Something icy splashed across my forehead.

  It was not just water. It was freezing, biting, like a bucket of sharpened needles pouring over my skin.

  “Shit!” I hissed as the cold burned into my scalp and ran down the back of my neck. It stung worse than the cuts on my arms. My body reacted before my brain could catch up. I jerked upright violently, straining against something that held me in place.

  Water dripped from my hair onto my face, sliding into my eyes. I squeezed them shut and tried to wipe it away, but my hands did not move freely. My arms were restricted. My waist felt tight.

  I forced my eyes open slowly. Everything was blurry at first. A dim room. Gray stone walls. A single lantern hanging from the ceiling, its yellow light flickering lazily.

  I tried to stand.

  I could not.

  Metal restraints clamped across my waist, binding me to a heavy wooden chair bolted into the floor.

  “Where am I?” I muttered, my voice hoarse and dry.

  A chair scraped across a stone.

  “Ahh, he’s finally awake,” a voice replied, smooth but laced with mockery. “You’re in an interrogation room. Had my buddies conjure some ice cold water on yah. Helps people wake up real quick.”

  My vision sharpened.

  Sitting across from me was a woman in a dark uniform. A polished badge gleamed on her chest under the lantern light.

  Shit.

  A warden.

  Her posture was relaxed, almost casual, one leg crossed over the other. Behind her stood another figure, quill in hand, ready to write.

  “Why is my waist locked onto this chair?” I demanded, testing the restraint again. The metal did not budge. “Are you planning on selling me or something?”

  She tilted her head slightly.

  “Because I don’t want you to escape like your compani-”

  “Not my companions,” I cut in sharply. “They are customers to where I work.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Hey,” she said without looking away from me, addressing the note taker behind her. “Write that down. This piece of shit likes to talk when others are talking.”

  I rolled my eyes despite myself.

  Great. Already on her bad side.

  She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees.

  “Anyways. Enough talk.”

  She reached into a folder beside her and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. It looked like it had been folded and unfolded multiple times. She smoothed it out carefully against her thigh, adjusting her glasses before beginning to read.

  “Must-Read. Daily News. Blah blah blah…” she skimmed, clearly uninterested in the beginning. “Aha. Here.”

  She straightened up slightly and cleared her throat.

  “A town in the South Region has been attacked by an unknown ‘dungeon break.’ However, after officials and investigators thoroughly checked the place, it was found that the enemies were indeed not ‘wild’ and were actually elves.”

  My jaw tightened.

  She continued.

  “In fact, after checking through trusted, private sources, these elves were from the widely known organization called OEPMO, which stands for Official Elves Peace Maker Organization. Although its name suggests peace, the organization’s recent activities allowed our officials to declare it as a terrorist organization.”

  OEPMO.

  So that was their name.

  Official Elves Peace Maker Organization. What a fucking joke.

  That explained the elves.

  But it did not explain the black robed bandits I ran into before the bestowal ceremony. The ones with the red circle on their backs. The ones Park warned me about.

  Are they connected too? Or is this something bigger?

  She flipped the page slightly and continued reading.

  “What is more wild is that the OEPMO has an official alliance with the Elf Kingdom. Nova, the high king, demands for the reason, but has been ghosted.”

  Nova.

  The High King of my kingdom.

  If even he was being ignored, that meant this was no rogue splinter group acting alone. This was organized. Calculated.

  She removed her glasses slowly and folded them with deliberate care before placing them on the table beside her.

  Her eyes met mine.

  Sharp. Evaluating.

  “Straight to the topic,” she said calmly. “You were part of it.”

  My chest tightened.

  “I checked your record,” she continued. “And just recently, this week, you were involved in an incident in a dungeon that was also affiliated with the OEPMO.”

  She leaned back in her chair, studying my expression.

  “Seems pretty suspicious to me, y’know.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she lifted a hand lazily and cut me off.

  “But,” she said, leaning back in her chair, voice calm but edged with authority, “I’ll let you off the hook.”

  I blinked.

  She continued, tapping the folded paper lightly against her knee. “The paragon didn’t give me permission to arrest you. So I’ve gotta let you go.”

  That’s it?

  Relief tried to creep into my chest, but it did not settle. Not with the way she was staring at me.

  Her eyes were sharp. Cold. Studying every twitch of my face.

  “But,” she added, leaning forward slightly, elbows on the table, “do you have any information that would help us catch whoever did it?”

  Her gaze locked onto mine.

