He woke in the fetal position, clutching desperately at his chest. Everything hurt. His torso felt like it had empty holes in it that wouldn’t close, he was dying, he was dead. He had died.

  Zedart was sprawled on concrete. People in the background shouted in surprise at his appearance. They approached, but that wasn’t right. He had to move. He couldn’t let himself stop here. Mustering all the willpower he could, he leaped backwards.

  Back into the System Portal that had spat him out.

  He collapsed into the Manager’s Abode, still clutching his chest. The Manager knelt next to him, their androgynous elven features showing concern at his state.

  “Welcome Zedart. You know you have made yourself Realmbound?”

  Zedart tried to get up but collapsed under the pain. “Y-yes.”

  “Then I have some refreshments for you. It’s time to celebrate.”

  “What?”

  A glittering golden orb floated up and appeared in front of Zedart’s eyes. He reached out.

  The Manager smiled.

  –

  The Manager had told Zedart that he should pick Arkelor as his returning town, and he did as instructed.

  He appeared from a System portal in Arkelor. A city in the first sector, far outside a leveled zone. He collapsed again with his hand over his chest. The class orb had helped with the soul damage but only temporarily. It was becoming worse by the second as he sat there in public, people staring at him.

  An fairly… bouncy elf came along in very unpriestly like priest robes. She started yelling.

  “Mefar! Jettin! Stretchers, Manager’s sake, boy did you just jump back after dying? What were those stupid Earthers doing?”

  They carried him off into a temple. He tried to get up to stop them but was promptly pushed back by the elven priestess. She hit him directly in the chest, making him fall back in pain.

  “Please don’t get up.” She smiled at him.

  Something about the smile flashed a warning in his mind. Before he could speak, another finger poked his chest as he screamed out in pain.

  “Oopsies, don’t mind me, everyone. Freshly realmbound adventurer coming through! Souldamage!”

  “” He hissed.

  The busty elf in priestly robes winked at him.

  “Oh yes, told us all about what happened. Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands...”

  Another finger poked him in the chest again as he blacked out in pain.

  –

  Zedart awoke with a towel strapped to his mouth. He tried to take it off but found his arms were tied down. He started chewing on the towel, trying to bite through.

  “Whoa, slow down there, buddy.”

  Gamielle appeared in front of him. She was back to being human again. He thrashed as he remembered what she had done. This was all her fault. How was she standing while he was lying in pain?

  “Just listen to me for three minutes. I know your parents. I know they told you too much about what’s to come.”

  Zedart froze. That was not something he expected to hear from her. Gamielle continued.

  “Three minutes—just listen to me, okay? Then I’ll let you do whatever you want. No arguments. If you speak now, it’ll be a lot worse than just your word against mine.”

  Zedart’s new class burned in his mind as he glared at Gamielle. Letting her talk was like fighting a master unarmed. It was idiocy, but… he needed to know what she was going to say. He nodded stiffly.

  Gamielle let out a breath and came over and removed his restraints and gag.

  “Why?” He croaked.

  “Still haven’t figured it out?”

  “What?”

  “I set it up. I set up the scenario so that you would have to fight Artigan. I didn’t die there. It was all a setup.”

  “I cut you through. I felt it happen.”

  “And yet here I am!” Gamielle did a twirl, then a flip. She spread her arms with a “Ta-da!”

  Zedart could only gape at her. If he’d tried to do that, he’d probably die from the pain.

  “The System screens -”

  “All fake, c’mon, Artigan figured it out pretty quickly. , who the hell gets suspicious over their interface?”

  She shook her head in annoyance. Zedart tried to bring up the Instant Trial screen. It took a few seconds, but a System screen popped up.

  It was an ASCII image of Gamielle sticking her tongue out at him. Other than that, it looked perfectly like a System screen. Zedart just stared at it, blinking. Memories flashed in his mind. Words spoken, mistakes made.

  , Artigan had said.

  Zedart had refused to listen. He had swung first. A different pain overwhelmed the pain in his chest.

  “Why! Why do this? What have you got to gain?”

  “Gain? No, it’s what we have to lose. We need more people at the top end of power. You know some of it, right? Your parents should never have told you any of it. Irresponsible.”

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  He wanted to defend his parents. He was the one who had pushed them to tell him the truth, to tell him why they continued to push so hard. He had pestered them until they relented.

  “I don’t know everything. I only picked up some things from how they talked about The Realm.”

