After the door closed and Hera's footsteps gradually disappeared beyond it, Zeldryn remained seated in the chair.
The room fell silent again.
The light from the hallway that had briefly entered through the open door was gone, leaving only the dim glow of the candle on the table.
The small flame swayed gently whenever the night wind slipped through the gap in the window.
Zeldryn didn't do anything right away.
He simply sat there, thinking about all the information he had just gotten from Hera.
About himself.
About the Giorry family.
About this mansion.
About the old Zeldryn's habits.
And about how the people here had treated him all this time.
At least now, some of the things that had seemed strange since morning were finally beginning to make sense.
But the more he learned, the clearer one thing became.
There was still a lot he needed to do.
Zeldryn lowered his head slightly.
First, of course, was his body.
The wounds and bruises covering him were slowly getting better, but pain still appeared whenever he moved too much.
His neck hadn't fully recovered either.
In his current condition, doing anything too strenuous was obviously a bad idea.
Then there was mana.
Zeldryn could already see it.
He could also sense the presence of the mana particles around him.
From what he remembered about Manholers, that made him assume Zeldryn Giorry's body most likely possessed a Mana Hole.
Finding mana was no longer the problem.
He had already passed that stage.
What he still didn't know was how to absorb those particles into his body.
And once they entered, how was he supposed to move the mana toward his Mana Hole?
Earlier that afternoon, Zeldryn had already tried the simplest method he could think of.
Touching the mana with his hand.
It didn't work.
The particles passed straight through him.
He had also tried blowing on them.
Nothing changed.
It was as if physical objects had absolutely no connection to those particles.
So there had to be another way.
Something he didn't know yet.
Zeldryn tapped one finger against the surface of the table.
Tap.
He stopped for a moment.
Then tapped again.
Tap.
If he really could become a Manholer, then sooner or later, he would have to figure it out.
Power was far too important to ignore.
Zeldryn already knew a fair amount of general information about this world.
After all, Reka had spent around three months reading a novel with more than five thousand chapters before waking up in this body.
He knew this world wasn't peaceful.
He knew mana could give humans strength far beyond what ordinary people were capable of.
He also knew several locations, events, and other things that had appeared throughout the novel.
But that knowledge wasn't particularly useful when it came to Zeldryn Giorry's personal life.
This mansion.
The servants.
The guards.
The Giorry family.
Even the old Zeldryn's habits were things he had only started learning piece by piece from Hera.
The novel he had read had never explained every single person who lived in this world.
For things like that, Zeldryn would still have to investigate on his own.
He remained silent for quite a while.
Then another thought appeared in his mind.
Power was important.
But...
Zeldryn shifted his gaze toward the candle flame.
There was something else he considered just as important.
Money.
Zeldryn leaned back slightly in his chair.
After all, the person inside this body was still Reka.
A grown man who had lived for more than thirty years in the modern world.
Strength might allow him to survive.
But money was what could make his life comfortable.
Zeldryn didn't want to spend his second life doing nothing but figuring out how to avoid dying.
If that was all there was to it, then it wouldn't feel much different from his previous life.
Wake up.
Work.
Go home.
Eat.
Sleep.
Then repeat everything again.
Day after day.
Year after year.
Until he eventually lost his job and only then realized just how much time had slipped away.
Zeldryn slowly clenched his right hand into a fist.
He raised it slightly in front of his face.
The candlelight fell across the back of his hand, where several wounds were still visible.
Zeldryn stared at it for a few moments.
He didn't know why he had ended up in this world.
He also didn't know who or what had brought him here.
But there was one thing he had already decided.
I refuse to waste this life.
Zeldryn tightened his fist even more as the words passed through his mind.
He had already wasted too much time in his previous life.
He had no intention of doing the same thing again.
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He wanted to become strong.
He wanted money.
He wanted to live comfortably.
And most importantly, he wanted the freedom to decide for himself how his second life would unfold.
After a few moments, Zeldryn opened his hand again.
His gaze dropped toward the table.
Several sheets of paper rested not far from his hand.
A pen lay beside them.
Zeldryn had already noticed both items earlier.
But until now, he had never actually used them.
He stared at the blank sheet for a moment.
There were too many things in his head now.
If he kept everything in his memory alone, sooner or later, something would slip through the cracks.
Zeldryn reached out and picked up the pen.
He examined it briefly.
Its shape was obviously different from the pens he had used in the modern world.
But judging from its design, he could more or less guess how it worked.
Zeldryn pulled a sheet of paper toward himself.
“Better write everything down,” Zeldryn muttered to himself.
He lowered the tip of the pen toward the corner of the paper.
His hand paused.
This was the first time he had actually tried writing since waking up in this world.
Zeldryn drew a short line.
Ink left a mark across the paper.
He raised an eyebrow slightly.
“It works,” Zeldryn muttered.
At least the thing wasn't difficult to use.
