Greta warned us about the lesson for the next day at the end of training.

  "Tomorrow," she said, tapping the chalkboard with a finger thick as a branch, "we go into the Sea of Trees. Tin zone only. Quiet area. Nothing dangerous unless you are trying to die on purpose. Bring water. Bring your legs. And if you have questions about it, save them for morning because I refuse to repeat myself."

  Of course, someone asked a question anyway.

  The dwarven girl near the front raised her hand. "How do we get there? It is really far."

  Greta stared at her like she was trying to determine whether the girl had ever walked farther than her own kitchen. "We take a cart," she said.

  That was it. No elaboration. No warning. No hint that she meant something far more horrifying than a wooden wagon with wheels.

  When morning came, she marched us out past the guild training yard, past the outer gates, and stopped beside what looked like a large wooden cart, big enough to hold all of us at once. Harmless. Simple. Comforting. The sort of thing you would use to carry hay or grain or maybe a cluster of sleepy children on a long road, the kind of travel cart meant to be hooked to horses, not dragged by hand. It rested on thick wheels reinforced with metal bands. Nothing about it gave away the truth.

  "Everyone in," she said.

  We climbed in, confused but obedient. The cart had short rails and benches along the sides. I noticed runes carved into the boards, faint and neatly etched, the kind of magical craftsmanship you only saw in enchanted tools meant to endure real strain. I recognized them immediately. Safety locking. Inertia stabilization. Weight distribution. Whoever enchanted this thing had turned it into a travel device meant to defy sense.

  Greta grabbed the front handle, stretched her neck once, and said, "Hold on. Or do not. The cart will hold you either way."

  I barely had time to blink.

  She moved.

  The world blurred instantly. Not our bodies, not the cart beneath us. Those were held steady by the enchantments, so steady that it felt like we were sitting still in a room with perfectly even flooring. But outside the rails, everything transformed into streaks of green, gold, and red. The forest on the horizon warped into long ribbons of color. The sky smeared into a single pale band.

  Our eyes simply could not keep up.

  Children sucked in sharp breaths. A few slapped hands over their mouths. One boy announced that he had died. Another said he could see time bending. Someone tried to stand up and bounced off the stabilizing enchantment like a drunk bird hitting a window and slid back into his seat without dignity.

  Only the oldest kids remained calm, clearly familiar with this torture from earlier years. The rest of us clung to the rails like they might anchor our souls.

  The distance from my village to the city had taken my father two hours, and he had been running quickly enough that the wind had howled in my ears. Greta crossed twice that distance in ten minutes.

  Ten minutes.

  I am fairly certain most of us were spiritually injured.

  By the time she slowed, the world snapped back into shape with dizzying clarity. The cart glided to a halt so gently that it felt like someone placing a feather on a pillow. Half the children fell sideways anyway. A few toppled forward with quiet groans. The rest sat frozen, gripping the rails like survivors of a disaster.

  We were not at the Sea of Trees yet.

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  We had stopped at the wall.

  The northern wall towered above us, pale stone rising so high it swallowed the sky. It stretched left and right across the horizon, an unbroken line of defense built to hold the dungeon back. My father had spoken of this place often, but seeing it in person made something warm and heavy settle beneath my ribs. I found myself scanning the battlements instinctively, searching for his silhouette even though I knew he would not be stationed here.

  Greta waved an armored defender over. The man took one look at our pale faces and snorted. Greta reached into her belt and held up a metal medallion.

  Gold.

  It caught the light like a miniature sun.

  The guard straightened immediately. His posture snapped from casual to respectful, and he nodded once in silent acknowledgment.

  Greta pointed back at us. "They are with me. Tin zone."

  The guard opened the gate at once. No questions. A gold-ranked adventurer did not need to explain herself.

  As we rolled through, I stared at that medallion again. I had known she was strong, but seeing that medallion made everything click. She could have chased wealth, fame, danger. She could have taken contracts that would have carved her name into history.

  Instead, she was here, hauling a cart full of children, yelling at us about balance and breathing, and teaching us how not to die. She had said she liked teaching us, I believed her now.

  Past the gate, the air changed immediately. The shift was subtle but unmistakable. The light dimmed, the color deepened, and the breeze carried the soft hum of a living dungeon. The trees shimmered faintly, their branches swaying in rhythms that had nothing to do with the wind.

  Greta spoke without turning. "Now we enter the outer ring. The Tin zone. Nothing here stronger than a confused rabbit. You will be fine. And if you are not fine, then you will learn something important."

  Someone croaked, "What lesson is that?"

  "That you are weak," Greta said.

  She jerked her thumb toward the green tree line ahead of us. The forest loomed, vast and layered. Leaves shimmered in patterns that made shadows bend strangely.

  We began to walk. Greta led us along a narrow cut path that hugged the wall. In some places, trees pressed right up against the stone, trunks thick enough to block the sun. Their roots twisted across the ground in tangled ropes. Other areas opened into small sunlit pockets where younger trees crowded together in chaotic bursts of color. There was no order to any of it. Every species, every shape, every age grew side by side, as if the dungeon simply spawned whatever it wanted. Because that is exactly what it did.

  "All of you, follow me," Greta said. Her voice carried easily.

  We trailed behind her in an uneven line. Every few steps, a creature darted between roots. Squirrels too quick. Birds too bright. Rabbits with eyes that glowed faintly. All of them were wrong in some way.

  Greta stopped in a clearing barely ten steps from the wall. She pointed around us.

  "You see all of these cute little woodland creatures?" she said as birds, squirrels, and rabbits peeked from branches and bushes. "They are all monsters. Every single one of them. They are Tin-ranked monsters, which means they are very, very, very weak. Just like all of you."

  Nervous laughter rippled through the group. No one sounded comforted.

  "Today," she continued, "you are going to kill one of them. Specifically, this thing." She bent down and scooped up a turtle the size of a frying pan.

  It immediately began wiggling all four legs, twisting in her grip with frantic determination. Its head snapped forward over and over, trying to bite her fingers, but its jaw strength was so pitiful that it did not even dent her skin. A thick plate covered the top of its head like a tiny helmet.

  "This is a Hammer Turtle," Greta said, holding it up. "A truly terrible monster. It tries to kill things by headbutting them. It fails. Always. You would have to be one breath from death, asleep, and leaning over a cliff before this little idiot could possibly kill you. And even then, the fall kills you. Not the turtle."

  A few kids started crying.

  "Yes," Greta said, completely unfazed, "I know they are cute. But they are monsters. Unless you are a tamer or a magical handler, this is not a pet. It is only useful for the materials you harvest from it. If you take this thing out of the dungeon alive, it will grow. Not from dungeon mana, but from atmospheric mana. And it will grow faster. A dungeon’s mana sustains everything inside it. Once a creature leaves, it is no longer bound to that mana, so it starts devouring as much atmospheric mana as it can and these things can consume a lot of mana."

  Kids shifted uneasily. The youngest ones looked horrified.

  "Dungeons produce monsters. When those monsters escape into the outer world, they get more dangerous. They will try to kill you. Even the trees in here will try to kill you if they get the chance. Everything in this dungeon is a threat, no matter how small or stupid. Do not take anything out of here alive unless you want to make your future very short. Do you understand?"

  A chorus of shaky voices answered, "Yes."

  One of the crying kids hiccupped hard. Greta sighed, picked her up gently with one arm, and handed her the turtle with the other.

  "It is okay," she said, patting the girl’s back. "I understand that they are adorable. You still have to kill them. I am here to make sure you can."