I came here just to get some sleep and take a look at who I was really dealing with, and somehow I ended up saving Shoma’s life.

  The troll — his “Nut” — was crouched under a tall willow, fighting to stay awake. He kept pinching his thick hide and growling at me in a menacing way. My second head wasn’t any nicer and bared its fangs right back at him. Nut, huh? Someone really had to be out of their mind to give a name like that to a monster. For now, he could stay right there… He should be thanking me for saving his friend, not looking at me like an old janitor dealing with unruly students.

  Still, it was worth watching Frieren. A talk about prayers and a better life after death — if it could lift the spirits of a lonely dwarf, it could certainly help Shoma, a hobgoblin for whom his whole tribe was still waiting. Curled up and dejected, he really did look far less threatening than he had on the battlefield…

  Thanks to that I almost myself felt a little bad about missing my family. Truly weird feeling.

  I let it all go and walked a bit farther away. I wanted to think about present times for now, to look at something that gave me hope we could build something with the goblins in the future. The ruins of Vort’Ayem, now cluttered with makeshift huts and dugouts of the Green Claws village, really pulled at the heart. Narrow streets, high hills around them — like they’d been sliced clean with a sword — on top of which stood ruined forts and all kinds of temples that remembered better days. Now, all of it looked like it had been bombed.

  Some of the brick and stone buildings — overgrown with moss and rotten with age — reached dozens of meters into the air. Fungi and damp were everywhere, muddy water pooling on floors and walls. Destroyed paintings and statues. Like Rome painted gray, after a flood and two world wars. A terrible loss for the greens. And a very sad one.

  Before I visited Shoma, I’d been training my catastrophe summonings — with mediocre results. Once again, I’d produced some deformed, immobile abominations that I could, at best, eat. I was slowly starting to get how it worked, but the art still didn’t come easily to me.

  I felt completely drained and demotivated after a hard day — especially after my stupid order, which, if not for the vampire woman, would’ve ended in disaster. It was like I was that NEET again… For now, I decided to see this city — so huge that only its outskirts were inhabited by goblins. Supposedly, the deeper parts were haunted. Supposedly, the spirits of the murdered wailed here at night, and few returned from the northern side of Vort’Ayem.

  Nonsense. I’d watched enough videos in my previous life about con artists and frauds fooling people with supernatural phenomena. Especially considering their shamanistic beliefs and how easily they fell for any random nonsense. I had a feeling that wandering these ruins, I might see something interesting. Maybe even something useful in the future.

  From what the goblins told me, the White Stone River was more than half a day’s journey north from the farthest edge of the ruins. Hm. Why didn’t they build the city by the river? As an economist, something about that didn’t add up. Sure, the forts around provided good defense against invaders, but what was the point of hauling goods all the way from the river?

  I couldn’t understand it. Maybe the ancestors of the greens were just stupid.

  I walked alone through the ruins because I’d had enough of people, monsters, and my own decisions. My head felt heavy like after a sleepless night, and my legs ached from walking and standing still at the same time — mostly mentally. A whole day of organizational chaos, firefighting, and pretending I had everything under control.

  And the truth was, I’d almost screwed up the punitive expedition. If not for the vampiress, it would’ve been a massacre, not a victory. Great commander, huh. A loser economist with a general’s ambitions. Sounds like a bad joke —vbut that was my life.

  The deeper I went into the ruins, the emptier everything felt. Not just the city — me too. Images kept spinning in my head: Shoma, Nut, chaos, my helplessness. Power I couldn’t use. Decisions I wasn’t sure about. A perfect set for building an empire. Or for burying one quickly.

  I saw the remains of some kind of temple ahead. It must have been impressive once — now it looked like an old tax office after an arson attack. Cracked columns, a collapsed roof, the entrance half-buried in rubble, but still passable.

  A group of goblin kids was hanging around the stairs. Skinny, dirty, far too quiet for their age. The moment they noticed me, they froze for a second and then scattered like startled rats.

  Great. Even the kids are afraid of me. Probably rightly so — I’m the one who brings war and fear, even if I pretend it’s for their own good. That thought stung more than I’d like to admit.

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  I went inside, more out of spite than curiosity. If the world already saw me as a monster, I might as well see what kind of monsters came before me.

  The interior was cold and damp. Remnants of frescoes on the walls, worn symbols, cracked statues with faces so destroyed you couldn’t tell if they were gods, kings, or something in between. The architecture was clearly Vort’Ayem, but older. More… serious.

  I stopped by one of the massive walls and tried to make sense of what was left of the murals. Horned figures? Others, twisted, with spears in a huge mass. A great, hairy beast holding an enormous shield, crushing a serpent… Could that be Zod!?

