My father had bet me that he could do it in two hours where it had taken my mother and I eight. I was a little skeptical, but if I had to wager, my money would have been on him. He moved like something else entirely. He was clearly a swordsman, but he was built like a mountain, not a fencer.
My family moved at easily five times the speed my mother and I had managed the day we first made our way to the city. My father literally strapped a cart to his back and pulled us to the city gates in two hours instead of the eight it had taken before. The memory of that first trip felt almost comical now. Back then, my mother and I had trudged along under the heavy sun, our feet caked in dust, stopping often for water and rest. Now the world blurred around us, the road a streak of gold and red clay beneath the wheels. I could barely believe how fast he moved.
I knew my father was strong. He was a defender after all, one of the men stationed at the Northland fort hold the frontier against the monsters that roamed from the Sea of Trees. But watching him run like that, with our entire cart bouncing behind him as though it weighed nothing, was something else entirely. Each stride looked effortless, a rhythmic power that seemed to come from the earth itself. His muscles coiled and released with the precision of a lifetime spent in motion. The cart jolted behind him, and yet his steps stayed smooth and steady, perfectly balanced. If this was what the defenders were trained for, it was no wonder the walls still stood.
He never skipped leg day, that much was certain. I said it out loud, grinning at him, my voice half-lost to the rushing wind. My hair whipped around my face, and the air burned against my cheeks. “You’re incredible,” I called, laughing despite myself. He turned his head just enough to flash a smile, teeth bright against the dust and sun. Somehow he wasn’t even sweating, and that puzzled me. The wind helped with the heat, yes, but not enough to explain it. I didn’t understand how his skin stayed dry while mine burned, how the sun didn’t seem to touch him the way it did everyone else. It wasn’t natural. He moved as if the heat respected him, as if even the air refused to weigh him down. The man was a living machine of will and muscle, shaped by discipline, not faith.
The road stretched long and empty ahead of us, glimmering with heat. I clung to the edge of the cart as we rattled over uneven stone, my mother sitting beside me with one hand gripping the railing and the other bracing the basket of supplies that threatened to tumble with every bounce. Every so often she laughed, not out of fear, but from the absurdity of it all. My father would surge forward with a burst of strength to take a hill, and for a few heartbeats the cart would lift just enough that the wheels seemed to skim the air. My stomach dropped and I shouted in surprise, half-thrilled, half-terrified, while my mother laughed so hard she wiped tears from her eyes.
Even with the rush of wind, the air was still hot, the kind of heat that clung to your skin and made you aware of every breath. The road dust rose in red clouds behind us, catching the sunlight and painting everything in a copper haze. I tried to fan myself, but the air rushing past felt no cooler than standing still. It was like racing through the breath of the world itself. The land smelled of dry grass and baked earth, the scents of a place that had never known cold. The cicadas screamed from the fields, and the sound chased us all the way to the horizon.
I glanced at my father again. He hadn’t slowed once. His movements were a study in rhythm, every motion precise, every breath measured. The cords in his neck stood out, but his face remained calm, focused. I realized then what made the defenders so different from the rest of us. They didn’t just fight; they endured. Every step my father took seemed to echo with that simple truth. He carried more than a cart. He carried us.
When the city walls finally appeared in the distance, they shimmered in the heat like a mirage. The stone towers rose above the plains, pale and massive, their shadows cutting through the morning glare. The sight filled me with something close to awe. My father slowed his pace, the first hint of effort in his breath, and turned to look back at us. “Two hours,” he said with a grin. “Told you I could do it.”
I could only nod, smiling back. My mother shook her head and laughed again. “You’ll ruin your legs before the monsters do,” she teased.
He laughed and straightened his back, the sunlight catching the faint sheen of sweat across his shoulders. “Never,” he said. “Hard work doesn’t break.”
And for a moment, watching him there, strong and unshaken beneath the endless heat, I believed it.
My father spoke to me as we arrived at the training facility where I would be spending quite some time. The road behind us still shimmered with heat, and the wheels of the cart creaked as he brought it to a stop at the edge of the compound. The place looked enormous to me, walls of pale stone enclosing courtyards and dormitories, banners snapping in the dry wind, and rows of training fields stretching out toward the horizon. I had dreamed of being here for months, yet now that I stood before it, I felt something hollow open up inside me. This would be my new home. My mother would come visit on weekends, and my father when he could, but for the most part, I would live among strangers. The realization sank in slowly, a dull ache that sat behind my ribs. It broke something small and quiet within me, knowing that I would not live with the family that had raised me, not again for years. The idea felt heavy, almost unreal, a weight that pressed behind every breath.