Zeldryn began writing down several things he considered important.
Body.
Mana.
Giorry Family.
Mansion.
Money.
His hand stopped after writing the final word.
Zeldryn read through the short list again.
His body needed to recover.
That much was obvious.
For now, his physical condition was still his biggest obstacle.
Then came mana.
He needed to figure out how to absorb mana particles and guide them toward his Mana Hole.
Then the Giorry family.
He had only learned some basic information about his family from Hera.
It wasn't nearly enough.
The same applied to this mansion.
He still didn't know most of the people working here.
He also had no idea how the place was actually managed.
Who was responsible for it?
How many guards were there?
How many servants?
And just how much authority did he really have in this place?
Zeldryn then looked at the final word.
Money.
He placed a small mark beside it.
This probably wasn't something he could solve anytime soon.
But Zeldryn had no intention of forgetting about it.
He might be the son of a Marquis.
But the Giorry family's wealth didn't mean that wealth actually belonged to him.
If he truly wanted freedom, then sooner or later, he needed his own source of income.
Zeldryn began adding a few smaller notes.
Every now and then, his hand stopped.
He thought.
Considered the possibilities.
Then continued writing.
Some ideas were immediately crossed out because they were still too far into the future to worry about.
Others were marked so he could ask Hera about them later.
But Zeldryn hadn't been writing for long when his eyes began to narrow.
He leaned slightly closer to the paper.
He could still see the words in front of him.
Just not very clearly.
Zeldryn raised his head.
His gaze landed on the candle sitting on the table.
“It's so damn dark,” Zeldryn complained quietly.
Only now was he truly beginning to understand just how terrible the lighting in this room was for writing.
A single candle was enough to let him see the objects around the table.
But for reading small handwriting over a long period of time, it was far from comfortable.
Especially when the candle flame kept moving whenever the night wind entered through the gap in the window.
The shadow of Zeldryn's hand shifted across the paper.
Sometimes to the left.
Sometimes to the right.
Occasionally, it even covered the words he was trying to write.
Zeldryn moved the candle slightly closer.
He started writing again.
After only a few words, he stopped.
Now the shadow of his hand had become even larger.
Zeldryn moved the candle to the other side.
He tried writing again.
A few moments later, Zeldryn sighed.
“Electric lights really are an incredible invention,” Zeldryn said while staring at the candle.
In his previous world, he had never thought much about something that simple.
If a room was dark, Reka only had to press a switch.
The room lit up.
Done.
No need to adjust the position of the light source.
No need to worry about shadows.
No need to worry about the flame going out.
No need to wonder when the candle would burn away.
Now even writing a few lines felt far more troublesome.
Zeldryn shook his head slightly.
He lowered his head again and continued writing.
The pen hadn't moved for long when he felt something running down the side of his head.
Zeldryn stopped.
His hand immediately rose to wipe his temple.
Sweat.
He looked at the small amount of moisture on his finger.
“It's pretty hot too,” Zeldryn muttered while glancing toward the window.
The wind occasionally entered through the gap.
But it wasn't enough to make the room feel cool.
Zeldryn tugged at the front of his clothes several times to let some air in.
It didn't help much.
In his previous life, whenever he felt hot, he could simply turn on a fan.
If the weather became unbearable, there was air conditioning.
Now?
He had neither.
Zeldryn's body might belong to this world.
It had been born and raised without ever experiencing electric fans or air conditioning.
But the mind inside it still belonged to someone from the modern world.
Zeldryn obviously wasn't used to this.
He lowered his head and continued writing.
Several minutes passed.
Zeldryn wiped his forehead again.
Then wrote.
Not long after that, he wiped away more sweat.
Then wrote again.
Wiped his forehead.
Then kept writing.
Until finally, a drop fell from his chin.
Tap.
Straight onto the paper.
Zeldryn's hand immediately stopped.
He stared at the small wet spot beginning to form on the sheet.
“Seriously?”
He quickly wiped his forehead with his sleeve before another drop could fall.
Fortunately, the sweat hadn't landed on anything particularly important.
Zeldryn shifted the paper slightly.
He tried writing again.
But after a while, sweat began forming once more.
Zeldryn wiped his forehead again.
Finally, he put the pen down.
He leaned back in the chair.
“Modern life really was comfortable, huh?” Zeldryn said to himself while staring at the candle.
He went quiet for a moment.
“There were lights when it got dark,” Zeldryn continued.
He wiped another bit of sweat from his forehead.
“There were fans or AC when it got hot.”
He stared at the candle flame for a few moments.
“And I used to think all of that was completely normal,” Zeldryn muttered.
He had only been in this world for a short time, yet that was already enough to make him realize how many simple comforts he had never thought about before.
Zeldryn shook his head slightly.
His gaze returned to the paper.
Several lines now covered part of its surface.
He picked up the pen again.
But just as he was about to continue, his hand stopped.
