I had finally gotten out of my suffocating routine that was starting to rot my brain, but it came at the price of my perception of reality being shattered.

In one moment I was drinking my morning coffee accompanied by the boring, lifeless sight of an annoyingly shiny orange ball rising on the horizon, and in the next I found myself in a smooth dome made of saturated gray stone. I couldn't find any light sources in the dome, but it was all clearly illuminated. So illuminated that it even felt disturbing, as no shadows could be seen.

There was an indescribable unnaturalness to not being able to see shadows. When one got used to there always being shadows where there was light, an absence of shadows just made it feel like there was something hiding deep within it all. Such perfect illumination simply couldn't exist.

The oxygen in the area was noticeably thinner, and my senses were immediately overloaded by hundreds of people around me screaming and flailing around like children learning to walk.

I couldn't criticize them too much, though. I'd had the exact same reaction just a few seconds ago and was currently suffocating a small portion of myself to be capable of rational thought. Gradually, my breathing went back to normal as I calmly looked around, my eyes picking up all the various unfamiliar individuals in the structure.

Then a calm, curious pair of eyes met mine. I was surprised to see there was someone akin to me in the place.

Then I felt an electric pain in my head. Pain was nothing new to me, but this... I had never felt anything like it.

Despite my best efforts to keep my footing, I fell to my knees and then to my side. It was an incomprehensible pain, but I gritted my teeth and bared through it with bloodshot eyes. As long as it was just pain, there was no human that would endure it better than me. This belief of mine was only reinforced when I could see others going through the same thing, but with much more drastic reactions. They all just threw up, cried, and shrieked.

The pain only lasted about 10 seconds, and once it passed, I rose up along with three other individuals. And as all the others were huddled on the ground, holding their heads and bawling their eyes, we looked at each other.

In an unknown place with unknown people, danger was inevitable. And in dangerous places, there were those who led, those who followed, and those who were left behind due to a harmfully weak nature. So, as I looked around, I made sure not to reveal anything except for a collected appearance.

It was just my own theory, but I was sure the most optimal position in a hierarchy was right beneath the leader. So after having stood up and shown resilience, I was to choose who I saw fit as my leader.

First, my gaze went to the person whose eyes I had met not long ago. A tall individual with dark skin, an athletic frame, and a collected, intelligent look in his eyes that he was currently analyzing me and the others with. I made sure not to look for too long and shifted my gaze to the next target of my analysis.

The next person I briefly looked at was tens of meters away and was facing away from me. He had brown curly hair that reached his ears and skin of a slightly darker color than mine. He was also wearing tight clothing that revealed his lean but muscular upper body. From what I observed, he still seemed quite disoriented, but since I couldn't get a better look at the moment, I shifted my gaze to the last individual who had stood up at the same time as me.

He was hard to see since he was almost a hundred meters away and others who had started to stand up were blocking the way, but I could still discern him from the crowd due to his pale white skin.

He was rubbing his forehead with his gaze directed at his feet, which made me think he was still suffering the aftereffects of the pain, however, there was something bizarre about him. Why was he smiling? No, it wasn't just that. His shoulders were shaking slightly, like he was chuckling.

'Does he think that this is a dream? Surely, he should've already realized that you can't experience that kind of pain in a dream. No, maybe he's laughing because he realized that this isn't a dream,' I pondered as I observed the peculiar individual who had yet to notice my gaze.

Soon after my thoughts came to a conclusion, however, he looked up, and his laughter turned into seriousness, and proceeded to look around with an indifferent expression.

I was just about to avert my gaze when the pale man's bluish-green eyes met, and an expression of contempt appeared on his face in an instant. I turned my head swiftly and mixed into the crowd of confused people who had gotten up just now. It was best to keep a low profile before things got figured out.

Then a voice echoed in my mind. The voice was strangely my own, but it wasn't like I was thinking what it was saying. The message it had to convey was beyond my imagination. It seemed the foreign message was just taking on the appearance of my inner voice.

[You have been summoned to the Ruins.]

[The Ruins are deep underground, and your goal is to ascend the ruins by going through various trials. If you manage to make it to the top, you will have earned your freedom.]

[For the trials ahead, you will be granted a weapon that will improve your physical capabilities as it evolves. You can summon your weapon by giving it a name and thinking of said name.]

[You will be transported into another area in 3 hours. Until then, you are free to do what you will.]

The messages ended there.

Some of it had been hard to make out due to people screaming and freaking out in the background, but largely everyone had gotten the idea of it all. This could be seen as weapons starting to appear in everyone's hands.

'A name, eh?' I sighed and monotonously thought, 'Akir's weapon.'

Abruptly afterward, a dagger about 30 centimeters in length appeared in my right hand. The dagger had a golden guard and pommel. The dagger's grip was wrapped in black leather, and the blade was of a purely black color with some simple but completely unintelligible golden markings on it that gave off a faint glow.

