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Chapter Text

If Zhou Mingrui were to describe his… not-quite-friend, more of a friendly acquaintance really, it would be:

A traditional rich guy. Or a very dedicated cosplayer.

It started when he picked up a book on good fortune, after having had days of bad luck in a row.

After that, his luck changed.

It was honestly quite hard to say if it was for the better or for the worse.

Cosplay-man – because no one wore stuff like a qipao and smoked using a pipe anymore except the rich and traditional and since the guy wasn’t ancient or adhered much to tradition, he had to be cosplaying – was coming right at him.

Zhou Mingrui tightened the hold he had on his bag and made a mental note to work out more when he had the time instead of lazing around, because there was no way he could outrun Cosplay-man when the guy was walking towards him at what looked to be a leisurely pace that was actually freakishly fast.

A hand was slung around his neck.

“Ah Rui,” Cosplay-man said with a smile that reminded Zhou Mingrui of fox spirits – and when had they even gotten close enough for Cosplay-man to call him that? – the arm around his neck tight like a noose of a hanging rope or a guillotine or any death-inducing device that was bound to kill him but socially instead of physically.

“What do you want now?” Zhou Mingrui asked, trying to keep some semblance of distance from Cosplay-man.

Cosplay-man looked at him, his eyes glinting ominously from behind the wire-framed glasses he wore. “I feel as though you’re having some terrible thoughts about me.” He said.

“It must be your imagination.” Zhou Mingrui lied.

From the widening smirk on Cosplay-man’s face, he didn’t buy the lie at all, but let it slide.

“Ah Rui, Ah Rui. I had an idea. Since we’re such good friends,” Zhou Mingrui didn’t appreciate the way Cosplay-man said ‘friends’ in the way literally anyone else would speak of ‘that stupid pet I have that I like to play with when I’m bored’, “why not come with me for a while? You’ve already made your New Year visits, haven’t you?”

Or so Cosplay-man asked, but from the way Zhou Mingrui was being forcefully pulled along to the other’s pace, it wasn’t really a question at all.

…Goodbye pride and social life. Time to hole up in a mountain hole somewhere far, far away from Cosplay-man and live as a hermit.

Zhou Mingrui woke up to a bullet wound in his head. He stared at the mirror, then at the bloodstains on the floor and decided that this could maybe hit the top five weirdest things that had happened to him since he met Cosplay-man.

“So your first instinct when faced with a bloody scene is to cover it up? Ah Rui, I wonder about you sometimes.”

Zhou Mingrui- Klein ignored the voice and the see-through spirit of that bastard friend. Must be a hallucination, just like how transmigration happened only in stories. He was going to play along, go to sleep and find out that this was all some kind of fever dream.

It wasn’t a dream.

Fuck.

“This is your fault, isn’t it?” Klein hissed.

“What is?”

Klein waved a hand at everything. The Victorian-era house, clothing, the fucking red moon.

“Blaming everything on me now, are you?”

Klein almost felt guilty, but remembered everything Cosplay-man had made him do and the anger came back in full force.

“It wasn’t actually my fault this time.” Cosplay-man said. “Not entirely, that is.”

Klein gave the spirit a dubious look. “Ninety-nine percent your fault then?” He grumbled, all too used to the way Cosplay-man loved to play word games with an unsuspecting party – namely him.

This world was – strange. Fantastical.

Top five? Make it top three weirdest situations.

Klein paused in his ruminating to grumble about how bizarre his life was that transmigrating into some fantasy world wasn’t even the strangest thing to happen to him.

…He really had lost his sanity the moment he met Cosplay-man, hadn’t he?

“Complaining about me again?” One such bizarre event piped up.

Klein shut the notebook that gave him a headache and picked it up, waving it at the spirit as though he was shooing away a fly.

The notebook passed through Cosplay-man.

“Did you really die and become a ghost?” Klein asked, slightly concerned about the living-or-dead status of his friend.

“Guess.” Cosplay-man said. He snapped open a fan – where did he get that from? – and fanned himself leisurely.