  “You’re a terrible liar.” Gamielle said. “I also know what your parents are like. Passionate, doting idiots.”

  Trying to kill a teammate and jumping back to the portal to make himself realmbound, what had he done? His guilt was as high, if not higher than Gamielle’s. Gamielle… she didn’t seem phased by any of this, her eyes were cold, impassive. Like she didn’t care.

  Zedart asked the obvious question.

  “Are you working for the Tyrants?”

  “Yes, and no.”

  “Please, Gamielle.”

  Gamielle blinked, her lip twitching a little. “Fine, yes, I’m working for the Tyrants, not all of them, but they all know I’m doing stuff. Happy?”

  “No.” Zedart had made up his mind. “I’ll tell the Guild. If you’re working for the Tyrants, then let them show up and explain.”

  Gamielle just looked at him blankly, then she burst out laughing.

  “You think the Tyrants will come down themselves and make a ruling over two first realm children? By the Manager’s blasted asshole! Did you want to bring your parents in as well?”

  Zedart blushed and crossed his arms. Then winced at the pain.

  “What you did wasn’t right. You got him blacklisted. He doesn’t deserve that.”

  “Hypocrite child.” Gamielle spat. She pointed at his chest as he winced. “You tried to kill him, and you think that wouldn’t ruin his life?”

  “And that was wrong. I will make amends. I want to face justice, Tyrants or not.”

  It was faint, but there was a flicker in her eyes. Perhaps it was his new class but suddenly everything was clear to him. Gamielle was still the Gamielle he knew.

  Gamielle wrinkled her nose at the word justice, then shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  “Firstly, you wouldn’t be blacklisted or properly punished because of your parents. Meanwhile, our little [Rogue] friend would come under the worst scrutiny. Neither you nor he would ever find another team to join.”

  Gamielle continued before Zedart could answer. “Not to mention, the moment he steps out of a leveled zone, your parents would pluck him out and rip him apart. Justice? Hah!”

  He uncrossed his arms and looked at his hands. Why had he been given his class now? The Manager hadn’t given him an answer, but it burned in his mind, demanding that he clear his conscience.

  “Listen to me,” Gamielle said. “We need more people like Zhenren or Atellion. If we take him out right now, he will play it safe and become mediocre. Everything will have been for nothing.”

  Gamielle was begging him. He saw it in her eyes. She wasn’t lying. The young [Swordsman] was debating, he roiled in guilt. H

  “Just wait one more day. He’s going to do the second Trial. I think he’s going to give us a surprise.”

  A flash crossed his mind—a mad, desperate grin. A man with significantly less skill but used every single thing at his disposal to achieve victory. The last thing Zedart had thought as he died was that Artigan would have made an excellent teammate. It was his fault that it was never to be. Zedart looked up.

  “You think he’ll grow to the top dragonslayers?”

  Gamielle smiled… sadly She looked at him, then looked down in guilt. No longer was she hiding behind a stoic mask but revealed her true feelings. There was no point in hiding them. She could read him too.

  “Who knows? But don’t you want to see what he might become?”

  It was wrong to accept. This was a dirty deal where he wasn’t being told everything. He should have declined her and gone straight to the Guild. The young [Swordsman] looked at his only friend, begging him to stay his hand, and he slumped.

  –

  Gamielle let out a breath as she left the room. The encounter had not gone quite as planned. She was supposed to have danced, goaded and threatened Zedart into agreeing.

  Instead, she had pleaded as a friend.

  “Silly boy, so easy to manipulate.”

  She lied to herself. He had seen through her, [Swordsmen], even young ones, were often like that. Gamielle wasn’t sure what her mother would have done, but stopping Zedart from going to the Guild had been more for his sake than Ryan’s. No matter what, Ryan was going to be kept as a blacklister. If Zedart got in the way… even she didn’t know how her mother would have handled him.

  She just hoped that her mother was too distracted with Ryan to have noticed Zedart’s class change.

  Gamielle paced. Despite her condition, it still helped her mind to settle. Then she peered out, spying on the place where she’d left things in motion for Ryan to get blacklisted.

  Then she winced.

  “Oh, Sab, you really are too good at your job.”

  –

  Sabrina, the head receptionist of Pailos, had come back to her shift to find her entire Guild upturned. A blacklisting was going to happen, and at realm 1 no less. Somehow, every single team had found out about it before she did.

