The dungeon entrance smelled like wet stone and old blood, which Yuuto supposed was better than the alternative of fresh blood and imminent death. He adjusted the leather strap of his borrowed pack and tried to look like he belonged here, standing at the mouth of the Verdant Catacombs with three strangers who'd agreed to let him tag along for reasons that still escaped him.
"You sure about this?" The red-haired woman, Aria Valeflame, turned to face him with her arms crossed. Her staff crackled with residual flame magic, little sparks that died in the damp air. "You don't look like much of a fighter."
Yuuto offered what he hoped was a self-deprecating smile rather than a grimace. "I'm more of a support type. I can help with buffs, maybe some light healing if things get rough."
Aria's expression suggested she'd heard that line before from people who ended up as dungeon statistics. "Right. Well, stay behind Kael and try not to get yourself killed. We're only doing this run because the Guild's offering double for Verdant Moss samples, and I'm not splitting the reward four ways if you die in the first room."
The man she'd called Kael, a swordsman with the kind of posture that suggested military training, gave Yuuto a measuring look. "Can you at least cast Haste?"
"Something like that," Yuuto said, which was technically true in the way that calling the ocean damp was technically true.
The third member of their makeshift party, an elf woman named Lyria Mooncrest, peered at him with unsettling intensity. Her healer's robes were pristine white, which seemed impractical for dungeon crawling, but Yuuto had learned not to judge. "Your mana signature is strange," she said. "I can't quite read it."
Yuuto felt the familiar weight of his status screen hovering at the edge of his perception, invisible to everyone but him. The numbers there would have caused problems. Level 3299 tended to raise questions, especially when you were pretending to be a novice support mage looking for your first real party.
"I'm just nervous," he lied. "First dungeon and all."
Aria snorted and turned toward the entrance. "Let's get this over with. Kael, you're on point. Lyria, stay in the middle. New guy, try to keep up."
The Verdant Catacombs lived up to their name in the worst possible way. Moss covered everything, glowing with a sickly green phosphorescence that made the shadows writhe like living things. The air tasted of copper and rotting vegetation. Yuuto's boots squelched through something he chose not to examine too closely.
They'd made it perhaps fifty feet when the first slime dropped from the ceiling onto Kael's shoulders.
The swordsman reacted with trained efficiency, his blade already moving in a horizontal slash that bisected the creature before it could fully engulf his head. Acid hissed where it splattered against the stone, and Kael grimaced as some of it caught his shoulder guard.
"Corrosive type," Lyria called out, already moving forward with a cleansing spell that neutralized the acid before it could eat through the metal. "Watch the ceiling."
Aria's staff blazed with light, illuminating the cavern roof where at least a dozen more slimes clung to the stone like grotesque fruit. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Yuuto felt the tactical analysis click into place, the same way it had a thousand times before in situations far more dire than this. The slimes were Rank F monsters, barely worth experience points, but their acid could strip flesh from bone in seconds if you let them swarm. Aria's fire magic would work, but in an enclosed space like this, she'd risk flash-boiling the moisture in the air and cooking them all alive. Kael could handle maybe three or four in melee before getting overwhelmed. Lyria's healing magic wouldn't help if they were all dissolved.
He could let them handle it. Should let them handle it, really. He was supposed to be a low-level support mage, not someone who could solve this problem with a thought.
Then again, he'd never been particularly good at staying in character.
"I might have something," Yuuto said, already pulling on the threads of mana that responded to his will like old friends. "Give me five seconds."
Aria shot him a look that suggested she was reconsidering the whole four-way split situation. "Five seconds? What are you going to do, ask them nicely to leave?"
Yuuto ignored her and focused on the skill framework forming in his mind. Basic Wind Blade, Rank E. Basic Barrier, Rank F. Neither would solve the problem on their own, but his EX Skill, Strongest of History, didn't care about rankings or limitations. It cared about potential.
The fusion happened in the space between heartbeats. Wind Blade met Barrier, and the system hiccupped as it tried to classify what came out the other side. Yuuto felt the new skill slot into place with the kind of satisfaction that came from solving a particularly elegant equation.