  It all looked like religious propaganda mixed with poor-quality art, but… there was something unsettling about it.

  It seemed Vort’Ayem hadn’t been just an ordinary city. More like the capital of a lost empire. Or a holy city. As if someone long ago had decided to preserve something for their descendants, knowing they, too, would have to fight it.

  I felt a faint discomfort. The kind you can’t put into a risk table, but that screams you should leave.

  And then I felt it. I almost threw up.

  Behind a collapsed wall, where the stones were unnaturally scorched and cracked, a wave of something… heavy swept by. A dense, sticky aura, so powerful that for a split second I felt sick.

  Almost as strong as Zod. Almost. The same pressure on reality, but a different texture. That one had been brutal and wild. This was… old. And aware.

  It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, like something had only shifted for a moment beneath the earth. I stood there, frozen, my heart hammering in my chest.

  Reason — the same one that usually loses to my ideas — was screaming at me to get the hell out. And for once, I decided to listen.

  I took a few steps to the side, avoiding the center of the hall. And then the floor beneath my feet made a sound you never want to hear under any circumstances.

  A crack. Then another. Dust, a roar, and the sudden feeling of having no ground under my feet.

  The world turned into chaos of stone and darkness, and I only had time to think that this was very much my style — running from one disaster straight into another.

  I was falling. Panicking.

  Then silence. Nothing. Darkness.

  I woke up with a headache and a mouth full of dust. I had no idea how much time had passed. A minute? An hour? A day? In this place, time didn’t seem particularly important.

  I was lying in a vast underground space. Far, far above me, I could see the remnants of the collapsed ceiling. In front of me — something that looked like a monumental entrance to a fortress or a dungeon. Too big. Too regular. Too… suspicious.

  On the other side and all around, stretching downward, were the ruins of an underground city. Enormous. The style of Vort’Ayem was unmistakable, but everything was bigger, more massive — like it had been built for someone who wasn’t afraid of tight spaces or the weight of rock overhead. As if the city above had only been a showcase.

  The walls were riddled with tunnels and caves like a honeycomb. On the ground, I saw traces as if something regularly dug its way through here. Something big. And sometimes smaller things.

  I got up slowly, counting bones. All still there. Good.

  My first instinct was to head toward the great gate. It looked like the answer to all my questions. Which was exactly why I decided not to. I knew perfectly well that something behind it could probably kill me with its aura alone.

  Instead, I started looking for some kind of exit. Anything that could get me out of this fascinating but deadly place. A side path, a tunnel, stairs — literally anything that didn’t scream: this is where the boss fight starts.

  It quickly turned out the underground was just as dead as it was stubborn. I walked between collapsed buildings, cracked columns, and empty squares that must once have been full of life. Now there was only the echo of my footsteps and a silence so thick it rang in my ears. No people. No goblins. Hardly any monsters.

  There was some vermin — pale, blind, crawling along the walls or vanishing into cracks when I got close. But that was it. No packs. No guards. No signs this place still worked. It looked more like a graveyard of a civilization the world had simply forgotten.

  Time began to blur. Hours passed, and I kept wandering the ruins, more and more tired and more and more hungry. Every corridor looked like the last. Every hall ended either in a collapse or another web of tunnels leading nowhere.

  I started getting the unpleasant feeling I’d never leave this place. That I’d die here of hunger. This time, Valeria wasn’t with me. Gods, how I missed that stubborn vampire right now. She always managed to come up with something.

  I began to regret that bout of depression I’d had after the arm-wrestling incident…

  In the end, I paid for my stupidity. Once again, I’d run from responsibility instead of facing it. Now they probably thought I’d abandoned them…

  It was hard just to keep walking. But I had to. I didn’t want to die here.

  After a long while, I finally entered one of the narrower caves, more natural than the rest — the walls were uneven, as if something had gnawed them out rather than carved them. The air was heavier, more humid. And then I felt movement to the side.

  There was no powerful aura. No warning. Just… something there.

  I turned slowly — and then I saw it.

  It stood a few meters away, holding a spear. It was short and stocky, with unnaturally broad shoulders and overly long arms. Its face — or rather, what should have been its face — had no eyes. Just smooth, tough skin and the outline of something that might have been a mouth.

  It looked like a troglodyte from Heroes of Might and Magic III. Seriously. Like someone had taken that tier-one Dungeon unit and dropped it into my life — just more… real and less pixelated. I bared my teeth, my other head growled.

  Instinctively, I looked above its head.

  [Level: 34]

  [Threat: HIGH]

  My mouth went dry.

  A tier-one unit. Sure. In that case, I guess I was the tutorial NPC meant to get beaten up.

  I gritted my teeth and got ready to fight.

  I really, really shouldn’t be here right now!