By morning, when the cock crowed, Aj sat up with a groggy stretch. His eyes scanned the horizon—empty. Asokha and his soldiers were gone. No tents. No horses. No ember left from their fire. It was as if the night before had been nothing but a dream.
Aj rubbed his temples. Then another thought struck him.
Today is… Sunday?
His lips twitched. Back on Earth, Sunday meant holidays, prayers, lazy mornings, and calendars built around the sun. But here—here there was no sun. Only endless gray skies, a world without dawn.
So why Sunday?
For a moment, the absurdity gnawed at him. What right does a world without light have to keep the names of days? If there's no sun, then what is "Sunday"? What is "time," if it doesn't belong to the rhythm of the heavens?
He let out a bitter laugh under his breath. Even here, shadows still cling to names they don't understand. Even here, people live by illusions.
Before his thoughts could sink deeper, Sasu came stumbling toward them, half shouting, half panting. "Aj! Neo! Come quickly! Your father is calling."
Aj and Neo—cousins bound by blood and mischief—exchanged a glance before following.
The path opened into a wide ground, about the size of a tennis court. Flattened earth formed a circle, ringed by slumfolk pressing in on every side. Children perched on shoulders, old women leaned on sticks, men stood with arms crossed. Every face was serious, waiting.
Aj whispered, "An arena?"
Neo nodded uneasily. "Looks like it…"
At the center, Aj's father stood, his presence commanding silence. His eyes swept across the crowd, then rested on the two boys.
"It is true," he said slowly, his voice steady as stone. "You have gained the Prince's blessing to take the Adventurer's Test. But before you walk beyond these slums, you must prove something greater."
Aj straightened, a spark in his chest. "Prove? Definitely! I'll prove we're worthy! Come at me—are you my challenger, Father?"
His father gave a small, sad smile and shook his head. "No, Aj. Not me."
He raised his hand and pointed across the arena.
"My brother."
The night broke with the sound of hooves striking against stone. Horses drew to a halt at the edge of the slum, their riders clad in iron and leather. Strange flames hovered in the air above them, burning without smoke, floating like living embers. Their light was brighter than any lantern, bathing the mud streets in an otherworldly glow.
From among them stepped a figure already on the ground, walking forward with measured, unhurried steps. His cloak swayed lightly behind him, his presence as heavy as a storm pressing down on the earth.
Asokha VII.
The soldiers remained mounted, forming a wall of horses and steel, but their leader advanced alone, each step echoing against the uneasy silence of the slum.
AJ stood frozen. Around him, the slumfolk dropped to their knees one after another. Even Neo—cold, defiant Neo—bowed without protest.
AJ bent his knee, but before it touched the ground, the prince's voice cut through the night.
"You. Do not kneel."
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Everyone trembled. AJ's father rushed forward, bowing low, his voice cracking. "Please, my lord… forgive him, if anything has angered you."
But Asokha raised a hand, silencing him. He stopped just before AJ, standing close enough that the strange firelight danced in his eyes.
"A warrior like you," he said steadily, "does not kneel. Never thought I'd find courage burning in a Valmorra."
The slum held its breath.
"Pardon my ignorance," Asokha continued, his voice ringing clear. "I am Asokha the Seventh, prince of ——, firstborn of Emperor Asokha VI and Queen Sara'an."
The silence deepened. Not even the floating flames flickered.
With a sharp gesture, he called one of his knights. The man dismounted, knelt, and offered a small but masterfully forged blade. A miniature sword, its hilt etched with patterns older than the slums themselves.
Asokha extended it to AJ.
"I… I can't," AJ stammered, stepping back. "It's too valuable—"
But the prince pressed it into his hands. "It belongs with you."
Then he turned sharply to his men. "Set the tents here. Tonight, we hunt—deer, boar, whatever the forest gives."
The soldiers shifted uneasily. One knight spoke up, his voice low. "Your Highness, this is the slum. A royal should not even set foot here, let alone—"
"Slum?" Asokha's voice thundered. "These people bleed. They breathe. And they mine Wai ore from dungeons so your Empire thrives. Do you dare call them filth?"
The knight faltered. "But, my prince—"
"This is not a request," Asokha said coldly. "It is an order."
And so, for the first time in living memory, royal tents began to rise within the slums, lit by floating flames that burned brighter than day.
By morning, when the cock crowed, Aj sat up with a groggy stretch. His eyes scanned the horizon—empty. Asokha and his soldiers were gone. No tents. No horses. No ember left from their fire. It was as if the night before had been nothing but a dream.
Aj rubbed his temples. Then another thought struck him.
Today is… Sunday?
His lips twitched. Back on Earth, Sunday meant holidays, prayers, lazy mornings, and calendars built around the sun. But here—here there was no sun. Only endless gray skies, a world without dawn.
