The Receiver's Sorcerer, a Level 2 Magician, has been completely mastered by Karl thanks to Zavi's previous disguise and assistance.
Elsewhere, at No. 14 Ahiston Street, several kilometers from the square, he saw the remotely controlled Avatar slowly fade away the moment he fully took control of the Magician. He obtained brief memories of meeting his partner in Finiscya, and he thought that he might soon receive a bounty.
Meanwhile, on the quiet roadside of Vica, Zavi walked with heavy steps, as if each step carried the burden of sustaining the world's survival.
He had not read it yet, thinking that reading it at home would be a brilliant idea. At the same time, he wanted to check on his mother's condition after several hours since she had returned from the market in the square.
Tap...
Click...
The front door opened.
His body froze for a few seconds after his eyes swept across the darkness enveloping the room. He hurried to the table in the living room, quickly lit a candle, then carried it into his mother's room.
No wind entered the house, making the orange candlelight extremely steady in his pale hand.
Zavi raised the candle higher than his head, and the warm orange light revealed his mother sleeping, a blanket covering her entire body except for her head.
The sound of her breathing was clear, along with the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, easing Zavi's earlier tension and allowing his breathing to calm once more.
After confirming that nothing was wrong, he slowly placed the candle on the bedside table, illuminating the room's darkness with its warm glow.
"Forgive me," he whispered softly, almost inaudible. "It seems I'm going to do that, and perhaps I will never return."
He took a deep breath before turning around and leaving his mother's room. He carefully closed the door without making the slightest sound, then walked toward his own room.
'Why does it feel like she's truly my biological mother? I don't understand. Why can't I remember my activities before transmigrating to this world and occupying this body?' he thought in confusion as his hand froze on the doorknob, recalling fragments of his memories on Earth despite their disorder.
Click…
The door opened, and a few seconds later he closed it again and locked it from the inside. He stepped back and sat on the chair, resting his legs on the lower support of the table.
He took out the silver revolver from his coat pocket and raised it to face level as the cylinder opened, revealing the bullets inside. He stared at them intensely before slowly spinning it.
A question suddenly appeared in his mind.
'Why is he so kind to me? After all, we only met about a day ago, and that was because Forn invited me since I was too curious about those deaths. Strangely, he knew what happened to Forn and how to deal with that winged creature. A secret organization? Or a group that handles cases like that?' Zavi finished his train of thought, though he remained confused because he could not find the real facts about him.
He took a deep breath, opened the drawer, and stored the silver revolver inside, hiding it behind several books.
"Oh, what time is it now?" Zavi took out his pocket watch and was surprised to realize that it had stopped working, likely broken by the rain. He placed it on the table.
He walked to the wardrobe, took a wooden hanger, placed his coat on it, then hung it on the wardrobe handle.
"It should be fine, right?" he muttered with raised brows.
He simply changed into warmer clothes since tonight was extremely cold, unlike usual, forcing him to add more wood to the fireplace in the right corner of his room.
After doing everything he wanted and feeling that his body had grown lighter, he decided to sleep and would try the ritual tomorrow. Drowsiness slowly overtook him. Zavi tried to open his eyes, but he could not.
Finally, he surrendered to the sleepiness and fell into a deep sleep, his body slightly tilted to the right with his warm palm touching his cheek.
...
Morning arrived. The horizon radiated warm sunlight, illuminating the world, devouring the tension of the previous night and igniting everyone's spirit to begin something new.
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At 07:50 a.m., Zavi woke up from his sleep. He was still dreaming about the same thing and had even forgotten his initial plan to consult someone.
He immediately opened the door and ran as fast as he could to the bathroom to relieve himself. He did not expect that waking from such deep sleep would make his body feel refreshed and energetic.
However, the opposite happened. Zavi felt cramps in his groin and right hand, and his body felt as if it had been beaten by a group of people.
"Damn…" Zavi turned on the faucet, gathered water in both hands, and splashed it onto his face.
"So refreshing…" he murmured in relief.
Just as he was about to wash his face one last time, a flat and slightly trembling voice called his name.
"There's something I want to talk about," said Ren while stretching his arms.
The sound of running water stopped. Zavi rinsed his hands and dried them on his pants.
"What is it?" Zavi asked with a blank expression.
Instead of answering, Ren's eyes widened slightly as he examined Zavi more carefully, his mouth slightly open.
"That... there's something strange about you. Try looking at the mirror properly!" Ren said, somewhat shocked.
'Something strange? What is it?' he thought curiously.
Zavi immediately turned and examined his face carefully in the mirror, but after observing more closely, there was nothing unusual. It only showed a man with slightly messy black hair, blue eyes carrying exhaustion, and lips tightly closed in confusion swirling inside his mind.
"Is this guy drunk or something?" he muttered softly while looking at Ren with furrowed brows.
After that, Zavi stepped out of the bathroom to prepare breakfast. Unexpectedly, Ren followed him and kept telling Zavi to look at the mirror properly.
'Why does he keep telling me to look at the mirror?' he complained inwardly.
Confused, Zavi's hands and eyes remained focused on making a sandwich, while his mind was trapped by Ren's words constantly spinning in his head.
He turned around and went back to the bathroom while taking small bites of the sandwich he was holding, because Ren kept insisting.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
"Look carefully," Ren said with a sigh, leaning against the bathroom door.
Zavi looked again and focused his gaze on his reflection. A few seconds later, he was startled by a strange phenomenon that struck him once again.
There was a humanoid-shaped creature with a face that could not be described in words. It was fairly small and had two black wings beneath its shoulders, floating right above his left shoulder.