  It did not feel like she was simply looking at me. It felt like she was peeling back layers, searching for lies before they even formed.

  “I…” I swallowed. My throat felt dry again. “Yeah. I think I remembered something.”

  Her expression did not change, but the note taker behind her straightened slightly.

  “There was this guy,” I continued, forcing my thoughts to line up. “With the bandits from the first incident.”

  I closed my eyes briefly, pretending to search through memory while carefully choosing what to say.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Ah, yes. That guy. I forgot his name, but he said he was part of the Captain of the Twelfth Moon of the Night.”

  The title sounded ridiculous even as I said it. But it was real. He had said it with pride.

  “And he wanted some item that I had bu—”

  I stopped mid sentence.

  The word system hovered at the edge of my tongue.

  Should I tell them?

  If I start talking about blue panels and soul consumption, they’ll either lock me back up or throw me into a madhouse.

  My mind raced.

  No. Keep it simple. Keep it believable.

  “Are you okay?” she asked suddenly, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied my hesitation.

  “O- oh yeah,” I stammered, straightening in the chair. “He asked for an item that I had. But when I showed it to him, he got mad because it wasn’t what he was looking for. He said he came all that way for nothing. Then he just… burst into rage. After that everything went crazy. We all passed out.”

  The lie rolled off my tongue smoother than I expected.

  Inside, my heart pounded violently.

  Please believe it. Please don’t dig deeper.

  She squinted at me for several long seconds. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

  Finally, she nodded once.

  “Alright.”

  My shoulders loosened slightly.

  “I’ll let you out,” she said, standing from her chair. “You’re currently in the Central Region.”

  Central Region.

  So they transported me.

  “It seems like you should find an academy soon,” she continued casually. “The school year starts soon.”

  Academy.

  The word echoed in my head.

  School. Training. Structure. Something normal.

  “Where’s your mother and father?” she asked.

  The question hit harder than any punch.

  Pain shot through my skull without warning. A sharp, stabbing pressure that made my vision blur instantly. Heat flooded my face. My hearing distorted into a dull ringing.

  Images flickered.

  A house.

  Laughter.

  Then nothing.

  My breathing grew uneven. A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.

  “Th-th-they aren’t here,” I forced out.

  My voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

  She did not seem to notice the shift in my expression. Or perhaps she did and chose not to comment.

  She stepped behind me and inserted a key into the restraint at my waist. The metal lock clicked open with a heavy sound.

  The pressure around my torso released.

  “Alright then,” she said, moving back toward the table. “Off you go.”

  She gestured casually toward the door, as if dismissing a minor inconvenience.

  I stood slowly, legs slightly stiff from being restrained.

  “Last thing,” she added suddenly.

  Her posture changed. Slightly more rigid.

  “Be careful. I believe Nova has declared war against the Elf Kingdom just a few hours ago.”

  War.

  The word hung in the air like a blade.

  She stepped closer, lowering her voice.

  “Avoid going to the North Region,” she whispered. “The northern border has been disgusting.”

  Her jaw tightened slightly.

  “Blood everywhere. Places in ruin. Entire towns reduced to rubble.”

  Her fingers made a vague gesture in the air, as if brushing away something unpleasant.

  “We managed to get it under control for now. But just… avoid it altogether.”

  She stepped back, returning to her neutral expression as if she had not just described a massacre.

  Then she turned away, walking toward the guards. She gave a short wave over her shoulder.

  Just like that, I was dismissed.

  I walked toward the heavy iron door at the end of the room. A guard stood beside it, spear in hand. He muttered a short incantation under his breath. Faint runes glowed across the thick chains wrapped around the door.

  The chains loosened with a metallic groan.

  The door creaked open.

  I climbed the stone stairs slowly. Each step echoed in the narrow corridor. At the top, another guard waited before a second reinforced door. He performed the same spell. More chains fell away.

  The final door opened.

  And I stepped out into blinding sunlight.

  The warmth hit my face instantly. The sky above was clear and painfully blue, as if nothing terrible had happened in the world at all.

  Shit, it was already afternoon. The sunlight spilling across the stone courtyard was thick and golden, slanting at an angle that screamed of wasted hours. I squinted up at the sky, eyes stinging from the sudden brightness after being buried underground for who even knows how long. The air felt different out here. Warmer. Freer. It carried the scent of dust, sweat, and distant market stalls instead of cold iron and damp stone.

  Right then, a thunderous slam exploded behind me. The heavy doors of the holding facility crashed shut with a metallic roar that echoed through the courtyard like a final verdict. The vibration traveled through the soles of my boots and into my bones. Yeah. That was definitely them locking it up tight.