Then he heard someone mutter in passing, "It's Sunday, we don't need to work today."
Aj froze.
Sunday?
The word hit him like a slap. His mind spun.
Back on Earth, Sunday belonged to calendars carved out by empires, to priests who named days after gods and the sun. Sunday came from Rome, from Christianity, from a history drenched in sunlight.
But here? In this world where no sun had ever risen?
How the hell can there be a Sunday here?
It was a crack in reality, a glitch in the script of this world. Whoever named it "Sunday" shouldn't even exist here.
For the first time since waking in this strange life, Aj felt something colder than fear—something uncanny. A reminder that the threads tying his old world and this one ran deeper than he thought.
Before he could untangle the thought, Sasu came running, waving frantically. "Aj! Neo! Your father's calling! Hurry!"
Aj and Neo—cousins bound by blood and mischief—exchanged a glance before following.
The path opened into a wide ground, about the size of a tennis court. Flattened earth formed a circle, ringed by slumfolk pressing in on every side. Children perched on shoulders, old women leaned on sticks, men stood with arms crossed. Every face was serious, waiting.
Aj whispered, "An arena?"
Neo nodded uneasily. "Looks like it…"
At the center, Aj's father stood, his presence commanding silence. His eyes swept across the crowd, then rested on the two boys.
"It is true," he said slowly, his voice steady as stone. "You have gained the Prince's blessing to take the Adventurer's Test. But before you walk beyond these slums, you must prove something greater."
Aj straightened, a spark in his chest. "Prove? Definitely! I'll prove we're worthy! Come at me—are you my challenger, Father?"
His father gave a small, sad smile and shook his head. "No, Aj. Not me."
He raised his hand and pointed across the arena.
"My brother."
Father asked me and Neo to defeat if we want to leave.
My uncle seemed skinny, short, and not visibly strong nor intellectual by appearance (purely my opinion).
While my body seemed strong for a 15-year-old boy—maybe due to the harsh condition of this world—he didn't seem like a challenge. But who knows whether he knows any martial arts or something...
The fight begins! my father roared—
My uncle stood still and asked AJ and Neo to attack.
Being cautious is Riddez's trait, so I rushed towards my uncle with the little karate knowledge I had.
BOOMS—DA—DIS—BOOM!
WTF! My uncle was already on the ground... Well, I knew we were Slumbian, yet I didn't expect such a hilarious victory.
"KIDDO, where are you looking? The match is not yet finished. When you said you wanted to be an ADVENTURER, you weren't joking... Now let me show my power."
My uncle closed his eyes and suddenly—an invisible force hit me and Neo.
"Match over! Your uncle wins!" father declared.
I knew my uncle had something under his sleeves,
"The air punched me in the chest. No hands, no weapon—just force. Magic. Of course .
Before I could think further..
"Aj, tell me—why did you lose?" asked my father.
"Pa, because I let my guard down... or I didn't make a strategy before the match... or—"
"Well, Aj, you are right but not correct. The main reason you lost was because you did not know what your OPPONENT was capable of. That's how adventure is. If you go to the jungle now, I'll be having a funeral for my son.
So promise me, Aj, that you will not run away until you're ready. And only after you become an adult (18 years old) and complete your training, then you can think about ADVENTURE."
"...Fine," I said.
When I asked my uncle about that invisible power, he just dodged the question. As he moved away, he muttered something under his breath.
Thus, my daily lesson started from the age of 15.
From early morning (no sunlight, just the cock's call), I had to do some mining in the Dungeon along with my slum-mates. Because in the Dungeon, there was a CURSE: only people with no Wai or High-level Wai (mostly Kshatriyas) could enter. No intermediates were allowed.
"Naturally, no Kshatriya would ever stoop to mining. That was left for people like us—the ones no one cared about." so we, the great Slum-men, were left with the job of extracting ore in the Dungeon
Then started my Training Arc
The days that followed were unlike anything AJ had ever known. At dawn, when the broken cry of a rooster echoed faintly through the slums, the boys were already awake. The Dungeon called to them—not as adventurers, but as laborers.
Pickaxes were thrust into their hands. The ore-veins, dull and unyielding, stretched endlessly before them. Swing after swing, the stone resisted. By midday their palms were torn open, the skin raw and blistered, but the overseers showed no pity.
AJ gritted his teeth as the pick struck sparks against the rock. His shoulders burned, every muscle screaming, yet a strange exhilaration lingered beneath the pain. Each strike left him weaker and stronger at the same time.
Neo worked differently. Where AJ swung with fury, Neo moved with quiet precision, each strike measured, his endurance unshaken. He seldom spoke, but when he did, it was always to point out some hidden fault in the stone or a better way to split it.
Evening brought no rest. The boys were dragged into the slum's fighting pits, where the rules were simple—fight until you couldn't stand. Their opponents ranged from boys barely older than them to scarred men desperate for coin. Blood stained the dust as fists and knees became their second weapons.
