Zwei’s triumphant shout of “Brother!” crashed into the forge like a thrown boulder. The word rang from every corner of the workshop, bouncing off steel and stone.

  Eins flinched so hard his beard bristled. He jabbed a finger at his lips in a fierce shushing gesture, eyes widening with the exact expression a man wears when someone has just shouted his deepest secret across a crowded marketplace.

  Null blinked between the two of them. He could not reconcile anything he was seeing. An Elf—tall, radiant, silver-haired—calling a stocky, iron-blooded Dwarf his brother? His mind grasped for logic and found none.

  Before the stunned silence could stretch further, Eins coughed loudly—a forced, gravelly sound meant to patch the moment. “Zwei, you blasted oak-branch,” he growled, “have you no manners? We’ve a guest.”

  He gestured stiffly at Null. “This is Null. Null… this is my associate, Zwei.”

  Zwei recovered quickly, though not fully; the bright smile he’d worn only moments ago didn’t quite return. “Associate, yes,” he echoed. “A pleasure.” His gaze drifted back to Null with the weight of someone seeing something impossible and trying very hard not to show it.

  Eins stepped between them, reclaiming control. “Since Zwei is here,” he said, tone brisk and authoritative, “your training here is concluded, Null. Our contingency plan requires the four of us to regroup in the East. We’ll meet Vier there. With luck, Drei will arrive soon after.”

  Null absorbed the names. Eins. Zwei. Drei. Vier. The moment he heard them together, something inside him stirred—an echo behind the ribs, faint but unmistakable. He didn’t understand it, but it lingered.

  “Who are they, exactly?” Null asked quietly.

  Eins hesitated just long enough for Null to notice. Then the Dwarf reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a simple dagger. Handsome but unembellished. Ancient in the way a forgotten melody is ancient—subtle, sad.

  “We were the wielders of the Ego Weapons,” Eins said, voice low. “Weapons that grow with their master. Forgeheart was once a warhammer capable of cracking mountain spines. Now…” He held up the dagger. “This is its infant state. All of them have regressed.”

  He didn’t look at Zwei, but Zwei’s jaw tightened anyway.

  “Each weapon is semi-sentient,” Eins continued. “They evolve with their wielder. They… bond. But their hidden purpose is deeper. Barcus embedded fragments of his soul into each Ego Weapon. Through them, we remain connected—sharing knowledge, warnings, thoughts. A network across the world, invisible to all but us.”

  Null stared at the dagger, now with a dawning sense of gravity. A weapon that learned from you. That remembered you. That carried a piece of Barcus himself.

  Though he knew it was foolish, the words slipped out before he could stop them. “I’d like one.”

  Eins’s expression grew soft—sympathetic, regretful. “Nay, lad. They’re bound by soul resonance. They choose successors through lineage of intent. And since you already carry Barcus’s own mark, another Ego Weapon won’t take to you. One master at a time.”

  Null nodded, disappointment settling but fading quickly. His path was already set.

  “Enough talk,” Eins said, rising with a decisive grunt. “We’ve a journey to prepare for.”

  The next hours blurred with urgency. Eins and Null sharpened weapons, patched armor, sorted supplies. Zwei assisted with swift, elegant movements, restringing his bow with practiced ease.

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  “We’re leaving so soon?” Null asked.

  “Aye,” Eins said. “The longer we delay, the more questions we’ll face—and I’m not keen to answer the Council why my level reset overnight.”

  Zwei groaned dramatically. “Don’t remind me. I barely made it to Level 16 on the way here. Every patrol in the southern woods seemed intent on sending me back to respawn.”

  Eins snorted. “You complain too much.”

  Then he turned to Null. “And you? Where’d you land?”

  “Level 14,” Null answered.

  Both of them froze.

  Zwei blinked. “Fourteen…? After one week?” His voice cracked upward. “You’re telling me you leveled faster than a trained Elven ranger who ran across half the continent?”

  Eins frowned, deeply. “Lad, that’s… ridiculous. Even with good instincts, the mines shouldn’t give you that much.”

