Dongfang Chen dreamed.

He dreamed a bright, laughing dream, like wind chimes shaking in a dawn breeze.

In the dream, he seemed to become a girl, finding friends like lanterns in fog, walking through memories that shone like wet stones after rain.

In that dream, he met a silver-haired maiden, snowflake-soft and moonlit, beautiful enough to make winter feel warm.

But it was only a dream. Morning stood in the doorway like cold water in a basin, and trouble waited like thorns along a path.

Then let’s hit the Adventurers’ Guild and find a party.

Dongfang Chen stepped into the guild, a hive of voices and armor, hunting for the kind of companions you could trust like rope on a cliff.

Anyone heading to the Rainbow Secret Realm?

Are you insane?

Who’d go to a place like that—do you want to die?

The Rainbow Secret Realm was a storm with teeth; only desperadoes rode into that squall.

Other places might offer steady hands, but if you named the Rainbow Secret Realm, even shadows declined; Dongfang Chen couldn’t find a single soul to stand beside him.

No lively catgirl, no sharp-tongued swordswoman, no runaway heiress, no chuunibyou mage, no saintly knight who liked pain—none of the colorful people light novels promise.

He found only scar-faced men and thick-bellied brutes, the kind that looked like knives tucked under their grins; the whispers said you were safer alone.

In adventure, partners are bridges; good ones hold when water rises, bad ones break when treasure glints.

I’m just a regular guy, not the main character.

He shook his head, left the idea of recruiting by the door, and walked out alone, same as yesterday.

He rented a carriage, turned in his hotel key, and let the journey begin like a wheel rolling out of a gate.

Clouds hung low like sheep over the ridges, bleached white above the mountains.

The forest road curled like a snake through roots; birds cut the air from branch to branch like black ink strokes.

Only the wheels spoke, rumbling and humming, beating a drum on the dirt.

A jeep would’ve been wiser, but Dongfang Chen kept the reins and the old rhythm, driving a carriage toward Rainbow Valley.

Two reasons kept his hands on the leather: an engine in the New Land drew arrows like thunder draws trees, and he couldn’t afford a jeep; even the rental folk shut their shutters for journeys this dangerous.

The beginning was quiet, a pond with no ripples—no bandits, no fugitives, just colonist roads and friendly adventurers nodding like passing windmills to break the stillness.

But still water turns; three days passed, and Dongfang Chen drove past the edge of the map into the gut of the New Land.

They called it the land of chaos, a stretch where the dust remembered screams.

Fugitives and thugs, bandits and gangs, a pack of wolves in human coats—this road had a reputation that bit; regular adventurers gave it wide berth.

There was no other way; the road to Rainbow Valley ran through this thorn hedge.

Robbery!

Stop the cart and hand over anything that shines.

Sorry… you picked the wrong traveler.

Steel flashed like the tongue of a snake, and Dongfang Chen answered with fire feathers, scarlet quills unfurling like a phoenix spreading wings.

Just keep it like before, he told himself, and his heartbeat thudded like drummed earth.

In the land of chaos, mercy was a soft rope; you could hang by it. Killing was the only bridge that held, and the boy couldn’t afford a second path.

The fire feathers circled bandits like a flaming flock; their screams crawled into his ears like beetles, long, broken, drenched in terror and ash.

He was sick of that sound; he didn’t like killing and never had—every death tasted sour, like rotten berries hidden under snow.

But necessity is a stone in the road; you kick it, or it trips you.

Here, strength sets your place like a stake in the ground; spare a wolf, and it learns your scent, then returns with a hungrier pack.

Spare a tiger, raise trouble.

Away from civilization, you learn how civilization smells—bread warm, doors shut, and no one clawing your throat for coin.

On the road, Dongfang Chen met one bandit pack after another; the boy who bent fire showed no softness in the fight.

After each clash he let one go—the last to rush, the most timid, a rabbit shaking under brush.

It spread his name like smoke on the wind, and it fed a sliver of compassion he kept folded like paper in his chest.

He knew it was a kind of hypocrisy, a patch on a torn coat.

Maybe teaching them would be the right road, but he didn’t have that map or that light.

He was no monk from old tales; he owed them nothing, and trust here was as rare as blue roses.

Only great power buys mercy; the boy could only afford survival.

For now… it’s going okay.

He found a stream that sang over stones, washed blood from skin and cloth until the water ran pink and clear.

He was strong—upper elite tier, sharp as a spear point—but traps bit ankles and ambushes scratched ribs; pain gnawed him like winter wind.

Sometimes he wanted sleep to swallow him like moss does fallen logs, to sink into meadow quiet and never wake.

No killing, no quarrels—what a world that would be, where struggle lived only on courts and in games.

But shadows don’t vanish by wishing; as long as this world turns, human hands will push and hurt.

Even so, light exists—childhood friends like sun on rain, strangers’ kindness like tea offered on a cold road.

There’s darkness in people, yet there are bright things worth guarding like a candle cupped in two hands.