  She was currently laying into the rookie receptionist. Rookie should’ve been the wrong term. He’d been a receptionist for a year, but rookie was the kindest term she could come up with to excuse such a royal fuck up.

  “You’re supposed to put out a message, all the staff first, then we prepare and make an edict. How did everyone else find out before I did?”

  The man stuttered. “I-I swear I sent it and told nobody else. It must’ve been the temple folk, the natives-”

  Sabrina punched the idiot in the gut the moment the word came out of his mouth. Her voice dripping venom.

  “You use that word again and the next time I’m rupturing an organ. You hear me? And no, the Realmers that work in the temples don’t gossip.”

  “Yes, Sabrina.” The man said between coughs. “If it wasn’t the Realmers, it could only be Gamielle, she was distraught. She coulda done it.”

  That name made her veins freeze. She looked around warily and heard a knock at the door—almost like it had been waiting for it. Sabrina cleared her throat.

  “Come in.”

  “I heard someone call my name. Hi Sab! Hi Leb.”

  “Leb, leave .”

  “Yes, head receptionist.”

  The junior receptionist was more than happy to leave her wrath, expecting her to lay in on Gamielle instead of him. In reality, Sabrina was trying hard not to sweat and give anything away.

  The door closed behind the junior receptionist.

  “What’s wrong, Sab?” Gamielle skipped up to Sabrina’s face. Her face only inches away from the receptionist’s face. Gamielle gave her a smile with a tilt of her head. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Sabrina kept an air of professionalism as sweat started beading on her forehead.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just trying to get the Guild in order.”

  “I forgot the Guild had such old paper records.” Gamielle sighed with exaggeration. “How much do you think you know?”

  Sabrina had started researching Gamielle’s background immediately after her interaction with Artigan. It didn’t take her long to find out that Gamielle’s backstory didn’t hold up to scrutiny. She asked around and kept digging until she had ended up in Arkelor’s city archives.

  Then she wished she hadn’t.

  “Nothing, I know nothing.”

  “, keep it that way.” Gamielle turned her head and faced the wall, like she was looking and listening to something far away. “Patrick’s team is putting a bounty of five hundred realmcoins on the blacklister. Make sure that gets added.”

  Sabrina swallowed. She was probably going to die for this, but this was her job, and she was an adventurer. It had been hard to become an head receptionist. She had some fucking pride.

  “I don’t take orders from you.”

  Even the dragonslayer daughter of a famous terrorist couldn’t kill her in a leveled zone. That’s what Sabrins hoped anyway. Gamielle standing in front of her in said leveled zone didn’t quite allay her fears. Gamielle tutted.

  “Check your phone.”

  Sabrina took a step back as her phone vibrated. Keeping the [Mage] in her view, she took out her phone. Then she froze.

  An image took up the whole screen. An old symbol, a bronze kiteshield with a pointy witch’s hat hanging loosely off the top right corner. On the shield itself was a simplistic image of a flat land floating in the void.

  What the original first sector had looked like. Before all the other sectors came along.

  It was the original heraldry of the Tyrants. The symbol The Realm had bannered under to fight off Earth’s forces. The heraldry stayed on her screen for five seconds, then disappeared. Like it was never there at all.

  Sabrina bowed deeply to an agent of the Tyrants. Then, she took out her phone.

  “This is Sabrina, head receptionist. I am approving the edict for Destined Artigan, a [Rogue] in the first realm. Starting bounty at five hundred realmcoins.”

  She hung up before receiving an answer. Gamielle was still staring at her. Sabrina no longer wondered how Gamielle could appear in a leveled zone. If anyone could do it, it would be someone working for the Tyrants.

  She cleared her throat, more comfortable with Gamielle than before.

  “Am I allowed to ask about what happened to Patrick?”

  “Mm, sure I killed him because he broke adventurer etiquette.” Gamielle frowned at her horrified face. “Hey! I gave him a chance, you know. I’m not a monster. It’s his fault for lowering his guard like an idiot. If he had survived his achievements would have shot up.”

  “What about Zedart, his parents -”

  “You were doing so well. Don’t mess it up now.” Gamielle said. “Everything is done for the future of The Realm. If you want to know more, then you know what you need to do. Rise to dragonslayer and then we’ll tell you everything.”

  –

  Gamielle sighed as she watched Sabrina walk away. The head receptionist of Pailos was rattled, but no longer believed she was one step away from death.

  “Still too soft by half.”

  “Shut up, Mom.”