"There we go… all checks are positive, Arthur. Your condition is completely stable now. You're free to go."
Rima closed her notepad and gave me that look — the one that said she was relieved but wouldn't admit it.
"Thank you, Rima." I bowed slightly without thinking. "For everything. You didn't have to look after me the way you did."
She waved it off immediately.
"That's what I'm here for. Just…" She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Stay away from places like the Meadow of Demise. Please."
"I promise."
She gave me a long look, like she wasn't entirely convinced, then smiled and turned back to her work.
That was the last time I saw her that day.
---
I stepped outside.
And stopped.
The sunlight hit me like a wall — bright and sharp and completely overwhelming. I had to stand there for a few seconds with my eyes half-shut, letting them adjust. Seventeen years of hospital rooms and dim lighting had not prepared me for this.
When I could finally see properly, I wished I'd taken longer.
Avalon stretched out in front of me like something that shouldn't exist.
The buildings were enormous — not just tall, but *wide*, carved from stone that looked older than anything I had a word for, decorated with patterns of gold and silver that caught the sunlight and threw it back in every direction. Blue light moved through glass tubes running along the walls, steady and quiet, like the city itself had a pulse. The streets were wide and clean, paved with something that wasn't quite stone and wasn't quite anything else I could name. And above it all, the sky was an impossible shade of deep blue, clearer than anything I'd seen through a hospital window.
I stood there with my mouth open for an embarrassingly long time.
*This is real.*
The thought landed differently out here than it had in a hospital bed. In there, it was abstract — something I told myself to accept. Out here, with the sunlight on my face and the smell of something like pine and something like fire and something I had no reference for at all, it was simply and completely true.
*I died. And this is where I ended up.*
I started walking before I'd decided to, just to have something to do with my body while my brain tried to catch up.
The streets were crowded. People moved in every direction — some in armor, some in robes, some in clothes that looked almost normal if you didn't look too closely. A group of children ran past me laughing. A merchant was arguing loudly with someone over a cart piled high with objects I couldn't identify. An old man sat on a bench feeding something small and feathered that definitely wasn't a bird.
I was so busy staring at everything that I almost missed it.
Two people walking side by side, relaxed, not paying attention to anything in particular.
The one on the left raised his hand.
A ball of fire appeared above his palm, spinning lazily, completely casual — the way someone might spin a pen out of habit.
The one on the right reached over and closed her hand around it.
The fire went out. A ripple of water evaporated into the air.
They kept walking like nothing had happened.
I stopped walking.
My brain went completely blank for a moment. Then several thoughts arrived at once, none of them helpful.
*That was fire. That was real fire. She just extinguished it with her hand. Neither of them reacted. This is normal here. This is just what people do here.*
Without really thinking about it, I punched myself in the arm.
Hard.
"—*ow.*"
The pain was immediate and very real. I punched myself again, harder, just to be sure.
The status panel flickered into view.
[HP: 208 / 210]
*Two points. I just lost two HP punching myself.*
I stared at the panel for a second.
*Okay. Not a dream. Definitely not a dream. Moving on.*
---
I didn't have a plan.
That was the problem I kept coming back to as I walked. No money, no shelter, no idea how anything in this city worked. I needed to figure out the basics — currency, accommodation, food — before I could think about anything else.
I was still working through that problem when I noticed the crowd.
Not a mob, not an emergency — just people moving with purpose, all roughly in the same direction. I fell in behind them without thinking, telling myself I was just curious.
The crowd led me to a building.
It was larger than anything around it — wide stone steps leading up to a set of doors tall enough to make me feel considerably smaller than I already did. Above the entrance, words were carved deep into the stone in a script I shouldn't have been able to read, but somehow could.
*Adventurers' Assembly Hall — Hero's Chance Registration.*
I hesitated at the bottom of the steps.
*Adventurers.*
I looked at the people around me. Armor. Weapons. The kind of easy confidence that comes from knowing exactly what you're capable of. A woman near the door was casually spinning a spear the length of a small tree. A man to my left had a scar across half his face and was laughing about it with someone.
*I should leave.*
I went inside anyway. I wasn't sure why. Curiosity, maybe. Or just the fact that I had nowhere else to be.
