The morning sun poured through half-drawn blinds, carving the room into bars of light and shadow. Shin sat at his tiny kitchen table, holding a chipped mug of instant coffee in his hand.
"...Still so shiny," he muttered, setting the cup down beside a gaudy pile of coins. It looked like something from a fantasy book.
His apartment, once minimalist and plain, now looked like a dragon's hoard crammed into twenty square meters. The couch was buried in scrolls and expensive-looking gems, but that was the least of his worries. He nearly fell this morning from a gold bar wedged under the bathroom door.
He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. Cheap. Bitter. But his eyes still gleamed with contentment.
He'd done it. He'd cleared the Tower.
And with it came not just power, but absurd wealth.
The only things he didn't stash were the truly irreplaceable ones. His wind sword, safely bound to him and summoned only when needed, and the artifact Wind gifted him—the flute. A small, silver instrument carved with ancient symbols. It was as light as a feather, and far more dangerous than it appeared.
He turned it slowly in his hand, remembering Wind's final words before the teleportation had pulled him home:
"Know that, my young vessel. You are not the only one to find his fortune in the tower." Shin had dismissed it at the time, thinking it referred to some leftover treasures.
Now he wasn't so sure.
He opened his laptop, shoving aside a velvet box of rubies. A dozen tabs filled the browser— obscure auction sites, black market rumors, and even a few encrypted forums. They all said the same thing—the world was changing.
Towers had appeared in over a dozen countries, and thousands had gone missing inside them. Their fate remained unknown.
Shin leaned back in his chair, cracked his neck, and glanced at the treasures around him. He had no way to move the treasure. The coins had no serial numbers, the gems were cut like museum pieces, and everything else looked like it had been smuggled out of myth. That means pawn shops were out. Banks too.
Left with no other choice, he decided to hide them creatively. He put most of the gold under the floorboards, the rings in shampoo bottles, and a handful of diamonds buried in yogurt in the fridge. Well, at least it's hidden. Ish.
Even after reorganizing everything three times, he still had no idea how to deal with it, so Shin did what he did best—ignored the problem and focused on something more interesting.
He went outside, found a quiet park at the edge of town, and began practicing. Shin spent hours meditating every single day, consistently testing what Wind had left him. The sword didn't need to be carried; he summoned it with a thought and dismissed it just as easily. The metal responded to his intent—slicing through the air without any motion. More than that, he found he could call the wind himself. It was not as strong as wielding the blade, but it felt his.
The wind wasn't just strong. It was subtle—in a way, it was almost alive. He could swirl air into currents around his fingers, muffle sound, and as part of his practice, he even knocked a trash can off its feet with a flick. But it wasn't mastered. Not yet.
Control wasn't his issue. Precision was. Aiming the currents to move his way was more challenging than he could've imagined.
Some evenings, he stood on his roof with his eyes closed, trying to sense the pressure in the clouds. On others, he sat cross-legged on the floor, focusing on his breath, willing the air to still completely around him.
It came slowly, but it came. He began keeping a notebook—simple, black, unmarked. Inside, pages filled with sketches of wind patterns he could recognize, thoughts on the currents' flow and behavior, and other personal observations. He wasn't just training to master the wind—he was studying it inside out.
He remembered Wind's answer when he asked how to grow stronger. It felt almost understandable.
"Raise your connection to the wind."
There was no secret method or magic formula—just a tingling feeling that made him know it was real. Shin estimated his initial connection to be roughly thirty-three percent—a third. This was not an exact measure of any sort but rather an abstruse benchmark he found reasonable. Day by day, he nudged it higher. The air grew sharper in his senses, and his movements demanded less effort. Every small success brought a subtle rush, an addictive feeling of sharpening something hidden.
That night, Shin returned home, still frustrated by the lack of progress in his hunt for Lightning. Dozens of online searches yielded nothing—just speculation, misinformation, and occasional conspiracy.
He sighed and scrolled through a few new tabs until a headline caught his eye.
Wind God Appears in The Hague – Cloaked Thief Robs a Bank in Broad Daylight!
At first, he dismissed it. The world had gone mad. Ever since towers appeared globally, everyone and their neighbor wanted to pretend they were "the chosen ones".
But something about it lingered. Maybe it was the timing, or maybe it was Wind's last remark that kept echoing faintly in his mind.
He clicked the article and leaned back in his chair as the page loaded. The headline was certainly clickbait, exaggerated for drama, but the details underneath were oddly specific.
'Eyewitnesses describe a man in a tattered cloak, moving with unnatural speed. Surveillance footage shows flickering shadows, gusts of wind, and what appears to be a burst of air pressure strong enough to knock over the guard inside.'
