"What did you bring, you troublesome girl?"
The old man’s voice echoed in the air, his narrowed eyes examining each one of us.
But unusually, Arthania did not answer immediately.
"Haven’t we discussed you calling me a troublesome girl several times... or has senility finally eaten your brain, old man?"
The old man raised a brow as the wrinkles on his face shifted with the motion.
"Look at the way you speak to me before you complain."
Wow, are they arguing like children now?
Is this what a person becomes after living for hundreds of years in a place like this?
"Come on, you know I call you old man because you call me a troublesome girl."
The old man let out a breath as if he had grown tired of this long ago, then changed the subject.
"So, what brought you here... and who are these strangers?"
Arthania turned her head toward us.
"Well, it’s a long story for you, and this isn’t a suitable place to stand and chat."
She was right, because other people might pass by and see us, and we would get stuck in a loop of questions and answers.
And it seemed Arthania had thought of this beforehand and avoided areas with many people.
Arthania walked toward the open door, gesturing for us to follow.
"Come on, go ahead and enter... you can consider this like your home as well."
With that, she passed by the old man and entered the house.
But for us, it was different... none of us were reckless enough to follow her immediately, especially since this old man was far stronger than he appeared.
So, for a few moments, we stood there staring at each other with uneasy and awkward looks, until Arthania’s voice came from inside and broke the silence.
"Come on, what are you waiting for out there?"
Hearing that, the old man sighed again before turning and entering the house, leaving the door open for us.
"You can come in, children."
Well, this man seemed different from the others. It could be said he was like Arthania... like a real human.
I gave the others a look before we stepped forward and entered through the door.
The moment I passed through it, the atmosphere changed, as if we had moved to a completely different place. At the same time, the door closed behind Leona as soon as she entered.
"Oh!"
She even let out a small cry from the surprise.
But I did not care. Instead, my eyes were fixed on what lay ahead.
This place was nothing like Arthania’s house, which was organized and simply divided. Instead, this entire floor was an open space filled with worktables and many scattered items.
Even the walls were covered with hanging papers and diagrams.
Amid all this, Arthania looked around while muttering.
"Messy... always like this."
At the same time, the old man walked to one side of the place, then threw himself onto a wooden chair beside a wooden table.
He sat there carelessly, pulling out what looked like a smoking pipe and bringing it to his mouth. Then, with a bit of essence on his finger, he lit the tobacco and took a deep breath, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the air.
"So, will one of you kindly explain instead of standing there in silence and staring at me like that... I’m not a fossil in some old museum after all."
What an impatient old man.
"Or are you all mute?"
And ill-tempered.
"Is he insulting us or what?" Izel muttered beside me.
"You could say that." I replied without thinking.
The old man noticed our whispering as he raised a brow.
"Well, now you can’t even speak properly and are mixing your words together."
"How about you show some respect to my guests, you senile old man?" Arthania intervened as she approached us, looking around.
"There isn’t even a single place to sit."
Arthania let out a breath.
"Anyway, let me introduce you to each other."
She pointed at the old man as he exhaled another cloud of smoke.
"This old man’s name is Elias... but you can call him old man as well. In short, he is someone who specializes in space magic."
Then she pointed at us.
"As for them, I met them yesterday while I was out hunting, and they’re looking for a way to return to their home."
Elias raised a brow.
"Their home?... does this desolate world still have humans?... then where is this home of theirs?"
Arthania looked at me for a few moments before answering.
"They said it’s on an island in the middle of the ocean, where Australia used to be."
Elias’ expression shifted to confusion.
"Then what brought you here across all that distance?"
Arthania fell silent, her eyes stopping on me, while I thought for a moment before answering.
"We were spatially transported by mistake and found ourselves here."
I spoke while staring at the old man, who narrowed his eyes further.
"So you can speak after all... but I don’t understand how you could end up here by mistake."
I hesitated slightly before answering vaguely.
"Let’s just say we fell victim to some kind of magic."
The old man fell silent, his gray eyes meeting mine directly, as if searching for something inside me.
He stayed like that for a while, but stopped when he saw no reaction from me.
Instead, he looked at the others one by one.
"So you’re six lost children on a distant continent... what a pitiful group you are."
He spoke as if trying to show some sympathy, but his stiff face failed to express it.
"So why did you bring them to me?" he asked, but this time it was directed at Arthania.
She smiled. "Of course, to help them."
He brought the pipe to his mouth, taking another breath of smoke.
"And why should I do that?"
"Come on, old man, stop pretending to be cold and try to find a way to send them back."
He lowered the pipe from his mouth as white smoke rose from it.
"Pretending?... even if I wanted to help them, there’s nothing I can do."
"Can’t you create something to send them directly to their home or something like that?" Arthania asked, while Elias stood up from his seat, the pipe still in his hand.
He walked to the far end of the messy space, where many papers were hanging on the walls.
As I looked toward that side, I caught sight of something familiar and began walking after the old man, moving away from the others, whose gazes followed me.
"He’s not going to do anything, right?" Izel muttered.
The old man stopped in front of a large paper hanging on the wall and stood there staring at it, until I asked.
"Is this a map of the world?"
Well, it was the world map I remembered from my previous life with all the continents on it, but I asked just to pretend.
The old man gave me a glance over his shoulder before answering.
"More accurately, it’s a map of the old world before those disasters fell upon us."
"Then how much has it changed now?" I asked another question.
The old man released a cloud of smoke.
"To the point that this map is no longer very useful."
He pointed to a corner of the map at the bottom—specifically Australia.
"This is where you came from before it sank and turned into small remnants."
"And where are we now?"
He moved his hand again, pointing to a place in the upper half of Africa, specifically the western part of it.
"Here."
If the terrain hadn’t changed much, and based on what he said, we were about 2000 kilometers away from the northern coast of the continent.
Elias turned and looked at me.
"And if what you’re saying is true, then there’s no way for me to help you... maybe if it were on this continent, I could prepare something to send you close to your home, but an island in the middle of the ocean at such a massive distance... that is simply impossible for me."
If this was considered impossible for him, then what about another world?
Our gazes met as we stood facing each other at the same height.
"Of course, that is if your words are true." There was a lot of doubt in his tone.
It was clear that he doubted my honesty... well, I had been lying from the start.
I avoided his gaze and stared at the map, or more specifically, at the many points on it across the five continents and the ocean.
"What do those points indicate?" I asked.
The old man turned his head and looked at the map over his shoulder.
"Those... they are places that used to contain rifts in the past, but now they hold no meaning."
I looked at the red points on the map. Some of them were very large, especially one at the far south of Africa and another in Asia... perhaps those were the places where Rank 7 monsters had emerged.
But what caught my attention was another mark—two intersecting black lines—at the top section of the map.
"And what about that?" I asked.
The old man looked to where I pointed, but this time he didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he hesitated for a moment.
"I don’t know, but it was said that ancient ruins were discovered there in the last period before the rifts were closed."
I raised a brow.
"Ruins?"
He nodded.
"Yes... ruins from outside this world."