His vision darkened, his body stiffened, and his hearing deteriorated.

  No sound could leave his mouth.

  He felt trapped inside his own body.

  The sense of time was lost, the sense of touch too.

  His brain was barely working.

  It was slow.

  Too slow.

  Pure darkness. That was all he had now.

  I was too harsh… I made a mistake… But where did that person come from?! I couldn’t hear or see them earlier. Are they a mana user? Wait, are they even a “he”? It doesn’t matter… nothing matters.

  Faust pitied his own decisions. If only he had been a little more patient, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He felt his life force slipping away by the instant.

  No… why does this always keep happening to me…

  He thought back.

  He had already faced so many situations where he could have died, just in the short time he had been inside the dungeon.

  Was he too weak? Too reckless? Too inexperienced? All of it?

  Uncertainty was all that filled his mind. The reason for his suffering—what was it? He could think of many possibilities, but none were convincing by themselves.

  He had trained with his uncle and become somewhat proficient in combat. He was able to understand situations and adapt fairly quickly. He had experienced a lot too inside this place too.

  He wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t too slow, he wasn’t too weak.

  I’m not too… I’m not…

  I guess that’s the answer…

  I’m not too much of anything. I’m not weak, but not strong either. Not slow, but not fast either. Not stupid, but my knowledge is far from enough. I’m just insufficient.

  …

  His heart and brain and body weakened.

  His vision had already completely vanished, leaving him alone in a pure void inside himself.

  Even as his senses deteriorated to the point he couldn’t even feel the sharp pain anymore… he knew what was happening.

  He had read this description too many times: he was dying.

  How long do I have left? Well, I guess… I guess that’s it. There’s nothing I can do at this point… I can’t even move… Am I even alive still?

  In the end, I found death. Not the way I wanted… but it’s peaceful. No people blabbering in my ears, no need to steal anymore… no need to do anything.

  It’s what I wanted… yet why is it like this?

  It’s so… boring. It’s not how I imagined it. I wonder what comes after. Am I going to the Plains everyone speaks of so often? Heh… to think I will find out if the afterlife is real firsthand.

  …

  No…

  Not like this…

  I don’t want to die like this…

  Why am I accepting it so easily?!

  What… what is wrong with me…

  I want to cry… am I crying?

  At that moment, a wave of diverse emotions filled the flicker of his existence—sadness and happiness, memories of the good, the bad, the ugly. Life… his life hadn’t been very diverse. Most of his memories took place in his village, many of them even atop that small mound.

  The moment that should have been one of reminiscing and accepting was boring as well. Faust didn’t enjoy what he saw; that wasn’t how it should have been. Where were the good and fun memories?

  He recalled many, yet not one were fitting of it… at least, none of the old ones.

  As if on purpose, his mind brushed over some recent events.

  He saw it.

  The humanoid figures he had killed in the snow. The sensation of fear and anguish, of guilt and uneasiness, of excitement and enjoyment.

  What?

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  A strange sensation accompanied the memories.

  Then it went to him fighting the wolf, the same wolf that played with him and ended up dead.

  What was it? A strange sensation accompanied it as well—piercing the wolf with a stick, seeing the life drain from its eyes, watching it bleed and go stiff before him.

  The feeling of winning.

  The past. He saw hundreds of beasts ravaging his village, destroying everything and everyone in their path, devouring to their heart’s content under the moon. His father stood behind, giving a chance for his mother, sister, and himself to reach the village center.

  His father died, obviously. How could a man survive against a wave of beasts? When they were nearing the village center, a beast got in their way. They tried to run, but only Faust could, as both his mother and sister turned into meals.

  At that time, when he was only a young child, it was strange.

  He could not understand what had happened, so he cried.

  He cried a lot, but then his tears ran out. And then, the sadness went away as well.

  Only something remained: a memoir, the memory that his family had given their own lives to protect—his survival.

  He was a survivor, wasn’t he? He had survived from the day he was born until this point… and every time he survived against defying odds, that same strange sensation made itself present in his heart.

  An unusual joy, an unusual excitement.

  Was it from surviving?

  Surviving… surviving was winning. Winning against everything, defying everything.

  I see…

  I have won… won until now. I’ve even won against myself back in the village…

  Winning… It’s fun.

  I want to keep winning.

  I want to win as much as I can…

  I can’t die.

  I can’t.

  I won’t die.

  I won’t.

  I won’t…

  I won’t lose.

  Faust repeated it over and over. His mental strength seemed to return faintly, fueled by his will to live.

  He had already survived plenty—why die now? Even if this situation was dire, he could try.

  Wasn’t it fun to keep going?

  And then, he felt something. A strange twitching sensation near his heart.

