The air is a heavy, viscous curtain of moisture and rot that clings to the back of Minh's throat, tasting of ancient dust and the metallic tang of damp limestone.
When his eyelids flutter open, they feel like they are glued shut by the salt of dried sweat. He does not move immediately. Instead, he lies still on the freezing, uneven floor, feeling the bite of the stone through the thin fabric of a garment he does not recognize. Above him, the ceiling is a vaulted expanse of soot-stained rock, weeping slow, rhythmic drops of water that shatter like glass on the floor somewhere in the darkness.
He remembers the circle. It had been a violent, geometric scream of neon light etched into the asphalt of a mundane street, a spinning mandala of impossible radiance that had unmade the world in a heartbeat. There had been no sound, only the sensation of being pulled through a straw, a crushing pressure that had flattened his lungs and turned his vision into a smear of white noise. Now, the silence is replaced by the low, jagged sounds of human distress.
Minh sits up slowly, his joints protesting with dull aches. He is not alone. Nine other faces, all Asian, all young, are scattered across the cramped stone room like discarded dolls. Some are curled into fetal positions, their shoulders shaking with silent, rhythmic tremors.
Others have their eyes squeezed shut, their lips moving in frantic, voiceless prayers to gods that likely exist millions of light-years away from this cold cell.
They are all draped in the same insult: makeshift tunics of a coarse, undyed hemp that scrapes against the skin like sandpaper. His hands fly to his pockets, but there are no pockets. His phone, his wallet, the familiar weight of his keys—all gone. He is a ghost of his former self, stripped of the plastic and silicon armor of the twenty-first century.
Minh breathes in slowly, counting the seconds. He looks at his hands. They are steady. It is a strange, detached sensation, as if he is watching a movie of his own life.
He realizes, with a crystalline clarity that borders on the absurd, that he has been isekai'd. This is the trope. This is the narrative arc he has read a hundred times in glossy-covered light novels and watched in flickering animation. But as he scans the room, the fantasy collapses. There are no ethereal elf girls with sympathetic eyes waiting to offer him a magical sword. There is no sprawling harem of supernatural beauties.
There is only the smell of urine, the cold stone, and the looming shadows of men who do not look like heroes.
Beyond the heavy iron bars of the cell, the corridor is lit by the flickering, guttering orange glow of torches set in wall brackets. The light glints off the polished surfaces of plate armor—not the decorative, flimsy suits of a museum, but thick, scarred steel built to stop blades.
The guards standing watch are silhouettes of menace. They carry matchlock muskets, the long barrels reflecting the firelight, and the acrid scent of burning slow-matches drifts into the cell. Some lean on spears with broad, leaf-shaped heads that look sharp enough to split a falling hair.
Minh does not look away. He watches the guards, noting the way they shift their weight, the way they handle their weapons with the casual indifference of professionals. One guard, a man with a face like weathered leather and a jagged scar running from his temple to his jaw, catches Minh's gaze. He doesn't see a terrified boy; he sees a specimen.
The guard turns to a man standing nearby, a figure draped in a heavy, charcoal-colored cloak that seems to swallow the torchlight. A mage. The air around the man hums with a faint, low-frequency vibration that makes Minh's teeth ache.
"Cast your eyes on that wretch there..." the guard says, his voice a gravelly rumble that echoes in the vaulted hallway. He points a gauntleted finger toward Minh. "He's cut from a different cloth than the usual filth we haul in. Most of 'em spend their first night blubbering for their mothers or praying to gods that stopped listening long ago. But this one? He's been silent as a grave, measuring the stones with his eyes. He's sharp, that one. He has the look of a man who'd sooner find a loose iron bar than wait on a miracle from the heavens."
The Mage steps closer, the hem of his cloak sweeping over the damp floor. He peers through the bars, his eyes milky and clouded, yet somehow sharper than a hawk's. He stares at Minh for a long moment, his nose wrinkling in distaste.
"Mark that one well... he reeks of parchment and stale ink." the Mage remarks, his voice thin and sharp, like a blade being drawn across silk. "His humors are sluggish, his limbs as frail as dry reeds. He bears the distinct curvature of a man who has spent his best years withered over a desk, chasing shadows in a codex. He lacks that primal spark—that raw, thrumming vitality—demanded of those who would stand in the vanguard's light."
The guard shakes his head, his helmet creaking. "Nay, leave 'im be. We'll be sending this lot to the Professional Central Army of the palantine Heilop, not some rabble raised by a local lordling. Use your head, man. He's just the height the PCA looks for—tall enough to hold a pike in the line, but not such a giant that he'll be the first to catch a bolt in the gullet. He's got a keen eye and doesn't jump at his own shadow. That's the sort of steel in the blood that survives the first volley of musket fire. We can always put meat on a gaunt frame, but you'll never find a way to forge nerves into a coward."
