The alarm didn't go off.
Well, actually it did. Ramiel heard it in some corner of his consciousness, but his body didn't respond. He had spent the night awake, tossing and turning in bed, thinking about the creatures. About Mostañas. About the promise he made them.
When he opened his eyes, the gray sun of Earth 333 was already coming through the window. A pale rectangle on the dirty floor.
"Shit!"
He jumped out of bed. Work clothes, shoes, door. Everything in twenty seconds. He ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time.
He arrived at the warehouse with his chest burning and forty minutes late.
The supervisor waited for him with crossed arms. Behind him, the boxes waited. The silence of the other workers weighed like a stone.
"Ramiel. Second time this week."
"I know, I'm sorry, it's just that—"
"I don't care what it was. I need punctual people. Responsible people."
Ramiel swallowed. The words got stuck in his throat.
"Please, just one more chance..."
"Gather your things. Don't come back."
He didn't argue.
What for?
The poor don't argue. They obey.
He walked to the back, where he kept his lunch in a rusty locker. He put it in his bag. The identification card, now canceled. A pair of worn gloves. Nothing else.
He left without looking back. He heard the murmur of the other workers resuming their tasks. Life continued without him.
Outside, the gray sky seemed grayer than ever.
He walked home with his hands in his pockets. His mother. His sisters. This week's food. The electricity bill due in three days.
But then he thought about it.
I don't have a job anymore.
But I have Sword Soul.
I have Tori. Tortu. Nakk. That'll be the names I give them if I ever tame them.
And I have a week to dedicate to them.
He quickened his pace. Not towards home. Towards the only place that mattered now.
—
He put on the helmet in his room. No one saw him. Tora was working. Chami at school. Lomi with a neighbor.
The broken strap held. Still.
He closed his eyes.
The light enveloped him.
WELCOME TO SWORD SOUL
He appeared in his cottage. Empty, as always. The wooden walls, the plank floor, the window.
But now he knew that on the other side of that window, three creatures were waiting for him.
He didn't waste time. He ran out, jumped over roots, dodged trees. He walked kilometers. The valley appeared before him like a recurring dream.
The ruins were still there. The enormous dungeon, the stone doors, the runes glowing faintly with that heartbeat-like pulse.
And there was no one else.
Luckily.
Ramiel checked his interface.
LEVEL: 1
GOLD: 0
CREATURES: 3 (RECOVERING — 7 DAYS REMAINING)
He still couldn't summon them. He had to wait.
So he waited.
—
The first few days were a disaster.
Ramiel explored the ruins. They were an endless labyrinth of stone hallways. The floor, uneven slabs that sometimes sank under his feet. The walls, covered in dead runes. The ceiling, so high that darkness devoured it.
Empty rooms. Inactive traps. Dust. Silence.
He didn't find a single creature. Not one chest. Not one coin.
Only the echo of his own footsteps, multiplied, returned from some dark place.
He returned to his cottage every night, exhausted, hungry. In real life he ate what little he had: dry rations he'd bought with his last savings on Earth 333. Hard cookies, bottled water, a can of preserves. They weren't cheap, but they were necessary.
On the third day, the food ran out.
Ramiel felt hunger for the first time in Sword Soul. It wasn't like real hunger. It was more... hollow. As if his digital body was complaining, as if the system was reminding him that even dreams have rules.
He remembered the Administrator's words: "If you don't eat, you weaken. If you starve to death, you lose a life."
He left the ruins and searched the valley.
He found mushrooms. They grew on fallen logs, in the shadows of rocks. Some glowed with their own light. Others were matte, earthy. He didn't know which were poisonous—the server gave him basic information about them.
He tried a small one.
He waited.
He didn't die.
He tried another.
He didn't either.
He learned to distinguish them. The ones that smelled of wet earth, of forest after rain, were good. The ones that smelled rotten, of stagnant humidity, weren't.
On the fifth day, he found a scorpion.
It was under a rock, moving its tail suspiciously. Ramiel lifted a larger rock and dropped it. The scorpion stopped moving.
He cooked it over an improvised campfire. The shell crackled, opened, revealing white, steaming meat.
He tried it.
It was... delicious. Crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside. It tasted like nuts, like something he had never eaten before.
"Never thought I'd say this, but scorpion is good."
That night, he slept better.
—
On the seventh day, Ramiel entered his cottage and something was different.
The window to Mostañas glowed brighter. The light coming from it was more intense, warmer. As if someone had lit a lamp on the other side.
He approached. Looked.
The three creatures were standing.
The bull, upright on its hind legs, muscular, black as obsidian. The turtle, moving its head slowly, its old eyes looking toward the window. The spider, climbing its little house, going down, going up, playing with its own silk.
They were healthy.
Completely healthy.
Ramiel opened the door of his cottage. He went out to the valley. Took a deep breath.
And he called them.
He didn't know if it would work. He hadn't read about this. There were no rules. Only instinct.
"Tori. Tortu. Nakk. Come."
A flash.
And they appeared.
The three creatures stood before him. Real. Alive. Looking at him.