---
The inside was worse.
*Bigger*, somehow, than the outside suggested — high ceilings, long tables, the low roar of a hundred conversations happening at once. The smell of food and metal and something faintly electric. Every person in the room looked like they could end a fight in three seconds.
I was already turning to leave when a voice rang out from the front of the hall.
"Welcome, adventurers!"
A man was standing on a raised platform — tall, well-dressed, projecting the kind of practiced confidence that came with doing this regularly. A showman.
"My name is Yudrik Flahovich, and today marks the beginning of this year's *Hero's Chance* event!"
The room shifted. People leaned in.
"The rules are simple. Form a team of four. Enter the Death Pyramid — which, as many of you know, appears only once every three years. Clear as many floors as you can. The team with the highest floor count wins."
He paused for effect.
"First prize: twenty thousand gold pieces." Another pause. "And the Crimson Djinn Blade — along with its matching armor set."
The room erupted.
I stood near the back and listened to the noise — people calculating odds, arguing over team compositions, already half-convinced they'd won. The blade clearly meant something significant. The gold clearly meant everything to everyone else.
I felt none of it.
*Twenty thousand gold. A legendary sword. And a dungeon called the Death Pyramid.*
I was already moving toward the exit.
I had zero interest in dying a fourth time.
---
"Hey — you."
I was three steps from the door.
I turned around slowly, already certain this wasn't meant for me.
It was.
Three people were looking at me — two girls and a boy, roughly my age, standing close together in the way that meant they already knew each other well. The one who'd spoken was the boy: tall, easy smile, the kind of face that made people trust him immediately.
"Me?" I said.
"You're the only one walking toward the exit," he said, amused. "Yeah, you. What's your name?"
"...Arthur. Arthur Shozoria."
"Arthur." He nodded like he was filing it away. "I'm Max Gronald. This is Maya Charlotte" — he gestured to the girl on his left, who had the calm, measured look of someone who didn't waste energy on unnecessary movement — "and this is my sister, Lecia." The other girl gave a small wave.
"We need a fourth," Max said. "You free?"
I stared at him.
"I'm not an adventurer," I said. "I don't have a rank. I'd be useless in a dungeon — I'd probably get your team killed."
Max didn't look concerned.
"We're not asking you to fight." He shrugged. "Most teams are already full. We just need four people to register. You come with us, stay back, let us handle the actual floors. Easy."
I looked at the three of them.
Maya was watching me with a calm expression that gave nothing away. Lecia was glancing around the room with mild interest, like this conversation was a formality she was waiting to finish. Max just looked like he'd already decided how this ended.
*You need to learn this world,* I thought. *Hiding won't help you do that.*
"Alright," I said. "I'm in."
Max grinned. "Perfect. Wait here — I'll grab the registration cards."
He disappeared into the crowd.
I stood with Maya and Lecia and said nothing, because I couldn't think of anything useful to say. Maya didn't seem to need conversation. Lecia was watching a group of older adventurers near the wall with something between admiration and careful study.
I followed her gaze without meaning to.
The group she was watching were different from everyone else in the room — not louder, not bigger, just *still* in a way that set them apart. Their armor was worn but clearly exceptional, the kind that came from use rather than money. They moved with a precision that made everyone else look slightly clumsy by comparison.
One of them shifted to the side, and I saw her.
Rosie.
She was standing at the edge of the group, listening to something one of them was saying, her expression unreadable. She looked completely at home — like this was the environment she'd been built for, like the hospital room where we'd spoken had been the temporary thing and this was the real one.
I watched her for a moment.
Back in that hospital room, she'd felt almost approachable. Here, surrounded by people who clearly operated on a completely different level, the distance felt much wider.
*That's what this world looks like at the top.*
*And I'm starting from below the bottom.*
"Here." Max reappeared and pressed a card into my hand. "We're registered. We head out in an hour."
I looked down at the card.
*Team Gronald. Floor entry: Death Pyramid, Level 1.*
I turned the card over once, then pocketed it.
*Don't think about it too hard,* I told myself. *Just watch. Learn. Come back alive.*
Simple enough.
Probably.
[End of Chapter 3]