  Null opened his mouth to explain—but the moment he thought of the mines, a cascade of memories rushed in. Fighting Cave Crawlers, lifting ore, swinging a hammer, running through tunnels. Repetition, repetition, repetition. And more than that.

  A memory surfaced—sharp and silver.

  Darkness. A glowing notification.

  < Congratulations! You have reached Level 10. >

  < Job Unlocked. >

  Standard options lined one side: Warrior, Mage, Archer.

  But opposite them, a single option gleamed with soft white light:

  [ Ancient Sage’s Disciple ]

  He remembered choosing it. Remembered the certainty that had filled him—the same certainty he couldn’t explain.

  Null snapped back, startled, as Eins shook his shoulder gently. “You spaced out there, lad. You alright?”

  “Yes,” Null said quickly. “Just… thinking.” The memory lingered, as if it wasn’t done with him yet. “I need to log out for a bit. Settle something. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Eins nodded. “Aye. We’ll wait.”

  Null left the forge. As soon as the door closed behind him, Zwei’s cheerful facade collapsed. His expression sharpened, voice dropping to a grave whisper.

  “He said it. ‘Log out.’ Right in front of you. He… doesn’t know, does he?”

  Eins didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the empty doorway Null had vanished through, his face heavy with conflicted thought.

  “No,” he said softly. “He doesn’t. Barcus sent him blindly. And if the old man chose him… it means our own plans just became far more complicated.”

  Zwei’s ears twitched uneasily. “Brother… he looked at me like—” He stopped himself. “Never mind.”

  Eins’s gaze hardened. “Not here. Not now.”

  Ethan opened his eyes to the quiet hum of the Dive Capsule. 9:45 PM. He’d lived an entire day in Twilight World. Six hours had passed on Earth.

  The capsule released him gently, and he made his way to his terminal. Logging in had become a routine now—half necessity, half curiosity. He needed to understand the world beyond his strange, accelerated path.

  News flickered across the holographic display.

  “Cerberus Tech: Second Batch of Dive Capsules to Release Next Month—Lottery System Confirmed.”

  The camera cut to the towering Nexus building. A reporter summarized the limited release—100,000 initial units, one million more coming, controlled rollout for stability. Ethan skimmed past it.

  The next segment caught his breath.

  The reporter’s avatar sat in a serene teahouse opposite a calm young woman with sharp eyes. Under her name hovered an elegant title: Sparrow.

  “You were the first to unlock a hidden job,” the reporter said. “Blade Dancer. How did you manage it?”

  Sparrow answered with composed clarity. The Azure Imperium. A mayor’s hidden quest chain. Specific conditions. A hermit master. A final test. And at the end of it…

  She laid her hand on the dagger at her waist.

  It thrummed with a subtle radiance.

  Ego Weapon.

  Ethan leaned closer. So other players had them too—but through effort, not anomaly.

  The segment ended and switched to a clip of a massive Oni mowing through monsters, half the video blurred from blood effects.

  “Tyrant,” the reporter sighed. “Already a controversial figure…”

  Ethan shook his head. The rest of the world seemed to be playing a completely different game.

  He opened the forums. Threads scrolled past—complaints about four-week chores, forced labor camps, endless apprenticeships.

  Then one thread stood out.

  Forum Title: Ghosts, Ghosts Everywhere! >.<

  Posted by: Plum

  She described a haunting quest in Jade River Town—realistic specters, eerie whispers, a quest she was too afraid to continue.

  Replies ranged from teasing to sympathetic. Some speculated about Taoist exorcists or hidden priest subclasses. Others mocked her for taking a graveyard quest.

  Ethan leaned back, thoughtful.

  Hidden jobs. Ego Weapons. Regions with wildly different experiences. A world that changed depending on where you stood.

  And him—unique job, ancient quest, private access to the greatest smith in the South, surrounded by mysteries he had never asked for.

  His journey wasn’t just different.

  It wasn’t even the same genre of game.

  He lay down, letting exhaustion pull him under.

  Sleep claimed him with one thought echoing in the dark:

  What exactly have I stumbled into?