At first, AJ was reckless, flailing with raw strength. He was knocked down more times than he could count, tasting sand and iron on his tongue. But slowly, instinct sharpened. He learned to duck, to counter, to strike where it hurt most. Pain was his tutor, and he carried its lessons on his skin.
Neo, in contrast, fought with the same calm precision he mined with. He rarely rushed, rarely faltered, watching his opponent until the perfect opening appeared. When it did, his fists struck like hammers.
Weeks turned into months, and months bled into years. The Dungeon carved muscle into their frames, the pits hardened their will, and both boys grew into something the slum no longer recognized.
My First Day in the Dungeon
My first day in the Dungeon was… beautifully hideous.
To be honest, I'd never held an axe in my life. Digging, cutting—those were stories for other people. At first, I was curious. I had read about dungeons in my brother's comic books back on Earth. They were supposed to be places of adventure, treasure, and heroes.
Reality? It began with a horn.
A deafening BWOOOOOM! split the night. Soldiers poured into the slums.
"So, all you hideous pieces of shit, let's gooo!" roared their leader—Garbage. (That's what I called the knight who had insulted us before. I still think it's the perfect name.)
They rode on horses, glowing flames hovering beside their saddles like bright whips of fire, while we trudged on foot. Some soldiers in front, others behind, caging us like cattle.
The slum gates opened, and we were pushed into the forest. Pitch black. The same place where I had once wandered off alone. The air was thick with howls and guttural roars. Each step forward made my knees weaker. I was carrying a heavy axe, and honestly… I was one moment away from wetting myself.
The route felt endless. The deeper we went, the more powerless I felt against whatever lurked in the dark.
Finally—after an hour of dread—we reached it.
My First Dungeon.
It stood in the middle of nowhere, like a leaning tower from an old world. Around it, bright lamps glowed, not like floating lanterns of fantasy, but more like streetlights dragged into a nightmare. Their light spilled over the clearing, bathing the Dungeon in a ghostly aura.
Before I could even breathe out a "wow", Garbage shoved me forward. Hard.
I stumbled through the only iron door and fell straight into a cavern.
And for a second—just a second—I forgot my fear.
The cavern walls shimmered with embedded ores, glowing like constellations trapped in stone. It was hauntingly beautiful. My chest tightened. So this is… the Dungeon.
But the beauty didn't last.
Because suddenly, a hand gripped mine.
I froze. My skin crawled. My throat went dry.
I turned.
It was my father.
He didn't scold me, didn't question me. He just placed a calloused hand on my shoulder and guided me into the big hollow hall where the others had already started mining. Neo was there too, sweating and swinging with the rest. For a brief second, seeing him made me believe it was simple—that I could do it too.
Father handed me the axe. "Here. Start here." His voice was calm, steady. I wanted to ask a thousand things, but before I could… he was gone.
The first swing of my axe nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets.
God, this thing is heavy.
I tried again. The blade bit into the stone, sending vibrations up my arms. My palms stung. My lungs burned. Sweat poured down my face.
Hours blurred. My muscles screamed. My back ached. And still, I kept hacking, hacking, hacking—until finally, the axe's edge cracked something loose.
A shard of glowing ore dropped at my feet.
It wasn't large. It wasn't even impressive. But it was mine.
When I bent to pick it up, the sharp edge sliced my finger. Blood ran down my hand, dark and thin under the cavern's glow.
Sweat. Blood. Ore.
That was the Dungeon's welcome.
And as I stood there, clutching that small shard in my trembling hand, I realized something:
This place would either kill me—or make me strong enough to drag the sun back into this world.
Three years later
The Slum gate creaked open with its usual groan, like even the rust hated the idea of us leaving.
Neo stood tall, sharper eyes, harder muscles, his hand resting on the crude spear he'd forged. He looked like he was marching to war.
I… well, I was mostly marching because I didn't want Garbage or some other knight to kick my ass back in.
"Aj," Neo said, serious as ever, "from today onwards, we step into the world not as Slumboys, but as adventurers-in-training."
I nodded, though inside my brain screamed: Hell yeah, finally. Three years of mining rocks, eating dirt soup, and getting punched in alleys for 'training'? If that's preparation, I'm probably ready to fight gods.
"Don't joke around," Neo shot me his strict glare, the kind that made it look like he carried the entire Slum's pride on his back.
"Relax, cousin," I grinned. "If pride could kill monsters, you'd already be a hero. Meanwhile, I'll settle for not dying in the first five minutes."
The gates groaned fully open. Beyond was the black forest, the endless unknown, the start of everything.
Neo clenched his fist. "Our journey begins here."
I raised an eyebrow. "Our suffering continues here."
And with that, we stepped past the Slum gate.