"Like a death game with no exit button. Dimensional travel not having a return function… kind of makes sense, right?" Ashen One wiped rain from his face, trying to convince himself.
"Makes sense my ass!" Kevin, Stelle, and the Doctor yelled in unison.
Ashen One stayed stubbornly optimistic. How could any world be worse than the Souls world?
At least there were streetlights and modern buildings! This looked way better than Lothric.
The four unlucky idiots trudged like soaked stray cats down the endless overpass. Puddles splashed underfoot in a weirdly rhythmic slap-slap.
"By the way," Ashen One snapped his fingers in the rain—too wet to make a sound—"we haven't properly introduced ourselves, right? I'll go first. Name's Ashen One. Proudly unemployed former… uh, 'Linker of the Fire.'"
"Linker of the Fire?" Stelle frowned, rain dripping from her bangs. "What does that do? Renewable energy work?"
Kevin and the Doctor looked thoughtful, but kept quiet.
"Eh, basically a fool. A top-tier sucker who burns himself to light the way for others." Ashen One waved it off like it was ancient trauma.
"A fool… you don't mean one of those Masked Fools, right?" Stelle's eyes darted around. Was this some kind of illusion?
If it was a Masked Fool, it wasn't impossible…
"And you guys? Don't make me do a solo show here." Ashen One prodded them, though inside he was calm as a rock. Come on—he was a seasoned otaku. He could recite these people's settings in his sleep.
Kevin shielded his head from the rain like it was a pressure-boosted shower. "Kevin. In my previous world… I was a programmer who'd just graduated college."
Ashen One's face froze.
Stelle added blandly, "I'm Stelle. I work at the Herta Space Station as a researcher."
Ashen One's eyes went dark.
The Doctor—quiet until now—tugged at his hood. "Uh… me? No idea. I woke up in some pitch-black place, got woken by this chat group, and when I opened my eyes… I was here."
Ashen One's brain stopped like a skipped CD.
The Doctor was one thing—probably still half in that high-tech coffin. But these two?
Kevin, the legendary Kevin Kaslana… a newly-graduated programmer?!
Stelle the Trailblazer… refused the Astral Express and stayed a wage-slave at the space station?!
This was wrong.
This timeline was so off it had crashed into next week.
"This… doesn't feel right at all. Like, not even a little!"
"What's wrong? You look kinda pale," Kevin asked.
Ashen One turned stiffly toward him.
"Do you live in the Golden Courtyard right now?"
Holy crap—being boxed!
"Wait, how do you know that?" Kevin nearly jumped out of his skin. Even across worlds you could get doxxed?!
Kevin's answer basically confirmed it. The Doctor immediately asked, "So you know my world and Stelle's too?"
"Man, Doctor, your observation skills are scary." Ashen One wiped his face.
"Fine. We're group mates—let's be honest. Yeah, I know some stuff about your worlds. But you guys' versions… are updated in a really cursed way."
"How cursed?" Stelle asked curiously.
"Like you," Ashen One pointed at her. "You're supposed to be riding with the Astral Express, doing galaxy adventures. Why're you stuck at the station working a nine-to-five?"
"Yeah, I turned down the Express." Stelle nodded. "Space station has benefits. Stable."
You little—!
Ashen One swallowed his urge to rant and looked at Kevin.
"Your stuff takes too long to explain. Let's find somewhere to get out of the rain first. We'll talk later. Same for you, Doctor."
"Doctor? You mean me?" The Doctor pointed at himself. He knew nothing about himself—not even his own name.
"That's what people call you in my memory." Ashen One shrugged.
"This bridge is ridiculously long." Stelle walked barefoot through the puddles—wet shoes felt awful, so she ditched them.
"Almost there, almost there." Ashen One kept throwing out empty hope. "Victory is right ahead!" Even though ahead was still a wall of rain.
"I don't know why, but I've got a really bad feeling," the Doctor muttered behind them. His clothes somehow kept him almost totally dry.
"You're probably about to catch a cold," Ashen One said. "Rainy night, overpass… if there's a Maybach too, it'd be perfect." He was trying to tell a story.
But then Kevin pointed at the distance.
"There's a Maybach right there."
"Also…" Kevin frowned. "Do you hear… hoofbeats?"
Hoofbeats on a highway bridge? Impossible.
But after being trained by Teacher Gundyr, Ashen One's Souls-borne danger alarm screamed MAXIMUM. That familiar, skull-spiking premonition of death sent his adrenaline through the roof.
"RUN!!!" Ashen One's roar tore through the rain like an air-raid siren.
His face looked so utterly horrified that the other three didn't even ask. They bolted.
Sadly, the Doctor slipped the instant he started, performing a flawless face-plant.
"Shit!" Ashen One sprinted back, scooped him up, and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of rice. "MOVE, MOVE!"
"Yo, Ashen! What the hell is going on?!" Kevin yelled while running. For a "programmer," he was sprinting like his legs had motors.
"Rainy night! Overpass! Maybach! Hoofbeats! Four elements collected—this is Dragon Raja territory!!!" Ashen One screeched, trying to explain a meme to three locals who had no idea what he was talking about.
No time for lore dumps.
Something was closing in.
"There's a big shot behind us opening a domain! Get caught and you're boxed lunch! If you don't wanna die, run like your ass is on fire!!"
Kevin and Stelle instantly got the gist.
And then—
Ashen One watched in sheer disbelief as Kevin and Stelle exploded forward like rockets, passing him with two afterimages and a spray of water.
Hehe, I'm gonna live! Kevin howled inside. He still had a fair-skinned, beautiful girlfriend waiting at home!
He couldn't die!
I can't drop here either! Stelle screamed in her head. Her Path power was still locked, and to keep the Stellaron from wrecking this world, she couldn't die!
"Fuuuu—!!" Ashen One felt like the chump who believed his friends saying "I'm slow too," only to get annihilated during the fitness test.
"Didn't we agree to be useless together?!"
"Don't underestimate me, damn it!" Ashen One roared. With Souls-player micro-control, he flipped the Doctor off his shoulder in one smooth roll and caught him in a princess carry.
"Accelerate!" he barked.
But two legs trying to outrun an F1 car? The domain was cheating.
Before their horrified eyes, the invisible boundary closed like a beast's jaws and swallowed them whole.
Nibelungen, welcome.
-------
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