- 4 - Newly Restored Text and Magical Waveform 2
Ren woke up inside a carriage.
Outside the window, he saw a familiar sight—dense coniferous forests just beyond the northern mountain range, a place he had visited only once as a child.
Is this a dream? he wondered, still drifting between sleep and wakefulness.
Wasn’t I reading a book before I fell asleep? Or was I?
The carriage came to a halt.
The door opened, and before he could react, he was surrounded by soldiers.
One of them, dressed like a high-ranking noble, began speaking.
Ren blinked, confused. What language is that?
Even in my dreams, I don’t get a language I can understand?
Is this some kind of harassment?
Even in dreams I need to decode stuff?
Those ladies must really have been bad for my mental health.
Maybe I’m just too stressed.
While still sorting through his thoughts, he found himself stepping out of the carriage.
The soldiers around him stood at attention and saluted as he walked, following the officer ahead.
This uniform… it’s not from our country.
But I’ve seen it somewhere. Where was it?
No, this style is outdated.
It’s definitely not current military fashion.
Maybe from a novel I read as a kid?
Ren couldn’t control his body—it moved on its own.
All he could do was think, and his thoughts were spinning out, unfiltered.
Then, the scene shifted.
Before him lay a hellish landscape: a massive pool of thick black sludge, like tar mixed with molten lava, belching flames in random bursts.
He was led straight into the center of a magic circle etched into the ground—intricate, detailed, too precise to be real—and stood in place as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
This has to be a joke. I’ve never seen a magic circle this complex.
And I’m just stepping onto it without checking anything?
No way.
People explode when they mess with circles like this! What are they thinking?!
But his protests didn’t matter.
Blinding light poured down, and an overwhelming flood of fragmented images surged into his mind.
A searing pain tore through his chest, followed by a madness-inducing fury unlike anything he’d ever known.
He screamed—not a cry for help, but a raw, visceral roar of rage.
And then—
He woke up.
