficient reason for weaklings such as you all; thus, I shall tell you that if you do not kill me—"
The man said, perhaps with a little too much glee, "—Then I shall kill you."
The cavern was once again filled with depressing silence. No one dared to defy.
A voice spoke out in the distance, sounding not confident in the slightest. Yet, a hint of habitual arrogance is still in his tone.
Probably the son of some influential figure.
"Release me, m–my parents shall re–reward you wi—"
Before finishing, there was a soft slicing sound that resounded in the air. A dull thud. Some muffled screams from that direction. It was enough for Lysander to conclude that the young man was dead.
Don't bribe the crazy man, got it. He noted mentally Because, while murder is okay, bribery was not negotiable.
"This," Crazy said calmly, as if the death of the young man was nothing but a mere minor distraction "is part of your training."
He bent, retrieved something from the ground, and straightened again.
A weapon. A short blade, unremarkable in length and shape, its edge dull with use rather than neglect. He held it loosely with his left arm, almost casually, then demonstrated a single movement.
A downward strike.
It was clean and direct; there was no flourish. Yet, the air seemed to part for it. There was a certain special quality the strike had, enough for Lys to feel it, but not enough to pinpoint the exact reason.
The blade stopped an inch above the stone floor, then withdrew, returning to rest at his side in one clean motion.
"I have demonstrated the usage of the weapon", Crazy said, as he tossed the short sword away, as if he was confident that he would not need it. "If you can strike me, then you shall be rewarded with 3 days' portion of food; the rest shall starve. What you survive with, you shall keep it. What you lose— well, you deserve it."
"Well— that's enough with explanations." There was poorly concealed excitement in his voice as he said, "You shall begin,"