The footage was shaky, but the physics weren't. A cloaked figure blurred as he walked; papers cycloned and died when the cameras did. A single camera managed to catch a moment of his clothing. A fabric that was too fluid and too unstable to look real. It had faint runes embedded across the back like markings made of light.
Shin narrowed his eyes. The thief's movement was real. The effect—that ripple of air pressure—was unmistakably similar to what he could now do himself. But the man's gait was off. It was less refined and not as focused as his own.
Speculation swirled beneath the footage. Some theorized it was a terrorist using military-grade tech. Others said it was a failed super-soldier experiment. A few fringe blogs suggested divine intervention.
But the term that stuck was the one someone had graffiti on the outer wall of the bank:
WIND GOD
Shin scoffed. "Self-important, aren't you?"
Still, something prickled at the back of his mind—not the name—but the cloak. The article included a photo snapped by a civilian. Shin enlarged the image and zoomed in. Across the back, a blurred symbol seemed oddly familiar—an etching resembling the one from his own sword.
"...Yep. That's not standard clothing."
His eyes narrowed further. He didn't recognize the exact pattern, but the air flow around the figure in the footage was too unnatural. It bent toward him. Responding to him as if part of his own clothes.
Some sort of advanced tech? No.
An artifact.
Of course, it might just be another fake video. Ever since the towers appeared, fakes have popped up daily. But then again, it could also be a genuine.
He considered what it means. Should he go after this guy?
No.
At least not yet.
He knew too little. Acting too soon might make the man disappear. For now, he'd just watch. Track to see if more news appeared.
He saved the article, copied the video, and made a new folder.
Suspected Artifact Holders
He didn't have time to chase ghosts. Because Lightning—whatever it was—came first.
Two days later
The maintenance corridor behind the museum's annex was narrow and quiet. It was the kind of place built for utility, not aesthetics. Rain whispered along the old pipes above, pooling in slow circles around the drain grates. The man moved with ease, his hood drawn low and his boots treading softly on the damp concrete. He walked silently past the flickering lights and rust-streaked doorframes as if the place had been built to accommodate his presence.
The clipboard had been easy—right where it should've been, hanging beside the shift log. The badge took more nerve, clipped to the inside of a guard's half-zipped backpack. He took them both without sound, slid them into his coat lining with one quick motion, and stepped back into the rain.
It wasn't a heist yet—just a practice—a test of how close he could get. Soon, he wouldn't leave with just a clipboard. He'd leave with gold.
He curved his route through the quieter blocks of the old district, walking with his hood pulled low. Seeing his reflection in a shopfront glass caught him off guard.
It wasn't his face that made him pause but his posture—the way he carried himself now, the way his steps didn't question the space they took. He didn't look like the man who stood not so long ago in courtrooms with sweating palms and a shaken voice while strangers judged whether he deserved a future.
He looked like someone else entirely.
The prosecutor's voice echoed faintly, surfacing like an oil slick on memory. Calm, assured, rehearsed: "Mr. Van Gerven is not presently stable enough to make rational decisions."
And she had been there too, he clenched his fist. The one who used to call him brilliant. The one he once thought was his entire world. Yet now holding the prosecutor's arm like he was the one who'd been saving her all along.
They thought court rulings were justice. That legal documents meant safety. That public shame would break him.
They were right.
Milo didn't dwell on it. He didn't have to. The damage was done—and not just to him. Steel had been screwed into the prosecutor's hip so deeply the bone gave way. The man couldn't walk straight anymore, let alone string together a full recollection of that night.
The thick and silent cloak curled around his legs. It flowed around corners and shifted even when he didn't. It breathed like a floating cloud—light and unrestrained. He glared back at the badge peeking from his inner lining. Tomorrow he'd test it—trace the security rotations, find the blind angles, learn the pulse of the building. Then he would be the one to set the terms.
Because for the first time in his life, he knew one thing with perfect clarity:
He wasn't who he used to be.
No longer a victim, a cautionary tale, or a man trying to crawl back to some former self. No. That life was already gone—buried beneath court transcripts and broken promises. This time, he was no longer a man on the run. This time, he'd make the entire world remember his name. This time, everyone will tremble before the might of the Wind God.
But alas, every rabbit thinks itself clever in the grass—
Until it learns the hawk has been circling all along.
For in a small apartment far away, Shin had already bookmarked three more articles.
Three more chances to confirm.
And soon—very soon—he'd follow the wind again.
Because this time, the wind didn't belong to a god—
It belonged to him.