  A translucent blue panel shimmered into existence in front of my face, its edges glowing faintly like moonlight caught in glass.

  [You have received one New mail. Do you want to check it?]

  “Huh?” I blinked at it, momentarily forgetting about the sun, the guards, the world. My reflection stared back faintly in the glowing surface.

  “Sure.”

  The panel flickered, lines of text rearranging themselves smoothly.

  [Congratulations for surviving the first episode. You will be rewarded with the first weapon that the mysterious figure obtained. Do you want to see its stats?]

  My eyebrows knitted together.

  “Wait wait wait. Who’s the mysterious figure?”

  The screen pulsed once.

  [This information cannot be reviewed just yet! Do you want to see the weapon’s stats?]

  I dragged a hand down my face, exhaustion weighing heavier than it should have. “Fine, fine. Show me the stats.” I sighed, even though technically I had just woken up. Mentally though? I felt like I had aged five years.

  The panel brightened, letters sharpening.

  [Enchanted Branch of Nature

  ‘A special branch…’

  +2 Extra Power

  Ability: Using this branch will allow the following status effects:

  First Strike: No change.

  Second Strike: +1 Extra Power

  Third Strike: Weak poison for thirty seconds, affecting speed and health.]

  Woah. Woah.

  I stared at the description. First off, that weapon name sounded cool as hell. Enchanted Branch of Nature. Dramatic. Mystical. Powerful. But then the rational part of my brain kicked in.

  It is a branch.

  A literal branch.

  Can a branch even damage anyone or anything? I imagined smacking someone with it and them just staring at me in disappointment.

  Before I could question it further, the panel shimmered violently. The “weapon” burst out of the glowing screen like it had weight and mass, dropping straight toward my chest.

  “Shit—”

  My reflexes kicked in and I caught it.

  It was real. Solid. Smooth beneath my fingers.

  The branch was surprisingly compact, roughly the size of an average dagger. Its surface wasn’t dry and brittle like dead wood. Instead, it felt polished, almost alive, faint veins of green tracing along its length like frozen lightning. The wood curved slightly, natural yet deliberate, as if shaped by careful hands rather than chance. It was light, balanced. When I adjusted my grip, it fit unnervingly well, like it had been waiting for me.

  Honestly… its stats were better than my old wooden sword. That thing had been barely more than a glorified stick anyway.

  “Hey kid!”

  A deep voice boomed from my right.

  I turned slowly.

  A massive man lumbered toward me, casting a long shadow across the stone. His shoulders were broad enough to block out the sun, muscles stretching the fabric of his worn leather armor. A thick beard framed his square jaw, and a scar cut across one eyebrow like a permanent sneer. His boots struck the ground with heavy, deliberate thuds.

  Shit.

  I had seen him before. Newspapers. Rumors whispered in taverns. That smiling butcher.

  “We are recruiting mag—”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I cut him off and stepped closer instead, forcing a casual shrug.

  His eyes narrowed slightly, confused by the interruption.

  I remembered the articles vividly.

  How he would approach innocent people with promises of gold and glory.

  How he would drag them into dungeons under the pretense of teamwork.

  And how they would never come back.

  Later, he would stroll out alone, pockets heavy with coins, claiming tragic accidents.

  He would walk to the officials claiming that the monsters are too strong. That those people were just ‘unfortunate casualties’.

  Bullshit.

  He killed them. Took the dungeon rewards for himself.

  In a coincidence, a few of the outlaws at the bar I knew were killed by him so that sparked outrage last month.

  This led to the outlaws from the bar having an operation to somehow murder this son of a bitch but it failed because of some other inconveniences. What a lucky bastard back then, but now…

  Welp. Guess he didn’t know that I knew this.

  “But, do you have money?” I asked, tilting my head as if genuinely curious.

  His grin widened, greedy and stupid.

  He swung his rucksack around and rummaged through it. “Uhh, let me see… Three gold coins, a few sil—”

  My fingers tightened around the Enchanted Branch of Nature.

  The faint green veins along the wood seemed to pulse.

  I angled it carefully, lowering my stance just slightly so it would not look obvious to anyone watching. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, loud and rhythmic. The air felt thicker, heavier. Every tiny movement became sharp and deliberate.

  I inhaled slowly.

  My mind sharpened into a single point. The world narrowed until it was just him, the branch, and the exact space between us.

  I prepared myself for what was about to happen.