Rest’s over; time to roll.

He changed clothes, tightened the harness, and pointed the carriage toward Rainbow Valley like an arrow toward its target.

Sun rose, sun fell; the wheel wrote circles in dust—three days slipped by.

Sure enough, after his thunder-quick, storm-hard methods, bandits grew scarce, their courage thinning like fog at noon.

He couldn’t shield everyone; passing a bend, Dongfang Chen found a battlefield still smoking like a black kettle.

Blood stained the dirt, fresh and sticky; a burned carriage whispered heat, black flames licking its ribs.

Horses and adventurers lay scattered like broken chess pieces; crates and backpacks yawned open, stripped down to nothing.

Dreams that once rode into the New Land lay shattered and buried, sand swallowing their names.

Would I end up like them?

His gaze touched the dead, and his thoughts found his own reflection there like a pale face in a river.

If accident took me, would I rot under open sky too?

He was kind at his core; some things refused to be ignored.

He halted the cart, pulled out a shovel that glinted like a dull moon.

At least, I hope you can rest with dignity.

He bent to dig, and hoofbeats closed in like thunder on the plain.

Men rode in hard, curved blades bright as crescent moons; they looked like iron grown arms, tougher than gutter thieves.

Found you at last, fire boy.

Haha… so that’s the nickname you spread in your mouths?

After today, that name gets buried with you.

Oh? You plan to come at me? Guess not enough of you died yet.

Dongfang Chen grinned, calm as snow on bamboo, showing not a flicker of fear.

Hmph! I called in every raider within ten miles—brothers from every camp! Today you won’t sprout wings and fly.

Their leader swung his blade and laughed; at his shout, bodies poured in like locusts, a swarm thick as rain—hundreds.

Dongfang Chen couldn’t handle that flood; the numbers alone were a mountain.

You gathered all this, just to kill me? Get real—I don’t carry much, and whoever swings better bring a life to claim it.

Sparks danced in his palm like fireflies, and the bandits flinched a step; his name had tangled with death in their rumors.

Don’t be scared! Remember that fat bounty—kill the kid, and the coin’s ours.

Yeah! He’s alone! Hit him!

A fat bounty!?

Dongfang Chen saw fanatic heat in their eyes, the kind money lights like wine in the blood, hotter than fear, brighter than sense.

Damn it.

He understood the shape of danger; he couldn’t break this tide, and every exit was netted shut.

Kill!

You! Do you not care about living!?

He cut the first bandit in half, the blade clean and the blood spraying the sky like a red banner.

It didn’t slow them; it stoked them—greed roared like fire in dry grass.

Kill! Take him, and the money’s mine!

Kill!

A lopsided slaughter began, a drum mismatched to the dancers.

He lost count of how many times his sword rose and fell, a metronome in a storm.

He lost count of how many horses slammed into him, iron hearts pounding against bone.

He lost count of how many lives burned under his flame, sparks turning to ash.

He lost count of how many screams tore at his ears, voices breaking like old wood.

Everything in front of him was blood, a red river flooding the world.

His body felt borrowed, a puppet cut from its strings.

Pain stepped out of him; numbness sat in the space like frost on leaves.

One thought burned in his skull like a coal.

Live.

Is he a monster!? He’s killed eighty of us!

Wait… he fell!!!

He couldn’t raise the sword; his arm was straw, not steel.

He couldn’t cast; the words had blown away like feathers in wind.

He couldn’t stand; his knees were glass, shattered along the grain.

The sky was red as a wound; the world drifted from him like a boat from shore at dusk.

Is this… the end?

They say your life rolls past before you die, a lantern parade in fog.

It was true—memories fluttered by like pages in a storm, familiar and helpless.

Busy, muddled, most of it felt like that—steps forward that circled back like tracks in snow.

He’d moved, but nothing had landed; empty hands cupped empty air.

How funny, and how sad.

He could’ve gone to the new planet with everyone, but chose to stay behind in Lin Meng like a root refusing rain.

He hated loneliness, yet came here to eat silence like stale bread.

He saved no hometown, reached no Rainbow Secret Realm.

He would die here, a nameless stone in dust, his death worth less than a leaf in wind.

In the end I'm still alone, a lantern guttering in the wind; not even one heart left to grieve for me.

Then what was all that killing for, with blood like fading dye on my hands?

So I must've walked the wrong way, like a compass gone wild.

Maybe I shouldn't have come to the New Land, a migratory bird blown off course.

Maybe people like me are doomed to fail, like seed that won't root in foreign soil.

Maybe I'm nothing but an incorrigible tsundere, a hedgehog hugging its own spines.

Maybe...

Regret, like cold rain against a paper window,

Remorse, like ash on the tongue,

Loneliness, like a moon with no tide,

Despair, like a well with no rope,

Confusion, like mist swallowing the path,

Fear, like night wind under the eaves,

...

Under that gray hush, Dongfang Chen slowly closed his eyes, like dusk folding over a still lake.