On The Honeymoon (1)

After a strong shock, when I opened my eyes, what lay before me was a huge corridor that resembled a cave.

But it was not a cave. It was too ambiguous to be called a cave.

Caves are usually creations of nature. However, the brightly colored bricks before me were far from natural.

Perhaps it could be called artificial?

Rather than artificial, a more certain explanation would be that it was crafted by a living being.

In any case, it was an alien space.

The passage made of unknown walls stretched out like a straight highway.

There was a reason for being in this situation.

It all began with the decision of our honeymoon destination.

I thought I would never go again, but since it was my birthplace, my hometown, I couldn’t completely erase it from my mind. Also, I wanted to let everyone know that we got married in front of my parents’ grave, so we decided to go to my birthplace, which is Korea. It would also be fun to see Rurin’s amazed reaction.

So, to go to Earth, we naturally had to cross a dimensional gap. It was a principle similar to teleportation but a more advanced magic.

Since there was not enough mana in the modern world, considering the time for mana to accumulate, our honeymoon would last exactly a week.

That was the plan for the honeymoon.

After preparing, Rurin and I stood close together and opened the dimensional door. Then we began to move.

But the problem arose there.

While crossing the dimensional gap, a strong shock overwhelmed me, and when I opened my eyes, I had fallen into this unfamiliar space.

“Ugh.”

My neck felt a little stiff.

I let out a groan without realizing it. But the more it happened, the more I had to stay alert.

First and foremost, I looked around. To stay alert meant checking the safety of the most precious being to me.

Even if I had fallen into hell, it wouldn’t matter as long as I was with Rurin.

Fortunately, I soon let out a sigh of relief.

Rurin was lying behind me. When I approached and checked, her breathing was steady. She must have lost consciousness from the dizziness caused by the spatial storm, just like me. Her tiny fingers were gripping the hem of my clothes tightly.

“Rurin?”

I carefully stroked her bangs, which had grown slightly longer and covered her forehead, and called her name. She frowned slightly and let out a groan, as if she hadn’t lost consciousness deeply.

“Ugh…?”

Then suddenly, her eyes shot open. She quickly sat up and screamed out loud.

“Yoooouuu!”

It was almost a reflexive scream. After calling out to me, her gaze darted around wildly. She must have been looking for me, just as I had looked for her first.

And soon, when Rurin’s eyes met mine, she immediately spoke.

“Eh? It’s you!”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

The scream from just moments ago was gone, replaced by a very calm voice.

“Are you alright? I was startled by your scream as soon as you woke up.”

“Scream?”

When I asked if she was okay, she blinked at me in response to the word “scream”. After several blinks, she finally spoke again.

“I don’t know! But more importantly, where is this place?”

Then, she finally asked the question that had been on her mind about this place. It’s not like I knew much either. I had just woken up about two minutes earlier.

“Hmm, it seems like something went wrong while crossing dimensions.”

“Ah! That’s right.”

Rurin nodded vigorously as if something had clicked in her mind. She even clapped her hands as if she knew something.

“Huh? You’re sure?”

“I think we fell into a dimensional rift. It’s rare, but it can happen when teleporting. It happened before too! Ah! Ugh!”

Huh?

Before?

From the way she spoke, it seemed like she knew something about what was happening to us. She covered her mouth with both hands and shook her head frantically, as if avoiding my questions, which made me suspicious.

“Before, you say? My dear?”

If something seems off, I have to ask. So, I probed again, but what I got back was a non-answer.

“No, more importantly! The solution is simple. Whether it’s teleportation or dimensional travel, if we try again, we can go back to where we were. It’s easy!”

She knew the solution very well. Now that I think about it, she must have encountered this sort of problem before while teleporting.

Did she go through this without telling me?

I was about to dig deeper, but I stopped myself. That wasn’t what’s important right now.

Whatever happens, we need to get out of this unknown space.

“Well, that’s a relief. Let’s move again quickly. I don’t like the feeling here. It’s dark yet not dark, and there’s something contradictory about this place.”

“Ah, now that you mention it, it’s dark but bright.”

Rurin’s observation was probably the most accurate description of this space. It was dark but also bright.

The source of that light came from the strange bricks that formed the walls, stacked tightly together.

Anyway, this might be another dimension, so there’s no need to investigate deeply. I grabbed Rurin’s hand again and tried to teleport.

-But nothing changed.

No, there was no mana to feel for teleportation or anything else.

Since I couldn’t use any mana, naturally, I couldn’t use magic either.

It was like a car without fuel—unable to move.

In the confusion of not knowing what was going on, I momentarily froze before letting go of Rurin’s hand and asking her.

“Rurin, here… Do you feel any mana at all?”

“You’re saying strange things.”

Rurin grabbed my hand again as if she didn’t want to let go of it, then closed her eyes, probably trying to feel the mana.

Was she trying to sense the mana?

“Ugh! Huh? What?”

