Prologue

The feeling of being burned alive, an agony that seemed to follow him even after he had died. After all bodily functions had ceased to respond and mental capacity had hit rock bottom, the pain persisted, sensation of the licking flames still crawling over his melting flesh. All of the suffering seemingly melded together, becoming one larger entity, to the point where he couldn't perceive neither beginning nor end. The wounds inflicted on the young man by the monsters, with all the scratches, venom, and impalements merged with the fiery torture until it was impossible to distinguish them.

Death would have been a blessing, a perfect release from the pain of merely existing in that particular moment.

And then, the pain finally began to subside, though the heat stayed where it was.

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"Arrrrgggggghhhh!!!! Huhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"

Taking a sharp inhale, the collapsed figure opened his eyes, dark, almost purple, red orbs greeting the world as he rapidly sat up, soaked shirt clinging to his body. With deep, jagged breaths, the young individual struggled to calm himself as more and more sweat seemed to appear from his body, his heart thundering in his chest. The agony from before had all but faded away, leaving nothing but an intense heat that radiated from his drenched frame, dripping down from his fluffy black hair.

(("Wait....black?")) The young man questioned, the first logical thought to enter his mind as he struggled to regain his composure. (("I have purple hair though."))

Nevertheless, the sweat dripping from the strands of black hair was hard to overlook, and it was all that the youth could focus on, his hues latched onto the dark locks as his breathing slowly dropped down to manageable levels. His left hand, which had previously gone up to grab his chest, greatly relaxed as the figure gained some form of composure, his earlier panic dispersing as time went on. Even the sweat and heat disappeared after a while, leaving the sitting young teen with damp hair and a soaked black t-shirt.

(("So. I'm.....alive?")) The individuals face furrowed in confusion, his hands now taking the time to pat himself, his attention shifting from his hair to the rest of his body. (("But I was in the dungeon. Death was a given."))

The youth touched himself all over, his small and slightly pale hands drifting over his chest and torso, his thighs and arms. Aside from proportional differences and lack of muscles, there didn't seem to be much of a contrast from his regular body, apart from the fact his hair should've been purple and his midriff was supposed to be riddled with wounds. The toxic venom from the King Serpents was also supposed to be circulating through his system, causing him an incomparable agony and paralysis. As far as he knew, there wasn't any known cure for the serpent's venom either.

Not that he was complaining though. Aside from some intense pain on his throat and the weak bodily feeling, the youth had little to no issues.

"I...sh.....ge uh," the figure said, uttering his first words since awakening. Surprisingly, his voice didn't want to seem to work properly, the pain in his throat flaring up and causing him to wince. Not all of his words had come out either.

Reaching up to touch his neck, the young man ran the tips of his fingers around his entire throat, specifically the spot just below the chin, where the pain had flared up the most. Shaped like an uppercase U, the figure could feel just how swollen the area was around the sides and front of his neck, almost as if someone had attempted to choke the life out of him. There was a small struggle to breathe but the damage to the vocal cords was quite different as even whispering would prove far too arduous.

After rubbing his neck for a bit, the black haired figure finally took the time to look at his surroundings, something he had neglected since first waking up.

(("Where am I?")) The young man thought internally, becoming more and more perplexed the longer he stared. (("This definitely isn't anywhere I've ever been."))

The individual was sitting in the center of a relatively small room, one he quickly estimated to be around 144 square feet. A wooden desk sat in one corner of the room, situated just beside a curtain covered window, light streaming through it, indicating that it was the daytime. Just behind him sat a Queen sized bed that took up a solid 40% of the rooms interior, a nightstand sitting just beside it with an alarm clock ticking away on top of it. At the front of the room was a long dresser where clothes would normally go and on top of that was some weird rectangular contraptions that the individual had never seen before.

(("There are other rooms in here as well,")) he thought, red hues moving from the door by the bed to the door almost immediately beside it. (("I wonder if they're locked."))

Curiosity now peaked and so many questions running through his head, the individual attempted to get up from the carpeted floor he had been sitting on. Unfortunately, the black haired youth had been unprepared for how weak his body was and almost immediately toppled back down the moment he maneuvered into a kneeling position.

(("Damn. Guess I'm weaker then I thought.")) He noted as he tried again, before failing once more. (("At least I can feel my legs though."))

After minutes of struggling without end, the red eyed figure eventually managed to rise to his feet without falling back onto his face. Though his legs were shaky, he managed to gain enough strength to move around the room in small, fragmented steps, though his breathing and heartbeat did start acting up halfway through. Once he had traversed a few feet, he quickly realized his limits and promptly plopped himself onto the neatly made bed to gather what little reserves of muscle he possessed.

"Tha.....so...diffcult," He breathed, attempting to speak once more, trying to speak through the pain. Very few words managed to get across once again, leaving him feeling strongly annoyed.

Leaning back on his trembling arms, the figure looked up at the ceiling, his head tilted back. It was then that he saw it, just swinging ever so lightly, tied up to the pristine white fan on the ceiling some 3 and a half meters up.

It was a rope.

Looped tightly to the tip of the unmoving fan, the thick rope ran down the length before stopping just out of reach. The end of the brown material was jagged and frayed, as if someone had frantically hacked at it with a knife, cutting away desperately without a care for any sort of accuracy. Due to where it ended, the figure hadn't noticed it, and once he did, he couldn't look away. He could only stare at it, unsure of precisely what he was gazing at.

(("What's that doin-"))

Before he had time to finish the thought, he was interrupted by the sound of the leftmost door opening, the squeaky hinges alerting him to someone's presence. The figures hand jerked to his hip as he immediately sat up straight, eyes narrowed in concentration as he prepared for any sort of confrontation.

Three people walked into the room, entering the premises in a single file line.

Two of the new arrivals wore all black and donned caps with strange symbols that the individual had never seen before. Their clothes were simple and easy to understand though they also looked very bizarre at the same time. None of them held any sort of weapons, concealed or otherwise, and they both wore grim expressions, of which quickly turned into shock and surprise upon glancing at an upright teenager with a soaked sleeveless shirt. It was almost as if they had seen a ghost and it was this expression that managed to relax the teens guard as he shifted his expression to the last entry.

BAM!!

Before the individual even had time to react, he was tackled by what felt like a fully grown Draconic Horse. He didn't even have the strength to fight back or pry himself loose as he was pinned beneath the weight of the grown man that had thrown himself at the figure.

"Kanjo!!!! You're alive!! Thanks to whatever god brought you back to us!!!" The man said as he wrapped his arms around the youth. "Thank You!!!! Thank You!!"

(("Who the....?")) The individual pushed and pulled as hard as he could but to no avail. (("That's not even my name!!"))

Just as the black haired teen was about to let out a sound of protest, another person entered the room. The figures eyes quickly flicked from the back of his assailants head to the new arrival, a beautiful woman in her mind to late thirties, one who had tears streaking down her face.

"Did you guys need anything to-" The lady seemed to choke mid-sentence as her eyes shifted over to meet the pinned teens. Her eyes bugged and her hand raised to cover her mouth

Without another word, she collapsed onto the floor, her blue eyes never leaving the figures red ones, tears beginning to freshly flow once again. The pain that had been in her eyes quickly changed from immense pain to relief as the water flowed forth like a broken faucet.

"Okay." The figure finally said, having enough. "Can some....me whts goin n?"