The floor shone white without a trace of dirt. The expensive marble, which even high-ranking nobles could barely afford, was laid so abundantly that it covered every visible inch of the floor.

“…….”

Ethan lowered his gaze beneath the “three-dimensional screen” disguised as the sky. It felt like he was standing in the middle of a city. And yet it was completely unlike any city he knew.

The ground resembled the polished floors found in luxurious mansions. It was paved like a road, but normally one would use gravel – not smooth marble like this. If a carriage passed over it, it would be shattered!

But what filled that space were buildings of a style he had never seen before.

It was absurd enough that such expensive marble was used as a flooring material, let alone outdoors, but the buildings were even more unbelievable.

Not even the Imperial Palace in the capital was that tall. The buildings rose high into the sky as if to pierce it, and their sheer size was extraordinary.

There weren’t just one or two, but dozens of massive structures, so big that they made him feel like an insect.

There were also countless things he had never seen before – chunks of metal flying rapidly through the sky, the dazzling exteriors of brightly lit buildings.

He couldn’t tell how wide this place was, but one thing was clear: this was inside something. A cave, or perhaps underground.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you when you woke up. That arm – was it something you used to have and then lost, or was it never there to begin with?”

Ethan squeezed his now shortened right arm. The shriveled flesh was smooth, without a single scar, not even a stitch mark – not an unsightly crease where it might have been sewn shut.

“It was cut off.”

If he had to pinpoint the main reason for his capture, it would be the absence of his dominant right arm.

Though he had tried to train himself to use both hands equally, in the end – constantly fighting in wars and hunting monsters to survive – he had no choice but to rely on the arm he was most skilled with.

There was a reason they said a swordsman’s life depended on his arm.

Ethan clenched his only remaining hand tightly and gritted his teeth in frustration.

He had faced death countless times, but never had he been so humiliated.

When the knights had stormed in, he hadn’t even been able to defend himself properly, let alone put up a real fight.

“Kerik, that damned bastard.”

The mercenary band was a gathering place for the marginalized-not only former slaves like himself, but also exiled nobles, illegitimate royal offspring desperate to survive despite their disgrace, and all manner of people deemed lowborn by society.

No matter how others pointed fingers, they defined their own relationships –

closer than blood, but not quite family.

Most had been betrayed by brothers, parents, and relatives.

Abandoned by their own blood, they accepted strangers-not related by blood-as husbands and wives.

To them, blood no longer meant family.

Though others couldn’t understand, there were unspoken rules among them.

No matter how bad things got between them, they never betrayed a comrade.

Runaways, criminals, illegal immigrants – mercenaries who couldn’t enter the bright world were often people who had no family left,

and the only people they could rely on were their fellow mercenaries.

The work of a mercenary has always been dirty.

Murder, monster hunting, slaughtering corpses –

It was the nobles who gave the orders,

But they kept their pride intact and dumped all the dirt on the mercenaries.

Every time they threw a bag of coins,

and the mercenaries would pick up the money from the ground.

That was the position of the mercenaries from the outside.

In other words, whether it was money or monster by-products,

the only ones who could treat each other as equals and make a deal as fellow human beings –

were the mercenaries themselves.

That’s why they called each other comrades.

But Kerik broke that unspoken rule.

He cut off Ethan’s arm and gave it to the Knights in exchange for a fortune in gold coins.

“I’m sorry, Ethan. I have to survive too, don’t I?”

What a joke.

They had managed to survive until now.

The fact that Kerik would go so far as to stab him in the back and hand him over to the Knights could only mean one thing –

whether as a commoner or a serf, he wanted to buy himself a new status and escape the life of a mercenary.

‘What an idiot.’

As if he could really live well with a new status.

Ethan twisted his lips into a crooked grin, mocking Kerik.

If it was so easy to escape his current status, how easy would the world be?

‘Wasn’t he originally a noble?’

Even after hitting rock bottom, that fool still thought he could go back to where he came from –

from the status of a mercenary, the very class most despised by nobles.

To say “money buys everything” was a privilege reserved for those who already had status.

A deal could only begin when both parties were on equal footing as human beings.

That’s why mercenaries only ever chose other mercenaries as their trading partners.

It wasn’t without reason.

“Then shall I reattach it for you?”

“What?”

“It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

What was he, some kind of toy to be taken apart and put back together?

Ethan stared, stunned, his mouth slightly open.

Unaware of Ethan’s thoughts, If clasped her hands behind her back and tilted her head, her eyes moving slowly.

Each of his feet had five toes.

There was no sign of anything missing or healed,

so the people here must have five toes like him.

Since any broken or cracked bones had healed well enough, that seemed to be fine.

And since he could still stand without any problems, there was no problem with his legs.

There was no problem with his waist, which kept his body balanced.

From the way he had swung his arm earlier, there were no problems with his upper body either.

As expected, the only thing missing was his right arm.

Half of his upper arm was gone, but since the nerves and muscles were still intact, reattaching it wouldn’t be a problem.

If the whole part had been missing, he’d have to regrow the muscles first, and the adjustment would have taken much longer.

If floated up using the gravity control device embedded in her body.

At the sight of her gently rising, Ethan instinctively tensed, on guard.

“Come here. I’ll make you an arm.”

Although she floated gently, her speed was no faster than walking.

Ethan furrowed his brow, but followed her in silence.

There was nothing he could do if he stayed here anyway.

