"Thank you for shopping with us. Have a great day."
The woman's voice echoed as the boy walked out of the bookshop.
He had long black hair packed into a ponytail, and wore a white shirt paired with oddly dark trousers that one could mistake for a jumper if they squinted hard enough.
A smile worth a thousand words was etched on his face, his gaze fixed on the three books he had just bought.
Even though he was already outside the shop, the cashier could not keep her eyes off him, a smile almost mirroring his growing wider each second she looked at him.
There was a good reason for this, of course.
Adrian Alaora had always been known as the sunshine in people's lives. He was fun to be around, a little weird and mysterious, the kind of person that made you want to understand him more.
It did not help that he was ridiculously good looking as well, making it almost impossible for anyone to see him in a bad light.
After taking a few steps forward, staring intently at his books and already envisioning how he was going to tear through all three of them the moment he got home, he suddenly bumped into someone.
Thud!
His books tumbled to the ground.
"Oh, I am so sorry--"
Before he even got the chance to look at the face of the person he had slammed into, he noticed they had already walked past him.
Their body was hidden under a brown cloak, and it almost seemed like they were in a hurry, seeing how fast they were moving.
Adrian sighed.
"Honestly, I need to be more careful where I walk."
Without wasting any time, he dropped to his knees to pick up his books as more people began to walk past him, some even going as far as to kick them to the side.
Despite this, Adrian was not one to be angered so easily. He brushed it off, ignoring their rude actions entirely.
But then, the following second, he felt it.
The moment his hand made contact with the ground, it shook. The earth vibrated heavily, as though something massive was beating directly from beneath the surface.
At first, his mind went completely blank, trying to understand what could have been causing such an earthquake without any warning whatsoever.
But then, he began to hear the murmurs from everyone around him.
"What is that?"
"A-Are you seeing this?"
"Someone film this, holy shit!"
There were those who stayed and surrounded the area, their eyes completely fixed towards the sky, while others, those who were afraid of what they saw, immediately began to run for their lives.
With all this commotion, Adrian finally rose to his feet, so he too could look towards the sky.
That was when he saw it.
"What the--"
The sky before him had turned completely purplish in color, swallowing the sun whole.
And for every inch of space that was left, a portal hung in the air, one that seemed to be growing larger in size the more time passed.
The wind had changed too. Harsher, far more violent, so much so that if it made contact with your skin, it felt as though it was going to peel the flesh right off the bone.
Adrian held his books tight. He did not plan to wait around and see what this was all about.
Immediately, he knew he needed to run.
But before he could even move a muscle from where he stood, the sky opened up.
From within its opening, red glowing rocks began to fall.
It was sudden, which made it almost impossible for anyone to react.
One by one they fell from the sky, landing right on top of people and sinking into their bodies as though they were liquid.
The moment one touched someone, their body would collapse in on itself, like a black hole erupting from their insides.
People fell to the ground in hundreds, all over the world.
And of course, Adrian was no exception to this.
"Shit!"
He ran, sprinting as fast as he could while ignoring the people that were falling and crumpling with each step he took.
However, as he ran past a dark alleyway, a strange female voice whispered to him.
"There you are."
The voice was eerie. Too eerie for him to ignore.
Upon turning his gaze to check who it could be, he noticed a figure standing there in the dark. Just like the person who had bumped into him earlier, this one was also dressed in a brown cloak.
And then--
A red rock slammed into his head, and his body dropped to the ground almost instantly.
...
'Where am I?'
He wondered to himself, since in that moment all he could see was the dark expanse of nothingness.
It felt like he was floating through an unknown void, drifting with no destination whatsoever.
'Oh right, I got hit with that rock. Am I dead? Just like that?'
Silence settled in his mind for a while.
'I wonder... what her reaction would be when she finds out about this?'
Adrian sighed out loud.
Not once did he think he would die in such a way.
If he did not know better, he would have assumed it was something straight out of a novel.
[Congratulations, your soul has been fully transferred into Eternal Throne Online.]
[Welcome, and the system wishes you well on your journey to the throne.]
'What?'
Suddenly his eyes snapped open.
The first thing he was greeted with was the bright light from the sun radiating directly onto his face.
In order not to blind himself, he squinted and sat upright.
This was when he noticed he had been lying on grass the entire time. He was no longer on the streets of the Earth he remembered. This time, the entire place had no buildings, no roads, no cars.
Instead, all it had was grass and trees, stretching further than the eye could see.
Even more so, he could see a large city off in the far distance, with a road already laid out to guide anyone towards it.
Still, one question bugged him above all else.
'Where the hell am I?'