The bull was enormous. Over two meters tall on its hind legs. Its black muscles gleamed under the digital sun, every fiber defined, every movement a promise of strength. The turtle, beside him, reached Ramiel's waist. Its shell, once cracked, was now a smooth, hard surface, with veins that looked like ancient maps. The spider, the size of a large dog, moved its legs curiously, its eight black eyes reflecting the world in fragments.
Ramiel didn't know what to say.
Neither did they.
But then the bull took a step forward. A slow, deliberate step. It lowered its enormous head. Resting it on Ramiel's shoulder.
A gesture. Simple. But enormous.
The weight of that head. The warmth of its skin. The warm breath on his neck.
Ramiel hugged him.
"Tori..."
Then he hugged the turtle. The shell was smooth to the touch, polished, warm. Then the spider. Its legs were delicate, they avoided hurting him, they surrounded him carefully.
The three creatures surrounded him. A circle of warm bodies, of lives he had saved.
"I didn't tame them... but they stayed."
"Because they wanted to."
It was the Administrator. But this time, her words sounded different. Less cold. Almost... warm.
Ramiel smiled.
"Thank you."
He didn't know who he was saying it to. To her. To them. To the world. To everyone.
—
With the creatures by his side, Ramiel returned to the ruins.
And everything changed.
Tori knew the hallways. His footsteps sounded different depending on the danger: sharp thuds on safe ground, pauses when something wasn't right. Tortu remembered the traps. He moved his head left or right, indicating the safe path. Nakk could climb. She slid along walls, reached unreachable cracks, observed from above and emitted small chirps: one for "yes," two for "no," three for "danger."
It turned out they had lived here. In these ruins. They had been wounded by something, but couldn't explain what. They only made gestures, moos, signals.
They didn't speak. But they understood.
And Ramiel understood them.
"This way?"
Tori mooed and nodded. He stamped the ground with a hoof. Safe.
"Trap?"
Tortu stamped the ground with a foot, alert. He moved his head to the right. Not that way.
"Something up there?"
Nakk pointed with a leg at a crack in the ceiling. One chirp. Then two. Then one. Danger above, but it can be avoided.
Hours passed like this. Then an entire day. Exploring, dodging, advancing. The labyrinth, once hostile, became familiar. The shadows, once threatening, were now just shadows.
Until they arrived.
A gigantic hall.
The ceiling disappeared into darkness. Stone columns held the weight of centuries. And in the center, a pile of gold.
Coins, jewels, shining objects stacked as high as a man. Necklaces, bracelets, crowns. Everything mixed, everything glowing with its own light that illuminated the hall better than any torch.
Ramiel caught his breath.
The silence was absolute. Not a drop of water. Not an echo. Only the gold, shining, waiting.
He approached. Touched a coin. It was cold. Real. Heavy in his hand.
The interface reacted.
AMOUNT OF GOLD DETECTED: 1,247,000 COINS
One million two hundred forty-seven thousand. This would be like 200 dollars in real life.
The cheapest armor cost a hundred thousand. He had twelve times that.
Ramiel turned to his creatures. The three looked at him, with their strange animal expressions, but with something like happiness. Tori wagged his tail. Tortu had stuck his head into his shell and pulled it out, like a gesture of approval. Nakk spun around in little circles.
He hugged them again. All three. Together.
"We did it. We did it together."
—
In the middle of the celebration, Ramiel noticed something.
His interface had changed.
CURRENT LEVEL: 10
"Level 10? When?"
Then he understood. The lost week. The explorations. The dangers. Every step, every decision, every moment in the ruins had given him experience. The system had registered it all.
He had leveled up without realizing it.
He jumped with joy. Tori did the same, and the ground trembled under his weight. Tortu moved his head in approval, slow, majestic. Nakk climbed up his leg to his shoulder and stayed there, with one leg pointing at the ceiling as if to say "look, from here you can see better."
They were a team.
A real team.
—
With the gold in his inventory, Ramiel returned to the World Shop.
But he didn't buy ready-made armor. It was too expensive and low-level, even for him. The prices were still abusive. Instead, he bought materials. Iron ingots, treated leather, resistant threads. Everything for a fraction of what forged armor would cost.
Then he went to the player market.
He looked for a blacksmith. He found an older man, sitting on a low stool, with calloused hands and a leather apron stained with soot. Around him, swords, shields, spears waited for buyers.
"Can you forge something with this?"
The blacksmith looked at the materials. Weighed them. Smelled them. Gently tapped them against the ground.
"It's not the best, but it'll do. What do you want?"
"A spear. And decent armor."
"Level?"
"Ten."
"I can do it. It'll cost you... 300,000 for everything."
Ramiel didn't hesitate.
"Deal."
Hours later, he returned to the forge. The blacksmith handed him an iron spear, simple but balanced, and plate-and-leather armor that fit like a glove.
They weren't special. They didn't glow. They had no runes or powers.
But they were his.
"What do you think?" he asked his creatures.
Tori mooed approvingly, nodding his head. He stamped the ground with a hoof.
