*Click*
Ohner stared at Jin's bewildered expression as if he'd seen it a thousand times before.
There wasn't a flicker of surprise in his gold-flecked eyes, only the faintest curl of disdain at the corner of his mouth.
"Jeez…" the disembodied tone drawled, light but laced with contempt. "I know we had to steal from Earth because of its lackluster Planarch, but really—could that man at least have taught his people a shred of magic? How are all the Earthlings so useless?"
A sharp cough cracked across the chamber—high, feminine, and close enough to make Jin flinch. It came from nowhere. No figure stood behind the throne. No doors had opened. The sound simply existed, then faded, leaving the hall even more silent.
A low, drawn-out groan followed, vibrating inside Jin's ears rather than through them. His stomach lurched; he wasn't sure if the noise came from the man-shaped thing on the throne, the unseen woman, or something else entirely.
"Yes, Melissa…" the same voice rolled out, deeper now, like thunder caught in a barrel. "I won't forget about him."
*Click*
Jin let out a slow, shaky breath. Dammit. Of course this world has magic. Perfect. I'll probably get flattened in my first week by some blind guy dropping a meteor on my head.
"What is it, boy? Afraid of magic?"
Jin let out another weary sigh. "No. Yes. How am I supposed to know?"
A low chuckle reverberated through the chamber, followed by the same disembodied voice, cool and amused. "Seems the rudeness precedes most Earthlings—if not anything else."
Then the voice rose without warning, booming so suddenly that Jin flinched as if struck.
"But!" the Ohner thundered. "Magic in my world is simple if your mind functions. No need to worry!"
Ohner paused, the weight of his tone softening to a mock benevolence. "And besides… with my generosity, I will grant you something far more valuable than a spellbook. A unique skill—Energy Absorption."
The unmoving body on the throne tilted its head fractionally, as though pleased with itself.
"Thank you, Lord," Jin muttered, the title tasting strange on his tongue. "But I don't know the first thing about magic. How long could this even take?" He braced himself for an absurd answer—centuries of training, lifetimes of meditation.
Instead, the voice gave a fast, sharp laugh. "Oh, just a second."
The fingers of the motionless figure twitched. At once, a faint yellow spark blinked into being, swelling shakily into a trembling orb. It drifted from the throne toward Jin like a living candle flame.
Jin's heart leapt. A knowledge transfer! This should be easy. He straightened his spine, trying to copy every manga hero he'd ever seen receive sudden enlightenment.
The orb struck his chest.
"AAAAAAA—!"
Pain detonated through him, so absolute it became a color, a sound, a weight. It clawed through every cell, searing nerves he hadn't known he had. His knees buckled and his breath turned to glass in his throat.
Before he could even finish the scream his brain stopped registering what was happening. Sight collapsed into blackness. The cool marble beneath his feet fell away. His hearing peeled off, as if it were too frightened to stay.
But the pain didn't go. It sharpened. It became thousands of invisible caltrops rolling under his skin, each spike pushing outward until it nearly broke through, then retreating only to pierce another pore. Over and over, one by one, like a malicious ritual widening every gate of his body.
Only when the last pore had been scoured open did the presence act again. The unmoving body on the throne lifted a relaxed hand and flicked a pinch of glittering golden dust at Jin's collapsed form. It fell on him like sunlight, soaking into his lifeless skin.
"Gotta spend money to make money," the voice muttered, no longer triumphant but almost weary.
Suddenly, thousands of thin golden circles ignited in the air around Jin, flickering into being as if painted there by an invisible brush. They drifted and spun in precise, almost surgical patterns, each ring spitting a thread of molten gold into his pores.
One by one the threads burrowed inward, reinforcing the channels the pain had carved open, weaving into his flesh until his whole body pulsed with a faint radiance—subtle, and imperceptible to any mortal eye.
Even Ohner paused. His voice that had been so casual grew quieter, more focused.
"…Interesting. The Aethergold is lingering at his ears."
A sharp click echoed through the chamber, then his voice barked, "Melissa. Reports. Has anything like this happened before—either to my people, or to the mongrel?"
Melissa's reply drifted in from nowhere, soft but precise. "The mongrel showed no such fluctuations. Typically, this kind of resonance occurs across the entire body of a direct descendant of a god—or in some of our rarer, more unusual races."
The Lord's tone shifted from curiosity to open surprise. "This can happen to beasts as well?"
"Yes," Melissa's voice replied, crisp and unhesitating. "For example, the Eclipse Owl has a small chance, when in contact with Aethergold, to grow abnormally—its wingspan extending from one mile to over one point seven. Or the Cannon Crab, whose simple cannon mutates into something akin to a sniper barrel: increased power, velocity, and range."
The voice paused; Jin could almost picture unseen eyes narrowing. "And the similarities?"
"There are two main commonalities," Melissa said. "One does not apply to the boy, and one does. First—the one that does not: every reported change has been physical. None have manifested a… wyrd, as the boy has acquired.
"The second," she continued, her voice dipping lower, "is that all beings who are not direct descendants of gods but still undergo an Aethergold resonance… are beings we have stolen from other worlds."
Ohner shifted slightly on the throne, folding his hands with deliberate calm. "Well," he murmured, "seems my stealing has finally done something right."
Then his stillness cracked; excitement lit his voice like sparks under oil. "And look at that—the boy got a two-in-one deal! It's as if the universe itself wants to solve my little money-sucking problem!"
From nowhere came a long, thin sigh. Melissa, her voice a wisp of sound, didn't even bother to disguise her resignation.
"Should we tell the boy, Lord?"
A low laugh rolled through the chamber. It ended in a smile Jin couldn't see but could feel, sly and sharp. "No. I want to see the surprise on his face."
As the words faded, the golden aura cocooning Jin began to dim, its threads retracting like liquid sunlight being poured back into a jar, until not a single glimmer remained.
"Well, looks like it's done," Ohner said breezily. "Time to send him off."
"Wha—" Melissa started, but before the rest of her sentence could form, Ohner flicked his wrist. A column of pure gold exploded upward, engulfing Jin. The beam narrowed like a closing eye, then snapped shut, and the boy was gone.
"Why did you send him now?!" Melissa's voice cracked through the hall, stripped of its usual poise.
"What? Why not? He got the power, and I told him what he needs to do."
"You didn't read the pamphlet I gave you on Energy Absorption, did you?" Her tone turned lethal. "It could take years for his body to stabilize—especially that frail body of his. And you didn't even tell him how to use the power!"
"I thought it was like a knowledge transfer."
"NO!" Melissa barked. "It only prepares his body to absorb energies. That's all. It's a foundation, not a finished skill." Her voice softened into a mutter, heavy with dread. "At this rate, the repossession of your world becomes more likely with every passing moment…"
There was a beat of silence. Then, cautiously: "Okay… please tell me you sent him somewhere safe."
"Define safe." Ohner replied instantly, too fast, as though hoping the question would vanish if he answered quickly enough.
"Safe means safe, you moron."
He chuckled, but the sound had an edge. "Well, when you mentioned the Eclipse Owl, it gave me an idea… I might have placed him near its territory."
A sound like the clack of high heels echoed across the endless throne room. Yet no figure moved.
"Hey—hey, what are you doing? Get away from me! Ow—ow—OW!"
The echo of heels was swallowed by a sudden cracking of ice, sharp booms rolling through the vast chamber. The walls trembled; frost crept over the black marble like veins.
The man on the throne sat motionless, still smiling. But his eyes—if they were eyes—showed something else entirely. Beneath the smile, there was a flicker of pain. And, just for a heartbeat, fear.