Exploring this place was one thing, but there were also those strange metal dolls he had seen earlier –

A lot to investigate.

If some of them were suitable for underwater exploration, didn’t that mean there were others for other purposes as well?

As he walked, Ethan continued to scan his surroundings.

Not a single sign of life – just metal dolls of various shapes and sizes.

In fact, the only presence that felt alive was this woman.

The woman who called herself Ancient Human.

***

“Come this way.”

As the woman moved forward, the lights above the metal tunnel came on with each step.

As they passed, the lights flickered out after a brief moment, and the path behind them was once again completely dark.

The building he assumed was the centre of this place was noticeably larger,

and although there were many metal dolls inside, they were different to the ones he had seen before.

If the ones outside had been cleaning or doing chores,

those in here seemed to be guarding something.

“What could be in here?”

The faint vibrations echoing from all directions made Ethan’s ears twitch slightly.

Though subtle, the steady, rhythmic sound was unlike the resonance of any musical instrument.

“A magical device?”

No, it was quieter than that – yet it carried a sense of compressed power.

The hum of engines and various machines at work heightened Ethan’s sense of alertness.

While he remained wary, If floated ahead and what had appeared to be a dead end wall suddenly opened up in front of them.

A massive hall as large as the building had appeared from the outside.

But unlike the other areas, this place felt chaotic, disordered.

Inside, glass domes as tall as she was –

were piled high with bones.

Countless skeletons filled them.

“I am the only one left. When I woke up, everyone else was dead. Too much time had passed and the machines had broken down.”

Ethan’s steps slowed.

He had seen his share of piles of corpses, but never anything like this.

If anything, this was more like a massive grave.

“…….”

Past the silent Ethan, If pressed a button on one of the cryo-sleep chambers.

As the lid slid open, what had once been a human collapsed into a pile of bones.

“This one, and this one…”

She brushed aside the remaining bone fragments with her hands,

She eagerly reached in and pulled out something, holding it carefully to her chest.

Ethan let out a dry laugh at the absurd sight.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m out of parts.”

“That… wasn’t that a human? According to you, wasn’t that one of the same ancient humans as you?”

Ethan jerked his chin towards the scattered bones on the ground.

If, her arms full of various parts, followed his gesture and looked down.

“Yes, that’s right. His name was Seti.”

They even knew each other’s names. Ethan furrowed his brow.

“Are all Ancient Humans like this?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Have you no respect for the dead?”

She tilted her head. Respect.

The proper way to speak or behave.

But they were already dead – what was there to respect?

Once dead, everything was over.

“That’s hard to understand. What kind of respect are you talking about?”

“I’m saying don’t treat a corpse like rubbish.”

“…?”

Again, If tilted her head in confusion.

She tried to understand for a moment, but with nothing to go on, she couldn’t even grasp what the problem was.

Her eyes rolled thoughtfully before she finally spoke.

“But it’s rubbish, isn’t it?”

Because it was already dead.

Ethan’s face hardened at her words.

Seeing his expression, If blinked slowly.

“…Forget it.”

Rubbish is rubbish.

Ethan picked up the scattered bones on the floor and put them back in the glass dome.

The way they lay in the open chamber didn’t look right at all.

Staring silently at the sight, Ethan took off his worn and tattered jacket and draped it over the bones.

It was a miserable excuse for a grave.

Even mercenaries or slaves who died in the service of nobles were often discarded like this.

If they had a grave at all, they were considered lucky.

If watched Ethan’s actions for a moment, then turned around with a twirl.

‘Why is he doing such a strange thing?’

The question briefly crossed her mind, but at the moment she was more focused on taking care of what she had in her arms.

The synthetic metal she had taken from the cryo-sleep chamber –

would become the components of a prosthetic arm.

Although she knew the theory, this would be the first time she would actually make one.

She floated over to the control station set up in the next room.

Her feet never touched the ground as she moved.

Having lived in a world where flying with gravity control was the norm,

floating was much more natural to her than walking.

Behind the reinforced glass, a mechanical arm deftly handled the parts she had collected.

It moved without hesitation – starting with the basic frame, then layering on the flexible metal that would act as the muscles, and the ultra-fine nanomachines designed to receive and respond to electrical signals from the nervous system.

Thanks to the earlier scanning of Ethan’s body by a medical android,

the prosthesis quickly took shape and fitted perfectly.

It would also have to have an automatic repair system,

and, of course, a layer of synthetic skin to make it look natural…

“Ah.”

She did not have enough synthetic skin either.

Just like the cryo-sleep chambers, most of the machines here had lost their functionality.

Only a few basic android units were left.

“Hmm.”

If brushed away the strands of hair that tickled her cheek, then suddenly sliced her hand through the air.

Snip.

Long strands of hair fell to the floor.

From a distance, Ethan’s face twisted in shock as he watched.

Whirr.

The reinforced glass that had blocked the way slid open and the mechanical arm inside picked up the cut hair and returned it to the chamber.

The fine strands were woven tightly together, strand by strand, forming an artificial skin.

“Why go to all this trouble to make an arm for someone you’ve never met?”

It made no sense – treating the remains of the dead as trash, yet cutting off her own hair to make him a prosthetic.

At Ethan’s question, If turned her head.

The hair that had once dragged along the floor now swayed at her waist, suddenly much shorter.

“I got bored.”

“You do things like this just because you’re bored?”

“Yes. After about seventy years, I’ve read all the books here.”