CHAPTER 31: ONE OF THE PATIENTS AWAKE

Darkness.

Then—

Screaming.

No, not screaming. Echoes. Echoes trapped in cold stone.

Her own voice? Someone else’s?

She couldn’t tell anymore.

She had been a party leader.

Her name—at least the one she used outside—was Serin.

Level 22 mage. Practical. Cautious. Good with barrier spells.

Their four-man party wasn’t elite, but they were steady earners in the Adventurer’s Guild.

Ralm, Bren, Darius, and her.

Ralm the spear-fighter.

Bren the knife rogue.

Darius the heavy shield.

Serin the mage.

They weren’t heroes—just people who took quests, hunted beasts, escorted caravans, and went home alive. Most of the time.

Two weeks ago, the Guild posted an urgent request:

Unusual goblin activity near the old temple ruins.

Low rank. Easy money.

Their party took it immediately.

She remembered stepping through the moss-covered archway.

She remembered Darius saying, "Stay behind me, Serin. Goblins love traps."

She remembered Ralm tapping his spear against the stone tiles...

...and then the ground bursting open beneath them.

Wooden stakes. Rusted blades. Rope snares.

Ralm fell first, his throat caught on a jagged spear.

Bren didn’t even get a scream out before a spiked log slammed into his skull.

Darius fought—gods, he fought—but even he couldn’t survive a dozen goblins dropping from the ceiling beams like insects.

Serin tried to breach them with fire magic, but—

A net. A blow to the head.

Then darkness.

Darkness that lasted... she didn’t know. Days? Weeks?

Then came the worst part.

The smell of the room.

The buckets.

The pale, hollow-eyed women chained beside her.

The scratching hands.

The guttural laughs.

The weight of bodies.

The helplessness.

There was no fighting in that place.

Only enduring.

She remembered begging the gods to kill her.

She remembered losing track of her own voice.

She remembered praying that the next goblin would at least be quick.

She remembered her own magic burning inside her chest, crushed beneath fear until she couldn’t feel anything at all.

And then—there was a sound like thunder.

Voices she’d never heard before yelling commands she didn’t understand.

She curled up, thinking it was a new raid, a worse raid, some new monster.

But the chains were cut.

Her arm was lifted.

She was carried.

And for the first time in... she didn’t even know how long...

She saw the sky.

Serin jolted awake with a gasp, sitting upright so fast that pain shot across her ribs.

The ceiling above her wasn’t stone.

It was cloth.

Canvas. Beige and unfamiliar. Lit by a soft white glow she didn’t recognize.

Her breath came quick and shallow.

Where—?

She looked down.

A thick, warm blanket covered her from shoulders to ankles. Her wrists were wrapped in soft fabric instead of chains. Her arm? There was a thin tube stuck into it.

She panicked immediately.

Her pulse spiked. Her breath turned ragged.

No. No, not again. Not again. Not again—

She grabbed the tube and yanked.

Pain shot through her arm and dark red began filling the line.

"Hey—! Stop, stop, stop!"

Serin flinched at the voice.

A young woman—a nurse—rushed to her bedside. She wore strange green clothing and gloves. Her face looked alarmed, not angry.

"You can’t pull that out!" the nurse said, grabbing her wrist. "You’ll hurt yourself!"

Serin reacted on instinct.

Her fingers snapped up in a small arc, magic flaring for the first time since the temple.

"Restrain."

A gravity bind—weak, shaky, but it hit.

The nurse froze mid-motion, eyes widened in shock as her limbs locked in place.

"Wha— I can’t move—?!"

Serin scrambled off the bed, bare feet hitting the cold floor. She stumbled—her legs were too weak—but she caught herself on a tray stand.

Her heart hammered.

Her vision blurred at the edges.

Where am I? Who are these people? Why am I hooked to tubes and wires? Why does the air smell clean? Why are the lights so bright? Why—

She tried to steady her breathing but failed.

There were other beds in the room—other women she recognized from the temple. She saw one twitch in her sleep, another curl into herself, another breathing shallowly under blankets.

All alive.

All treated.

But Serin couldn’t believe it.

Not yet.

This could be another trick. Another illusion. She went to the exit, towards the flap of the tent where lights seeped through.

The moment Serin pushed through the tent flap, the world hit her like a hammer.

The air was cold, but clean. Too clean. No rot, no blood, no damp stone. And the sky,bright, blue, open, not the ceiling of a dungeon.

But what truly froze her wasn’t the fresh air.

It was everything else.

She staggered out onto a wide, flat expanse paved in strange stone—smooth, gray, perfectly leveled. It wasn’t cobblestone. It wasn’t brick. It was... something else. Something she didn’t know how to name.

And it stretched far. Farther than any castle courtyard she’d ever seen.

What is this place...?

She took another shaky step forward, and then her breath caught again—this time violently.

There were people, dozens of them, running in perfect rows and columns. They were all men and women wearing matching black uniforms, boots thudding in perfect rhythm.

And they were chanting.

Not prayers.

Not spells.

Something like... a marching song.

"HUP—TWO—THREE—FOUR!

HUP—TWO—THREE—FOUR!"

The voices were unified and disciplined, nothing like the rowdy groups of human soldiers she’d seen before. Every movement was synchronized. Every step measured.

Soldiers... but not like any she had known.

She took a step back without meaning to.

Then her eyes snapped to the right—

And her mind almost shut down.

A giant metal beast rolled across the concrete. It had no horses. No oxen. No visible engine she recognized. Yet it moved—rumbling, steady—as if animated by magic.

Except...

There was no magic coming from it.

None.

What... what in the gods’ names is that thing...?

It was huge, taller than two men, long, boxy, painted desert tan with black wheels thicker than her torso. Strange letters were painted on the side. Atlas.

She didn’t know what those words meant.

She didn’t know how it moved.

She only knew one thing:

It was powerful.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She backed away from the rolling monster and bumped into something soft, a stack of crates covered in canvas.

She spun, startled, hands raised to cast, only for her voice to stop dead in her throat.

Above her...

A shadow swallowed the sun.

A massive metal creature roared overhead, wings wide as a castle gate, body long as a river barge. Its belly opened, revealing a cavern inside, as if it could swallow entire wagons.

Its engines screamed, almost shaking her bones apart.

Serin collapsed to her knees, hands over her ears.

A dragon.

A metal dragon.

Except it wasn’t alive.

It had no mana. No heartbeat. No spirit signature. Yet it flew.

It flew so high.

What kind of magic could do that...? No—not magic. Something else. Something foreign.

The "dragon" circled the base once and climbed higher, vanishing into the clouds like it had never existed.

Serin could only stare, trembling.

And then—

Two smaller metal creatures shot across the sky like silver arrows, slicing the air with shrieks that made the ground vibrate.

Fast.

Too fast.

She couldn’t even follow them with her eyes.

They twisted, rolled, dove at each other in a deadly dance—like two wyverns in a duel, except sharper, faster, impossibly agile.

"What... what world is this...?" Serin whispered.

From a modern perspective, what she had seen was the C-5 and the F-22.