Zavi reflexively stepped back. Losing his balance, he slipped and fell against the bathroom wall.
"Ouch… ouch..." He supported himself with both hands on the floor to stand up, then looked at his reflection again with curiosity.
"What kind of creature is this?" he asked while turning toward Ren.
Ren chuckled softly. "That's a ghost, but how can it be following you?" he said in a tired tone, his thoughts in disarray due to his poor physical condition.
'A ghost? So that's what it's called?' Zavi thought.
'How could that creature exist with me? Maybe it appeared when I met Karl, or perhaps when I was with Mr. Albert?'
Zavi coughed once to dispel his tension. He looked at the mirror again and tried to touch the phantom floating above his left shoulder.
His eyes widened slightly after feeling the sensation of contact on his index finger.
"Hey, Ren. I can touch this strange creature through my reflection in the mirror," he said in disbelief. "And why is it that when I look directly, this phantom isn't visible?" he asked in confusion.
Just as Ren was about to answer, Zavi spoke again.
"Do you have something?" Ren was startled when Zavi continued, "Something like a medium for supernatural abilities? A charm? An artifact? A relic? Or any object related to the occult?" Zavi's expression turned serious, the corner of his lips lifting as his eyes stared at Ren's calm face.
"So you already know," Ren said with a faint smile. "Good. There's nothing left for me to hide."
'Perhaps he knows because of that group's actions,' Ren continued inwardly.
'It seems something will happen not long from now.' His breath caught after considering the strong possibility that something dangerous might happen to his younger sibling.
After thinking repeatedly, Ren straightened his body and stretched his stiff muscles. Then he walked away, leaving Zavi alone in the bathroom with an expression that showed he did not want to get involved.
Zavi, now realizing what kind of ability Ren possessed, watched him as he climbed the stairs and disappeared into the corridor a few seconds later.
From below, in the living room, Zavi felt curious about his mother again. He immediately walked toward her room to make sure everything was fine, even though he knew that at this hour she had already gone to the market to trade.
Still, there was no harm in checking, just to calm his heart after the phantom surprise earlier.
"As I thought, nothing strange happened to her," he murmured softly.
'Was that bespectacled man's statement earlier just a joke?' he wondered, perhaps thinking that there was something he had overlooked last night.
The answer was not simple.
Although it was only an Avatar, and Karl's real existence was still unknown to him, Zavi had his own way of making him talk. A method that was not entirely clean, but quite effective.
And in the end, he obtained that information.
Doubt arose after hearing the ritual's requirements—strange, unnatural, and far too specific to be called coincidence. Yet his curiosity prevailed.
A ritual. A ritual similar to those commonly performed: a stone altar or old wood, black or gray candles, a chalk circle that could be replaced with sea salt, an old metal disc (as a focus of energy), a symbolic object, and a small chain for the Prisoner.
That was the first stage before fulfilling the most important completion requirement to master that ability and become the recipient of that power.
Now Zavi had left his house, sacrificing part of his savings to buy the various ritual materials. Coincidentally—or perhaps not—his house was indeed not far from that abandoned area, only a few hundred meters away. A place avoided by everyone. No one wanted to pass through it, let alone stop there. It was notorious for being haunted.
Yes, perhaps because the residents believed in the supernatural due to cultural influence, and with reports of objects moving by themselves or strange sounds, it was only natural that the area was labeled "haunted," left uninvestigated, and the people who once lived there chose to move away.
A perfect place to perform a ritual.
After painstakingly gathering all the required materials, in the afternoon Zavi stepped into the empty area. Even though he knew its ins and outs, he prepared to perform a ritual that might change everything.
Inside one of the abandoned houses.
A chalk circle was clearly drawn on the dirty large stones. Five candles with steady orange flames were placed at each corner, a metal disc sat in the center of the circle, and within it, Prisoner symbols were arranged to form an inverted triangle, connected by thin lines that served as channels for the flow of will. Each symbol was not a letter, but a command directed at forces unrelated to human language.
In the center of the circle, a pocket watch damaged by rain was placed facing upward, unmoving, useless, with its hands pointing at 08:00. One condition fulfilled.
Zavi pierced the tip of his finger with a kitchen knife. Blood dripped and touched the surface of the dirty stone exactly on the circle's line. Two conditions fulfilled.
A bottle of seawater collected at night was slowly poured, followed by jasmine flowers and something disgusting: Secceter, a root with a sharp and foreign smell that only grew on the western continent of Xereania. The final condition fulfilled.
The scents mixed together—sweet yet piercing.
As he stepped inside, the blood on his fingertip had already stopped flowing. Zavi swallowed hard, gripping the chain tightly even though his entire body trembled violently, afraid of what would happen next. But it was too late to regret it. Even though he knew that if this ritual failed, he would die—or worse, be taken to the world where those strange creatures lived.
The blood and all the materials reacted. As whispers began to echo, the circle remained intact.
The pocket watch also remained intact. The hands that should no longer function now began to move again.
The ritual had begun.
From inside the abandoned house, above the stones, a dense red aura mixed with dark purple emerged, then shot through the roof toward the sky, creating a powerful spiritual wave.
The chain clinked in response.
This made it difficult for Zavi to keep his body standing. He tried not to think about his surroundings and waited for the final moments.
Objects such as wood, roof tiles, and rusted iron flew around the room, making it hard for Zavi to concentrate as they struck his body.
"What is this?" he muttered tensely.
His face stiffened, his jaw clenched tightly—a sign that the ritual was not proceeding according to plan.
"Hah? Is this the end of my life? Defying the gods is truly a bad thing, damn it," he said in a hoarse voice, convinced that in a moment he would be devoured by the circle.
