Systemless in a Parallel World



One year later.

In a large, silent room where the sound of a ticking clock on the wall was everything that could be heard.

The curtains were drawn shut, blocking out any trace of daylight.

The air in the room felt heavy almost suffocating. The figure lying on the bed was unmoving, with blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. The only sign of life was the slow rise and fall of his chest.

The lying figure was none other than Zayn, and he had just lost what was most important to him. The Grimoire of the Ancient.

It had been stolen, ripped out of his Soul seemingly without difficulties.

His Soul, damaged and crippled, couldn't stand the sudden loss of the Grimoire of the Ancient. It forcefully shut down Zayn's body until he would heal up.

Zayn had poured his everything into the Grimoire of the Ancient, but now it was gone. All of his hard work was devastating…well, maybe not everything.

His Spirits had been expelled from the Grimoire of the Ancient, and they sealed themselves inside his Soul to mend it.

Zayn, however, didn't note anything of that. He left the Cavern Tower of Casilian with Zelia without anyone else noticing.

Zelia lead him to the outskirts of the human territory where he was supposed to meet the headquarters of the Normie Union. However, after two months of traveling, the only thing Zayn encountered was a robbed man, levitating in front of him.

After two months, the robed man appeared, and his hand pierced through his chest, ripping the Grimoire of the Ancient out of his Soul.

How that was possible? Zayn had no clue.

He regained his consciousness just now. His gaze was still empty and his eyes were blank, but his mind was rattling.

He tried to remember what had happened, where he was right now, and what was going on.

Replaying the last minutes before the robed man appeared was not really useful either.

"You will understand soon."

Those words were everything the robed man said. Zayn didn't understand the meaning, at all, and he couldn't care less.

"That piece of shit stole my Grimoire. What do you mean 'you will understand soon'?!?! I don't want to understand you, jackass. I want my Grimoire back!!" Zayn shouted out loud, clenching his fist until the fingernails dug deep into his palm.

He was bleeding but he couldn't care less.

A part of his Soul had been crippled with the forceful extraction of the Grimoire, and he felt a weird and uncomfortable emptiness spreading through his entire being.

He hated this feeling and wanted nothing more but to fill the emptiness.

'I only wanted to find out more about the Normie Union and their relationship to Otherworldlers. Is that what I deserve in return?! That is nonsense!!!'

Filled with despair and the sensation of injustice, Zayn cursed his luck and everything around him. He even cursed Zelie, the Normie King, and the entire Normie Union.

"If not for you guys, I wouldn't have ended up like this…" He lamented quietly, both the voice in his mind and the words he spoke out loud getting quieter by the minute.

He was tired, didn't feel good, and knew that he was being childish. Zayn clearly recalled that Zelia tried to help him when the robed man attacked. She was pushed back and deprived of her consciousness.

"This robed man only took the golden Grimoire that was bound to your Soul. He must have been a powerhouse with more than eight Soulrings to perform that. Do you even know how lucky we were to be alive?" A young woman with long black hair and similarly black eyes entered the dark room.

She smiled faintly in his direction, though a glint of guilt and sadness could be seen in her dark eyes.

"Looks like you are energetic enough to curse. That's good. We already thought that you would never wake up. Your soul was damaged to a degree where even our best healers had no idea whether you would wake up, or if you would always remain unconscious. Luckily, your soul started to heal on its own after a while. That must be related to your unique power as Otherworldler."

Zayn's body jerked up from the bed and his eyes stared at the young woman in confusion and shock.

'Otherworldler? Does she know? Who the hell are you?' He wanted to scream, but only two words escaped his dry lips, "You…Zelia?"

Zayn felt extremely weak even though his Soulrings were still intact. Something about his Soulrings had changed after he woke up but it was certainly not in a bad way.

On the contrary, he could clearly feel that his Soulrings had been enhanced. Sensing them in his consciousness, Zayn was even able to make out various symbols that had been etched on his Soulrings. Even though he was not yet sure what they are, he had the feeling that the symbols were something good.

Thus, there was no need to worry.

"I know that we were lucky. I didn't expect someone like that to pop up, or just to take my Grimoire before he disappeared…but even then…it would have been better to just die…" He spoke his thought out loud without even realizing it.

Somehow, he felt empty and void without the Grimoire. It was as if his only connection to the past had been torn out of his entire being, and he hated this feeling to the core.

"Fool! Just take it back after you get stronger. You are still alive, so you can search for that robed man and find your Grimoire!!" Zelia shouted, pulling Zayn's attention back to her.

This time it was not because she spoke about the Otherworldler, but because she mentioned his Grimoire once again.

"How do you know that the robed person took my Grimoire in the first place? In fact, how do you know that I was in possession of the Grimoire? You collapsed even before that robed man took my Grimoire!" Zayn pointed out, and his voice grew sharper by the moment.

This time it was Zelia to be stunned. She didn't think that Zayn would recall what happened that time.

It had already been a year, and Zayn had other things to pay attention to.

"Tehe~"

"Don't 'tehe~' me!!"