  By primal instinct, he recognized it instantly and understood what was happening.

  Mana!

  Quickly, Faust poured all his remaining mental strength into focusing on the mana, on the sensation. Slowly, it grew into a stronger feeling, and the feeling turned into a vision.

  Even though his sight had already gone, he could see fragments of blue all around him. He could sense them, hear them, and even taste them all together, as if his senses had suddenly interlinked.

  I need to gather them…

  With all his will, he reached toward the particles. Suddenly, they fluttered toward him, gathering into a spiral that surrounded his whole being.

  Time no longer mattered.

  The particles began whirling and merging into larger fragments. They fused again and again, creating unstable masses—erratic blue forms of light that twitched and glowed unevenly.

  In a wrong attempt, Faust tried to control the masses and interrupted their natural movements, which made some of them shatter. In an instant, he understood!

  It has to flow!

  He let the mana move freely as it kept spiraling around him, only guiding it enough to keep it from collapsing.

  Soon, the stabilized mana particles turned into a small circle in the center of the void. It was pristine and beautiful, but still incomplete.

  Faust concentrated with everything he had, making sure every part stayed stable. When a few particles destabilized and slipped away from the core, pain shot through him—pain that attacked something deeper than his body.

  But he held on. He focused. And gradually, he comprehended.

  Mana was usually reserved for prodigies or those from powerful families and clans, passed down through bloodlines or knowledge. The talented were born sensing it, sometimes even with a natural mana circle.

  But apparently, there was another case. A rare, little-known possibility.

  Mana is life. Mana is matter.

  Mana is the cog that keeps everything in motion, and motion itself.

  By that logic, when someone is near death, their mana should weaken as life leaves the body. But that isn’t always true.

  Sometimes, being closer to death makes mana easier to sense—as the body desperately seeks life.

  Rare though it was, it could happen. But only if certain conditions were met.

  In those moments, the cog of life—mana—became clearer than ever.

  And Faust… had it all. His epiphany, the poison that paralyzed his body without killing him, the heavy wound that dragged him closer to death—all of it aligned, giving him this chance.

  In that instant, he knew something even deeper than what he had previously acknowledged.

  At that moment so close to death, he felt more alive than ever.

  He was himself as the mana in his heart slowly stabilized.

  Everything would be forgotten eventually. Everything would turn into nothing. People would die, kingdoms would fall, honor would fade, words would be lost.

  Every action held no meaning, for it would end someday, be forgotten someday. And even if it was repeated, the new action would suffer the same fate.

  Yet… why would he care? Surving... It was fun!

  In that single micro-instant, Faust felt the mana in his heart stabilize. It formed into a beautiful sphere, like circular glass radiating blue light.

  He knew what it was—a mana circle had been formed.

  Without his consent, the mana scattered through his body, invading every vein, every cell, every strand of hair, every inch of flesh. Alongside it, a burning sensation evaporated everything wrong in his body.

  Even with dulled senses, he felt a pain beyond physical—something primal. He wanted to scream and twist his body in ways that would make another man want to die, but he couldn’t.

  He endured, focusing on one word.

  Survive.

  Time passed. He passed away hundreds of times, maybe thousands—who knew how long.

  But in the end, he eventually felt his body again. Stronger, sharper. It was strange, as if he had been nothing but a puppet before, and now was finally human. But this was no blessing… the agony of his wounds hit him deeper now, unbearable heat rushing through his veins and skin, as though his entire body was aflame.

  His hearing returned slowly. He heard farther than before. The wind outside the cave. The twitching of leaves. The bending of grass.

  Excruciating. Even worse when his vision came back.

  His right hand was pierced through, and the arrow had gone through his right eye as well, both connected by that cruel shaft. The bleeding had slowed, but his skin was paler than death.

  Faust knew the truth. Pulling it out violently would worsen the wound, but leaving it in would do the same.

  He gambled. With his free hand, he pulled the arrow out of both eye socket and hand.

  The bleeding intensified, as expected. He quickly tore a strip of leather from his clothes, pushed it inside the wound and too wrapped it around his head, tying it into a crude eyepatch. The flow slowed, but it didn’t stop.

  Rolling to his side, he saw the pool of blood he had bled—likely from his ruined eye. Even with mana helping him, he couldn’t sit or stand.

  Needless to say, the sight in his right eye was gone.

  He closed his eye and waited, trying to gather just enough strength to move.

  Minutes passed before he finally managed to crawl toward a nearby corpse—the man who had also tried to escape.

  It was warm… warmth was good. He was feeling so cold, his insides burning and yet freezing.

  He waited near the body as he looked at the black stone of the ceiling and smiled widely.

  “I won again.”