In a dark room, where only silence lingered in the air, an individual suddenly woke up on the ground.
He stood up, looking at his surroundings with confusion.
"How… how am I alive?"
That question pressed heavily on his entire being, hearing an unfamiliar voice echoing through the air instead of his own.
His heart thumped heavily, his breath became unsteady and ragged, and his body started shaking.
Just a few moments ago, he had been ready to embrace his death, to finally rest, to finally give up against his luck—under a beautiful current of silver and golden threads.
But once he blinked, all his tiredness faded away, leaving him with an unnatural feeling of vitality and clarity he had never felt before.
Dante scanned his surroundings. The first thing he noticed made him frown in confusion.
'Where am I…'
He was in what seemed to be an ancient room made of old stone. He could clearly smell the scent of vines and grass that covered the old stone, hinting at how ancient that room was.
The room had only 2 paths: The first led backward into a dark corridor and the second led forward into an opened, clean, marble gate without any grass covering it.
The sight reflected the art of the medieval style—something that didn't exist anymore where he lived.
'Ancient ruins?'
Dante had never seen ancient ruins before, yet for some unknown reason, that was the first thought that came to him upon seeing this place.
Confused, Dante scratched his head: 'If I was saved, then I was supposed to be in a hospital. Just… just what happened?'
Then he noticed something else, something that made him freeze with many different emotions.
His vision was clear and normal, without a dark void in his right side.
He blinked once, twice, and thrice, testing each eye alone, and they both worked perfectly!
'H-how? Am I really dead? Is this the afterlife?!'
Dante brought a trembling hand to his face and carefully touched the right side while closing his eyes. With his eyes closed, he indeed felt something there. It was something round, not a hollow socket!
He remembered clearly that Jason took his right eye one year ago, but now it was back again!
How could that be possible?
And when he glanced at his right side, his eyes widened even more. Unable to resist it anymore, the tears began to stream down his face.
Dante moved his trembling hand slowly until it gripped a piece of skin, bone, and flesh.
It was a hand, his right hand.
'This… this is real!'
He sniffed, roughly wiping his tears with his new hand.
When he was a child, only 6-years-old, he lost his entire arm in an accident. That meant he barely had the opportunity to know the feeling of having a right arm, thus he didn't feel much about living with one arm.
Yet, it still was a good feeling to have a right arm, as he always envied the people around him.
He wasn't crippled or different anymore!
Dante began to examine himself, unable to hide the smile that spread across his features.
He was wearing a black, cotton shirt and black leather tunic above it. In the lower part, he wore brown leather pants and a pair of strange, high, long boots.
His formerly lean, skinny body now had some muscles, giving an athletic build, and his formerly black skin had turned into milky white.
His long hair shimmered with snowy white color instead of brown, and all the scars covering his body weren't there anymore.
'Wait—why are my right hand's nails black?'
The nails in his new hand had a strange jet-black color and were a little too sharp. Additionally, he sensed overwhelming strength within it, as if he only trained that one arm while ignoring the entire body.
He rolled up his sleeve, only to find strange lines spaced every few centimetres along his arm, as though dividing it into segments.
And the strangest thing was the green marks inscribed on his left wrist. After counting them, Dante found out they were 15.
He inhaled and exhaled slowly, steadying his breath and stopping his body from shaking.
Everything seemed wrong, but he didn't know if he had to be excited or nervous about that fact.
This wasn't his body. This wasn't his outfit. This wasn't his voice. These weren't his senses.
Maybe Dante had forgotten the feeling of having a right eye long ago, but he was sure its vision wasn't supposed to be this sharp.
His right eye's vision was too sharp that it could slightly pierce through the darkness. That was an amazing feeling that he wasn't used to.
'Strange…'
After calming himself down, Dante stood up and found himself against a hard decision.
'Move backward or forward?'
A path led to a strange, dark corridor, while the other led to a marble gate.