[Skill Fusion Complete: Wind Blade + Barrier = Shearing Dome (Rank A)]
He raised his hand, and the spell manifested as a hemisphere of compressed air that expanded outward from their position. The slimes didn't have time to drop. The wind caught them mid-fall and reduced them to component molecules, the acidic residue neutralized by the barrier component before it could splatter back down on the party.
The cavern fell silent except for the faint whisper of dissipating magic.
Aria stared at the now-empty ceiling, then at Yuuto, then back at the ceiling. "What the hell was that?"
"Support magic," Yuuto said, which was technically true if you squinted and ignored several fundamental laws of magical theory. "I told you I could help."
Kael's hand had moved to his sword hilt, not quite drawing but clearly ready to. "That was Rank A magic. Minimum. I've seen court mages who couldn't pull off a fusion that clean."
"Must be adrenaline," Yuuto offered weakly.
Lyria's eyes had gone very wide, and when she spoke, her voice had lost its earlier clinical detachment. "Your mana signature just spiked to levels I can't even measure. What are you?"
This was the problem with trying to stay low-key. Yuuto had forgotten how much attention you attracted when you did anything remotely competent in a world where most people struggled to cast basic spells. He could see the suspicion forming in their eyes, the calculations of threat versus opportunity.
He needed to defuse this before it became a situation.
"Look," he said, raising his hands in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture. "I might have understated my abilities a bit. I'm not exactly a beginner. But I'm also not here to cause problems. I just needed a party to get into the dungeon, and you three seemed competent."
"Understated," Aria repeated flatly. "You just casually fused two basic spells into something that would make a Guild Magister weep with envy, and you call that understating your abilities?"
"In my defense, I did say I could help with buffs."
Kael's hand finally left his sword hilt, but his posture remained wary. "Who are you, really? Some noble's kid slumming it for thrills? A spy from one of the other guilds?"
Yuuto considered his options. He could lie, spin some story about being a prodigy hiding from political enemies. It wouldn't even be entirely false. But looking at their faces, at the mixture of fear and curiosity and nascent greed, he realized that half-truths would only make this worse.
Besides, he was tired of hiding.
"My name is Yuuto Kisaragi," he said. "And I'm an Archmage."
The silence that followed that statement had weight to it, like the air before a thunderstorm. Aria's laugh broke it, sharp and disbelieving.
"An Archmage. Right. And I'm the Queen of Valeria." She shook her head. "Look, I don't care if you're some kind of magical genius or whatever, but don't insult our intelligence with obvious lies. There are maybe five Archmages in the entire kingdom, and they're all accounted for."
"Six now," Yuuto said mildly. "And technically, I'm not from the kingdom. I'm from... somewhere else."
Lyria's expression had gone from shocked to intensely curious, the kind of look scholars got when presented with a particularly interesting puzzle. "Prove it. Show us your status."
That was always the nuclear option. Status screens were personal, private things. Sharing them was either an act of profound trust or profound stupidity, depending on your perspective. But Yuuto was committed now, and besides, they'd find out eventually if they kept traveling together.
He pulled up his status screen and, with a mental command, made it visible to the others.
[Name: Yuuto Kisaragi]
[Class: Archmage]
[Level: 3299]
[Rank: SSS]
[EX Skill: Strongest of History - Copy, evolve, and fuse any witnessed skill. Growth rate: Infinite]
Aria's staff clattered to the ground. Kael's sword actually did leave its sheath this time, though he seemed to have forgotten he was holding it. Lyria made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob or possibly both.
"That's not possible," Aria whispered. "The level cap is 100. Everyone knows that. You can't just... that number doesn't even fit on the scale."
"The scale's wrong," Yuuto said. "Or rather, it's incomplete. The system has a lot more depth than most people realize."
Kael found his voice, though it came out rough. "Level 3299. That's... how is that even possible? How long would it take to reach that level?"
"About a century, give or take," Yuuto said. "I've had time to practice."
The implications of that statement hit them like a physical force. Lyria's hand went to her mouth. "You're not from this era. You're from the Age of Heroes."
