Chapter 2: A Desperate Gamble in a Sea of Blood

“He’ll probably die in about a minute…” The man, Lee Doha’s summoner, murmured with unnerving calm, his gaze fixed on the ever-expanding pool of blood.

It was undeniably true. From the way his arms hung limp, it was clear he had slit both his wrists. He would surely drown in the crimson tide he himself had unleashed within thirty seconds, let alone a full minute.

Suddenly, a thunderous boom, like a bolt of lightning, reverberated through the air. Lee Doha, who had been standing utterly dazed, his hand clamped over his mouth, nearly lost his wits. He leaped back, startled enough to faint.

Only then did Lee Doha, who had even forgotten to breathe, realize his heart was thrashing wildly within his chest, like a rabid dog.

‘Hah,’ he gasped, drawing a sharp breath. The man turned his head slightly, letting out a faint sigh.

The booming grew even more ferocious. Someone was pounding on the door from outside, the two massive doors rattling violently as if they might splinter at any moment.

“I’m really going to die…”

The man’s body swayed precariously. His eyes were already half-closed.

‘Damn it!’ Lee Doha rarely cursed, but the expletive escaped him as he frantically propped the man up.

Like a deflated doll, the man’s body offered no resistance, slumping completely into Lee Doha’s arms. As Lee Doha tried to support him, his feet slipped on the slick blood, sending him sprawling into the crimson pool with a jarring thud.

A shudder of revulsion ran through him as the viscous blood soaked into his pants.

The door seemed moments away from shattering completely. Shouts erupted from beyond, a cacophony that Lee Doha, in his frantic state, couldn’t discern.

His hands were already trembling, and the incessant pounding on the door only served to further unravel his composure. Yet, one thing remained undeniably clear.

No matter how powerful the man was, no matter who was storming in from outside, they wouldn’t be able to rescue someone who already had one foot in the grave. No one, that is, except Lee Doha himself.

“Hey, hey—listen! Hey! You, old man! Your name! What’s your name? What is it?!”

Lee Doha slapped the man’s cheek, whose eyes were already growing dim and unfocused. Despite his fading consciousness, the man managed a faint chuckle.

‘Is this guy completely out of his mind?!’ Lee Doha thought, even in his desperate haste.

The man’s lips parted, his voice so faint that Lee Doha had to press his ear right up to his mouth.

The clamor of the pounding door was deafening, the hinges now audibly tearing.

“…Siohan… Orphenos.”

“Right, Siohan Orphenos. I’m Lee Doha. My name is Lee Doha. Can you hear me? It’s Lee Doha!”

To be exchanging names at such a critical juncture, with a man’s life hanging by a thread, was utterly lamentable. In cruder terms, it was absolutely fucked.

Yet, he had no choice. A contract with a summoner always commenced with the exchange of names.

“Quickly, the contract name—no, you madman, don’t die!”

Lee Doha was truly in a state of unparalleled desperation. Blessed with abilities ranked among the top three out of eight billion people, his life had never presented such an urgent situation.

He was a man utterly devoid of ambition, his material desires remarkably ordinary, and his conscience equally average, aligning with his aspiration for a simple, unremarkable life. Yet, even with such an ordinary conscience, he knew he couldn’t stand idly by.

If he could save someone, and instead watched them perish before his eyes, he would never again know a moment of peaceful sleep.

The man—Siohan Orphenos—managed to lift a hand. His eyes were already mostly closed, his lids drooping heavily.

Lee Doha seized the man’s arm, pulling it up as he hastily leaned his head close to the man’s mouth. He couldn’t discern what the man was attempting to indicate, but the weak hand wavered, then brushed against his eye.

“…H-hm.”

“What? What—hey, I can’t hear you! Hey! Oh, this is driving me insane!”

Just then, the violently shaking door finally tore from its hinges, bursting inward. A whole troop of hulking figures, clad in gleaming armor and brandishing polished swords, poured into the room.

“Your Majesty—Your Majesty!”

“Your Majesty—who, who is it?!”

“Damn it, just shut up!”

Lee Doha couldn’t help but swear. ‘I’m truly going mad’—he had never felt the truth of those words more intensely than in this moment.

In Oz, a contract with a summoner always commenced with the exchange of names. It was formalized when the summoner bestowed their Ozian name—their contract name—upon the specialized individual.

Through this contract name, an entity not originally present in Oz could be materialized into this realm. The contractor, using their own magic, would then pull the specialized individual from another world into this one, serving as the conduit to draw forth their power.

This much was common knowledge, understood by all. However, a crucial question remained: would the contract still be valid if the specialized individual failed to properly hear the contract name bestowed by the summoner?

That was far from common knowledge, and Lee Doha, a less-than-diligent student who had neglected his mandatory education, had no way of knowing the answer.

There was no time to deliberate, no moment to weigh his options. The man was drawing his last breaths, slipping away right before his eyes.

Lee Doha, whose powers were typically reserved for trivial tasks like extinguishing lights or fetching the remote, now summoned his strength for the first time in ages. His normally black irises shifted, glowing with an eerie, cerulean light.

