"What do you an, you’re not a player?" Rolf grunted as he sat up. He splashed a few healing potions over his wounds, letting out a sigh of relief as he leaned against a rock and summoned a few silvery wraps from his inventory. "You hungry?"
Miles looked at him, and then at the silver wraps in his hands, a pang of mory hitting his stomach like a punch.
"No, thanks." He retorted, summoning a leather pouch from his inventory, along with an oval-shaped item covered with a silky cloth. "About not being a player, that’s exactly what I ant."
Miles grabbed a few pieces of monster jerky from the leather pouch, and summoned his [Desert Rain], squeezing the cactus right above his mouth, water dripping from it like rain to soak the dry land of his throat.
"It’s not possible, kid." Rolf frowned. "If you were born in this world, you’re a player. Anything else is cowshit."
Miles had to suppress a laugh not to choke on his jerky, but after a while, he quieted down and drank more water.
"You’re telling you never saw anyone try to defy the system before?" Miles furrowed his brow. "Like, being sent sowhere else or anything like that?"
Rolf grunted, but said nothing in return. He just got up and turned to the Dungeon entrance.
After a while, he asked.
"Weren’t you curious about what the dungeon was whispering? Let’s go then."
Miles did not react, but he noticed the lack of an actual answer from Rolf.
However, he did get up and glanced at the German player, while striding towards the entrance. He activated one of his skills, [Story’s Eye], and imdiately was able to see the threads of ethereal text swirling and dancing throughout Rolf’s body.
Miles looked at himself, and back at Rolf as he entered the dungeon, and was able to see so similarities between one thread and another.
"You know what I’m talking about... Are you still under the bounty banner?" Miles smirked.
Rolf imdiately turned around, raising his arms in a fighting stance.
"Don’t worry." Miles raised his own arms in a placating gesture. "I ant what I said, we don’t have to fight. But I do know what you’re going through."
And after a longer pause that lingered between them, Miles added.
"You know the Horizon, don’t you? You’ve been there once."
Rolf’s posture remained stiff for a mont longer. Then, with a grunt, he lowered his fists and crossed his arms.
"You’re one stubborn bastard, I’ll give you that." He muttered.
Miles just waited, letting the silence stretch.
Rolf turned back toward the dark mouth of the [Chamber of Whispers], his shoulders heavy with the mory.
"Yeah." He said finally, voice low. "I’ve been there, the Horizon."
Miles followed him deeper into the dungeon as Rolf kept speaking, the soft thud of their boots echoing around them.
"Got pulled there after a boss fight." Rolf continued. "Was supposed to be a Tier 3 Guardian, nothing special. We even made jokes about how easy it’d be. But the mont we dropped it... sothing ripped open in the air. Sucked through like a damn straw. Left the others behind."
Miles stayed quiet, his senses stretching outward.
’So, that’s how it happened to Kurt...’ He recalled his silver-eyed rogue friend, the jokes and his snarky humor.
The glyphs along the walls seed to shudder faintly, almost to the rhythm of Rolf’s voice.
"First thing I saw? Revenants." Rolf said, his voice almost a growl. "Dead players. Broken. So still had armor, so didn’t even have faces anymore. They ca for like they knew my na. I fought for..." He shook his head. "I don’t know how long. Days? Weeks? There’s no sun there, no night, just this... Endless twilight."
"Like ti itself had forgotten to move on in there, right?" Miles could picture it, he could feel it in the way Rolf’s story clung to the air.
"I ran out of potions, ran out of food, even my weapons started crumbling." Rolf nodded at Miles’ words, flexing his fists absently, knuckles cracking. "And when I couldn’t fight anymore... when I was bleeding out, crawling in the dust and falling even deeper down that cursed place..."
He stopped walking, looking up into the endless dark above them.
"That’s when she found ."
Miles tensed, recalling his journey alongside Kurt towards the Last Verse.
"A spire." Rolf’s voice dropped lower, reverent and bitter all at once. "Tall enough to stab the sky. Built from, tal, flesh, books, stones, bones, and stories. It shouldn’t have stood. Every law of physics, every rule of sense said it shouldn’t exist. But it did."
Miles inhaled slowly, and the glyphs on the walls throbbed faintly in ti with Rolf’s words.
"At the top," Rolf said, "there was a door. And behind the door, she waited for ."
"The Story’s Oracle." Miles murmured.
Rolf nodded once.
"She spoke to . She showed ... Not what I wanted to be, not even what I could be. She showed what I truly was." He touched his chest, over his heart. "I was stripped bare in front of her and her companion. No stats, no classes, no blessings. Just . And she asked a question."
"What question?" Miles asked.
Rolf smiled, but it wasn’t a kind smile. It was cracked and hollow.
"Are you willing to live without crutches? Without the world’s rules to prop you up?"
Miles didn’t answer. He knew the weight of that question all too well.
"I said yes." Rolf continued. "And when I woke up, I was back ho, but it wasn’t ho. I was in front of this Dungeon, and the system had..." He opened his hands helplessly. "Vanished, in a way. Replaced by sothing else. I still have a stats window, my skills, even my stories. But the bonuses, the easy path? Gone. I fight, I bleed, I grow. But this is my way."
"You chose to be sothing more." Miles nodded slowly.
"No." Rolf said. "I chose to be sothing real."
They reached a deeper part of the [Chamber of Whispers], where the glyphs grew thicker, the walls so covered in carvings they almost bled language. Miles slowed, his fingers brushing a particularly dense patch.
The script was chaotic, yet familiar. Sharper than the scrawls in the [Mouth of the Abyss], but carrying the sa feeling, a desperate attempt to capture sothing that shouldn’t be spoken aloud.
"It’s the sa as in [Aardvark]’s story..." Miles said aloud, the glyphs pulsing to his voice.
Rolf glanced at him but didn’t interrupt.
Miles activated his [Story’s Eye] again.
Threads of old, broken stories floated in the air, tangled and incomplete, but still alive. He caught glimpses of mories and tales that should never be glimpsed upon.
Each glyph was a death that had been prevented, a life that had been erased, an antithesis that had been opposed.
The Chamber pulsed around them, and the whispers grew stronger. This ti, though, Miles understood a word among the noise.
"Co." He felt a pull in his chest, faint but undeniable, just like when he fought Shinji.
"The dungeon’s trying to bait you." Rolf said, seeing Miles’s tension.
"No." Miles said, stepping forward. "It’s not a bait, it’s a call."
Ahead, the darkness deepened, and in the center of the next chamber, Miles glimpsed a shape, a pedestal wrapped in chains, runes burning against its surface.
Atop it sat a shard of sothing black and gleaming, like a piece of a broken star, and in the center of it, a blinking eye, staring directly at them.
Miles tightened his grip on the [Harbinger’s Scythe], a sense of realization coiling around his heart like a snake.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to let them walk away quietly.
"You might’ve cleared the Dungeon, but there’s still sothing living within it." He glanced at Rolf, who rolled his shoulders, flexing his fists.
"You first." Rolf said with a smirk.
Miles grinned under his breath, feeling the weight of the Horizon, the [Mouth of the Abyss], and the future all hanging in the air.
"Yeah." He said. "Wouldn’t have it any other way."
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