Someone sure was taking this well.

Klein scowled and threw the notebook at him. It passed through the ghost-spirit-whatever-the-hell Cosplay-man was and hit the wall with a sad thud.

Cosplay-man turned to look at the notebook, then back at Klein. He tilted his head and gestured at the notebook, like an owner commanding a pet to clean up after itself.

Klein glared at him, but ended up having to do so anyway before his sister came investigating the source of the noise.

Then, policemen came by and Klein was thrown into the world of mysticism.

This was definitely Cosplay-man’s fault. Klein glowered at the spirit who was looking around the room with an air of amusement he had yet to shed.

“Do you think I should join them?” Klein asked after a few seconds of ineffectual glaring.

“No.” Cosplay-man said, closing his fan with a firm ‘snap’.

Klein blinked. “Why not? With your personality, wouldn’t you be encouraging me to join them and get into all sorts of weird situations that you could laugh at?”

“Joining these foolish practitioners would make your life more interesting,” Cosplay-man allowed, “but it is not worth falling under the gaze of a meddling god.” He then smiled – a cruel twist of his lips that made Klein turn away uncomfortably.

“Besides, don’t you think that becoming a history teacher has its potential?” Cosplay-man continued, his voice lightening to its usual airy tone.

Klein fell silent. “Becoming a Beyonder sounds interesting though.” He prodded carefully.

Cosplay-man tsked. “Fine then. Seer, Apprentice or Marauder. Which of these would you prefer?”

Klein stopped and gave Cosplay-man a dubious look. “Wait, really? You’re making me a Beyonder just like that?”

The look he received in turn was just as insulting. “Do you really think this version of me right now is fit to interact with the physical world? Go find the ingredients yourself.”

Cosplay-man really was his cheat, Klein thought dryly as he sat in a stone palace above grey fog.

Ominous.

There was no way Cosplay-man was being nice to someone for the first time in his life. He was definitely getting something out of this. Or maybe he was miraculously feeling guilty for throwing Klein into this world?

…Nah. Impossible.

Cosplay-man was planning something. Definitely.

That said, if he was offering to be Klein’s guidebook to this fantasy world, Klein sure wasn’t going to complain.

As Klein played the part of Mr Fool and commissioned a whole list of ingredients from the newly-formed Tarot Club, a hint of suspicion wormed its way into his mind.

He hadn’t thought of it back then, but- no normal person was this blasé about becoming a ghost. Who was Cosplay-man, really?

To prepare for the interview, Klein stopped by Khoy University and paid a visit to the library.

He took a seat at a table, surrounded by stacks of books and started cramming.

“How inefficient.” Cosplay-man said, adding in an opinion that practically no one cared for.

Klein ignored him.

“If you become a Marauder, you could steal the knowledge of other scholars. No need to waste your time in this way.” Cosplay-man gestured at one of the stacks of books with his fan.

“Good to know.” Klein said flatly. “Now leave me alone to read in peace.”

Chapter Text

He passed the interview.

Becoming a history professor, even as just an adjunct professor, wasn’t something Klein had expected out of a career. Not before his transmigration.

For a few weeks, he shadowed his former professors as they imparted advice upon him, while all too aware of the people trailing around him.

“Klein.” Professor Azik said, “have you recently been involved with… anything strange?”

Klein often ate lunch with him, if only because the moment he laid eyes on the history professor, Cosplay-man took on an almost annoyed air, displeasure evident in each and every one of his actions.

Of course, that meant Klein took every chance he had to interact more with Professor Azik.

“You should stay away from that thing.” Cosplay-man advised.

Klein hadn’t pegged Cosplay-man as racist.

“Whatever you’re thinking of, I can assure you that you are most definitely wrong.” Cosplay-man said with some acidity.

Klein recited the same thing he told the policemen. Of coming across a strange notebook with Welch and Naya, and losing many of his memories.

They had consulted several of their professors over the notebook – and everyone already knew of Welch and Naya’s suicide.

Professor Azik frowned. “I see. To have gone through such an ordeal must have been hard for you.” He said sympathetically.

