It was as if the world had become a book that was about to be flipped closed, Heimfher looked in horror as the orange sky burned into flames and crashes into him.
"KAAGGHHHH!!!" Heimfher screamed while covering his eyes with his elbows and prepared himself for the impact.
Click!
Followed by the sound of a finger flick, Heimfher's body suddenly fell into a dark void as he was seemingly ejected from the illusory world, his eyes opened and what he saw all around him was the darkness that felt endless.
'W- What.. Where am i, fuck! What just happened!' Heimfher was visibly in a panic state, he tried moving all of his limbs but he couldn't feel himself moving towards any direction, its like he was floating in space, without any force that could push him to anywhere.
When Heimfher thought that he was trapped inside the void, he suddenly heard a familiar sound from the distance, the sound was echoing as if the space around him was the inside of a cave, the sound itself mimicked the calling call of a crow.
Haak!!
'Huh?!..' Heimfher turned his head around to quickly see where the sound was coming from.
What he saw next left a deep question within him, far into the distance, Heimfher was greeted by the head of a crow, the crow itself looked grotesque, its eyes were bleeding and its pupils was covered by multiple rings that rotated around its head, no matter how many times Heimfher tried to assume, he couldn't help but think that the crow head infront of him was some sort of a divine being.
'...Haah.. Haahh...'
Heimfher stared into the crow head for a few seconds, when he stared, the crow stared back, and soon, his body fell again, as if gravity was turned on out of nowhere, Heimfher fell deeper into the void depth, he screamed, yet his voice was gone, he couldn't tell how long he had fallen, it could be hours, or even days, however before he knew it, Heimfher suddenly woke up in a different place.
Tick..
Tick...
Tick.....
"GAAHHH!!" Heimfher shouted as loud as he could and raised his body upwards in an instant, his face was covered with cold sweat and his hands was shaking aggressively.
"Huuf.. Huuff.. Hufff..."
After gasping for air continously, Heimfher finally noticed the unfamiliar surrounding that he was in, he wasn't in his inn, nor his house, but rather, Heimfher realized that he was in some kind of a facility building, seeing as how there was a lot of tools being displayed on the walls, desks that had stacked papers that looked dusty, grandfather clock on the side with the hands ticking on the wrong time, and the other bed beside him.
'Hahh.. haahh.. Shit, now where the fuck am i.. Is this still an illusion?' Heimfher thought to himself, he was starting to doubt his own eyes after everything that happened.
'What time is it.. There's no windows.. Did i got kidnapped?!'
Heimfher jumped out of the bed and stood up, he then slowly walked around the room to check for anything that might containg a clue of where he was, he checked the stacked papers on the desk and found out that most of them were already stained beyond repair, and that the content of the paper had mostly disappeared.
He checked the clock, it said the time was 3:20. Quite unbelievable, but since it was the only thing that Heimfher could rely on to tell the time, he decided to believe it.
'3AM huh.. I must have passed out in that alleyway, and everything that happened after that was a dream.. I need to get out, i can't believe i got kidnapped on my first day in this world, the door..'
Heimfher took a step towards the plain wooden door and was about to open it, when a footsteps sound was heard coming from the other side of the room.
Step!
Step!
Realizing that someone was coming for him, Heimfher quickly panicked and shook his head multiple times, searching for a place to hide, only to find nothing. So out of desperation, Heimfher chose to go back to the bed where he woke up earlier and pretend that he was still unconcious.
.
.
Creakk!!
The door opened with a creaky noise, and from the other side, a man wearing a dark full coat and a sword on his waist walked into the room as if he was expecting to see Heimfher.
The man closed the door soon after and noticed the still unconcious Heimfher on the bed, the man stood behind the door for a few seconds, observing Heimfher's breath to see if he was really unconcious, then when he wasn't sure, he approached Heimfher and looked straight into his closed eyes before speaking.
"You don't need to be cautious, we're the Monetre Protection Bureau." The man said calmly.
"Get up, we have a few questions for you, Heimfher Veilshroud."
Heimfher was stunned to know that the man infront of him had seen through his act. Left with no choice, he reluctantly opened his eyes and greeted the man from the protection bureau.
"...Hello.." Heimfher replied. "Sorry, i didn't know you're from the bureau.."
The Protection Bureau, is long story short, the police department of this world, they handle crimes and are the ones that can sent people to isolation or jail.
"No problem, i also apologize for unexpectedly bringing you to this place." The man then bowed slightly, he looked like a gentle person despite his appearance. "Have you recovered? I noticed that your stomach is empty, how about we eat together?—
"My name is Murph Sullivan, nice to meet you."
Murph extended his hand for a handshake, and Heimfher accepted it, the two of them shook their hand and introduced themselves, Heimfher was also relieved to hear that he wasn't kidnapped- No he was kidnapped, but atleast it wasn't a criminal that kidnapped him.
"N- Nice to meet you.." Heimfher responded awkwardly.
"Follow me." Murph said with a faint smile, he opened the wooden door again and urged Heimfher to leave aswell.
.
.
Step!
Step!
Step!
Heimfher was following Murph in a long hallway, similar to the ones in the academy, except this hallway was way more narrow than the academy hallways. Multiple stone carving of a symbol that Heimfher barely knew was placed on the side of the hallway, when he focused his eyes to the stone carving, he noticed that there were 5 different symbols that repeated throughout the hallways.
'..Are these some kind of a religious symbol?' Heimfher said in his mind.
He stared at the symbols for a few seconds, and just like what happened in the morning, Heimfher's head began to ache for seemingly no reason, he was experiencing yet another collection of memories from the previous Heimfher, and this time, the memory was about the symbols that he had just stared.
As it turns out, the symbols were indeed a religious symbol, it represents the 5 different religions spread across the kingdom, along with their god.
'The Church of the Blazing Flame, The Church of the Devoted Soul, The Church of the Bountiful Day, The Church of the Eternal Wisdom, and the Church of the Brave Warrior.. These are all the different religions in this world?.. And– Heimfher was a follower of the Eternal Wisdom..' Heimfher thought as he held his forehead with one hand.
'These religions.. They have their own god, and the one that Heimfher worships, is the God of Knowledge..'
In this world, God's are real, and there wasn't just one, there are multiple gods, each having insurmountable amount of power and authority over the entire universe, and Heimfher, who's a mere mortal, was unable to grasp the sheer amount of unexplainable concepts and dimensions above the sky, he could only stay quiet and accepted the new memories he just gotten and kept on walking along with Murph.
'Haha.. This world is crazy— But also really interesting.' Heimfher whispered softly.
The two of them soon arrived in a room with two chairs facing each other with a table between it, the room was isolated, without any open spaces or even interior except the two chairs and table, Heimfher could immediately tell that he was about to be interrogated despite not knowing what he did wrong.
"Sit on the chair." Murph said, his voice suddenly turned more stern and demanding.
Since Murph was way older than Heimfher, who's only 17 years old even though his soul was already a different person, he still can't recklessly fight back against Murph, for all he know, he could've also used the same magic that puts him into an illusory world where there was nothing but madness.
Heimfher quickly sat on the chair and Murph also followed moments later, he placed both of his hands on the table while staring at Heimfher.
Then, Murph began to pull half of his sword out of its scabbard, the sword made a ringing noises as the blade was scraping the scabbard, the soundwave echoed into the room as it bounced off the wall.
SHINGG!!
"Answer my question with truth, and we'll let you go without any troubles." Murph said before he pushed his sword back into the scabbard.
Heimfher gulped his own saliva as his fear began to swell in his body.
"Understood.." He answered.