Immediately, he reached his hand into his pocket, but then his teeth started shaking when he noticed…
"Nothing."
…Dante gulped nervously. There was no coin to help him.
He continued searching, trying to find anything like a coin, but all he had found was a small notebook with some strange drawings and a strange black, round crystal.
He was used to always using a coin to make the hard decisions for him, the ones that seemed to be random sometimes, but now, he didn't have any!
'Damn it… what is this notebook, anyway?'
Dante tried to read the notebook for a while, feeling a strange familiarity from the drawings, before finally giving up as he didn't understand anything.
'Maybe later, then.'
Having no other choice, he decided to make the decision himself. He looked at the gate, then at the corridor, thinking deeply, before finally deciding: 'To the corridor then. It looks like a safer option… I hope it is.'
Dante chose the corridor and began to move to it, clenching his fist, moving his hand and moving his eye to get used to them. He hadn't used his right arm for around 10 years or his right eye for 1 year, so it was normal that he needed some practice.
Strangely, he was adapting really quickly, as if he was just restoring a forgotten feeling.
As he walked 2 steps, he glanced at the marble gate for the last time, but then he noticed something in the place he was standing in earlier.
'Wait!' He immediately returned and looked down.
There was a strange circle on the ground, made of deep red liquid, a liquid that he couldn't mistake anymore, with many mysterious circles and stars drawn on it.
Gradually, the blood was magically turning into ashes.
Dante's body tensed. He turned away immediately and began to walk even faster to the corridor as his mind formed many theories: 'Please don't let this be hell. I didn't do anything bad enough to deserve hell!!'
Swish!
As he walked through the corridor, he suddenly saw something flying toward him with a rapid speed.
Again, time slowed down around him.
Seeing the flying object coming faster with every second, he tried to dodge it, but he was too slow.
Thud!
"AAAAHH! Ugh!"
Falling on the ground, a wide scream left his mouth.
Between his eyes, a metallic object with a wooden handle was stuck on his skull.
It was an axe!
'...Why! Why!'
Dante's mind went into chaos, the immense pain striking him like a hammer with every move.
"Oh darling, can you see yourself? How cute~" Suddenly, a woman's voice echoed through the corridor, playful and sweet, and for some reason, too familiar.
Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak!
On the ground, Dante kept screaming and crying in pain as the sound of footsteps became closer with every passing second.
Bam!
Suddenly, a leg slammed the side of his head and pinned him in the ground.
He tried to move his head away, but he was entirely powerless against her.
Dante couldn't see the woman's face, but he could clearly hear her laughter.
"The dragons' skulls are really durable! Even a good axe like this couldn't pierce it in one hit, haha."
As she finished talking, she kicked him again, making his head toward her, and forced the axe out of his skull. Just then, Dante saw her figure through his blurry eyes.
A woman with tied red hair and green eyes, wearing a headband and a simple outfit made of leather that revealed her refined stomach muscles.
With her dual axes, wild muscular physique, wolf fur cloak, and black marks covering her bronze body, only one word came to his shaking mind.
'B-Barbarian?!'
She looked exactly as he had imagined barbarians when he was a child, which only confused his terrified mind.
The barbarian woman raised one of her axes while scanning her surroundings as her amused smile widened: "Oh darling, I didn't expect to find ancient ruins while chasing you, actually. If I find something good here, I'll remember you forever by turning your beautiful eyes into a necklace~"
Almost in an instant, she swung her axe down.
Slowly, the axe kept getting close to his blood-covered face.
He didn't understand anything.
He died, saw a current silver and golden thread, found himself in a new body inside ancient ruins, got attacked by something like a barbarian from old stories and now he was going to die again.
Everything… Everything was wrong. Why were all these things happening to him? What did he do wrong to deserve this?
Finally, the axe became close enough to touch his skin.
CRACK!
The axe cleanly split his head into two, his brain matter and blood splattering everywhere.
And for the second time, Dante Hu Jass died.