The Deadland
A thousand years ago, something had destroyed a civilization in the far north. The First Hero, a figure of legend, had fought the Demon God in a war that shattered the northern territories. The details were unclear, contradictory accounts, missing records, entire chapters of history apparently erased or lost.
After his death, the Deadlands spawned.
Reality broke there. Space folded incorrectly. Time moved wrong. Monsters that shouldn't exist crawled out of rifts in the world. And dungeons began appearing across Eynor.
Living labyrinths that grew where enough death and despair accumulated, spreading like an infection if left unchecked.
No one went to the Deadlands unless they were searching for something worth dying for, or unless they'd already given up on living.
Hiroshi closed the book and rubbed his eyes. The text was dense, the language formal, and his head hurt from trying to absorb information that contradicted itself or left crucial details unexplained.
He picked up the second book. Geography. This one had maps.
He studied them carefully, tracing borders, noting distances, memorizing names of cities and mountain ranges and rivers. If he was going to survive in this world, he needed to understand it. Where things were. How they connected. What natural barriers separated one region from another.
The maps showed Astoria's road network, trade routes running east to Aurum's ports and west to Sanctus's holy cities. Mountain ranges separated Astoria from the Drakenwald to the north. A massive river formed part of the border with the Evernight Dominion to the east.
Strategic chokepoints. Natural defenses. Places where armies would clash if war came.
Hiroshi wondered how long the current peace had lasted, and what would break it.
He set the geography book aside and picked up the third.
Bestiary. Leather-bound, illustrated with detailed drawings of creatures that ranged from merely dangerous to absolutely horrifying. Goblins, direwolves, wyverns, basilisks, something called a rot shambler that looked like a corpse held together by fungal growths.
Each entry listed the creature's habitat, behavior, known weaknesses, and threat rating. Hiroshi flipped through a few pages, noted the classifications, then shut it. He'd seen enough monsters for one week. Reading about more wouldn't help.
The fourth book was thinner. Religious text.
He almost set it aside, but something made him open it anyway.
The Twelve Gods.
Soleth, God of Light and Justice. The book painted him as the chief deity, benevolent protector of the faithful, enemy of darkness and corruption. His symbol was a golden sun. His priests wore white. His paladins smote evil wherever they found it, or wherever they decided evil existed.
Hiroshi had read enough fantasy to know that gods who advertised themselves as pure good were usually hiding something ugly beneath the surface.
Noctara, Goddess of Darkness and Secrets. Barely mentioned. A footnote. The text said she dealt in hidden knowledge, forbidden truths, things best left alone. Her worshippers were rare and operated in shadow. Her priests didn't build temples.
Hiroshi stared at her entry longer than he meant to. Something about it felt important, though he couldn't say why.
Vermis, God of War and Strength. His followers were warriors, mercenaries, soldiers. Victory through power. Defeat through weakness. Simple, brutal, honest.
Sylphara, Goddess of Wind and Freedom. Patron of travelers, sailors, anyone who refused to be bound. Her priests wandered, never staying in one place.
Gairon, God of Earth and Harvest. Farmers prayed to him. So did miners, builders, anyone who worked with stone or soil.
Pyraxis, God of Fire and Passion. Creativity, destruction, transformation. His followers were artists, smiths, revolutionaries.
Aqualis, Goddess of Water and Healing. Her priests ran most of the healing houses across Eynor. The priest who'd been treating Hiroshi likely served her.
The list continued.
Chronelle, Goddess of Time and Fate.
Hiroshi's finger stopped on that name.
Chronelle saw all possible futures. Her priests received visions, glimpses of what might come. They were consulted before major decisions, before wars, before coronations. Their prophecies shaped kingdoms.
The book warned against trying to defy fate. Those who did invariably brought about the very futures they sought to avoid.
Hiroshi didn't know why, but something about that made his skin crawl.
Mortessa, Goddess of Death. She guided souls to their final rest. Her priests presided over funerals and maintained the dead.
Arcanix, God of Magic. Patron of mages, scholars, anyone who sought to understand the fundamental forces of reality.
Fortunis, God of Luck. Gamblers prayed to him. So did desperate people.
Harmonix, Goddess of Love. Marriages were performed in her name. Oaths of devotion sworn before her altars.
Twelve gods, each with their own domain, their own followers, their own agenda. The book insisted they worked in harmony, maintaining balance, guiding mortals toward enlightenment.
Hiroshi didn't believe that for a second.
His mind worked through what he'd learned, organizing it, filing it away.
Astoria was a kingdom run by nobles and Church officials who summoned desperate people from other worlds and used them as expendable tools. The demons were apparently more organized than the humans. The beastkin had their honor codes and clan warfare. The merchants had money and neutrality. The zealots had their faith and their inquisitors. And somewhere up north, reality itself was broken, waiting for idiots to wander in and never return.
Dungeons appeared randomly, spawned by death and despair, growing stronger if not cleared. Heroes were summoned to fight them, along with demon invasions, monster outbreaks, and whatever other catastrophes the world produced.
Hiroshi stared at the ceiling.
He'd been summoned to this world because the Church needed bodies to throw at problems. They'd assigned him to support roles because his ability wasn't flashy enough to waste on frontline combat. They'd sent him into a dungeon with minimal resources because expendable support didn't warrant better.
He'd survived through luck, or skill, or whatever combination of both had kept him breathing when he should have died.
And now someone was actively trying to kill him. The poison in his food–which doesn't work on him for some reason–hadn't been an accident. The dungeon assignment hadn't been coincidence.
Someone wanted him dead, and they weren't giving up.
Hiroshi closed his eyes.
He needed to get stronger. Fast enough to survive whatever came next. Smart enough to figure out who was hunting him before they succeeded.
And patient enough to learn everything he could about this world, its rules, its power structures, its weaknesses.
Because if he was going to survive here, he couldn't afford to be expendable anymore.
He had to become someone they couldn't afford to kill.