"The Age of Heroes is what they're calling it now?" Yuuto couldn't help the note of bitter amusement that crept into his voice. "We just called it Tuesday. But yes, I'm from about a hundred years ago. I was... away. And when I came back, everything had changed."
Aria picked up her staff with trembling hands. "The Guild Hall. The old one, the massive stone fortress in the center of the capital. It's gone. Was that...?"
"Mine," Yuuto confirmed. "Or rather, I was the Guildmaster. I built that hall with my own magic, enchanted every stone to last a thousand years. Coming back to find it replaced by a wooden building barely bigger than a tavern was... disappointing."
The pieces were clicking into place for them now. Yuuto could see it in their expressions, the dawning realization of what they'd stumbled into. Not a novice mage looking for his first party, but a relic from an age when magic had been something more than the pale shadow it was now.
Kael sheathed his sword slowly. "What do you want from us?"
It was the right question, the smart question. Yuuto appreciated that.
"Honestly? I was just looking for an excuse to get into a dungeon without attracting attention. The Guild has so much paperwork now, and I didn't want to explain why someone with no registered history wanted a solo permit." He gestured at the empty cavern around them. "But I'm also starting to realize that might have been a miscalculation on my part."
"You think?" Aria's voice had regained some of its earlier sarcasm, which Yuuto took as a good sign. "So what now? Do we just pretend we didn't see any of this? Go back to collecting moss samples like nothing happened?"
Lyria spoke up before Yuuto could respond. "We could report him. An Archmage from the Age of Heroes, with power levels off the scale? The Guild would pay a fortune for that information. The nobles would start a bidding war."
Yuuto felt his expression harden. "You could try. I'd rather you didn't."
The temperature in the cavern dropped several degrees. It wasn't a threat, not exactly, but the reminder of what he was capable of hung in the air like frost. Kael's hand drifted back toward his sword, and Aria's staff began to glow again.
Then Lyria laughed, a bright sound that shattered the tension. "I'm not going to report you, you idiot. I'm going to study you. Do you have any idea how much we could learn? The magic of the Age of Heroes is barely documented. Most of the techniques were lost. If you could teach us even a fraction of what you know..."
"I'm not a research specimen," Yuuto said, but he felt himself relaxing slightly. Curiosity he could work with. Curiosity was better than fear.
"No, but you are apparently very bad at staying hidden," Aria pointed out. "That stunt with the slimes? Every monster in a five-mile radius probably felt that mana spike. We're going to have company soon, and not the friendly kind."
As if summoned by her words, a deep rumbling echoed through the cavern. The moss on the walls pulsed with brighter light, and Yuuto felt the shift in the dungeon's ambient mana. Something big was waking up, drawn by the signature of his spell.
"Please tell me that's not what I think it is," Kael said.
Yuuto extended his senses, reading the mana patterns forming in the depths below them. "If you think it's a Verdant Guardian, then yes, that's exactly what it is."
"Those are Rank B threats," Aria said. "We're not equipped for that. We need to leave. Now."
"Or," Lyria said, her eyes gleaming with what Yuuto was beginning to recognize as her particular brand of controlled insanity, "we could let the Archmage handle it and see what happens."
Yuuto sighed. He'd been trying to avoid this exact scenario, but apparently the universe had other plans. "Fine. But you three need to stay back. Way back. This might get messy."
The Verdant Guardian erupted from the floor like a nightmare made of vines and teeth. It stood three stories tall, its body a writhing mass of plant matter held together by malevolent intelligence and dungeon magic. Rank B was technically correct, but only in the way that calling a hurricane "windy" was technically correct.
Aria, Kael, and Lyria had retreated to what they clearly hoped was a safe distance. Yuuto stood alone in the center of the cavern, watching the Guardian orient on him with the patience of someone who'd fought worse things before breakfast.
"You know," he called back to his impromptu audience, "in my day, these things were considered training exercises for intermediate students."
"Your day was insane," Aria shouted back.
"Fair point."
The Guardian lunged, vines whipping forward with enough force to pulverize stone. Yuuto didn't bother dodging. He simply raised one hand and spoke a single word in a language that predated the current system of magic.
