CONTINUE.
Consciousness returned not with a jolt, but with a deep, aching throb.
The first thing he registered was the smell. It was a thick, oppressive mixture of dust, sweat, cold stone, and despair. The second was the sound. A rhythmic, grating 'clink… clink… clink…' of metal on stone, echoing from all around him, punctuated by coughs and low, weary screams.
He was on his back on a hard, cold surface. He opened his eyes to a pervasive darkness, broken only by a single flickering torch jammed into a sconce on a rough-hewn wall.
He was in a cage.
Not a prison cell, but a crude iron-barred enclosure, one of a long row dug into the rock of a vast, cavernous mine. Through the bars, he could see shadows of other figures moving in similar cages, or shuffling past with downcast eyes. All were gaunt, filthy, and clad in rags.
He slowly sat up, the world swimming for a moment. He felt the lump on the back of his head. He was alive. He was in one piece.
But something was different this time.
There was no panic. No frantic scrambling to understand where he was. The raw, screaming terror had been burned out of him, replaced by something colder, heavier, and far more terrifying.
Clarity.
It clicked into place with the finality of a cell door slamming shut.
The classroom. The lurch. The tavern. The goblin's sword. The searing pain. The cold void. The word. 'Continue.'
The spaceship. The freezing vacuum. The obliteration. The cold void. The word. 'Continue.'
The forest. The slavers. The pommel of the sword. The cold void. The word. 'Continue.'
He looked down at his hands, caked in grime. He looked at the star-shaped mark on his wrist. It was silent now. Dormant. Waiting.
He wasn't dreaming. He wasn't hallucinating.
He was cursed.
A dry, hollow sound escaped his lips. It wasn't a laugh. It wasn't a sob. It was the sound of a soul emptying out.
Every time. The thought was ice-cold and absolute in his mind. Every time I die…
He wasn't traveling. He wasn't summoning. He was being evicted. His soul was being ripped from one reality and dumped into another. A cosmic game of hot potato where the prize was endless suffering.
The hope of getting home, the hope that had flickered even on the spaceship, died a final, quiet death.
There was no 'home' to get back to. His world was gone, lost in an infinite sea of others. He was a ghost in the machine of reality, a permanent passenger on a one-way trip to the next grave.
The 'clink… clink… clink…' of pickaxes continued, a grim metronome marking time in this new hell.
Haru Rindo drew his knees to his chest in the filthy straw of his cage, wrapped his arms around them, and rested his forehead on his knees.
He didn't cry. He didn't rage.
He simply sat there, in the dark, and finally, truly understood.
He was in a mine. He would likely die here, from exhaustion, a cave-in, or a guard's whip.
And then it would happen again.
And again.
And again.
Forever.
The only thing left to do was to see how long he could last before the cycle repeated. The game was not about winning. It was about enduring.
He closed his eyes, the weight of infinity pressing down on him.
The student was gone. All that remained was a survivor. And his first task was to survive this.
---
He didn't know how long he sat there, curled in on himself, the crushing weight of eternity his only companion. Time had lost all meaning. It was measured only in the shuffling of feet as slaves were unchained for their shifts, the occasional bark of a guard, and the relentless 'clink' of pickaxes.
He was roused from his stupor by a sudden shift in the mine's rhythm. The clinking slowed, then stopped. A silence fell, broken only by the nervous shuffling of the guards stationed near the main tunnel entrance.
"What is it?"
one grunted.
"Dunno,"
another replied, hand on his sword hilt.
"Scouts are late."
A moment later, the answer came. But not from the tunnel.
It came from above.
With a deafening 'CRACK', a section of the cavern ceiling directly above the guard post exploded. Not from a collapse, but from a precise blast. Rocks and dust showered down, and through the newly made hole in the cavern roof, figures rappelled down on sturdy ropes.
They moved with a lethal, practiced grace. They were not the brutish slavers. They were a party of adventurers, armored, armed, and purpose.
Chaos erupted.
"Intruders!"
a guard screamed, before his shout was cut short by the 'thwip' of a crossbow.
The mine became a battlefield. Guards scrambled to form a defense, while the slaves in their cages recoiled, screaming and pressing themselves against the rock. Haru stared, his mind, numb with despair, struggling to process the sudden violence.
This was it. The chaos he had somehow known would come. The opportunity.