Zeldryn stared at what he had written.
Several seconds passed.
His eyebrows slowly drew together.
“Wait.”
He examined the writing more closely.
This world had a different calendar.
Different month names.
A different year system.
Its civilization was also completely different from Reka's original world.
But there was one simple thing that had only just occurred to him.
Ever since opening his eyes in this world, he had never struggled to speak with anyone.
Hera.
The servants.
The guards.
Henry.
Aeglo.
He had understood everything they said without any effort.
The same was true whenever Zeldryn spoke to them.
There had never been a moment where he had to think about what language he was supposed to use.
Everything simply felt natural.
“English...” Zeldryn muttered.
At least, that was how he had understood it until now.
But now that he was actually thinking about it, something felt strange.
This world had its own history.
Its own civilization.
Even its calendar system was different.
The idea that this entire world just happened to use exactly the same language as his original world felt far too strange.
Zeldryn looked at the paper again.
Then another thought appeared.
Writing.
The words in front of him had been written by his own hand.
That couldn't prove whether the people in this world actually used the same alphabet.
Zeldryn shifted his gaze toward the empty corner of the room.
Ever since he first woke up, he had already noticed that there weren't many objects inside the room.
But he had never examined them in detail.
At first, Zeldryn had deliberately avoided doing so.
He had no idea what kind of writing system this world used.
If it turned out to be different and someone saw him struggling to read something Zeldryn Giorry should obviously recognize, it would only create suspicion.
Now that curiosity returned.
Zeldryn briefly considered finding something he could read to test it.
But then he looked back at the candle on the table.
Even reading his own handwriting was already troublesome under this lighting.
Trying to examine writing that might be completely unfamiliar right now wasn't a good idea.
“I'll check tomorrow morning,” Zeldryn told himself.
If the writing system in this world turned out to use the same alphabet he knew, then the situation would become even stranger.
But if it was different...
Zeldryn touched his chin.
Then maybe he wasn't actually hearing English at all.
There could be something automatically translating the language of this world into something he could understand.
“Some kind of transmigrator ability?” Zeldryn quietly asked himself.
He almost laughed after saying it.
It sounded ridiculous.
But after literally being transported into the world of a novel, things like that no longer sounded impossible.
“If that's really the case, then it's incredibly useful,” Zeldryn said with a small nod.
At least he wouldn't have to learn an entirely new language from scratch.
Otherwise, his attempt to pretend he was still Zeldryn Giorry might have collapsed on the very first day.
Zeldryn picked up the pen again.
He added two new notes to an empty part of the paper.
Language.
Writing.
Zeldryn marked both of them.
“Tomorrow,” he muttered.
For now, he couldn't confirm either one.
He needed brighter light and something that had actually been written by someone from this world.
Zeldryn then read through everything he had written.
Body.
Mana.
Giorry Family.
Mansion.
Money.
Language.
Writing.
Zeldryn fell silent.
That's a lot.
And he had only been here for a very short time.
But most of those problems couldn't be solved tonight.
His body needed time to recover.
The Giorry family and the mansion required more information.
Money was something he would have to think about gradually.
Language and writing would have to wait until morning.
There was only one thing he could still investigate right now.
Zeldryn's gaze stopped on a single word.
Mana.
He stared at it for several moments.
Earlier that afternoon, he had already succeeded in seeing and sensing mana.
That was no longer something he needed to prove.
The problem now was figuring out how to interact with it.
Zeldryn put down the pen.
He leaned back in the chair while remembering what he had done earlier that afternoon.
Golden-yellow particles filled the air.
He could see them.
He could sense their presence.
But when he tried touching one of the particles, his finger passed straight through it.
When he blew on them, they didn't even move.
Physical interaction didn't work.
Which meant absorbing mana probably had nothing to do with physical movement.
Zeldryn tried to recall what he knew about Manholers.
Absorbed mana was supposed to enter the body and gather inside the Mana Hole.
The problem was...
How?
How did someone make mana particles enter their body?
And once they were inside, how did they guide those particles toward the Mana Hole?
Zeldryn stared into the empty space in front of him.
If he truly possessed a Mana Hole like he suspected, there should be some way to make mana respond to him.
He simply hadn't found it yet.
Zeldryn slowly took a breath.
“This time, I'll figure out how.”
He didn't immediately close his eyes.
Zeldryn sat silently for several moments, trying to remember everything he had ever read in the novel about mana.
Not overwhelming power.
Not techniques.
Not battles.
He tried to remember the most basic part.
How a Manholer first brought mana into their body.
Zeldryn slowly closed his eyes.
The sound of wind still came through the gap in the window.
The heat inside the room was still there.
But little by little, Zeldryn began shutting everything else out.
For now, everything else could wait.
His attention returned to the mana particles surrounding him.
This time, his goal wasn't simply to see them.
He wanted to make one of them move.