Tortu nodded slowly, his head appearing and disappearing from his shell.
Nakk played with the spear tip, touching it with a leg, pulling back, touching it again.
That night, they ate mushrooms and scorpion in the valley. The sky turned orange and pink. The creatures lay down around him.
And they were happy.
—
They returned to the ruins.
Seven more days passed. They found no gold. They found no chests. But they found food: more mushrooms, more scorpions, some edible plant with fleshy leaves.
Ramiel learned to make soup. He gathered mushrooms, boiled them with water from a nearby spring—water that sounded as it fell on the stones, a clean, fresh sound—and shared it with his creatures.
"It's not a feast, but it fills you up."
Tortu took the soup slowly. He stuck his head in, surprisingly agile, and drank in slow sips. He seemed to enjoy it.
Nakk dipped a leg into her bowl. Licked it. Made a face.
A face. On a spider. Eight eyes half-closed, chelicerae scrunched up.
"You don't like it?"
Nakk shook her head and pushed the bowl away. She turned around and went to climb a nearby tree.
"Your loss. More for me."
Tori, on the other hand, devoured everything. The soup, the leftover mushrooms, even the bowl if they left it. They had to hide it.
—
On the fourteenth day, he asked the three what had happened to them before. They nodded their heads that they didn't remember. So they continued with their adventure and found something.
A door. Small, in a forgotten corner of the labyrinth. It had no runes, no markings, didn't seem special. Just a rotten wooden door, half hidden behind a fallen column.
Nakk pointed to it from above. Chirped. Three times. Danger.
But also something else. Curiosity.
Ramiel opened it.
The ground disappeared beneath his feet.
They fell.
All of them.
Tori, Tortu, Nakk, Ramiel.
A long, dark, endless fall. The air whistled in their ears. The darkness was total. Only the wind, and fear, and vertigo.
They landed on a pile of junk.
The impact was dull. Metallic. Ramiel felt something dig into his back, but it wasn't serious. He opened his eyes.
Thousands of broken objects. Rusted armor. Weapons split in half. Remains of mechanical creatures, with dead eyes and hanging cables. A graveyard of forgotten things.
"Anyone hurt?"
He got up, shaking off the metal dust.
Tori stood beside him, also shaking himself. A cloud of rust rose around him.
Tortu peeked out from his shell. Blinked. He was fine.
Nakk was already climbing a pile of metal, oblivious to the fall, exploring.
They were fine.
They looked for an exit. Hours. Climbing mountains of junk, pushing through remains of things that were once important.
Until Nakk, from the top of a tower of stacked armor, chirped.
Here!
She had found a tunnel.
—
Before leaving, something caught Ramiel's attention.
A flash. Blue. Among the junk, in a dark corner.
He approached. Pushed aside rusted iron, remains of what might have been a robot, twisted metal plates.
And there it was.
A crystal. Small. The size of his fist. Glowing with a deep blue light, like a sky that no longer existed. Like the skies the old folks described with tears.
Ramiel touched it.
It was warm. Vibrant. As if it had a life of its own.
The interface reacted instantly.
BLUE ENERGY CRYSTAL DETECTED
Transportable object to Earth 333.
Estimated value: 1 month of electricity for an average home.
His hands trembled.
"One month... one month of light for my family."
He stored the crystal in his inventory as if it were the most fragile object in the world. Carefully. With reverence.
Then, unable to help himself, he hugged his creatures.
"We did it. Again. We did it."
Tori mooed happily. A deep moo that echoed in the junk graveyard.
Tortu leaned against his leg. The calm weight of his shell.
Nakk wrapped a leg around his neck. Soft. Delicate.
And at that moment, Ramiel knew he had to name them.
Not just any names. Real names.
"Tori. I'll call you Tori."
The bull mooed, accepting. He moved his head up and down.
"You... Tortu. But I'll call you Tortu. Do you like it?"
The turtle nodded slowly. Once, twice, three times.
"And you... Nakk. I'll call you Nakk."
The spider chirped happily and did a somersault. On eight legs. It was strange and adorable at the same time.
—
The Administrator appeared.
Not in person. Never in person. But her voice filled the space, as if the air itself spoke.
"Congratulations, Ramiel. Your creatures have decided to stay with you. You didn't tame them. They chose you. That is rare. That is special."
The interface showed new numbers.
TORI: LEVEL 5 → LEVEL 8
TORTU: LEVEL 5 → LEVEL 8
NAKK: LEVEL 5 → LEVEL 8
RAMIEL: LEVEL 10 → LEVEL 11
"They leveled up? All of them?"
"They shared experience with you. By their own choice. That doesn't happen with just anyone."
Ramiel looked at his creatures. They looked at him.
Nothing needed to be said.
—
They were about to leave. But Nakk wasn't moving.
She was in front of another door. A door none of them had seen before. Small, low, almost invisible among the piles of junk.
Tapping it with a leg. Insistent.
"What is it, Nakk?"
Nakk tapped harder.
Ramiel opened the door.
Inside, a room and in the middle a golden chest, more like a golden coffin.