Spatial Magic and A Great One

When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is many suspicious-looking people standing in front of me.

For a brief moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. My vision is still a little blurry, my head feels heavy, and my thoughts refuse to line up properly.

Then my eyes adjust.

And I notice something else.

Some headless bodies are lying on the floor.

They are sprawled in unnatural positions, as if they collapsed where they stood. Blood pours from where their heads should be, spreading across the floor and painting the ground in red.

The smell reaches me a second later, thick and metallic, making my stomach twist.

Before I can even begin to make sense of any of this, someone suddenly shouts.

"Prostrate!"

The voice echoes through the room.

Immediately after that, everyone begins to bow before me, pressing their heads to the floor as if their lives depend on it.

Seeing this happen so suddenly, my brain completely halts.

For a moment, there is nothing.

Then, when I somehow jolt back to my senses, all kinds of thoughts start swinging wildly inside my head, crashing into one another without any order.

'What is this?What the hell is happening? Where am I? Who are they? Who am I?'

The questions keep coming, faster and faster.

Thoughts so absurd that they normally wouldn't even make sense begin to hunt me down.

'Did I die and transmigrate again?

Or am I trapped in some kind of illusion trap?

is this dream magic?'

The more I think, the worse it gets. None of it makes sense, and the scene in front of me feels unreal.

After a while, when those insane thoughts finally begin to subside, I force myself to calm down and think rationally again.

Panicking won't help.

The first thing I do is make sure that I'm not dreaming.

I bite my tongue.

Pain shoots through my mouth immediately, sharp and undeniable.

The pain is real.

So this isn't a dream.

I swallow and begin to assess the situation properly.

That's when I notice something important.

I'm sitting down.

More precisely, I'm sitting on an old, rusted throne.

One of my hands is resting casually on the armrest, while the other is leaning against my face, supporting my cheek, as if this position is completely natural to me.

That realization alone sends a strange chill through my body.

'…Is someone beside me?'

A sudden thought flashes through my mind.

What if they aren't bowing to me at all?

What if there's some terrifying creature behind my back, something I can't see, and I just happened to wake up in front of it?

For some reason, my instincts scream at me not to move.

So instead, I carefully tilt my eyes and my head just a little, barely enough to see what’s behind me.

There's nothing.

Seeing that, I finally allow myself to breathe a little easier.

That rules out another terrifying possibility.

I then shift my focus back to the people in front of me.

The kneeling figures.

The trembling bodies.

The headless corpses on the floor.

Looking at the scene again with a calmer mind, I start to understand what happened.

They triggered the trap.

This room itself is a trap.

Anyone who enters it becomes trapped here, and the spatial magic placed within the room eliminates intruders without mercy.

SPATIAL MAGIC

One of the top-tier irregular special magics that exist in this world.

It is so difficult to master that even archmages say only god-gifted individuals, or those chosen from birth with an innate affinity for spatial magic, can ever truly control it.

That is why spatial magic is so terrifying.

It is versatile in too many ways.

And stopping it is another matter entirely.

To even block its most basic attacks, one needs to be at least a seventh-circle mage, an aura master, or possess an expert-grade artifact.

And this room?

This room contains an intermediate spatial magic trap.

Stopping something like this without any protection is impossible for normal people.

Although the people kneeling in front of me aren't normal.

Assuming they didn't know about the secret path, they must be at least as powerful as a fourth- or fifth-circle mage to reach this place.

And it would take almost two weeks by normal means, without proper sleep, to come here.

'This really reminds me how lucky I'm.'

No—lucky might not even be the right word.

All thanks to my memory.

It's not like I can remember every single detail perfectly, but I'm at least better than most people from my previous world when it comes to remembering things.

'Haa… now isn't the time to think about this.'

I push those thoughts aside.

One thing becomes painfully clear.

'They misunderstood me.'

I'm not clueless enough to miss it.

They think I'm some kind of guardian.

Or a terrifying powerhouse that can use spatial magic with ease.

'Should I tell them?'

The thought crosses my mind for a brief moment.

Then I immediately reject it.

'Why should I?'

