David POV

I turned to see where the voice was coming from and I immediately recognized them.

"Leah?"

"...You know who I am?" she responded skeptically.

"You're Calvin's 3rd wife?!"

Leah, The Silver Lance. The mere sight of her standing before me was like something out of a legend. She was tall, with a commanding presence, a few cm taller than Calvin. She has bronze skin, long, wavy black hair, and sharp violet eyes. There was a stormy look in them, but it was calm, a calm that contrasted with the chaos she was known to bring in battle.

Leah was a dark elf, though not in the sense many stories from my old world might describe. Here, dark elves weren't defined by skin color but by their role in elven society. Unlike their pacifist kin, dark elves took on the mantle of warriors. They trained tirelessly for combat, their diet rich with meat to fuel their strength. She wasn't just an anomaly; she was the pinnacle of what a dark elf could become.

And Leah wasn't just any warrior. She was the Silver Lance. She was said to have destroyed entire battalions with her spear, her strikes so fast and destructive that no shield could stop her. And now, here she was, standing mere steps away. She had a golden shield and spear strapped to her back, it made her feel just a tad bit more intimidating.

I saw how her gaze softened as it fell on Duke, who was standing at my side with his tail swaying gently. It clicked in an instant. My mind reeled. Leah the Silver Lance knew Duke. And then my thoughts shifted to something else entirely. Calvin's last name. Silver. It had always been there, right in front of me, but I never connected the dots until now. Not only that, some theorized that she switched to a silver-colored spear and came up with the nickname herself...I can see why it's true if she really is his wife.

"Of course." She nodded, "Do I know you?"

"We've met once...well, technically, no. Long story, but I can explain it on the way. Were you sent here by the guild to take on the case?"

"No, I don't work for the guild." She shook her head, "I only came when I sensed a fight earlier. I came by today to surprise my family since we are rarely all together."

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"...I see." was her only response as I told her my story.

After leaving the beach, I submitted some of the A-ranked plasma that I put in an enchanted vial and handed it in as proof of its elimination, they wouldn't believe that I did it with a dog, so I used Leah as an additional fighter when I reported it, since her name is not in their database, they just thought that she was a powerful unknown exorcist. There are many exorcists who don't register with the guild after all.

She, like the other 2, was way too accepting of my story.

"So, what are you going to do after trading for the 2nd cursed blade?" She asked.

"Journey to find Noctaron's disciples, they are his summoners. Noctaron should have enough power to come over to our world without their help, but it will take much longer to do so, and without them, he would be weaker."

"Why?"

"The disciples sacrifice themselves to make him much stronger, if we eliminate them before they can participate in the sacrificial ritual, it should help."

Leah was surprisingly easy to talk to. Despite her imposing reputation as the Silver Lance, she didn't seem as intimidating as I expected. I found myself settling into the conversation, Duke sat nearby, quiet for once, his eyes occasionally darting around, ever alert. But then, his posture shifted.

Duke suddenly sprang to Leah's side, his fur bristling as he let out four sharp barks. The sound pierced the calm, echoing with a rhythm I recognized immediately, a warning. My instincts flared as I looked at him, then to Leah.

"We've been taken in by Severance." she said flatly.

I blinked, trying to grasp what she meant.

"Severance? What do you mean?"

Leah glanced around, scanning our surroundings.

"Look carefully," she instructed, "Do you notice anything different?"

Leah's sharp gaze flicked to me, clearly waiting for me to process the situation. I looked around, squinting as if focusing harder would make the answer clear. The guild office and the guild staff were busy with their work, and the staff was talking with the exorcist who was supposed to take on the weeping woman.

"I don't get it," I admitted, glancing at Leah, "Everything's the same."

Her expression didn't change, but the tension in her body told me otherwise. She gestured to Duke, who let out a low growl as his ears flattened. Leah crossed her arms, her sharp violet eyes not leaving me for a second.

"Look at the time," she said.

I frowned, glancing at the large clock mounted on the far wall of the guild office. For a moment, nothing seemed out of place...its hands ticked steadily, and the pendulum swung back and forth. But then, my stomach sank. There were...too many hours. The clock face didn't have the usual twelve markers. It had twenty, and the hands moved in a rhythm that wasn't quite right. It wasn't ticking faster or slower, just...differently. It's hard to say.

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"What...?" I then got up and stepped closer to get a better look, hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me.

But no. It was wrong, all wrong.

"You see it now?" Leah's voice pulled me back, "Listen carefully, what we're dealing with is a B-rank vengeful spirit. It's called Severance for its ability to sever people from reality and drags them into a private dimension. Its pull is area-based, which means it's incredibly rare for it to only take one person at a time. It usually snatches groups."

"Private dimension? So... this isn't real?"

"It's real enough, but it's its reality, not ours. It mimics the environment perfectly to make you believe nothing's wrong. The only clue you have is time. One, they have no concept of time, and they don't understand it, despite that, Severance manipulates time, making it impossible to track how long you've been trapped, you could be here for 3 hours, but it'll be only a minute in the real world. It's designed to lull you into complacency. But there's a catch."

"What catch?"

"We have a week, if we don't find a way out before then, it'll kill us."

"A week time as in reality's time? Or A week in here."

"Here."

"Why are you so calm?"

"No point in panicking."

"How do we defeat it?"

"We kill it, it could be anyone, it takes up a form of the same species it's trapping, so we got either, an elf, a dwarf, a human, or a dog."