The entire spacious room vibrated, a deep hum resonating through the very foundations. The air itself grew dense, pressing down heavily upon his entire body as if weighted.

Around him, shouts erupted, frantic and enraged. He vaguely registered what felt like a gleaming blade at his throat, but he had no time to spare it a single thought.

Insondable—

Immeasurable. Incomprehensible. Infinite. Lee Doha, born with an ability so named, had managed to conceal his power until the age of eighteen without undue bother. This was thanks to his extraordinary control, a feat even more remarkable than the immense power itself.

Siohan had severed his arteries. ‘This absolute madman…’

Gritting his teeth, Lee Doha began meticulously rejoining the sharply severed arteries in both wrists. Connecting the lacerated ends proved easier than drawing breath itself.

Though his usual lack of practice in such fine control made the process a bit rough, at least the blood had ceased its torrential flow.

In the blink of an eye, Siohan’s wrists were neatly rejoined, leaving only faint, rough traces beneath the drying bloodstains. This particular feat was, in truth, a minor concern.

The real problem lay in the vast amount of blood already spilled. Drained of nearly all his blood, Siohan already resembled a lifeless corpse.

Somehow, Lee Doha knew he was still alive, even without pressing his ear to the man’s chest; yet, his life hung by the thinnest, most fragile of threads.

Lee Doha’s vision truly swam before his eyes. His heart hammered in his chest, and his fingertips grew cold with a burgeoning anxiety.

He felt as though he should be comforting himself, rationalizing that he had done all he could. Instead, a terrifying dizziness washed over him, as if his own life hung precariously in the balance.

His unease was so profound that he felt a sudden urge to burst into tears.

“A transfusion… he needs a transfusion. …Is there no blood?!”

Lee Doha possessed no ability to generate blood. His gaze darted to the vast, glistening pool of crimson on the floor.

For a fleeting moment, a deranged thought flickered through his mind: ‘What if I could just gather all that blood and put it back?’ Then, almost miraculously, a memory surfaced. It was the voice of an instructor from a mandatory education course, a lecture he’d mostly dozed through.

‘Once a contract is established, the contractor begins synchronization with the summoner. Oz and Earth are like a single world separated by a mirror, and the contractor and summoner stand facing each other… blah, blah, blah. In any case, it meant they would become like one body!’

Lee Doha resolved to gamble. He reasoned he had nothing to lose; his summoner would die anyway if he did nothing.

He seized Siohan’s limp wrists, which were as cold as ice. He had no idea how much to give, but his immediate goal was to prevent the man from becoming a corpse.

Lee Doha closed his eyes.

The room vibrated even more intensely now. All the frantic shouts from his surroundings, which had been screaming like furies, abruptly ceased. He could feel a faint, yet distinct, throbbing heartbeat.

It felt as though he himself was being drawn into an abyss. His toes grew cold, and a dizzying sensation clouded his mind.

Lee Doha bit down hard on his lip. It was like cold water, impossibly slow, pouring over his head from above.

Then, in an instant, Lee Doha was violently flung backward. He was truly *flung*—like a stone snapping from a taut rubber band, ejected with force.

It was as if he were being expelled, as if the very world itself was spitting him out. The sensation was utterly foul. Listening to the distant, clamorous wail of sirens and shouts, Lee Doha finally succumbed to unconsciousness.

Lee Doha groaned, a low, guttural sound. Before his eyes, everything was a swirling, crimson sea of blood.

Like most people, Lee Doha had never truly encountered blood on such a scale. He hadn’t played roughly as a child, never even scraped a knee, so the most blood he’d ever witnessed was a tiny bead from a paper cut.

He had never seen such an immense quantity of blood anywhere before. Indeed, it was unlikely anyone else had either.

Again, he felt a surge of nausea. ‘This will definitely be traumatic,’ Lee Doha was certain, even in his disoriented state. ‘I’m going to develop hemophobia.’

Swimming in the surging blood, amidst his revulsion and terror, Lee Doha suddenly realized this was all a dream.

“Hah!”

“Ack, you startled me!”

Lee Doha gasped awake, and in doing so, startled someone standing beside him. That person grumbled.

“You certainly wake up with a bang.”

Lee Doha stared blankly at the speaker. It was a woman with a perfectly blunt bob, so sharp it could have been drawn with a ruler, and extravagant earrings that completely covered her ears.

Mesmerized by the enormous, gleaming snake-shaped earrings glinting under the fluorescent light, Lee Doha blinked a few times. Finally, he managed to grasp the frayed edges of his consciousness.

“…Kim Yoon-hye?”

“Yes, yes. Mr. Lee Doha was taken to the hospital by ambulance, then transferred to the research lab. You were almost a goner, but thankfully, you survived. Look here.”

Kim Yoon-hye shone a small medical flashlight toward him. The light flared brightly in his eyes. Lee Doha flinched, remembering the sensation of being sucked into the summoning circle, and in that same instant, the entire room hummed and shook. The flashlight shattered into dust with a crisp sound.

The vibration quickly subsided, but Lee Doha was shocked and surprised that he had turned the flashlight to dust just from being startled. Kim Yoon-hye, who had nearly had her hand pulverized along with the flashlight, remained utterly unfazed.