For a heartbeat, there was nothing but silence. Then the crowd broke.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"Failure means death? Does that mean seventy percent of us die?"
"The Tower… we're trapped inside! We're all going to die!"
The panic spread like fire through dry grass. Shouts overlapped, fear feeding on itself. Aviss only watched, unmoved. He had seen all of this before—once, long ago, before his regression.
"Everyone calm down!"
A tall, blond man in a crisp business suit strode forward. He looked barely out of his teens, his tie still perfectly knotted, as if he'd just walked out of a boardroom instead of into a nightmare.
"If we work together, we can get through this!" he declared.
A few heads turned toward him, clinging to the confidence in his voice. But fear had sunk deep, and the crowd roiled with disbelief.
"Then what are we supposed to do?!"
"There's no way out of here!"
"My phone's dead—no signal at all!"
The noise built until a single shout cracked through it like a whip.
"Enough!"
Silence fell again. Dozens of eyes snapped to the blond man. Some were desperate, others resentful, but all of them listened.
"We've been given rules," he said firmly. "An objective. That means there's a challenge. And challenges can be beaten."
The words spread like a spark through the group. Fear didn't vanish, but it shifted—tempered into something else. Hope.
Aviss's gaze lingered on the speaker. The young man had a presence that drew people in, someone born to lead. The exact opposite of himself.
"My name is Julius," the man continued, raising his phone. On its screen, a red No Service icon flickered, the device stuttering as if rejecting reality itself. "Based on the lack of signal, and the message we all just saw, we are in the Tower. It sees us as challengers. That means if we want to survive, we have to complete its trial."
A woman with long brown hair, dressed in a business blouse and skirt, stepped up beside him. Likely a coworker. She pointed toward the four distant towers.
"The challenge said we need to survive for seventy-two hours against waves of monsters. I don't know what kind of monsters, but… I think they'll come from there."
Murmurs rose again.
"But how are we supposed to fight them?" a shaved-headed man shouted from the crowd.
As if in response, the ground shuddered. Gears groaned beneath the platform, and a stone pedestal rose slowly from its center. Upon it lay an assortment of weapons: blades, bows, spears—and even a few staffs capped with glowing jewels.
The crowd froze, staring. Then, as if released from a spell, they surged forward, grabbing whatever they could. Each person chose instinctively—the familiar weight of a bat, the heft of a sword, the length of a spear.
Aviss, still keeping to the edge, slipped through the press of bodies and claimed a dagger. Without another word, he retreated to a corner and began stretching, loosening muscles for the battle to come.
Gasps erupted nearby. A young man had lifted one of the jewel-tipped staffs, and in his hands, light swirled. A glowing sphere of energy coalesced, then shot across the platform and burst in a flare of blue fire.
"Whoa—did you see that?"
"How did she do that?"
"Let me try!"
"No matter what I do, nothing's happening!"
Excitement warred with fear as the group experimented, some managing to conjure shimmering orbs of mana, others failing no matter how hard they concentrated.
They began discussing how the staffs worked and the nature of it, they called it magic. Those who could cast explained that it came naturally to them—they simply poured their MP into the staff, and it would release a ball of energy.
Some people had more MP than others, so the drain varied. It also became clear that only those with a real knack for it could use the staffs at all.
Then, with a grinding finality, the pedestal sank back into the stone floor, taking the weapons that remained. A deep, resonant horn blared across the expanse.
[First Wave… Initiating.]
The four distant towers flared alive, their peaks blazing with dark fire. From the flames, shapes began to emerge—monsters, crawling forth into the night.
Aviss rolled his shoulders, dagger flashing in the dim light. So it begins, he thought, stifling a yawn.
Everyone watched in tense silence, hearts pounding, as the creatures from the tower drew closer. The ones in the lead were small and green, each clutching a crude weapon that matched their squat frames. Grins stretched across their twisted faces, and their long noses twitched as they sniffed the air with feral eagerness.
Avis recognized them instantly—the lowest of the low. Goblins.
Five emerged from each tower. Twenty in total. By sheer numbers, the humans had the advantage.
But numbers weren't everything.
"Everyone, hold the formation!" Julio barked, raising his weapon. "We still don't know what they're capable of—"
Before he could finish, a burly man broke ranks and charged recklessly down the bridge toward the southern group.
"Capable of? Look at them! They're tiny! We just have to cut them down and we're good, right? Easy pickings!"
Avis's eyes followed him for a moment, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "There goes the first idiot, running off to get himself killed."
The man brought his sword down with all his might, cleaving a goblin clean in half. But before he could even raise his blade again, the other four leapt at him in unison. Steel flashed, fangs gleamed, and shrieks filled the air. Blades and claws bit into his flesh with precision.
Howls of pain tore from his throat as he stumbled back, swinging wildly in panic. It wasn't enough. A goblin darted low, slashing his heel, and the man collapsed.
"H–Help me!" he screamed, but the only answer was the gleeful screech of his killers. They swarmed him, hacking and stabbing until his cries fell silent and his lifeless body slumped against the stone.
The group froze, eyes wide with horror.
"F–Focus!" Julio shouted, snapping them back. "The others are coming!"