The vines stopped mid-strike, frozen in place as if time itself had paused. Then they began to wither, the vibrant green fading to brown to ash in the span of a heartbeat. The Guardian roared, a sound like tearing wood, and tried to regenerate. But Yuuto's spell was already working its way through the creature's mana network, unraveling the dungeon magic that sustained it.
"Entropy Cascade," Lyria breathed. "That's a Rank S spell. It's supposed to take three mages and a ritual circle to cast."
"It does if you do it the normal way," Yuuto agreed. "But I've never been particularly good at normal."
The Guardian collapsed, its massive form disintegrating into component mana that swirled through the cavern like fireflies before dissipating. Where it had stood, a glowing crystal the size of Yuuto's fist slowly descended to the ground.
Kael approached cautiously, his professional assessment warring with obvious disbelief. "That's a Rank B dungeon core. Those sell for enough to buy a small house."
"Consider it compensation for the trouble," Yuuto said, gesturing for them to take it. "I don't need the money."
Aria picked up the core with reverent hands, then looked at Yuuto with an expression he couldn't quite read. "You could have done that to the slimes at the start. You could have cleared this entire dungeon in the time it took us to walk fifty feet. Why didn't you?"
Yuuto considered the question. Why hadn't he? Pride? A desire to fit in? Some misguided attempt at normalcy in a world that had moved on without him?
"Because I wanted to see if I could still be part of a party," he said finally. "The last time I did this, I had friends. People I trusted. We cleared dungeons together, fought impossible battles, built something that mattered. And then I left, and when I came back, they were all gone. The Guild I built was gone. Everything I knew was just... history."
The cavern fell quiet again, but this time the silence felt different. Less hostile, more contemplative.
Lyria was the first to break it. "You're lonely."
"I'm a relic," Yuuto corrected. "There's a difference."
"No," Kael said slowly. "She's right. You're lonely. That's why you lied about your level. Why you asked to join our party instead of just soloing the dungeon. You wanted to be part of something again."
Yuuto wanted to deny it, to retreat behind the walls of sarcasm and deflection that had served him so well. But looking at their faces, at the understanding dawning there, he found he couldn't.
"Maybe," he admitted. "Is that so strange?"
Aria exchanged glances with Kael and Lyria, some wordless communication passing between them. Then she turned back to Yuuto with a grin that was equal parts reckless and calculating.
"Here's the deal," she said. "You want to be part of a party? Fine. But we do this properly. No more hiding your abilities, no more pretending to be something you're not. You're an Archmage from the Age of Heroes, and we're going to take full advantage of that fact."
"Take advantage?" Yuuto raised an eyebrow.
"You teach us," Lyria said, excitement creeping into her voice. "Real magic. The kind from your era. In exchange, we'll be your party. Your connection to this new world."
"And we split the profits from whatever insane dungeons you decide to clear," Aria added. "Because let's be honest, if you can take down a Rank B Guardian with a single spell, the sky's the limit on what we could accomplish together."
Kael nodded. "It's a good offer. We get access to knowledge and power that could change everything. You get people who'll watch your back and help you navigate this new era. Everyone wins."
Yuuto looked at them, these three strangers who'd stumbled into his attempt at anonymity and somehow turned it into an opportunity. They were young, relatively inexperienced, and probably had no idea what they were getting themselves into. But they were also brave enough to stand in front of an Archmage and negotiate terms, which counted for something.
"There's a catch," he said. "There's always a catch with arrangements like this."
"Of course there is," Aria said. "You're going to attract attention. Lots of it. The kind that comes with political complications and probably several attempts on your life. We'll be targets by association."
"And we're okay with that," Lyria added. "Because the alternative is going back to running Rank F dungeons for moss samples and slowly watching our potential waste away. I didn't become a healer to play it safe."
"I didn't become a swordsman to fight slimes forever," Kael agreed.
Aria twirled her staff, flames dancing along its length. "And I definitely didn't learn fire magic to set things on fire responsibly. So what do you say, Archmage? Do we have a deal?"