Klein coughed awkwardly. “I have also gained some insights from the matter.”

Professor Azik looked him over. “You should be careful. In the world of shadows, to know more is to be put into more danger.”

Was Professor Azik a Beyonder?

Klein very carefully did not look at Cosplay-man, who was hovering and glaring at Professor Azik.

With the help of the Tarot Club, Klein acquired the ingredients needed for a Beyonder potion.

He waited a few more days until the eyes on him finally abated, then mixed the potion ingredients according to the recipe Cosplay-man gave him.

“I’m supposed to drink this?” He made a face.

“It’s safe. Down it goes.” Cosplay-man said in a sing-song tone.

Klein closed his eyes and downed the potion.

And just like that, he was now a Seer.

“What do you think Beyonders are, Ah-Rui?” Cosplay-man asked.

“People with superpowers?” Klein guessed.

Cosplay-man tutted. Wrong answer then.

“Beyonders are people who have gone beyond their mortal limits and start the road to divinity. You can think of it as cultivation, if you like.”

Cultivation…

The end goal of cultivation was—

Cosplay-man smiled. “I see you understand. Now, do you know the cultivation method of a Seer?”

Klein thought for a moment. “Perform divinations?” He guessed.

Cosplay-man lifted a fan to his lips, neither confirming nor denying.

Cosplay-man’s cryptic words made much more sense when Klein read the pages of Roselle’s diary detailing the acting method.

...It was suspicious how much Cosplay-man knew about this world.

“If you go on an expedition or two and discover some new artifacts, you might even get a promotion and be invited to Backlund as a guest lecturer.” Cosplay-man said one day.

“University lecturers don’t go on expeditions.” Klein rolled his eyes.

“Think of the bonus money the university would give you.” Cosplay-man said, striking true right at Klein’s materialistic heart.

“…and you would just so happen to know the location of an unexplored ruin for me to explore.” Klein deduced flatly.

“Bingo.” Cosplay-man smiled, waving his closed fan at Klein. “You learn quick, Ah-Rui.”

In line with Cosplay-man’s style, this ruin would probably be something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Would it contain a zombie, unspeakable traps or some eerie ghost ready to curse anyone who stepped foot in it?

“So little trust in me.” Cosplay-man tutted.

 “Obviously.” Klein muttered

“I feed you, provide for you, and this is how you repay me?” Cosplay-man brandished his fan like a weapon and then covered his face like a lofty immortal.

Klein rolled his eyes at the other’s usual theatrics.

“When are you telling me how to get home?”

Cosplay-man fanned himself idly, something sharp crossing his expression. Then, a slight smirk emerged on his lips. “Guess.”

There was an old castle in the far outskirts of Tingen, avoided by most people because it was rumoured to be haunted.

“There are… things here that some peculiar people would be interested in. Why don’t you go ask that favoured professor of yours to accompany you?”

It was odd that Cosplay-man suddenly encouraged him to approach Professor Azik.

When Klein approached him about the old castle, Professor Azik amiably agreed to come along.

Professor Azik looked around silently. “This place…” he uttered.

“Have you seen this place before, Professor?” Klein asked.

“It feels familiar.” Professor Azik seemed inexplicably lonely. He walked through the ruins slowly.

“Foolish.” Cosplay-man scoffed. “To place so much emphasis on that which will so quickly fade away.”

Klein didn’t understand until they reached a portrait. He looked from the portrait to Professor Azik. The eyes of the man in the portrait were stern and cold, but the face — looked exactly like Professor Azik.

A sliver of anxiety and dread pricked at Klein’s heart.

“This place once housed my past.” Professor Azik uttered.

All of a sudden, Professor Azik’s head snapped to a side, looking at something Klein couldn’t see.

He couldn’t see when Professor Azik moved, vanishing before his eyes.

“Where…?” Klein uttered.

“Over there.” Cosplay-man said, jabbing his fan in a direction, acting just like a kindergarten teacher trying to direct a particularly obtuse child.