Huge, towering trees loomed everywhere. The trees rose so tall that their endless branches formed a vaulted ceiling. The sunlight is blocked out by their colossal branches. Only faint spears of light slipped through, breaking against the emerald grass swaying in the cold breeze. Fallen leaves spun like restless spirits, carried by the wind. Looking in all directions, but no one is there other than Rick.
Through the emptiness came a voice.
Soft.
Feminine.
Almost too gentle to exist.
"Come… come to me."
Rick's eyes are wide open, but still no one is there.
The voice called again, closer this time.
Rick turned in every direction, searching.
Nobody.
Only shadows stretching between trunks older than time itself.
His chest tightened. Curiosity… and something else.
A pull, A strange warmth, as if the voice belonged to someone he had lost but couldn't remember.
"Where are you…?" he whispered, taking an unsteady step forward.
The forest answered with silence.
Then…
"Wake up, Rick…"
The feminine whisper shattered, cut down by another voice. Urgent. Real.
"It's already very late. Wake up."
Rick froze. The dream around him trembled like broken glass. The wind died. The light dimmed.
And just as he reached toward the fading voice, darkness swallowed everything whole.
"Rick! Oi, Rick! Get your lazy ass up!"
The dream shattered completely this time. Rick groaned and cracked open one eye. Above him stood a mop of messy black hair and the scowling face of Fin, his roommate and partner-in-survival.
"Seriously," Fin muttered, arms crossed. "It's the damn ceremony day, and you're still drooling on the pillow? Do you want the gods themselves to come down and smack you awake?"
Rick rubbed his eyes. "I was having a very important dream, thank you."
"Oh yeah?" Fin shot back. "Did your dream feed us breakfast? Pay our rent? Maybe clear a dungeon boss for us?"
Rick winced. "...Fair point."
Rick was an orphan, abandoned in his earliest years; his life had been little more than a chain of fleeting kindnesses and endless uncertainties. An old man had once taken him in…not out of duty nor blood, but out of pity for a child left alone in a cruel world. For a while, the old man's presence gave him something that resembled a family… until three years ago, when illness claimed him.
Since then, only silence kept him company. Silence and a single relic. A red pendant, hexagonal in shape and carved like a gemstone, hung from his neck. He had no memory of when it first appeared in his possession. It was simply there, always. The one constant in a life defined by loss. Sometimes he would catch himself staring at its strange gleam, as though it whispered secrets of a past he had no right to forget. Who were his parents? Why had they abandoned him? Why leave him to face this cold world alone? And then there were the dreams… They plagued him, irritating him night after night. Day after day the same dreams appear, and recently it occurs more frequently.
But the world had no patience for someone like him. Now he lived with Fin in a cramped, half-broken room in the outskirts of Ravenford City. Together they survived day by day by collecting dungeon loot from cleared dungeon floors.
Fin kicked Rick's blanket off. "Come on. Today's the one day for us to actually get a chance. The Awakening Ceremony."
Rick sat up, heart beating faster. The Ceremony.
Every human was said to carry a dormant power, something more like power hidden deep within their soul. But it stayed locked. Rare ores, monster cores, dungeon relics… materials from the dungeon reacted with the human body and triggered their powers to awaken. That's how someone becomes a hunter to defeat monsters and get what they want.
Normally, only high-ranking hunters had access to such treasures. But once a year, nobles, guilds, and even the Empire itself pooled resources together to awaken ordinary citizens. Why? Because they needed more hunters, fighters & especially people with powers.
Rick stretched his arms. "So, today's the day, huh? We either awaken into badasses…or stay broke scavengers."
Fin grinned and slapped his shoulder. "Exactly. And knowing our luck? We'll probably awaken into…". "An E-Class," Rick finished. "Or maybe a professional pillow-hugger."
They both burst out laughing. It was either laugh… or think too hard about what failure meant.
Outside their cracked window, the city bell tolled. The sound echoed across Ravenford like a heartbeat, calling every unweakened to the central plaza.
Fin grabbed his patched coat. "Come on. Time to see what fate has for us."
Rick hesitated for a moment; his hand tightened around the bedsheet. Then he shook it off and stood. "Alright then. Let's go get awakened."