“Dude, what’re you doing?” Hugo shouted protectively, leaning forward to slap the knife out of Zack’s hand before he dug the knife further into his forearm. Their bond since childhood was too strong for Hugo to sit still while watching Zack hurt himself.

They were brothers by every sense of the word except blood, having survived growing up in the same neighborhood where a lot of kids didn’t make it to adulthood. When they were about six years old, Zack and Hugo met for the first time while sharing potatoes together on the porch, nicked from the dumpster behind a restaurant.

Zack appeared calm, making a shushing gesture with his right hand, the bloody knife still clutched in his hand. He motioned his head towards the manager, making his point to Hugo not to cause a commotion.

“Shhh. Sit down,” Zack whispered.

The manager of Cafe Dolce didn’t even flinch, still cleaning his countertop with the handkerchief. Whether he was truly unbothered like usual or just appearing that way was a mystery. Hugo sat back down, looking both confused and concerned.

“Watch,” Zack said.

He held out his forearm for Hugo to inspect after putting the knife he’d used to cut himself to the side. There was a shallow cut halfway down his arm, blood still seeping from it. A cut like that would normally need to be bandaged immediately as it clotted and healed over hours.

But that was not what happened here. Hugo’s eyes went wide as he watched the skin around the wound veritably swallow the wound whole over the course of a few seconds, leaving not a single trace of blood.

Zack lifted the knife again, then made three cuts this time. Hugo’s arm jerked forward out of instinct to stop him, but he held himself back and settled back into his seat to simply observe. Each cut slowly closed on its own like it got sewn up by magic, leaving his forearm smooth and blemishless once again.

“What the hell?” Hugo whispered, the look in his eyes a combination of alarm and amazement. “How did you do that?”

“It’s a long story, and that’s why I called you out here. Are you ready to hear it?”

Hugo nodded his head seriously. He never was the type to be that serious, so this was a new expression for him. “Yeah.”

“Alright.”

Zack began to tell the story of his evening experience, from the moment he was swallowed by the entrance via earthquake to the killing of Barut to Oni’s lesson. It took a while to tell the entire tale, but Hugo sat transfixed the entire time.

“Things are changing, Hugo,” Zack said gravely. “A lot of people are going to start dying. I’ve seen it. Now I’m not saying that we need to try to be heroes or anything, but we need to be prepared for what’s to come. At the very least, for our own sake. Think about your mom. How do you think she’ll feel if you die?”

Hugo shook his head miserably. “I can’t let that happen, Zack. You know my mom wouldn’t go on without me.”

He shook his head again, his dyed blonde hair falling to the sides, making him look like a starving art student. “This all is just so much to process. It doesn’t sound real.”

“It doesn’t seem real to me either, Hugo,” Zack said, tapping the table with a metal spoon to get Hugo’s attention.

He was about to clearly show his buddy how much the system had changed things.

While Hugo watched, Zack lifted the spoon and made it disappear into thin air by depositing it into his inventory. He took it out a moment later, and Hugo’s jaw looked like it was about to drop to the floor. From Hugo’s perspective, he just saw his friend vanish and then produce a spoon out of nowhere.

“I know it doesn’t seem real. But it is.”

Zack did it again, this time with the plastic wrapped triangle ham and cheese sandwich.

Hugo gulped, uncharacteristic for his normally cool and collected demeanor. “Yeah, I believe you now. I’ll go with you next Friday.”

“Thanks,” Zack replied. “But before then, we have a lot of preparation to do.”

Hugo appeared deep in thought. “Remember when we used to sneak into old man Li’s backyard and play pirates? With the Rory twins and Pete.”

“Yeah.”

“We made weapons and shields out of duct tape and parts we found, right? You remember that the Rories were Captain Dick and Blackjack, with scimitars and tin foil shields–“

Zack laughed. “Yeah, and you were General Weller Bones, ruler of the seven seas.”

They shared a long laugh, reminiscing about their past.

Hugo grinned. “And now look at you Zack. A Vermillion University student in the flesh, hanging out with all those private academy students we used to run into by the beach. Then there’s me still bumming it out. I’m proud of you, man. You actually went and made something of yourself, gotten out of the sinkhole. Looks like the smartass that spent all that time studying actually paid off.”

Zack shrugged. “It’s hard for me to fit in with them at school, you know. At the end of the day I’m still one of you guys. And don’t forget, we both have a very high chance of dying next Friday in the dungeon, so nothing’s gonna matter in the long run.”

Hugo nodded. “You’re right, next week’s dungeon run takes priority. So as I was saying, when we were playing pirates making weapons out of what we could scrap–it’s going to be like that again. We’ll have to make some weapons and shields for ourselves. Would be great to get a hold of some military grade stuff, some guns and grenades and tasers and whatever that we can use against those monsters, but that’s off limits without clearance. Damn war protocol.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Zack nodded. “We’re gonna have to get a little creative, just like how it was back then.”

“Yeah, and probably need some money to buy supplies and stuff. Unless…” Hugo said, his voice trailing off. He began to smile cheekily, the kind that he had when Zack could tell that he was up to no good. “I guess we could just lift some supplies from the stores with that item vanishing inventory trick of yours. Right?”