"Dwarf?"

"I'm half dwarf, do you not know that?"

"No...you don't look like one."

"It's why my magic is weak, despite my elven heritage."

Humankind was the dominant force in the world, not because we were the strongest, smartest, or most magical, but because we were everywhere. Populous, adaptable, and driven. The term "humankind" didn't just encompass humans, though. It included the elves and dwarves too. But among the three races, humans were the most numerous, so the name stuck.

Elves, on the other hand, were a contradiction. They were the most magically gifted species, physically, though, they were average, slightly better than humans, but not by much, so it's not even a factor for some. Their real struggle came from their dwindling numbers. Conceiving a child, for them, was like rolling dice with a thousand sides and hoping for one. Dwarves were the opposite of elves. Where the elves excelled in magic, dwarves had raw physical strength. But their connection to mana was pitiful, making even the simplest spells a challenge.

Humans were the middle ground. We didn't excel in magic or strength, but we weren't weak in either. And our numbers, persistence, and versatility made us a force to be reckoned with.

"So how are you so strong?"

"I use my mana sparsely." she answered with a shrug, "Anyway, we should figure out when we were brought in here, they should be somewhere close to there."

"What do you mean?"

"We might still be on the beach and we've been trapped since then. Let's retrace our steps, we'll start with here."

"Can't we just beat everyone here? This place isn't real, right? So-"

"It might not just be us, people who die in here will die in reality, and killing what Calvin calls NPCs will hurt us instead, and just spreading the news that we're trapped will not help us."

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Leah's explanation made sense, though it didn't make the situation any less frustrating. I followed her gaze as she scanned the room, her sharp violet eyes darting between faces and objects, searching for something, anything, that felt out of place. I couldn't help but glance around the guild office myself, looking for discrepancies, as Leah put it. People were going about like they always did.

Everything seemed…normal.

But that was the trick, wasn't it? It was all an illusion designed to keep us complacent, to make us believe that nothing was wrong.

"Alright," I muttered, running a hand through my hair, "So, how do we find it? If it's imitating someone, how do we know who's real and who's not?"

"The Severance won't mimic perfectly. Even the best fabrications have flaws. A gesture out of place, a reaction too slow, something like that. We'll have to look closely." she replied, "Duke should be able to notice if we're really close."

Fair enough. We started our search in the guild office, moving slowly and deliberately. I focused on observing every detail, the way people spoke, the way they moved, the expressions on their faces. Leah did the same, though she seemed far more efficient at it. Her eyes missed nothing, and I could see the gears turning in her mind as she analyzed everything.

Still, it was exhausting work. Every time I thought I'd found something suspicious, Leah would dismiss it with a shake of her head. And every time she thought she'd found something, it turned out to be nothing. Duke confirmed it too. We then decided to trace it back to the beach since we found nothing at the office so far.

We left the guild office and began retracing our path. The streets outside were eerily quiet, though that might have just been my imagination. I found myself glancing over my shoulder more often than I cared to admit, half-expecting the Severance to appear out of nowhere and attack us.

The streets blurred together as we continued our search, moving methodically from one area to the next. I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, though every time I turned around, there was nothing there. The beach was our last stop. The waves lapped against the shore, the sound soothing in its familiarity. But even here, everything felt…off.

I knelt down and ran a hand through the sand, letting it sift through my fingers. It felt real enough, but I couldn't shake the nagging sense that something was wrong.

"Maybe we should check the crowded market on the way here."

"Yeah, let's do that." Leah agreed.

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The market was as busy as ever, the scents of fresh produce, roasted meats, and the many exotic spices mingled in the air. It felt so real. Too real. Yet I knew better. Leah gestured for me to follow her lead, and no words were exchanged. She wove through the crowd effortlessly, her sharp gaze scanning every face and movement. Then Duke barked a single sharp sound that turned a few heads.

We were close.

The spirit was somewhere in this chaotic sea of people. But narrowing it down? That was a problem. Duke's barks told us we were in the right area, but there were too many bodies, too many distractions. I was having a hard time squeezing through people itself.

Leah wasted no time. She slipped seamlessly into the role of an ordinary shopper, pretending to examine wares, chatting casually with vendors, and even sampling a few drinks and snacks. Meanwhile, I kept a watchful eye on her and the crowd, trying to sense anything unusual.

Then she shifted tactics. Her casual demeanor faded as she began moving more deliberately, bumping into people as if by accident, spilling drinks on herself, and apologizing loudly. It was subtle at first, but the frequency of her "mishaps" increased. She knocked into a young man carrying a basket of fruit, causing apples to tumble onto the ground. The man cursed under his breath but quickly stooped to pick them up, grumbling about clumsy customers. Leah muttered an apology and moved on.

Next, she "accidentally" tipped over a tray of small drink samples at a vendor's stall, sending tiny cups of orange juice scattering. The merchant groaned, grabbing a cloth to wipe the mess, but Leah merely smiled, brushing it off as clumsiness. Her behavior started attracting stares. A few people muttered complaints about her antics, but she ignored them.

I finally saw her pause at a middle-aged man standing near a cart of spices.

Leah, still having a cup of orange juice, casually splashed a small sample of orange juice onto him.

"Ah, sorry about that," she said with a sheepish smile, "I had too much to drink today."

"No problem," he said, brushing his arm, "Just...it tasted spicy."

The moment he said it, my chest tightened. I went to dip my finger into the spilled juice, the orange juice didn't taste spicy.