"HAHAHAHA! Pathetic. I thought you were better than this."
Bang!
"Who told you to stand up?"
Bang!
Bang!
"Tsk… what a disappointment. I really thought he'd be fun."
"Right? Who plays hero on the first day of college?"
A snicker followed. "What a joke."
Bang!
"Just teach him a lesson and leave him. He's not worth the effort."
The voice was indifferent—bored, even.
What followed was a series of dull, sickening sounds.
Flesh meeting force.
Force without restraint.
A kick slammed into his stomach.
A boot crushed down on his head.
Another strike to his back.
Then another.
And another.
From every angle.
Ash could do nothing but curl into himself, arms wrapped around his body, whimpering like a cornered animal.
'If I'd known… I would've minded my own business.'
Regret burned deeper than the pain.
Who would've thought a prestigious college like Mabels would allow something like this? I'm such an idiot.
Gritting his teeth, Ash forced his eyes open and sneaked a glance toward the corner of the massive training hall. A group of uniformed students stood gathered there, completely blocking whatever—or whoever—had drawn their attention.
He couldn't see her.
And that hurt more than the blows.
At the end of the day, strength didn't come from reading books.
You couldn't get strong by being an otaku.
Yes—
A bona fide otaku in an era of superhumans.
How ironic.
Ash had been considered a prodigy from a young age. Intelligent, perceptive, quick to learn.
But he carried a fatal flaw.
Social fear.
He was handsome—absurdly so for a normal human with no awakened abilities or physical prowess. Just a beautiful face attached to a boy with a bright mind and a disturbingly dark future.
It was an incident in his third year of high school that pushed him even further into isolation.
Though shy and reserved, Ash possessed something dangerous—
A heroic syndrome.
A foolish instinct to step forward when he shouldn't.
Nine times out of ten, it earned him pain instead of gratitude.
His family belonged to a minor countryside nobility—too insignificant to matter in a powerful nation. As their only child, Ash lacked nothing materially.
In truth, he needed very little.
Seeing his tendency to disappear into books, his parents turned his room into a private library.
History.
Reality.
Fantasy.
Ash could confidently claim that if there existed a book on the continent he hadn't read, then no one else had read it either.
Even grimoires—thousands of them—had passed through his hands.
During lectures, he was always reading. His knowledge far exceeded his peers'.
Yet fiction fascinated him most.
Theories.
World-building.
Plot twists.
Hidden intentions between lines.
Sometimes, it felt as though he could see directly into an author's mind just by reading their words.
Give him two lines, and he could identify the writer—
Unless it was their first book.
Brilliant.
Talented.
Intelligent.
Weak.
And cursed with a hero complex.
CRUNCH!
Pain exploded through his hand as a boot came down on his fingers.
"ARGH!"
This time, he couldn't hold it in.
'I swear on my right ball, this hand is useless for a week.'
Even now…
His sense of humor was broken.
"That's enough."
The indifferent voice spoke again.
The blows stopped.
Footsteps retreated.
Silence returned to the gym.
Ash lay curled at the center of the training hall, barely conscious.
At the far end of the room—
A small figure lay unmoving.
Bruised.
Battered.
And very much alone.
He dragged his broken body upright inch by inch, wincing with every movement. Pain screamed through his muscles, but his mind had already drifted elsewhere—far from the present.
His gaze lingered on the battered, trembling figure curled up at the corner of the room.
And inevitably, his thoughts wandered to a name buried deep within the history books.
A truth only bookworms ever uncovered.
The God-Emperor.
The cosmos revered him as a perfect being—someone so radiant that even infants were said to idolize him, to dream of him, even to fall in love at first sight.
Ash knew better.
As a scholar in the making, he knew just how distorted that image was.
At one point, he had compared the God-Emperor to over a hundred thousand protagonists from fiction.
And in every comparison, he saw the same thing.
Loneliness.
What did it feel like to rule alone for billions of years?
To stand at the summit of existence for so long that time itself lost meaning?
Power like that would drive most beings insane.
Perhaps that was why Ash felt relieved knowing the God-Emperor had faded into myth.
He was real—of that Ash was certain—but he had chosen oblivion. Only the earliest humans had known the truth. Over time, he became a fairytale. A bedtime story whispered to children who would never understand its weight.
Ash exhaled softly.
Then he walked toward the figure still curled on the floor, her body trembling faintly.
"Hey… are you alright?"
Silence.
After a few seconds, he cautiously reached out—
A white flash tore through the air.
Ash's body leapt backward on instinct.
"Sss—!"
A sharp sting grazed his cheek.
When he looked up, he froze.
Cold eyes met his.
They were emotionless. Sharp. Distant.
A chill crawled down his spine.
"Ah—w-wh-what are you doing?" he blurted out, panic slipping into his voice.
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then she stood up.
Without a word, she walked past him, her gaze never lingering—as though responding was beneath her.
Ash remained rooted to the spot.
…What?
Now that he thought about it, she clearly had the strength to deal with those attackers.
So why let herself be beaten?
"Don't tell me…"
His eyes widened as a ridiculous thought crossed his mind.
A second later, he relaxed and let out a wry smile.
"I really should start minding my own business," he muttered.
"At this rate, Lord Yama probably has me on a watchlist."
Joking to himself, Ash brushed the dust off his clothes and limped away.
Back to where he belonged.
Back to his little library.
Several billion years ago, this world had been abandoned.
It lingered on the edge of becoming a dead world—its skies hollow, its future already written in extinction.
The emperor of that era made a desperate choice.
He bargained with the berserking God-Emperor.
His life, in exchange for his race being given a second beginning.
The price was absolute.
Every Asura born on this planet was altered—rewritten into what would later be called humans. The war-craving Asura race vanished from history, erased so completely that even hatred forgot their name.
To this day, they were considered extinct.
Ash let out a quiet sigh at the thought.
As long as he could remember, he'd known of a certain stage of evolution—one where an individual could choose to return to their origin… or continue forward as a human.
He believed that choice was reserved only for modified humans.
He had never met a "normal" human before.
In fact, he wasn't even sure what a normal human was supposed to be like.
Yet across countless millennia, no one had ever chosen to return to their origin.
Not because they lacked the desire—
—but because the idea itself inspired terror.
No one knew what awaited them beyond that choice.
No one knew what they would become.
But today…
Today, Ash had met someone he was at least ninety percent certain had already taken that path.
He exhaled slowly.
"I wonder…" he murmured, "when my evolution will start."
His dorm room door creaked open.
Inside, books filled every available space—stacked against the walls, piled in corners, even arranged beneath the windows. At the center of the room sat a single bed, with a small lamp table beside it and a modest chair positioned neatly in front.
A room built not for living—
—but for reading.
"Finally."
Ash inhaled deeply, letting the scent of old pages and worn bindings fill his lungs.
It grounded him.
It made him feel safe.
He tossed his shirt toward a corner, reached beneath the bed, and pulled out a stash of contraband junk food. Tearing it open, he started chewing as he fell backward onto the bouncy mattress.
Surrounded by books.
Surrounded by silence.
For now, at least...
This was his sanctuary.