Normally Zack would be opposed to outright stealing. It was kind of common among the kids he grew up with since they grew up so poor, and Zack himself had stolen a thing or two over the years, but he never felt all that good about it. Plus, he wanted to bury his low class background after joining Vermillion, where many of the students came from wealthy families with private butlers and large countryside estates.

But the situation was different now.

Private academy student or shoplifting dumpster diver, it really didn’t matter when the world flipped itself upside down and monsters previously only seen within the domain of books and myths were looking to shank you with a homemade weapon in the training level of a dungeon.

Any moral quandaries about stealing were inconsequential in comparison to the apocalyptic situation at hand.

“Sure, why not. But if we’re going to do that, let’s at least steal from a bigger shop that can actually take the loss, not a mom and pop shop.”

Zack said that from the heart. His house got broken into when he was a kid, the thieves stealing his mother’s shoebox of savings that she kept under the mattress. He still remembered the shattered windows and her despair upon that discovery, and the thought made him livid to this day.

Hugo’s grin got a little bit wider. “Great. Why don’t we hit up La Minot Department Store tomorrow morning?”

Zack raised an eyebrow. La Minot Department Store was as corporate as a department store could be. With a chain in every major city and most minor cities, it was one of the largest wholesalers in the world. It had a state of the art tagging system that made it impossible to shoplift. Well, for normal people, that is.

“Haha, that might actually be a bit of a challenge. Let’s meet at La Minot tomorrow then. In the meantime I’m going to check my apartment for anything we can use. Let’s survive this mess.”

“That’s the plan, just like usual.”

“Yeah,” Zack said. “The usual.”

…

The walk home was uneventful.

At least, it appeared to be on the surface.

There was an abandoned parking lot by the east end of Vermillion City, part of a luxury mall development that never ended up getting built.

At the B1 level of the abandoned parking lot, right between two white lines designated a parking slot, a shimmer appeared.

The shimmer expanded, then coalesced into an arc-like shape. It then solidified, gaining the appearance of a stone archway door.

The door lay silent for several seconds, until the sound of footsteps came from within it. Out stepped a creature, black from head to toe except for its yellow eyes and white claws.

The creature sniffed the air cautiously. It caught the faint sweet smell of prey, drool rolling down its mouth.

After searching its way until it found the ramp ascending to the surface, the creature emerged into the city.

The bright lights and roaring metal boxes with wheels on the black ground peaked its interest, but it was a cautious hunter by nature.

It followed its instincts, sniffing and tracking a particularly strong scent that led it towards the quay.

Zack did not notice the black as night creature emerge from the corner and watch him as he entered his building, its mouth salivating. Once he entered, the bright lights of the lobby and presence of the doorman deterred it. The creature turned around, stalking another passerby down the street. It preferred to hunt those who were alone.

A few hours later…

“H-help!” a woman shrieked, swatting the creature with her purse.

But nobody heard her cries. The creature had followed its hunting instincts, stalking the woman until she had entered an uninhabited alleyway. There was not another soul in sight within a ten minute walk.

The horrid sound of gnashing and growls ensued, as the woman’s screams turned into silence.

–––

Somewhere in the universe…

A large, bound tome opened to a certain page. The front of the page was emboldened with Month of Bloodmoon. In the language of the ancient runes, that was the sixth month.

Each day that passed had been crossed out with a red X. So far, five days had passed. Today was the fifth of the week. Friday.

On the first Saturday of that month, a figure of a fanged hound appeared.

The entries beyond that date were scattered, some filled in with pictures, some not. However, the entries beyond the current date were shrouded in a mysterious dark haze.

—--

Zack rifled through his cabinet, looking for anything that could be of use. He’d already taken out all the essentials.

So far, he had two water flasks, a flashlight with two extra batteries, a bottle of painkillers, a kitchen knife, and a lighter.

He had all of the supplies laying on his dorm’s table, since he wasn’t sure whether or not his inventory could fit everything.

It would be hard to explain to a possible roommate why he had so many dangerous items sprawled across the table as if he was planning some sort of incident, he mused.

Times like these were when Zack could really appreciate how well Vermillion students lived–each one of them was given their own luxury highrise apartment scattered across the city. What a spoiled lifestyle. Thank the heavens that his living situation was covered under his Charterhouse scholarship, or he’d never in a million years even dream about living on the 25th floor overlooking the city skyline, with a marble kitchen island and a pristine white sofa overlooking the floor to ceiling windows.

He’d scour through the rest of his apartment later. It was getting very late, and he needed sleep.

He took a quick shower, brushing his hair with the same ivory comb he’d been using since childhood, handed down from his father’s father, then dove into his fabric softened sheets. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know much about his grandfather. But that would have to wait for another day.

Sleep took him quickly, and he dreamed about kobolds, dungeons, and an old book floating in the middle of nowhere, another day crossed out in red.

A familiar voice spoke in his head, his tone mischievous yet authoritative.

Enjoy your vacation, little one. Your trials have yet to begin.