The party was efficient. A warrior in gleaming plate armor met the guards head-on, his shield a wall, his sword a blur. Behind him, spells flared, arcs of lightning that leaped from a robed figure's fingertips, and roots that burst from the stone floor to entangle the slavers.
Hope, sharp and painful, lanced through Haru's resignation. He couldn't die here. Not like this. Not passively. If he was to be damned to this cycle, he would not go quietly.
He rattled the bars of his cage. Locked. His eyes scanned the chaos and landed on the body of a guard who had been thrown against the bars of a nearby cell. A ring of keys hung from his belt.
The fight was moving away from the slave pens, the adventurers pushing the remaining guards back toward the tunnel entrance. This was his only chance.
Taking a deep breath, Haru shoved his arm through the bars, stretching, straining. His fingertips brushed the cold metal of the key ring. He gritted his teeth, pushing his shoulder against the unyielding iron, stretching every muscle.
His fingers closed around the ring. He yanked it back, the keys jangling loudly in his hand. He fumbled, trying one after another in the rusted lock, his hands shaking. The third key turned with a satisfying 'clunk'.
The door swung open.
He didn't hesitate. He scrambled out of the cage and into the chaotic main thoroughfare of the mine. The plan was simple: get to the ropes. Get to the hole in the ceiling. Get out.
He moved low and fast, using overturned carts and piles of rubble for cover. He was just a shadow, a ghost slipping through the cracks of the battle. He reached the base of the ropes unnoticed. The sounds of combat were fading; the adventurers had clearly won.
"This is it. I'm going to make it."
He grabbed a rope, his blistered hands screaming in protest, and began to haul himself up. He was weak from malnourishment and shock, but adrenaline lent him a desperate strength. Hand over hand, he climbed toward the circle of night sky above, toward freedom.
He reached the top, heaving himself over the ragged edge of the hole and onto the cool, blessedly open ground of the forest floor. He lay there for a second, gasping, drinking in the free air.
"You're a long way from your cage."
The voice was calm, female, and laced with a dangerous amusement. It came from directly behind him.
Haru froze. Slowly, he rolled over.
She stood silhouetted against the moon, a bow held loosely in one hand, an arrow still nocked but not drawn. Her posture was relaxed, but everything about her spoke of a predator's confidence. He couldn't see her features clearly in the dark, but he could make out the glint of eyes scanning him, taking in his ragged clothes, his empty hands, his sheer insignificance.
One of the adventurers. He'd been so focused on escape he never considered they'd leave a rear guard.
"I... I was a prisoner,"
he stammered, pushing himself to his feet and taking a step back.
"We freed the prisoners. They're being escorted out the front gate,"
she said.
"You're the only one who came out the hard way. Why is that?"
She took a step forward. Haru took another step back, his heart hammering again. He was free of the mine, but now he was cornered.
"I didn't know that,"
he said, his voice tight with panic.
"I just saw a chance and I took it."
"A chance to do what?"
she pressed, her tone shifting from amusement to suspicion.
"The slavers paid well for their merchandise. You don't look like a miner. You look... lost. Who are you running from?"
She was seeing right through him. He had no story, no identity that would hold up here. His clothes were wrong. His demeanor was wrong. Everything was wrong.
"Please,"
he said, the word coming out as a plea.
"I'm nobody. Just let me go."
"Sorry,"
she said, and she didn't sound sorry at all.
"Can't do that. You're coming with us. The Guildmaster will want to have a chat with any stray we find at a slaver outpost for proof."
She gestured with her bow for him to start walking.
Haru's mind raced. He couldn't go with them. He couldn't be questioned. He had no answers. He saw only two outcomes: locked in another cell, or dying right here if he tried to fight.
He made his choice. He turned to run.
He didn't even make it two steps.
There was a blur of motion. A sharp pain exploded in the back of his knee as her boot swept his leg out from under him. He hit the ground hard, the air driven from his lungs. Before he could even gasp, a knee was planted in his back, pinning him down. She was impossibly fast and strong.
He felt something cold and sharp, the head of her arrow, press against the base of his skull.
"Try that again,"
she whispered, her voice now cold and devoid of all amusement,
"and you won't get out of here alive."
And in that moment, pinned to the earth, Haru knew she was right. He had escaped one cage only to be caught by a far more dangerous one.
He let his body go limp, the fight draining out of him. The woman shifted her weight, keeping him pinned, and let out a low, sharp whistle.
"O-ok..."