Adam ate in silence.
The food Herozen had brought was simple—a piece of flatbread and a small portion of cold lentils wrapped in a rough cloth. It wasn't much, but it was the first thing Adam's body had taken in since the transmigration. He chewed slowly, letting the hunger in his stomach settle.
Herozen talked while Adam ate. About the neighbors. About something that happened near the well yesterday. About a cart that had broken an axle in the main path. Adam heard the words but didn't process them. His mind was elsewhere.
When he finished eating, Adam looked at Herozen.
"Is there a place around here where I can be alone? Just for a while."
Herozen stopped talking.
He stared at Adam for a long moment. The suspicion that had been building behind his eyes finally settled into something heavier. He let out a deep breath.
"I knew it," he said quietly. "They really beat you hard this time."
He paused, then shook his head.
"But it's not new. Every kid around here gets it from those guys. You're not the first. You won't be the last."
He exhaled again, long and slow. The resignation in his voice was old. Practiced.
Adam didn't correct him. He didn't explain.
The truth was simpler than what Herozen assumed. Adam's memories were still incomplete. Fragmented. Scattered. Large parts of the original Adam's life were still locked behind a fog he couldn't see through. Names, places, routines—all of it was still a puzzle with too many missing pieces. He needed time alone to sort through what he had and figure out what he was still missing.
But he didn't say any of that.
Herozen stood up. "Come on. I know a place."
Adam followed him out of the shack.
The walk through the slum was short, but every step added weight to what Adam already knew.
The paths between the houses were narrow. The walls on either side were made of scrap wood and dried mud. Laundry hung from ropes strung between rooftops. A group of children sat in the dirt, playing with stones. A woman carried a basin of water on her hip, her face drawn and tired. An old man sat on a broken stool outside his house, staring at nothing.
In his previous life, Adam had lived in a proper house. Air conditioning. A bed with clean sheets. He came home from school, ate a warm meal, and played games on his phone until he fell asleep. He had electricity. He had running water. He had everything that made life comfortable without even thinking about it.
Now he was here. In a place where electricity didn't exist. Where phones were beyond imagination. Where people broke their backs hauling timber and washing other people's clothes just to eat once a day.
Something cold pressed against his chest. Not fear exactly, but a quiet awareness of what his life had become. A discomfort he couldn't shake.
But then—almost immediately—something else pushed it down.
The flame.
That tiny, impossible warmth he had felt below his navel. The proof that this world had something his old one didn't. Something beyond technology. Beyond comfort. Beyond anything he had ever experienced.
He didn't know if it was magic. He didn't know what it was called. But it was real. And the excitement of that discovery—the raw, pulsing thrill of it—buried every fear and worry under its weight.
Adam kept walking. His face showed nothing.
The slum thinned out as they moved further from the center. The houses grew more sparse. The paths widened into rough, uneven ground. Eventually, the wooden shacks stopped entirely, and Adam found himself walking through a stretch of wild land—grass, scattered bushes, a few stumps where trees had been cut down long ago.
There was no gate. No checkpoint. No wall marking the boundary. The city simply ended, and the open land began. Anyone could walk out. Anyone could walk back in.
As the space opened up, more memories surfaced.
Adam understood now. The slum and Khayer City together formed the lower section of a larger settlement. Beyond them, further in, was where the upper class lived. And above even them, the noble family that governed the entire city. Their district had its own perimeter—a real border, maintained and guarded, several kilometers away from where Adam stood now.
This outer stretch had no such protection. It was just open land. Partly wild, partly cleared.
Herozen stopped at the top of a slight rise. Below them, a narrow river cut through the land, its water dark and slow. A single tree stood at the edge of the bank—thick trunk, wide branches, enough shade to sit under.
Herozen turned to Adam.
"You found this place yourself, you know."
Adam looked at the tree. Another fragment clicked into place. The original Adam had come here too. To sit alone. To think.
"I need some time by myself," Adam said.
Herozen looked at him. His expression was hard to read—half worry, half resignation.
"I'll leave you alone. But you'll come home, right?"
Adam smiled. He raised his hand and gave a thumbs up.
Herozen stared at the gesture. The thumbs up. The smile. None of it was normal for the Adam he knew. But he had already decided this was just the aftermath of a bad beating, so he let it go.
He sighed deeply, turned around, and walked back toward the slum.
Adam watched him leave until he disappeared into the tree line.
Then he turned to the river, to the tree, to the open sky above him.
He sat down beneath the branches, crossed his legs, and placed his hands on his knees.
"Now," he said quietly to himself, "I need to properly understand what this energy is."