Dante Shadowvale

When the stranger opened his eyes after passing out in the middle of the street, he found himself lying in bed with his wounds covered in bandages.

Both of his wrists were cuffed, and there was a solid plastic band that was holding him down to the bed, preventing him from sitting upright.

The bed was in the middle of a seemingly abandoned warehouse, which he couldn't recognize as the architecture was new to him.

He moved his head from side to side and spotted different figures who were looking at him from the shadows, with one of them approaching slowly.

After his sight adjusted, he detailed a beautiful, platinum-haired woman with brown eyes wearing a tight black dress that accentuated her figure.

The woman looked confident, and even though she had two hooded men behind her with rifles in their hands, her demeanor wasn't threatening to the stranger.

"Good, you are awake!" she exclaimed, but Dante was still in a daze from his world transfer and didn't reply.

"I'm Camille Winter. We have some questions for you, so I'm hoping you'll cooperate with us…" the woman continued.

Camille asked him a few basic questions—"What's your name?" "Where do you live?" —but the man was too entranced in his own business to pay attention to her, even as her lackeys were threatening him with assault rifles.

"Where am I?" he casually asked, ignoring all of the questions that Camille had been asking him.

One of the men got angry at his indifference and pointed his rifle straight at the stranger's head, but Camille gently grabbed the muzzle and lowered it.

"This is a warehouse, but the exact location isn't important," she replied.

"Hmmm…" he mumbled as he delved into his own thoughts.

'I don't feel any malice coming from her…'

"Did you treat my wounds?" the man continued asking, making Camille nod in confirmation.

"You know? For someone who fell from the sky and got shot, your body was in pretty decent shape," the woman replied with a friendlier tone.

"Well, yeah, I used a spell to harden my body before impact…" he nonchalantly said, making Camille and her lackeys drop their heads laterally in confusion.

"A spell, you say?" the young woman asked skeptically.

"D-do you not know what a spell is?" the stranger answered with another question, feeling a bit shocked at the fact they didn't believe him.

Without saying a word, he cast the same incantation that hardened his body and sat up on the bed, ripping the solid plastic band that was meant to prevent him from making that very motion.

The men pointed their rifles at the stranger in disbelief, saying that the plastic band was used in max-security prisons to keep the most dangerous criminals from attacking the personnel.

The fact that he was able to rip them apart just by sitting up while supposedly being wounded was enough to make the rest of the men hiding in the shadows of the warehouse come out with their weapons.

With dozens of hooded soldiers pointing guns around his bed and a few snipers aiming at his body from the top corridor, the stranger stayed calm and showed no bloodlust or intent on fighting back.

Camille raised her hand and waved it back, signaling the soldiers to stand down as the crimson-eyed man stretched his arms while his wrists were still cuffed.

"Miss Camille, right?" he asked, keeping a casual tone as he inspected the bandages covering his chest.

"Camille Winter, Handler of the Winter family…" she replied, expecting a reaction from the man, but all she got was a raised eyebrow from him.

"Is that your noble title?" he asked.

"Noble? What are you even talking about?" she asked back, covering her face with a bit of embarrassment.

"Oh, so you are not? It's rare for commoners to have family names, so I just figured-" he tried to explain but was cut off by Camille.

"Okay, stop right there. Let's reel it back. I told you my name, so now it's your turn."

"I'm Dante Shadowvale, Specialist Warlock…" he calmly said.

"Hmmm, never heard of that family name…" Camille pondered aloud.

"That's because it's a place, not a family name…" Dante answered, explaining that commoners used the region they were born in as last names, while only nobles had family names.

The warlock could see the faces of confusion, not only on Camille but on her lackeys, who kept staring as if he were crazy.

Their reactions made him remember his interaction with Aamon, where he was told that his body was sent through the celestial alignment convergence to another realm.

"Umm, could you tell me which nation is this?" Dante asked, only adding to the people's perplexion.

"We are in Novaria," Camille answered thoughtfully, understanding that Dante wasn't lying or acting like a fool.

"I see. So I did land in another world…" he muttered, standing up from the bed, tugging the chain in his cuffs, and breaking them apart.

The men pointed their weapons once again after witnessing his inhumane strength, but Camille waved her hand and took a small step forward. "Did you say you landed here from another world?" she asked.

"Yeah, and honestly, I have no idea what's happening right now. So, if you could give me some information about this place, I won't take any more of your time…" the warlock politely said, pointing his palm at the ground and producing an arcane circle that glowed with a purple hue.

Not letting Camille respond, the warehouse shook lightly, and a small column made of obsidian stone rose from the ground, portraying black skulls on its sides and a bowl at the top.

The column went up to Dante's waist, and as everyone in the warehouse kept staring at him dumbfoundedly, he raised one hand over the obsidian piece.

In a quick motion, the warlock used his other hand to slice his palm open, pouring his blood into the bowl and making the adornment skulls' eyes glow.

'I saw that. His hand looked as sharp as a blade for a quick second!' Camille thought, keeping her eyes locked on the man.

After the bowl produced a blinding light, a black, hollow stone with a calming greenish energy was atop the column, replacing the blood that was poured mere seconds before.

"I appreciate you taking care of my wounds. I probably won't use this entire healthstone…" Dante commented as he grabbed the stone from the altar, which slowly retracted back into the earth until it disappeared.

The warlock clenched the stone tightly in his fist, and a subtle green mist enveloped the wounded areas in his shoulder along with the rest of his torso.

*phew* "All done…" he said as he started to remove the bandages around his body.

"Uhh, you probably shouldn't do that-..." said a woman holding a rifle next to Camille, but the platinum-haired woman stopped her, observing the warlock and noticing that his wounds had healed entirely.

*pfft* "Hahahaha!" Camille burst into laughter.

"I'm glad I have people here to see this with me, or else I would have thought I was crazy…" she said while still slightly chuckling in disbelief.

Camille took a deep breath to calm her laughter and approached the man before stretching her hand.

"You said you were Dante, right? I think we can help each other out," she said confidently with a smile.

While the warlock was interested in knowing everything about the modern world, Camille wanted to learn more about the magical realm, so they shook hands and came to an agreement to satisfy each other's curiosity for the time being.