As expected, it wasn’t just my problem. Rurin also tilted her head with a very confused look on her face.

In magic, “class” refers to the difference in the ability to use the mana in the air, the difference in the vessels that can hold it.

In my class, I could absorb nearly unlimited mana from the air. But here, there was none. It wasn’t just little—it was completely zero.

Zero mana? That’s an impossible situation.

Mana exists, whether in small or large amounts, in the world. Mana particles exist in the air, so if there is air, there should be mana.

Of course, the amount of mana in the air varies from dimension to dimension.

The world I was transported to, the one where Rurin and I belong, is a world abundant in mana. On the other hand, the Earth where I lived had very little mana.

The important thing is that even though mana is sparse, it certainly exists. By gathering even sparse mana, high-class magic can be used.

But the mana in this space is zero.

It feels like the sacred grounds in a Dragon’s sanctuary. In the sanctuaries beneath the sacred places, mana is blocked, and magic cannot be used.

A sacred place believed to be created by the gods, where dragons, beings of mana, were created. For some reason, mana is blocked in the sanctuary.

So, this place is likely similar to a sanctuary.

How unlucky can I get? How did I end up in a space with absolutely no mana?

It was utterly absurd.

Of course, it wasn’t that there was no answer. My creed is that there is always an answer in this world.

It’s a headache, but even in a sanctuary, there is always an exit. There is an entrance as well.

Then, surely, this space must also have an exit. Once we get out, won’t we be able to use mana again?

Of course, the problem is that the endless corridor and strange walls don’t exactly scream ‘Exit this way’.

Just as we were about to go on our honeymoon, we ended up crash-landing in a place like this.

Without mana, I can’t use magic. That means I can’t even break through the wall.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Rurin, who had tried to use magic, gave up after thirty seconds. She shrugged and grabbed my arm, saying ‘Forget it’.

“As long as you’re here, it doesn’t matter whether there’s mana or not, right?”

She said that and started laughing happily.

So, I couldn’t help but smile too.

Of course, this isn’t the time to just smile. I really hope she’d stop shaking my arm like that, this Rurin.

I turned my gaze away from the dragon who seemed to be on a picnic and looked around again.

It was quiet.

The silence was so unsettling that it made me uncomfortable.

This space brought an inexplicable sense of suffocation, and that suffocation was growing stronger.

“Rurin.”

Why isn’t she answering?

“Rurin?”

When I called again, Rurin squinted and stared at me intently.

Just earlier, she was shaking my arm and laughing, so what’s with this sudden mood change?

Her lips were also slightly puffed out. It seemed like she was sulking.

Huh?

Ah, is that it?

Suddenly, I remembered her words from earlier.

“As long as you’re here, it doesn’t matter.

“Right?”

Yeah, she clearly asked, but I didn’t answer. Is that why she’s sulking?

“Of course, it doesn’t matter what the situation is as long as we’re together!”

Rurin squinted and gave me a hard stare in response to my delayed answer.

Then, still with her sulking lips, she opened her mouth.

“Slow.”

She shouldn’t be sulking.

Chok!

I gave her a quick kiss on the protruding lips.

The sound of the kiss echoed through the empty space. After the light kiss, Rurin looked surprised for a moment, then smiled slightly. But soon, she shook her head saying, “No, no!”

“Ah, no! I didn’t like it!”

She quickly denied it, as if she didn’t want to resolve things that easily, but it was already too late.

Though we were married, she still wasn’t used to initiating affection and preferred to have me take the first step.

Of course, many things had changed.

I’ll talk about that little by little.

Anyway, I called Rurin again. I originally called her to ask this, but since she didn’t answer, I had to go on.

“Rurin.”

“Ugh, I feel strange!”

“Calm down, we haven’t lost yet. Besides, can’t you use your breath?”

Breath.

That has nothing to do with the mana in the air. It’s a technique where a dragon’s internal energy is condensed and fired.

“Breath?”

Rurin tilted her head slightly and opened her mouth. She looked unsure, as if she was about to try it herself.

And right after that, Rurin released a breath, a concentrated form of high energy, from her mouth.

Fwoooosh!

“Whoa!”

“Aah!”

However, the result was that Rurin and I had to start running. The breath didn’t penetrate the walls or the ceiling. Instead, it bounced off them like a rubber ball, hitting the floor and ceiling, repeatedly flying forward.

“Y-you…?”

“That could have been bad.”

Startled, I pulled Rurin close and stared blankly at the vanishing breath. After confirming we were safe, I sighed. The breath was as powerful as it was in our world.

The problem was that the walls, made from the same strange bricks like a sanctuary, couldn’t be penetrated even by the breath.

Well, considering these walls block mana, it makes sense that the breath couldn’t break through.

Still, the good news was that we could still use the breath.

Since we couldn’t use mana, the breath was our only weapon. Of course, since Rurin was in her human form and not as a dragon, its power was reduced to only a tenth.