The Mage tilts his head, a skeletal finger tapping against his chin. "Observe his gaze... the man is clouded by a dimming of the sight. See how he narrows his eyes like a guttering candle when the torchlight wavers? A warrior who cannot discern the enemy's banners through the haze at a hundred paces is a stone around the neck of his kin, not a boon. To lack the clarity of vision is to invite the blade you never saw coming."
From the shadows of the corridor, a second Mage approaches. This one is younger, with a face that might have been handsome if not for the cold, clinical boredom in his expression. He reaches through the bars, his hand moving with a predatory grace, and pats Minh on the shoulder. The touch is icy, sending a jolt of static electricity through Minh's frame.
"Master, we have practitioners within these very walls who can mend a clouded lens as easily as they'd mend a torn robe. Such trivial maladies of the flesh are well within our craft." the second Mage says, his voice flat. "The Imperial coffers are deep—overflowing, truly—and a pittance spent on a few pairs of eyes is a wise wager if the dividend is a soldier of such discipline. A simple ritual of ocular restructuring would suffice to sharpen his gaze; a minor expenditure of essence for a most promising return."
The first Mage grunts, a sound of reluctant agreement. "So be it. Set your seal upon him and mark him for the Heilop draft. It is a rare day we find a soul worth the mending. We require more than mere meat for the pyre; we require meat that thinks."
They nod to each other and begin to walk away, their footsteps receding into the rhythmic clinking of metal on stone.
Minh sits frozen. The information settles into his brain like lead weights. He understood them. Every word, every nuance of their archaic, harsh dialect had resonated in his mind as clearly as his native tongue. It shouldn't be possible. The phonetics were alien, the grammar structure twisted, yet the meaning was instantaneous.
A different soldier, leaning against the opposite wall with a matchlock musket cradled in his arms, notices the confusion flaring in Minh's eyes. He is younger than the first guard, perhaps only in his early twenties, with a weary smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"Startled, are you ?" the soldier asks. He speaks a language that Minh now recognizes as the Empiralect, the tongue of the central Mikhland Federation. "I see the look in your eyes—you're wondering why our speech doesn't sound like the babble of beasts. When the Great Circles are cast and you Earthling whelps are pulled through the veil as thralls, the ritual weaves a linguistic graft directly into your mind. It is a calculated enchantment, forged for swift and certain command. We can hardly have our assets failing to march or bleed on account of a simple language barrier, now can we ?"
Minh looks at him, his voice dry and raspy. "Slaves?"
The soldier shrugs, a casual movement that makes his armor rattle. "'Slave,' you say? A jagged word, perhaps, but a jagged reality to match. Yet, it rings true—you are the chattel of the Federation now, body and breath. What you hear rattling in your head is the Empiralect; the tongue of authority throughout the heart of the Mikhland Federation. You'd do well to show a bit of gratitude for it. It's a beautiful language, even if we had to hammer it into your skull to make it stick."
Suddenly, a blur of movement erupts from the far corner of the cell. A boy, roughly Minh's age, perhaps fourteen or nearly fifteen, jumps toward the bars with an energy that seems entirely out of place in this tomb. He has messy dark hair and eyes that spark with a defiant, almost manic electricity. This is Joon-soo.
"Hey! You two!" Joon-soo shouts, his voice echoing loudly off the stone walls, causing several of the weeping teenagers to flinch. He directs his grin at the soldier and the departing mages. "Why are you talking to the summoned slaves so naturally? Didn't your master forbid it? Aren't we supposed to be the 'mysterious outsiders' or something? You're ruining the mystique!"
The soldier blinks, taken aback by the boy's audacity. He chuckles softly, shaking his head. "The Master's list of prohibitions is long enough to shroud a cathedral, lad. But wagging one's tongue at the livestock? That does no harm to the common good, and the higher-ups look the other way. Besides," he adds, his gaze drifting to the long, dark corridor, "a bit of chatter is the only thing that keeps the rot from settling in the mind. Standing watch for ten bells a day, listening to nothing but the weeping of the damned... it's a soul-crushing bore. You're a far better way to pass the time when you've got some fire in your throat to talk back."
The guard with the matchlock musket, who had been silent until now, adjusts the smoldering fuse of his weapon. "Mind your tongue, loudmouth, and don't go getting too cozy against those stones. Soon enough, you'll all be driven out into the courtyard like sheep to the pen. The mages will be waiting there to pick through your spirits and decide just what use the Federation has for your hides. Some of you will rot in the deep mines, others will break your backs in the fields, and the lucky ones... well, those with a bit of grit like your friend there, they'll be traded to the army."
