The wooden corridor creaked softly beneath Thaddeus' steps as he moved deeper into the ship. Unlike the eerie darkness he had first expected, the vessel was still caught in the middle of the afternoon. Pale sunlight poured through broken seams in the hull and thin gaps in the upper deck, slicing into the dusty air in angled streaks of gold. It should have been warm. It should have felt like life still existed somewhere beyond the walls of this ship. But instead, the light only made everything more disturbing. It illuminated death more clearly.
The ship drifted endlessly across an open sea with no visible land in any direction. The sails above were torn and hanging loosely, catching whatever weak wind remained. The entire vessel moved forward without guidance, as if the ocean itself had decided to carry it somewhere unknown. Inside, however, there was only silence. A suffocating, heavy silence broken only by the groan of wood and the soft rhythm of waves against the hull.
Thaddues tightened his grip on the wand in his hand.
It had not been like this before.
When he first obtained it, the wand had simply been an object. A tool but the moment his fingers closed around it properly, something changed.
A faint pulse traveled up his arm, like a heartbeat that was not his own. Subtle yet unmistakable, the wand wasn't merely responding to his magic—it was resonating with him.
The lingering sensation stayed with him as he walked, and he summoned his status window once more.
———
[STATUS]
Name: Thaddues
Condition: Stabilized | Recovering from Poisoning | Starving | Severely Weakened
Treatment: Antidote Administered
Magic Talent: Awakened
Magic Capacity: Low (Unstable Due to Weak Body)
Physical Condition: Weak but Stable
Recovery Status: Ongoing Healing Process
———
Unlike before, the status window now displayed far more information.
Was it because he had finally bonded with the wand? Had that awakened his magic?
The change was undeniable. Something fundamental within him had shifted the moment the wand accepted him. The wild, unfocused magic he had possessed now flowed with purpose, carrying a sense of structure and control.
He exhaled slowly.
"So this is what compatibility feels like."
The wand was more than a tool for casting spells. It was a bridge.
Now that the bond had been forged, his magic flowed with far greater stability.
Still, even with that realization, the situation he was in remained unchanged. His weakend body disrup the expectations he can do with magic.
He continued forward.
The deeper he ventured into the ship, the more it felt as though time itself had come to a halt. Bodies lay motionless throughout the corridors. Some remained seated at dining tables, heads bowed as though they had drifted to sleep in the middle of a meal.
Others slumped against the walls or collapsed near open doorways. Nobles dressed in fine garments rested beside servants in plain uniforms, their final moments preserved with eerie stillness.
There were no signs of panic or desperate attempts to escape. No overturned furniture, shattered belongings, or wounds that hinted at violence. Whatever had claimed their lives had done so swiftly and silently, leaving the entire vessel as little more than a drifting tomb upon the open sea.
Thaddues forced himself to keep walking.
At first, he tried not to focus on them. He kept his eyes forward, his breathing steady, his thoughts controlled. But the human mind had limits. Eventually, he had to look and when he did, he began to notice details he wished he had not seen.
A half-finished cup of wine still resting in a noble's hand.
A servant frozen mid-step as if about to speak.
A merchant clutching a pouch of coins that would never be spent.
It was not violence that filled this place. It was interruption. Life simply cut off mid-motion, like a story that had been closed before the final page.
Thaddues swallowed slightly.
If this had been blood and gore, he would have broken long ago. But poison was different. It did not destroy the body in visible chaos. It stopped it quietly, as if turning down a flame until nothing remained but cold ash.
That silence was worse than screams.
As he moved forward, something else began to settle in his mind.
As he moved forward, a thought began to take shape in his mind.
This was no accident.
A vessel carrying nobles, merchants, and livestock did not simply turn into a drifting graveyard. Something had unfolded here—something intentional, precise in its outcome.
Suddenly—
Thump.
Thaddues stopped instantly.
His entire body stiffened.
His fingers tightened around the wand hidden beneath his sleeve.
Another sound followed.
Scrape.
It was faint, but it was enough.
Something was moving inside the ship.
His heart tightened slightly.
A survivor?
The possibility struck him harder than he expected. Until now, he had been completely alone in this floating grave. The idea that someone else might still be alive was both dangerous and comforting at the same time.
He moved carefully toward the source of the sound, lowering his steps to avoid making noise. The corridor gradually widened as he approached the lower section of the ship. The air changed here, becoming warmer and slightly more humid. The sunlight from above faded into softer tones of amber, filtering through wooden slats and casting long, trembling shadows across the floor.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound grew clearer—rhythmic, repetitive.
Alive.
Thaddues slowed his breathing, instinctively steadying himself as his grip on the wand tightened.
He reached a heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor, slightly ajar, creaking faintly with the ship's sway. The sound came from within.
For a brief moment, he hesitated.
Then he pushed it open.
The door swung wide.
"BAAAH!"
A loud bleating sound erupted immediately, echoing through the enclosed space.
Thaddues froze.
Inside was not a survivor but a goat.
It was a cargo hold.
Dim light filtered in through small openings in the ceiling, revealing rows of animals tied and contained within crude enclosures. Goats shifted restlessly near wooden posts. Chickens clucked softly inside broken cages. A few pigs lay in the corner, snorting and shifting their weight lazily as if unaffected by the death surrounding them.
The source of the noise was not human at all.
It was livestock.
For a long moment, Thaddues simply stood there in silence, letting the realization settle.
Then he exhaled slowly.
"…So that's what I heard."
The tension in his shoulders loosened slightly, but the relief did not last. Instead, something colder replaced it. He stepped fully into the cargo hold, eyes scanning the space carefully.
The animals were alive. Unharmed.
That meant something simple but important.
The poison hadn't spread everywhere—it had been selective.
Thaddues crouched slightly, observing the nearest goat. It blinked at him slowly, chewing without concern, completely unaware of the corpses above and around it. He reached out carefully and tapped the wooden post beside it.
Nothing happened.
No sign of contamination.
His expression darkened slightly.
Thaddues stood still in the cargo hold, the thought forming slowly rather than becoming an immediate conclusion. It lingered in his mind like something half-formed, not yet fully understood.
His eyes moved across the animals again.
If this had been a general poison, they should have died too. If it had been released into the air, mixed into water, or spread through food supplies, nothing living onboard should have survived.
But they were alive.
That contradiction made his expression tighten slightly.
A colder thought followed.
"A selective poison…"
Something precise.
Something designed.
Something that only erased humans while leaving livestock untouched.
That meant intention—and intention required intelligence.
Someone had known exactly what they were doing: not mass death, but selective elimination. Clean, controlled, untraceable.
Thaddues exhaled slowly.
Only the passengers had been targeted.
Just the people.
He turned away from the animals.
He stepped back into the corridor.
Fear remained—but it had shifted. It no longer scattered his thoughts; it focused them. Awareness replaced panic. Calculation replaced instinct.
If this was deliberate, then it wasn't just a ship—it was evidence of something larger. A hand behind the act. A world where precision like this was possible.
And if it could be done—
it could be understood.
And if it could be understood—
it could be overcome.
Thaddues took a slow breath.
His grip tightened slightly.
He would not survive on luck alone.
Not on ignorance.
Not on fear.
If the system could accelerate spell mastery, he would use it. If knowledge could be gained faster, he would take it. If magic could be refined, then he would refine himself until nothing remained of the boy who had woken up on this ship.
This world was more dangerous than anything he had known.
That only meant one thing.
Power mattered.
And he intended to ...obtain it.
TBC
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