Chronicles of Forgotten Extra

Alden stood alone in the aftermath—blood staining the ground, smoke still lingering.

He exhaled, slow and steady.

"So that's what fighting a well-coordinated team feels like."

He glanced at the unconscious Lira.

Still breathing.

Her body didn't have a single scratch.

She hadn't resisted much. Barely took a minute before she spilled everything—maps, inventory, hidden exits.

Every little secret her pride had told her to guard.

Useful? Sure.

But was she worth keeping alive?

He stared down at her with a blank expression.

The answer was obvious.

Nope.

She was the young miss of some so-called great noble house.

Pyrellan, was it?

Fancy name.

Likely had political reach, family influence, and backup dogs waiting somewhere out there.

Even if they couldn't reach him in here, he wasn't about to leave loose ends.

Keeping her alive was a liability.

A rookie mistake.

Especially after he had killed all her teammates.

He wasn't that stupid.

So he did the most sensible thing.

He swung his sword in one precise motion.

His sword cut through air and flesh alike.

Her head rolled quietly onto the grass.

No sound. No scream. No pain.

She died still unconscious—never even saw it coming.

This was the only mercy he could afford to show.

He wiped the blade on her cloak, then turned away without a second glance.

One by one, he moved through the clearing, collecting the storage rings and anything remotely useful from the corpses.

Then, silence again.

Just the quiet breathing of the dungeon itself.

He left without hesitation.

By now, he had understood this dungeon was completely different from what was mentioned in the novel.

The structure was similar—but too much was off.

He could understand the reason.

Something had happened to the dungeon before Lucien and Seles entered it.

And those corpses Lucien found in the novel?

They probably weren't ancient adventurers who lost their way.

They were these guys.

He paused.

Still—there was one thing bothering him.

Why wasn't anything extracted?

Did something happen that made this dungeon extract skills and techniques in the future?

Or… there was another possibility.

All the theories Alden had were just overthinking, and he had somehow entered a different dungeon through the same entrance.

Either way, he had only one goal.

Escape the dungeon as soon as possible.

Kyun had actually woken up. She even tried to come out of his shadows.

But he didn't allow her to do that.

This dungeon was dangerous.

He didn't know what would happen. So he asked her to rest inside his shadow for a while.

She wouldn't have obeyed in normal times, but sensing the seriousness in his mind, she accepted it easily.

Alden turned toward the trees.

If anyone else was watching, they'd know now.

He wasn't prey.

He was the storm.

__

The shadows closed behind him as he stepped deeper into the woods.

He didn't move fast.

No need to rush now that the cleanup was done.

His senses remained sharp, but his mind was elsewhere—still thinking about the words Lira had spoken.

The Pyrellan Clan.

A noble bloodline from a world called Solaris IX.

He hadn't heard the name before—not that he expected to.

But hearing it here, now, from someone who was supposed to be part of a minor exploration group, meant one thing:

Lira had talked fast.

She was the kind of girl who had always relied on her name and not her spine.

Apparently, Solaris IX wasn't a barren world.

It was a fire-aligned high-mana realm.

She spoke of floating islands and burning seas.

Sounded like hell on a fever dream.

But it explained her affinity.

According to her, the Pyrellans didn't just use fire.

They refined it.

Purified it.

Gave it form.

For them, fire wasn't just a tool.

It was a belief system.

Alden had smiled faintly when she said that. The kind of smile that didn't reach his eyes.

She hadn't noticed.

She was too busy rambling, trying to convince him that sparing her might earn him favor with her family.

That her father would reward him, maybe even offer an alliance.

That someone like him could find a place in their clan.

Most of what she said was surface-level—Pyrellan culture and how the clan held over two dozen core flame techniques passed down by direct inheritance.

Their warriors were trained from age six.

She'd been six when her fingertips first caught fire.

Yes, she manifested her mana at six.

That was the most crucial thing he had found out.

Unlike Eryndor, other realms don't have an Awakening Trial to unlock their mana core.

Alden hadn't reacted when she said it. He just kept his expression flat as usual—but his mind couldn't help but be blown away.

He wanted to find out more… But the damned system kept censoring some information.

But from the information he could get, it was clear that they didn't have any awakening or trials.

Every person in Solaris IX—and likely many other realms—was born with a mana core.

Not cultivated into it but born.

That changed everything.

It meant their entire magical ecosystem had been structured from the very beginning to assume that mana use was natural and innate.

As essential as breathing.

No threshold to cross.

No waiting for a ceremony or a test.

No uncertainty.

That wasn't just a cultural difference. That was a systemic advantage.

It made sense now—how someone like Lira, barely in her twenties, could be at such a high level.

She'd been using magic since before she could read.

Of course her control was tight.

Of course her core was stable.

And now that Alden thought back, she'd looked confused when he mentioned his own Awakening.

As if it were some backwater tribal tradition.

Her exact words echoed in his mind:

"You needed a trial to access mana? What kind of broken realm are you from?"

He hadn't bothered answering.

But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense why he had seen so many powerful outsiders of young age back in the dungeon Gretta had thrown him in.

Solaris IX was part of a cluster.

Lira had mentioned it offhand—just a casual reference to how her clan "doesn't even care about Ventra or Ulros anymore", as if these places were common knowledge.

Alden didn't know them. Not yet. But the meaning was clear.

Worlds weren't just floating around individually.

They came in packs. Federations. Clusters.

Small multiversal ecosystems that knew of each other and traded with each other.

Solaris IX wasn't isolated. It was part of a web.

Alden crouched near a stream, washing the last of the blood off his fingers.

He stood up again.

Fire-clan brat. Dungeon environment. Changed conditions. Outside interference.

The puzzle pieces were still scattered, but he was seeing the borders of the picture.

Lira had given him the first real glimpse into the world beyond this world.

Just a tiny peek.

Enough to know what was waiting out there.

The dungeon whispered behind him, but his thoughts were elsewhere—on floating islands, burning seas and a world where mana wasn't earned but inherited.

Solaris IX wasn't just a name. It was a warning.

The multiverse wasn't distant anymore. It was watching.

And Alden? He had just waved back.