In the world, Enten was no longer rare nor whispered in legends. It was everywhere, woven into the rhythm of daily life, stitched into markets, homes, and city streets.
Eighty percent of the population was born with magical powers. These powers later got the name Enten. Some lit their homes with sparks from their fingertips. Others shaped water to wash sidewalks, or hardened air to carry loads heavier than carts. It was as common as breathing, yet still a source of awe.
Unlike most children his age, Autumn held something more than paper dreams. He had summoning magic.
That power was rare. Only five per cent were born with it. In most cases, it meant one thing: serving the king. Summoners were considered tools of the crown, bound to summon champions from other worlds to fight wars not their own. Most never set foot in a dungeon, never forged their own legacy.
But Autum's heart rebelled against that fate.
Autum's eyes catch the paper stuck to the wall. The message reads, Never lose your sight.
I will not live as someone else's pawn. My summoning isn't a chain to bind me; it's the key I'll use to carve my own path. This dagger is a result of it. I will showcase the world's new ways my talent can be used, Autumn thought to himself.
The real spectacle, though, lived in the exploits of adventurers. Adventurers were not just entertainers, not just warriors. They were public icons, walking myths among commoners. They protected common folk from demons lurking inside dungeon caves, making friends, companions, and clans along the way. Alongside the glory of scars and pain that immortalised the brave ones also came huge loads of loot and money. Every child in Bruisenberg Kingdom grew up chanting their names, memorising their feats, and dreaming that someday they might grow up strong and brave enough to step into those very dungeons.
But parents were more grounded. They saw adventurers differently, the other side of the story. To them, it was a risky profession, glamorous from a distance but destructive up close. Becoming an adventurer was like chasing the life of stardom, and with that came no privacy: thrilling, but dangerous, unstable, and most often ending in heartbreak.
Autumn Hydrogon never listened to the warnings.
Autum was fifteen, all restless limbs and sleepless eyes, living in the shadow of a dream he couldn't let go. His idol was Full Iron—the greatest adventurer alive. A man said to have fought three dragon lords alone, a man who stood at the top of the world's rankings, a man carved into legend while still breathing.
Autum wanted to be him. He wanted to carve his own name into the history books and not fade into the irrelevant background.
And yet, most days, he faded anyway.
At dawn, when the city was still sleeping, Autum dragged himself out of bed. He shot off to his rooftop, where he trained. His muscles, even though weak and thin, never shied away from the routine: stretching his back, skipping as fast as possible, push-ups that often ended with his chest touching the concrete floor. Sweat clung to him.
197…198…200…199. Finally… huh… huh… hitting 200 first helps in doing 199.
Autum checked his watch and shouted, "Oh no, it's opening time already!" Without a second thought, he made his way downstairs.
Breakfast passed quietly, carrying the faint scent of dough rising in the oven and cheese melting in the air. His uncle Ten and aunt April kept the pizzeria running, its old wood oven always alive with a low, steady crackle. To outsiders, it smelled like comfort. To Autum, it smelled like both home and chains.
Because when morning's ritual was over, he donned his apron and worked beside them. He took orders, balanced trays, and cleaned tables. He smiled when needed, swallowed frustration when no one was looking.
Flour dust floated in the air, clinging to Autum's sleeves as he balanced a tray of steaming plates. The tables were crowded, voices blending into a hum, and still his fingers itched toward the bulging notebook in his apron pocket. He slid it open with one hand as he carried a pizza with the other, his eyes darting over cramped lines of ink: Full Iron's counter to flame magic relies on timing, not strength.
"Table three, Autumn!" Aunt April's voice cut through the clatter.
He stumbled forward, nearly tilting the tray as his thumb marked a page filled with Halson's precise handwriting about summoning herbs from the otherworld. He muttered the words under his breath, lips moving in half-formed syllables that only he could hear. Customers stared when he nearly set a plate down on the wrong table, and Uncle Ten's sigh rolled across the room.