If they are as powerful as I imagine, then simply saying it was a misunderstanding and that I was just passing by wouldn't make them believe me anyway.

And judging by the fact that they came this far knowing the risks, they clearly wanted the artifacts I already took.

Even if they somehow believed me, would they really just say—

'Oh, understandable. You may have a good day.'

And let me leave?

There's no way.

Looking at their eerie clothes, it's obvious they belong to some shady clan or organization.

I don't know how I ended up sitting on this throne in this situation.

But for now, letting them misunderstand me is the best option for my survival.

Then remembering the ring made me swear in frustration.

'Fuck my curiosity.'

'I really shouldn't have touched that ring.'

Realizing my mistake, I begin thinking about how I should act, how I should speak, and how I can deceive them long enough to get out of here alive.

"O great one."

A voice suddenly speaks.

It comes from the person standing at the front of the group, the same one who shouted earlier.

He seems to be their leader.

"If you grant me the honor to speak to someone as great and powerful and omnipotent as—"

"You who disturbed my slumber..."

I cut him off.

The words leave my mouth heavier than I expected.

"If you did so out of greed, then know that the price will be very steep."

I glare at them, putting pressure into my gaze as if I'm telling them they have offended the wrong existence.

I carefully maintain my expression and look at them with pure contempt.

The leader immediately begins to tremble.

The others follow him, their bodies shaking as they continue to prostrate themselves.

“Y-your Excellency… p-please have m-mercy on us sinners.”

He stutters as he speaks.

Seeing that my cheesy dialogue and clumsy act are actually working, I realize that this might be easier than I initially thought.

Fear is the main factor here.

It is something that can make even the most rational person crumble.

Of course, I don't let my guard down.

Just then, the leader speaks again.

"If you grant us your mercy, we can even offer you something that you desire."

He sounds calmer now, more controlled.

"What could someone like you possibly have that would make me consider it?"

I say that dismissively, as if someone of their caliber could ever make me reconsider my words.

On the surface, I act indifferent.

But honestly?

I would.

Even if they offered me a lesser artifact, I would take it without hesitation. Anything beyond that would be nothing but a blessing.

"It's true that we don't possess something of your caliber… like a special-grade artifact."

'Yeah, a special-grade artifact will not do—'

'Special what??!'

I scream inside my head.

For a brief moment, my face twists slightly in shock. I immediately force it back into a blank, emotionless state, doing my best not to let anything leak out.

But do they even understand what they're saying?

A special-grade artifact is a national treasure. Giving something like that to me would be like handing an ant the codes to a nuclear missile.

'…Well, too bad they don't have one.'

Maybe my sudden change in expression scares the leader, because he hurriedly adds more, clearly afraid of offending me further.

"But we can offer you a grand-grade artifact. It is not a normal one either. It has the potential to reach special-grade. It even possesses its own ego.

I don't have it with me right now, but I can form a mana path with you and deliver it within one month."

He blurts everything out in one breath, as if afraid I'll kill them all if he pauses.

'Ugh…'

It honestly hurts that they can't give it to me right now.

One month might not sound long, but agreeing to something like this is dangerous. The longer time passes, the higher the chance that my façade will break.

The moment they leave, they'll start thinking rationally again.

They'll replay everything.

They'll question it.

And once that happens, things will get messy.

But at the same time, I don't want to lose something so precious.

A grand-grade artifact with the potential to reach special-grade is not something you can just ignore.

As those contradictory thoughts clash inside my head, I finally come up with a better plan.

I'll push it to the future.

But I can't just agree so easily either.

"Hm… a grand grade is nothing."

I say it plainly, without any change in my expression, as if what he just offered isn't even worth proper consideration.

"But what you said did make me little curious."

I shift my gaze slightly, letting the weight of my words sink into them, making sure they understand that this is not mercy—it's just curiosity.

"So I think… I will let you go."

The moment those words leave my mouth, I can feel the tension in the room change, as if everyone is finally allowed to breathe again—though none of them dare to move yet.

"Ah! Thank y—"

"But that was only the price for your life."

My lips curve upward slightly as I speak, a faint, mischievous smile forming on my face, as if I'm deliberately toying with them.

"What about the others?"