Straight after analyzing my own new weapon, I directed my attention to my surroundings and started moving towards a wall I could entrust my back to. You never could be too wary when in an unknown place with a bunch of armed strangers. Also, I could always rise up the ranks after things settled down, so melting into the background and just observing others was ideal.

After making it to the wall of the dome, I sat down and watched as the people started to network and nervously evaluate their options when it came to choosing a leader. Of course, there were going to be multiple groups. There were hundreds of people in the dome, so it was obvious that not everyone would be able to gather below the same roof. That was just how animals were.

It didn't take more than ten minutes for those groups and their leaders to be decided. It was all as expected. Even a monkey could figure out who would be the leaders. All of them were those who had stood up at the same time as I did.

There was one exception that came as a shock, however. Among the four who led the groups, there was one individual that I hadn't taken note of so far. A man with thick, textured brown hair, hazel eyes that resembled the sun in some ways, and a genuine smile that radiated warmth. Now that I looked at him, I could understand why people flocked to a person like him. He had a natural charisma that attracted the weak.

I stood up as people started separating into groups. I didn't really want to stand out, and this was the moment where I could easily slip into the group of my choice. Furthermore, I was still a bit unsure of which group I should join, so I decided to head into the crowd of people still unsure of which group to join.

As I was heading there, however, I was stopped by a fairly deep voice coming from behind.

"Hey, are you still looking for a group to join?"

I turned around with rapid movements, even though the voice had no animosity in it, and saw the tall man I had met eyes with earlier.

Unexpectedly, the man didn't have any real reaction to me turning with my dagger in hand and just continued talking in a relaxed manner, saying, "You can join mine if you are."

I met the man's gaze confidently and thought a little before I gave my answer, "Sure, I'll join you."

After hearing my answer, the man smiled slightly and outstretched his hand, which I then shook with a firm grip.

"I'm Calvin."

"Akir," I stated my name before withdrawing my hand. "You want to tell me why you seem like you're not at all panicked about being here like the others?" I tried prying into Calvin's mind since it seemed like he had observed the events very clearly from the very beginning.

"The others want to go back home and are worried they won't be able to. I don't have such issues."

"Why don't you want to go home?"

"I'm not on very good terms with my family, and my job isn't great. You don't need to know any more than that," Calvin said in his final answer. "What about you? To begin with, I wanted to recruit you because it seemed like this was just your regular Saturday morning."

"Oh, I'm pretty much the same as you in that regard." I answered without much emotion. "By the way, what did you do with your weapon? Did you put it somewhere, or is it that you simply haven't summoned it yet?"

"I did some experiments and found out that you can unsummon your weapon. Just command it to disappear, and it will. There is a cooldown period of about five minutes before you can summon it again, though, so don't do it during a battle or something," Calvin answered, and right before I was going to ask another question, Calvin remembered something and said, "Oh, I should introduce you to my group."

Then he walked off, gesturing for me to follow, and I did exactly so.

"Hmm, they really are gray," Calvin said after taking a look at my eyes as we walked. "I thought they were a really dark blue color."

"Is there something wrong with my eye color?" I asked, a little annoyed by the frequently heard comment.

"No, it goes well with the black hair. I think you should switch up the hairstyle, though. The middle part doesn't really fit you, if I'm being completely honest."

"No chance. A middle part fits me the best. I guarantee that," I replied in a tone so obviously annoyed that not even an idiot could miss it.

Calvin shrugged and shook his head. "Whatever you say."

Shortly after our conversation ended, we arrived in an area where there were about 30 people gathered. Out of all the groups, it was the smallest so far.

***

Approximately 3 hours later, I heard the voice in my head again.

[You will be transported in 10, 9, 8...]

"Everybody ready? Here we go," Calvin said to his group members, summoning two purely black battleaxes and preparing to get transported.

Many of the people in the cave were shaking, and some were even praying. I had no need for such things. My hands shook, but I didn't feel nervous. I was excited.

[You will now be transported.]

I had never agreed with most people's way of living. The idea that pleasure and displeasure should be balanced in life wasn't for me, and it would never be for me. I was willing to endure all the suffering in the world if, afterward, I would finally reach a place where I would never feel it again. I would do so by working towards my absolute freedom, and right at this moment, freedom was closer to my grasp than ever before.

A blinding light then enveloped everything around me, and suddenly I found myself in a completely different environment. I looked around for Calvin, but he was gone. We had been separated, and I was surrounded by complete strangers once again.

I had ended up alone once again.

But that didn't matter. No matter how harsh the conditions I was placed under or how terrible the people I was surrounded by were, I had been sure about one thing for a long time. I would survive through it all, and I would forsake anything and anyone to do so. Even myself.