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My father stopped the cart and turned to me. His movements were deliberate, careful. He was not a man who wasted gestures. His voice was quiet, the kind of quiet that could still a crowd. “Son,” he said, “you know I was not there for your birth, and I am sorry for that. Your mother knows that that night was not an easy night for either of us. But you do not understand why I was away.”
I looked up at him, studying his face. The lines that cut across his cheeks were deep from sun and years of strain. His skin bore the burn of the frontier, his eyes sharp as the steel he carried. He had always seemed unbreakable to me, a pillar that nothing could bend, but in that moment, I saw the fatigue that even strength could not hide. His shoulders seemed heavier, the air around him thick with memory.
“The dungeon is breaking further and further,” he said, his tone shifting into that of a man used to command. “It is pushing. We spent months holding it back, driving it toward stability, but the Sea of Trees is growing too fast. Far too fast. We need adventurers to cut into its heart and find out what is feeding it. Dungeons do not behave this way. They grow in steady rhythms, predictable cycles. They consume, yes, but they do not expand again and again like this.” He glanced down at his hands, curling his fingers as though remembering the hilt of his sword. The scars there caught the light. “I only tell you this because you will be joining the adventuring training class, and the first dungeon they will take you to is the Sea of Trees. It is the dungeon for our city and our entire region. It belongs to us, and so it is our burden.”
He paused and drew a slow breath. The wind carried the scent of iron and dry grass between us. His eyes found mine again, sharper now. “There are many weak monsters in those woods, yes, but there are others that are not. Things that crawl in the deep roots, things that remember the blood of the first explorers. The guild calls them bosses, but they were here long before that name existed. You will see them one day, and when you do, you must not hesitate.”
His words hit harder than I expected. I could feel his sincerity like heat. He continued, “I know you are a reincarnator. I know that you have lived a life fuller than the one I am living now, but remember this—you are living in a world that has moved beyond what you knew. This age is not your old one reborn. You may have the wisdom of the past, but you must learn to survive in the present.” His tone softened as he said it, the weight still there but wrapped in something gentler. “If this is all the knowledge that I can pass to you, then let it be this: fight when the time comes. You have chosen this path for yourself, and I do not disapprove. I am proud of you. You are my son, and you have chosen the path that will help others stand.”
He reached out and rested his calloused hand on my shoulder. The heat of it anchored me. “But you must understand something,” he said. “If anything comes at you, you fight until it can no longer harm you. You fight. If you knock something down, you finish it. Do not let it stand again. That goes for monsters, and it goes for men. Mercy is for after the danger has passed. Not before.”
His voice carried the weight of every battlefield he had survived. It wasn’t just advice, it was doctrine, carved into him by experience and necessity. He spoke as a man who had seen comrades rise again when they should not have, who had learned that hesitation kills more surely than steel. I could hear the years of pain behind those words, though he tried to hide it beneath command.
I nodded, unable to trust my voice. The training yard beyond the gate looked endless, filled with young faces and the echo of distant shouts. I wondered how many of them had fathers who gave the same warning. My father straightened and placed both hands on the cart as though bracing himself. For a moment, he simply looked at me, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled, small but real.
“You’ll do fine,” he said quietly. “You’re stubborn. That’s from your mother. Keep that with you. It’ll get you farther than strength ever will.”
He looked toward my mother, and together they climbed down from the cart. My mother moved first, pulling me into her arms before I could speak. Her embrace was warm and firm, her cheek damp against mine. “I love you,” she said, her voice catching halfway through the word. My father waited, then wrapped both of us in his arms. It was quick but steady, a kind of farewell that didn’t want to linger for fear of falling apart.
When they finally let go, a guard approached from the gate. His armor was dulled from the sun, his tone professional but not unkind. “Thank you for your future service,” he said to me, then nodded politely to my parents. “I’m sorry, folks, but only adventurers and trainees beyond the gates. Please make your goodbyes now.”
My mother nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. My father gave my shoulder one last squeeze, his grip saying everything words couldn’t. “He’s ready,” he told the guard.
The guard gestured toward the training yard beyond the walls. “Come along, son,” he said, voice quieter now. “You’ll be coming with me.”
I turned back once as I crossed the threshold. The gates stood tall and red in the sunlight. My parents remained where they were, holding hands in the dust road, their figures already blurred by heat. I wanted to memorize that image, the two of them together, watching me go, because I knew once the gates closed, I would not see them for a long time.
The doors shut with a heavy clang behind me, and the sound of it echoed through my chest. It was the first sound of my new life, the sound of leaving.
