Ryder curiously extended his arm and tried imagining some kind of magic to erupt from his hand, but nothing happened. He then rushed to the cramped bathroom that was a couple of feet away from his bed and looked into the mirror to search for any abnormalities. But all he saw was a slightly above average face with black hair, with his red eyes being the only feature that stood out.
'Damn, nothing huh…' Ryder was rather disappointed to find that the human race on this planet was no different from the human race back on Earth. Like seriously, why didn't he have an extra eye or ear? Anything out of the normal would make him extremely excited, as that means he could investigate his new, abnormal genes.
However, not giving up just yet, Ryder quickly walked out of his room to search for the library.
It was a new world, and if he was going to be thrown into it all of a sudden, he would make sure to find out why.
With so many unanswered questions, it would only make sense to search for answers.
Once Ryder left his room, he was met by the sight of a long, dark hallway that seemed to be endless from his perspective.
"Where am I?"
He didn't have much expectation of the place he was living in as his room was mid at best, but it looked like he was wrong.
The place was huge! Ryder was immediately lost after wandering around for ten minutes.
He sighed, but what else could he do? After all, he was the son of a duke. He even assumed that he was in some sort of large castle by now.
'Wait, what floor am I even on?'
Deadpanned, Ryder could only walk around to see if he could find any other people who could provide him with the information he needed. Much to his surprise, there was barely anyone on his floor, which he assumed was because this floor was the living quarters for the children of the duke.
He decided to keep exploring anyway, perhaps hoping to stumble on someone or find something useful.
As he wandered around the dimly lit corridors, Ryder made mental notes of his surroundings. The materials that made up the walls are similar to stone found back on Earth.
'Could this be a world similar to that of Earth?'
He contemplated as he continued checking out the setting he was in.
The hallways, while dim, were decorated with portraits of what Ryder assumed to be his family.
Many of the figures in the paintings also had black hair and red eyes, just like him. Yet, he was unable to find himself in the sea of portraits.
At this point, the gloomy atmosphere of the hallways was starting to get to him, and he thought of turning back.
Feeling rather cautious inside, Ryder started to walk back to his room.
But it hadn't even been a couple of minutes before he was met with a shadowy silhouette of another person.
Ryder immediately upped his guard, as he didn't know what he was up against. It could be someone working in the castle, like a maid, but he didn't want to take his chances.
The figure moved slowly, with its form obscured by the dim light.
Ryder also took a cautious step forward, with his eyes dead set on the mysterious silhouette.
"Who's there?" Ryder called out, his voice steady despite the tension he felt.
As he got closer, the silhouette gradually grew clearer until Ryder discovered that the person also had similar features to his own, with black hair and red eyes. The problem was, that the person was much more handsome than he was, with his sharpened eyebrows and more distinctive facial features.
'The world truly isn't fair,' Ryder cursed in his mind. He had seen the person in one of the portraits in the hallway he had just been through.
In other words, the person was one of his brothers.
But rather than paying Ryder any attention, his brother continued leaning walking past him, as if he wasn't there.
This made Ryder feel irritated, it was the first time he had been ignored, and so blatantly at that.
"Hey, wait a minute." Ryder tried calling out to him again but was still met with no response.
At this point, Ryder felt extremely frustrated. Which person would just ignore their siblings like that?
Trying one last time to incite a reaction from him, Ryde used the sibling card: "Brother?"
As if something clicked inside the other party, he spun around to face Ryder and pushed him onto the wall nearby, clenching his neck.
It was done in the blink of an eye, and Ryder barely had time to react.
Unable to speak, Ryder looked at the person with horror, realizing that he made a grave mistake without knowing how. Glaring into his eyes, he struggled with all his might to no avail, and that's when he realized that he was weaker than the person in front of him, much weaker.
"Brother? Brother!? Don't call me that you useless piece of crap." As if done strangling him, the person threw him onto the ground and proceeded to spit on the ground in front of him."W-why?" Ryder spluttered out between his heavy gasps for air.
However, the person only glanced at Ryder with eyes filled with disgust. It's as if Ryder wasn't even a person in his eyes.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Still, Ryder was determined to get a response, he wanted to know why he was being treated like this.
"Know your place, you magicless bastard."
And with that, the person straightened his collar and elegantly walked off into the distance, as if his time with Ryder never happened in the first place.
As for Ryder, once he heard the word magicless, his eyes clouded over and he crumpled down onto the floor with a flop.