But Autumn couldn't stop. He shoved the tray down at the right table, pulled the notebook up just enough to skim a diagram of sword stances, then tried to memorise the curve of the blade sketch even as cheese dripped from the edge of the pizza.
"Watch your hands, boy!" one customer barked, jerking his sleeve away before sauce could spill.
Autum flushed, fumbling to steady the tray. His eyes stung—not from smoke or flour, but from the war he waged inside himself. Every page in that book called to him louder than the orders shouted across the counter.
By the time he returned to the oven, he had already whispered a spell Halson had taught him, the syllables jumbled with the day's orders. "Melt three… summon three—no, no—table four!" He shook his head, cheeks burning.
The notebook slipped as he tried to tuck it away, pages flipping open to a half-finished sketch of Full Iron mid-swing. The hero's drawn eyes seemed to stare right back at him, demanding more than Autum's clumsy multitasking could give.
For a heartbeat, Autum stood in the flour-dusted chaos, tray half-tilted, caught between two lives: the boy serving pizzas, and the boy desperate to memorise every scrap of knowledge that might one day make him an adventurer.
Each day after leaving the pizzeria, Autum walked to a tucked-away shop lined with jars of dried herbs and the sharp tang of chemicals. Mr. Halson, the owner, was one of the few who knew Autum's secret.
The man was no adventurer. He was a pill maker, a chemist who treated patients with concoctions made from herbs not found in their world. Herbs Autumn alone could summon.
The first time he had pulled an exotic plant from the shimmer of nothing, its petals glowing faintly in his hands, Autum had thought his heart would burst. He was reaching into another world and bending it to his will. Halson saw potential where others would have chained him.
Together, they worked. Halson showed him how to grind, measure, and press the herbs into pills that soothed sickness and sharpened minds. In return, Autum practised control—his dagger, his herbs, all pieces of a puzzle he was trying to solve.
"Your summoning," Halson would say, adjusting his spectacles as powders smoked on the counter, "is not a trick. It is a bridge. But bridges can lead to slavery if you let others dictate where they land."
Autum listened. And silently, he promised: he would decide where his bridge led.
But Sundays were different. Sundays were dread.
When Autum returned home that evening, his uncle Ten's voice, usually calm, was raised. Aunt April's hands twisted in her apron. And at the centre of the room stood three men in worn jackets and sharp grins. Oh, it's the loan sharks.
They came every Sunday, demanding payments the family could barely scrape together. They came as if it were not a job for them but something to amuse themselves with. They always left the place a little smaller, a little colder than before.
Autum's chest burned. Today, he would not watch silently. Today, he had his dagger. Or so he thought.
He stepped forward, fists trembling. His hand reached instinctively for the summoned blade he had left materialised in his room earlier. His breath caught—nothing. His palm was empty. His weapon was not where it was supposed to be.
Did I forget to bring it with me? Autum thought to himself.
The gang leader sneered. "What's this? The boy wants to play hero?"
Before Autum could react, the man's fist struck. The world spun as his body crashed into a table, splintering wood, biting his back. Pain shot inside him, and shouts of pain with it.
Uncle Ten rushed forward, his voice shaking but firm. "We had an agreement—you don't lay hands on family."
The leader spat on the floor. "The fee was short. We'll be back in two days. Have it ready, or next time it won't just be the boy tasting the floor."
Autum coughed, trying to push himself upright. His vision blurred, but in the doorway stood two figures—classmates, Tim and Buck. Their faces were masks of shock and pity, maybe even amusement.
Autum wanted to vanish. To burn the moment from memory. Instead, the helpless boy staggered back to his room.
There, with trembling hands, he checked the drawer, and the dagger was in its original place. Its dark steel shimmered into being, buzzing faintly with power like the engine of a motor car. He clutched it tight, jaw locked.
Never again.
He whispered into the still air, voice ragged but resolute. "From now on, this dagger is part of me. Wherever I go, it goes. And when they come back in two days, they'll see a different me."