Dae watched the horizon. It was late in the day, the sun was getting ready to set, and his shoulders were heavy. He had just finished a job in the north by the borderlands. Monsters had overrun the mountains and were starting to pour out into human lands, a consequence of dungeons left unchecked. The younger players were too busy fighting for gold and glory. That left older warriors like him to clean up the less profitable messes. Poor villages suffering from wolf attacks. Monstrosities wandering the forests threatening the outskirts. But there was no glory to be had from saving the weak. No money to be earned from protecting the poor.

The cemetery here was full of residents but devoid of visitors. Or nearly. It was rare to see younger players here. He watched as two picked their way through the brick paths deeper into the field. For every legend buried here, there were 20 unmarked graves. Dae had been here when the cemetery was first built nearly 27 years ago. After the World Break, it took over a year but humanity gained a foothold against the monsters. It had cost them dearly. And if they hadn’t buried their dead and saved themselves from falling deeper into violence, it might’ve cost them more.

Dae had never married. There were too many monsters to kill, too many civilians who needed saving for that. But he had children. Young ones that he’d raised, fed, and trained. More than a few were buried here. Older and younger than the two he was watching.

The boy was young, maybe in his early twenties while the girl was in her thirties. Dae had met Hana on a number of occasions, usually after he’d gone out on a binge with her father. It was especially hard after the boy disappeared twenty years ago.

The battles in the north were still raging and he was only in the city to resupply. The old warrior had promised to look in on them before heading back.

Hana and Jinyoung walked further until he could no longer see them beyond the line of mausoleums. He could walk in, but Dae determined he’d done as his friend had asked. The two of them looked good and he could report back that they seemed in good health.

It was time to go back north. There was work to be done.

***

Here Lies Johann Argos

Trusted Friend

It was difficult to focus on one emotion for Jinyoung. He had spent so much time dreaming of what his life would be like when he finally left the dungeon, but he hadn’t expected this.

Johann was like Jinyoung. Both were far from home when the World Break struck and with air travel essentially impossible at the time, neither had any way of getting back. Johann’s parents were taking a tour of Asia when disaster struck. Through sheer luck, they happened to be visiting the countryside and made it through the initial disaster without any injuries. But eventually, Johann lost both his parents during an outbreak when monster numbers in a dungeon grew so large that they ravaged a nearby town.

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“We used to talk about what it’d be like if either of us got to go home. He used to tell me about his uncle’s house in Germany. I can’t even remember where it was…”

“Wiesbaden.” The memory came unbidden to Hana. She was 14 and against the wishes of her father, she snuck downstairs one night and saw Jinyoung talking to Johann.

“The whole city sat on top of a natural spring and he called it… something,” she struggled to remember. It had been so long ago.

“Heilvasser,” Jinyoung offered.

“Right. And then you talked about…” her voice trailed off. “Your dad.”

Even as children, Hana’s brother had rarely spoken about his parents. His mother had died on the day system first booted up. But his father was back in America where Jinyoung had been born. Hana had always suspected that Jinyoung held out hope that he was still alive.

“Johann always talked about going back home, but I guess he never got the chance.”

“He almost did, six years ago,” Hana replied. “A small expedition of adventurers ventured north in spring, hoping to find their way through Russia and China into Europe. Johann had spearheaded the preparations.”

He heard himself ask the question, “Why didn’t he?”

Quietly, his sister wished she’d never brought up the subject. The silence spoke volumes.

Jinyoung’s disappearance twenty years ago had rippled out like waves in a pond. For nearly a decade, Johann had focused his efforts on locating Jinyoung. Most of the books about the black shrine at the Academy were written by Johann or with his help. Even after Hana had decided to move on with her life, Johann had kept going until eventually, he too had finally let go.

“He’s the one that got me working at the Academy, you know. Johann started up there after the mess with the clan about six years back. He invited me out to dinner. I was burnt out from the quests and the killing and… he reached out.” Hana remembered the state she was in when Johann had come looking for her. Without his help, she shuddered to think of what she was turning into.

“How did he die?”

It took a moment for Hana to answer. She wasn’t sure what to say or how much to say. Finally, she decided that the least she could do was tell her brother the truth.

“There was a quest. Something happened deep in the city, further than anyone’s ever been. The Society put out a call to a select few and Johann volunteered.”

She saw the question form on his lips and shook her head.

“I don’t know what the quest was. Johann never told me and whenever I tried to ask anyone at the Society, they wouldn’t tell me. I even tried to get back in touch with Cyrus, but there was nothing. It was like everyone wanted to forget the quest even existed. But he said something that’s stuck with me for a long time. Something that someone else said to me recently, too.”

“What’s that, Hana?”