Time seemed to freeze in that instant. The woman had killed the vulture so easily and fluidly that he hadn't even heard the sound of her footsteps when she landed on the ground.
Her white, immaculate armor radiated life. The delicate red patterns across it—simple yet elegant—seemed to shift whenever sunlight brushed over them.
Her eyes were deep and oceanic. Beautiful… and dangerous.
The young man stared at her, wondering:
Is she an angel?
She possessed a hypnotic beauty, yet the disemboweled vulture lying on the ground screamed the opposite. The smell of iron, blood, and mud clung to the air.
Involuntarily, his throat tightened as he swallowed. A faint tremor ran through his fingers.
With a playful expression, the woman crossed her left arm over her torso and rested the index finger of her right hand against her lips.
"Hey, Seeker."
"Did the vulture eat your ears? I asked if you found anything good."
The young man didn't answer immediately.
Seeker? Something good?
His already confused mind began spinning. He pressed his lips together slightly, trying to calm himself while evaluating his options.
She had picked up the vulture's sphere. If spheres were considered "something good," then perhaps he could use them to negotiate.
Instead of answering directly, he asked:
"What happens if I didn't find anything good?"
The woman paused to think, as if she were taking the question completely seriously.
Suddenly, her eyes turned cold.
"Then you'd be more useless than this piece of meat at my feet."
She nudged the vulture's corpse with her boot to emphasize the point.
"This one at least gave me a singularity."
Her words left her mouth almost comically.
Singularity?
The five spheres must be singularities, he thought, and they seemed valuable. Though knowing the name alone didn't help him understand what they did.
His gaze drifted briefly toward the ground as he measured his words.
"I only have four singularities," he said.
"I'll give you the first one for sparing my life. I'll give you the second for some food. And I'll give you the third if you help me reach a safe place."
He paused briefly.
"But I won't give you the fourth. This is my loot, and I want to sell it."
His eyes flickered with emotion, and his shoulders sagged slightly, as if he were carrying a heavy burden.
"I can't go back empty-handed."
The woman evaluated him in silence.
Frowning slightly, she studied the young man with a mixture of curiosity, surprise, and caution.
Her lapis-colored eyes seemed to pierce straight through him.
The young man remained serious, holding his posture. Only a faint blink betrayed his alertness and calculation.
The woman's lips curved upward.
A laugh burst out of her mouth uncontrollably.
She held her stomach, closing her eyes as she laughed. She seemed genuinely surprised.
Suddenly, the air turned cold.
The atmosphere had changed.
An unsettling chill crawled down the young man's spine. His knees trembled as the little strength he had left began to drain from his body.
Between laughs, words spilled out—at first broken and amused, but gradually heavier, carrying a tone of mockery.
She began walking slowly toward him.
Her slow, rhythmic footsteps filled his ears.
Involuntarily, his body began to collapse. One of his knees had already touched the ground.
He looked up at the woman from below, feeling the overwhelming weight of her strength.
"What makes you think I can't cut off your head right now?"
"Take the singularities and bury your little body like a worm?"
"No one in the world would ever know."
"So why not just hand everything over?"
The young man stared at her.
He didn't respond immediately.
His body ached and he was utterly exhausted, yet in his eyes burned a stubborn, reckless conviction.
His lips trembled slightly as he spoke. A faint arch of his eyebrow suggested he was weighing every word.
With effort, he answered slowly.
"Because I risked my life to earn them."
The woman stopped advancing.
Their faces were now only a short distance apart.
Their gazes met directly.
The young man's dark eyes looked like bottomless pits, as if they could swallow light itself. She could sense the fear within them, yet she couldn't decipher the madness hidden there.
She studied him.
Seconds passed in silence.
Distant. Ambiguous.
Everything around them seemed irrelevant. Neither of them could read the other.
And that was the most captivating thing of all.
Moments later, the woman broke the silence.
Her voice no longer carried mockery or threat. Something warmer lingered within it—something like cautious respect.
"I'll accept the deal… with a few conditions."
The young man didn't answer with words. He simply nodded seriously, pouring every ounce of attention into her next words.
His heart was racing, but something inside him told him this time it wasn't a game.
The woman raised a finger, amused.
"First, your clothing. I can tell you're an apprentice Seeker. And from your red outfit and the fox insignia, I can conclude you belong to Rusett's group."
The young man looked down in astonishment. Until now, he hadn't even had time to examine his own clothes.
How is that possible? Am I an idiot?
Rusett… where is that? What does it mean to be an apprentice Seeker?
His mind spun as he tried to connect fragments of the stories he once knew with the life he had lived before… waking up here.
The young woman looked him up and down, her gaze evaluating him as if she could read every thought in his mind.
Another finger rose.
"Second, that man is a bastard. He lets young boys like you join his group as Seekers while the others kill the monsters."
"Apprentice Seekers are just cannon fodder. They rely on luck, coincidence, and whatever chaos breaks out during a fight."
"But small, desperate Seekers like you rarely get lucky."
The young man frowned.
Cannon fodder…
That sounded terrible. Just how useless was this person for them to put him in that position?
His hands tightened slightly around the pouch, as if holding onto it meant holding onto his life.
"And finally," she continued, "if you really have four singularities in that bag, carrying them alone will get you killed."
"Rusett isn't the kind of man who reports all his profits."
"But if you return empty-handed, that will be even worse."
The young man swallowed.
His eyes drifted to the pouch as he mentally counted each sphere.
A thread of anxiety crept down his spine, yet something in his gaze suggested he could trust her—even if he barely understood the scale of this world or its rules.
"Though if you give him one, he might toss you a few silver coins," she added.
"If you're from the outskirts, that would be enough to live for an entire month without worrying."
The young man took a deep breath, trying to absorb every word.
A whole month… without worries…
And what are the outskirts? Where are they? Would that really be enough to survive?
His mind spun as he tried to piece together fragments of a world that was still alien to him.
"I understand," he replied slowly, carefully measuring each syllable.
The woman glanced toward the pouch.
"I won't ask how, but… what exactly did you find?"
The young man nodded and reached into the pouch.
His fingers touched the green sphere first.
The moment he felt the eye blink against his skin, a shiver ran up his arm.
Carefully, he pushed it deeper into the bag.
Not that one.
No one could see that one.
His fingers searched among the other four spheres, feeling their different textures and temperatures.
He knew that whichever one he pulled out now would decide his fate.
He looked at the woman one last time.
Then he tightened his grip on one of the spheres and slowly began pulling it from the pouch.