Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

“What kind of shirt is this!”

He held the white shirt with both hands and stared at it. It was definitely a shirt. There was no way it was another piece of clothing... but...

“How do I wear it?”

The design was a little bit odd. Some parts of the shirt were puffed, it didn’t have any buttons and instead had a... thread on the upper half of it to tie the two sides.

‘It’s just like the ones I’ve seen in movies.’

Thought Kairen to himself as he began an intense struggle with the shirt in order to wear it. The pants were a little bit odd as well, but pants... is pants. There were no strange ways to wear it. After a while of stupidly struggling with two pieces of clothes, Kairen was finally ready.

He approached the door and carefully opened it, peeking outside although he knew he would see nothing in that darkness.

“Are you ready?”

.....

Reynold’s voice came from behind his back and made Kairen flinch and jolt. Once he turned his head, he could sense the redhead standing in the opposite direction where he was peeking at.

“Y-yeah!”, Kairen stepped out of the room. “How are we going to your kingdom-”

Snap

Before he could even finish his words, he heard a snapping sound, and at the same time, the scenery before his eyes changed.

“Huh...”

A yellow light shone on his face, as well as his body and the area around him. Kairen dazedly looked around. Tall buildings illuminated by the lights floating all around, beaten and smooth ground, a road with small pieces of stone on its sides, and people going about while chattering.

He was inside a city-like space.

The road in front of him got wider and wider as it finally reached a huge gate, which had its doors closed. Two people were standing beside the gate like guards, but instead of holding weapons and examining the passerby, they were idly chatting with each other and even with the other citizens.

Once Kairen looked up, he could see a huge, tall, and gorgeous castle in front of him.

‘Did he teleport us here?’

But Reynold didn’t use any mana... Why was he even surprised about such a thing after literally coming to the void?

“Is it the kingdom you talked about?”

Reynold nodded his head as started to approach the gate. Kairen followed behind him.

“It’s basically just a city and not a big one at that, but people like to call it a kingdom so we’ve all agreed on the Kingdom of Void.”

“Isn’t that too simple of a name?”

Reynold shrugged his shoulders. He gave a nod at the two guards of the gate. The two men moved hurriedly to open the gate as they greeted the redhead with happy expressions.

“There is no meaning in complicated things in such a place.”

Kairen avoided eye contact with the two guards, who kept sending questioning gazes at him as if asking who this dude is, and nodded internally.

‘Why would you care about a cool name for your kingdom once you are dead, huh?’

Well, reasonable.

The two of them walked inside the castle. They entered a space that looked to be a garden, but there were no trees or flowers in it. The whole place was dark, barely illuminated with some weird golden spheres of light that were floating around. From afar, they looked like fireflies, but up close, they were more like stars, maybe shooting stars. Whatever they were, they were beautiful and useful as well.

They walked deeper into the dead and silent garden until they saw another entrance in front of them. This time, there was only one guard in front of the door, who was crouching down on the ground and sleeping.

“....”

While Kairen was glaring at the sleeping man, Reynold soundlessly pushed the gate open and stepped inside, followed by Kairen.

“Shouldn’t you... um, punish these guys or something?”

He pointed at the sleeping guard.

“There is no need for a guard here... As dead don’t really like attacking each other or taking down the king... as they can’t die for a second time, such actions are meaningless. So this place is peaceful most of the time.”

“Why is there a guard then if there is no use for him.”

“Dead often get bored.”

“Oh!”

Kairen nodded internally once again.

‘Reasonable.’

They were bored, so they decided to create a city and name it a kingdom, build a castle and play guard... Wait, how do they even build a castle here when there is nothing in the void?

‘Maybe they are also built out of the remnants of the destroyed worlds?’

While still thinking about various things, he followed Reynold as he walked up a bunch of stairs, turned right, and walked up a spiral staircase. There was a hall at the end of the stairs with a few rooms to each side of it and one large room at the end of the corridor.

Not even sending a glance at the other doors, Reynold walked towards the largest door at the end of the corridor.

‘But, why bring me here...’

Kairen couldn’t help but wonder about the reason Reynold has brought him here. This place was vast and fascinating, but the whole castle had a heavy atmosphere of stillness and sorrow in it. There were people going here and there, they were smiling and looked happy, but there was still a heavy silence in the whole place that didn’t feel like it would be broken this easily.

Creeek

Reynold pushed the largest door open and entered it. He didn’t even knock, how rude!

“Oh! You’re back!”

As soon as the door opened, someone’s happy voice entered Kairen’s ears. He peeked inside only to see a man slowly standing up from his seat while putting his pen on the desk with a bunch of papers on it. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties, with dark brown hard and green eyes. He was tall and also had a good build.

“Yeah!”

Reynold causally answered as he strolled inside. The greed-eyes brown-haired man bowed the Reynold slightly before his eyes fell on Kairen, who was being dragged inside by Reynold.

‘Would Kain look like this if he got old?’

The man looked nothing like Kain, his face was handsome, but had a different shape to Kain’s. Still, Kairen couldn’t help but be reminded of that shithead bastard when he saw a mixture of dark-brown hair and green eyes.

‘Gah, why am I even thinking about that bastard!’

Kairen shook his head.

“Oh? Who might that be?”

The man raised an eyebrow as he addressed Kairen.

“Someone I brought.”

“....”

The man glared at Reynold.

“I can... quite literally see that he is someone you brought, or are rather dragging in. I asked who is he.”

Reynold ignored the man’s sarcastic tone.

“Someone who will stay here for a while.”

“Yeah?”

Instead of the man, it was Kairen who asked back in surprise.

“I’ll be staying here for a while? Why?”

“Oh, another lad who can’t accept his death!”

The green-eyed man remarked while chuckling.

“I’m not dead!”

“Yeah yeah. And we live in heaven!”

The man nodded with a smile.

“Wha-”

Kairen looked up at Reynold.

“No. He really is not dead.”

Reynold’s words made the man, who was about to sit back down on his chair, freeze on his spot.

“What?”

He looked at Kairen with wide eyes.

“He’s alive? How is he here then? No, wait! Why the hell did you bring a living human here?”

Reynold ignored the man and walked to a sofa placed in front of the man’s desk and plopped down on it. Kairen did the same and sat on the black sofa.

.....

‘It’s quite comfortable for the dead to sit on...’

He caressed the surface of the sofa with a blank face.

“It’s complicated, but he’ll stay here for a while until he is ready to go back.”

“Why can’t I go back now?”

Kairen looked away from the sofa as he asked that.

“Your world will reject your soul. It’s still damaged and affected by irregularity, so you won’t survive even if you go back to your world.”

“...”

Kairen blinked his eyes like a dumb cat.

“Yeah?”

How come he was hearing about these things just now?

Knock Knock

Just when he was about to open his mouth to ask about how he could go back to his world faster, a knock came from the door. The door was still open, so whoever was knocking it meant to inform the people inside that he wanted to enter the room.

“Ah, you brought the books?”

The man sitting behind the desk turned towards the door, which was one behind Kairen.

“Good timing. Come here. It seems like you have a prepare a residence for another dude.”

He urged the other person to walk in with a hand gesture.

“A new residence?”

“....”

Just then, Kairen jerked up from his seat and turned back in a quick movement that made his back hurt, but he didn’t mind. It was because the voice he heard now was just too familiar.

He looked up at the door. There stood a man in a white shirt and black pants slightly different from the ones he was wearing, holding a bunch of papers and staring at him with his dark green eyes which were slightly covered with his messy curly brown hair. It was a young and familiar face.

“Kain?”