Yuuto felt something in his chest loosen, a tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying. They were reckless and ambitious and probably going to give him a headache. They were also offering him exactly what he'd been looking for without knowing he was looking for it.
"We have a deal," he said. "But we're going to need to establish some ground rules. Starting with the fact that if I'm teaching you magic from my era, you need to understand that it's dangerous. People died learning this stuff."
"People die running normal dungeons," Aria pointed out. "At least this way, we'll die doing something interesting."
"That's a terrible attitude to have about your own mortality."
"Says the man who's apparently been alive for over a century."
Yuuto couldn't argue with that logic, mainly because it was sound. Instead, he pulled up his status screen again and made a few adjustments, creating party links that would allow him to share certain buffs and communicate more effectively.
[Party Formation: MEFO]
[Members: Yuuto Kisaragi (Leader), Aria Valeflame, Lyria Mooncrest, Kael Draven]
[Status: Active]
"MEFO?" Kael read the party name with obvious confusion. "What does that stand for?"
"It's an acronym," Yuuto said. "Magical Experimentation and Field Operations. I used to run a division by that name back in my Guild. Seemed appropriate."
"I like it," Lyria said. "It sounds official. Professional."
"It sounds like we're about to do something that violates several Guild regulations," Aria corrected. "Which is perfect."
As they made their way back toward the dungeon entrance, the moss samples they'd originally come for forgotten in favor of the much more valuable dungeon core, Yuuto felt the weight of the past century begin to shift. Not disappearing, exactly, but becoming something he could carry rather than something that carried him.
He'd come back to a world that had forgotten him, to a Guild Hall that no longer existed and friends who were long dead. But maybe that didn't have to be the end of the story. Maybe it could be a beginning instead.
"So," Aria said as they emerged into the fading afternoon light. "What's the first lesson going to be? Some kind of ancient meditation technique? A lost spell that will revolutionize modern magic?"
Yuuto considered the question seriously. "Actually, the first lesson is going to be about mana efficiency. You're all wasting about forty percent of your magical output through improper circulation patterns."
Lyria's eyes lit up. "You can see that just by watching us cast?"
"I can see a lot of things. That's what happens when you hit Level 3299. Your perception of the system's underlying structure becomes somewhat enhanced."
"Somewhat enhanced," Kael repeated. "That's like saying a dragon is somewhat large."
"Dragons are large," Yuuto agreed. "But they're also surprisingly good at card games, which most people don't know."
Aria stopped walking. "You've played cards with a dragon."
"Several, actually. There was this one, Verithrax the Eternal, who had a real gift for bluffing. Lost three legendary items to him before I figured out his tell."
"What was his tell?"
"His left eye would glow slightly brighter when he had a good hand. Took me two years to notice."
They stared at him. Yuuto shrugged.
"The Age of Heroes was weird," he said. "You'll get used to it."
As they walked back toward the city, the setting sun painting the sky in shades of gold and crimson, Yuuto allowed himself a small smile. The world had changed, yes. His Guild was gone, his friends were gone, and everything he'd built had crumbled to dust. But maybe, just maybe, he could build something new.
After all, he had time. And now, he had a party.
The system chimed softly in his mind, a notification that only he could see.
[New Quest Available: Rebuild the Guild]
[Objective: Establish a new Guild Hall and recruit members]
[Reward: Unknown]
[Accept? Y/N]
Yuuto mentally selected yes and felt the quest lock into place. It would take time, effort, and probably cause more political headaches than he wanted to think about. But for the first time since returning to this changed world, he felt like he had a purpose beyond simple survival.
"Hey," Aria called back to him. "You coming? Or are you going to stand there smiling at nothing like a weirdo?"
"I'm coming," Yuuto said, quickening his pace to catch up. "And for the record, I was smiling at something. You just can't see it."
"More Archmage secrets?"
"Something like that."
The city gates came into view, and with them, the beginning of whatever came next. Yuuto didn't know what challenges awaited them, what enemies they'd make or what heights they'd reach. But for the first time in a century, he was looking forward to finding out.
The Age of Heroes was over. But maybe, just maybe, a new age was beginning.
And this time, he wouldn't be facing it alone.