In the cell, the atmosphere shifts from silent dread to vocal despair. The mention of mines and fields breaks the last of the group's resolve. Two girls begin to sob openly, their faces buried in their hands, while a boy in the corner begins to hit his head rhythmically against the stone, a dull, thudding sound of total breakdown.
Minh, however, is silent. His mind is a machine, taking the fragments of information—Mikhland Federation, Palantine Heilop, Empiralect, the PCA—and weaving them into a map of survival. He isn't panicking because panic is a luxury he can no longer afford. He is synthesizing. He is analyzing. He is looking at the guards' armor and calculating the weight of the steel, the range of the muskets, the hierarchy of the men holding them.
Joon-soo watches him. He stops his rattling of the bars and turns his head, squinting at Minh. He notices the way Minh's eyes move, not with fear, but with a cold, terrifyingly sharp intelligence.
"Look at you~..." Joon-soo says, his voice dropping to a lower, more conspiratorial tone. "I've been watching the others. They're practically melting into the floor. They look like they're waiting for their moms to come wake them up from a bad dream. But you... why are you so calm while the others cower? I ask them a question and they just whimper. You? You look like you're doing your homework."
Minh shifts his gaze to Joon-soo. The other boy isn't trembling. His hands are shoved into the waistband of his tunic, and there is a flicker of a smile on his lips that suggests he finds the horror of their situation almost funny.
"You look calm the same way." Minh replies, his voice steady.
Joon-soo lets out a sharp, sudden bark of a laugh. It is the only laughter in the room, a jagged, discordant sound that cuts through the atmosphere of misery. He glances over his shoulder, looking through the side bars at another cell further down the hall. It is a mirror image of their own: ten more teenagers, ten more sets of hemp tunics, ten more lives unspooling in the dark.
"I guess I am." Joon-soo says, turning back to Minh. His expression softens, but the fire in his eyes doesn't dim. "It seems we've been summoned to another world, Minh. And I've got a feeling we weren't brought here to be heroes. No shining armor, no prophecies about defeating a Demon King. Just us and the dirt."
Another person in their cell, a boy with glasses that are cracked across one lens, looks up with a trembling voice. His face is pale, his skin glistening with cold sweat. "To be...slaves..." he whispers, the word sounding like a death sentence. "We've been ripped away from everything—from our rooms, our schools, the whole modern world—and dragged here just to be treated like livestock. They're actually talking about fixing our eyes like we're broken equipment, just so we can shoot straight for them. This isn't some game... it's really happening."
Minh stands up. The coarse fabric of the tunic feels like a second skin now, a reminder of his new status. He looks at the iron door, then at the guards, then back at his cellmates.
"Shouldn't we have a plan in adversity?" Minh asks. His voice is quiet, but it carries a weight that draws the attention of everyone in the room. "Fear is an emotion. Information is a tool. We have the language. We know who they are. That's a start."
Joon-soo's eyes widen, and he punches the palm of his hand. "You're so calm in this dire situation! It's almost creepy, man. Most people would be screaming for a lawyer or their parents."
Minh looks at him, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "You can even laugh in dire, Joon-soo. I think we both have our own ways of dealing with the end of the world."
Outside the bars, the younger Mage has stopped walking. He turns back, staring in genuine astonishment at the single noisy cell. He watches the two fourteen-year-olds standing in the center of the misery, one analytical and cold, the other vibrant and reckless. He has seen hundreds of summons. Usually, the "assets" are broken by the time they reach the stone room. They are husks, waiting to be filled with orders.
But these two...
"Behold them.." the Mage murmurs to the guard, his brow etched with a perplexed shadow. "Either these wretches have lost their wits to the crossing, or they remain blissfully ignorant of the yoke that awaits... or, perhaps, they truly believe they can outface their own stars. Never have I witnessed a tithe of souls with such unyielding fire still burning after the transition."
The guard grunts, his leather glove creaking as he tightens his grip on the stock of his musket. "Fire is a boon for the rank and file, but it's a pox in a thrall. We'll see how much of that spark remains after a sennight under the lash in the Heilop camps."
Minh meets the Mage's gaze through the bars. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't look away. He simply watches, waiting for the door to open, waiting for the next piece of the puzzle to fall into place. The modern world is gone, replaced by steel, gunpowder, and magic, but the rules of survival remain the same.
Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.
As the torches flicker lower, casting long, dancing shadows across the stone, Minh begins to count the rhythmic breathing of his companions, timing the world, preparing for the moment the "Professional Central Army" comes to claim its new property.