Millions of soldiers stood near the great portal, waiting for orders—some assigned to secure the perimeter, others preparing to build the first defensive fortifications of humanity’s new Heartland.

  Yet among the sea of armored special forces stood a single group that drew every eye.

  Roughly two hundred figures, cloaked and bow-armed, gathered in a loose circle at the portal’s edge.

  Not soldiers.

  Not special forces.

  They looked like something pulled straight out of a fantasy novel—rangers, with leather boots, green cloaks, and bows slung across their backs.

  And I was standing among them.

  “Right, people,” my grandfather Karl began, his voice level but carrying authority. “The EU Army has tasked us with scouting goblin territory. Our objectives: investigate their numbers, assess their defenses, and—if possible—locate their portal.”

  A murmur swept through our group. It wasn’t fear.

  It was anticipation.

  The reason we had been chosen for this mission was simple: no normal army could catch us if we wanted to hide, and our ranged combat ability far surpassed the early goblin tribes. The System’s shared stats confirmed it; the goblins looked unimpressive at best.

  But still—our orders were clear. Look for anything unusual. Standout goblins. Hidden threats. Unknown variables.

  “Well then,” my grandfather said with a nod, “let’s move.”

  Even with our enhanced bodies and boosted stats, the journey was brutal.

  We ran until our boots wore thin, navigated until our eyes strained, and still—still—the land refused to end.

  The first stretch of grassland alone took seven full days to cross.

  Seven hundred kilometers of endless green.

  By the time we reached the forest, we were ready for a change of scenery.

  But the moment we stepped beneath the first canopy, a strange chill rippled down my spine.

  “…Is it just me,” Tom asked quietly, “or does this forest feel wrong? Like someone tried to copy an oak forest but forgot something important.”

  “No, I feel it too,” Bill replied. “Arin—your sense for forests is the best here. Can you figure out what’s off?”

  “Let me try,” I said.

  For the first time in weeks, I let my physique and instincts expand outward, sensing the forest around me the way a ranger should. Bark texture. Sap flow. Soil age. Air density.

  And then—

  A cold, ancient feeling hit me like a blast of winter wind.

  “…This is wrong,” I whispered. “This forest feels old. Ancient. But new at the same time.”

  Bertho blinked at me. “How can that make sense? These trees are massive—they must be a hundred years old.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said, forcing myself to calm down. “My senses say this forest is… millions of years old, in structure. In depth. But at the same time, the System tells me it’s only seven days old.”

  Silence fell.

  It was paradise—lush, towering oaks that would take two men to wrap their arms around. Leaves glowing with vibrant health. A canopy layered in shades of green.

  But it was all a lie.

  “As if,” I continued, “some unbelievably powerful being copied a perfect forest from somewhere… but forgot to change the age of the trees. So what we’re standing in looks ancient, but is actually only a week old.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “And that’s not the only problem,” I added.

  Bill swallowed. “There’s more?”

  “No animals,” I said. “No insects. No fungi. Just trees and shrubs. No food. Nothing alive except plants.”

  A heavy voice spoke from behind us—my father.

  “That’s a problem.”

  He stepped closer as the rest of the group gathered.

  “Theun,” my grandfather asked, “how much food and water do we have left?”

  My father exhaled sharply. “Food for one week—if we turn back soon. Water for three days at most.”

  Karl frowned. “Water we can manage. The grasslands behind us had plenty of rivers and lakes. But food…”

  He hesitated.

  “…food will decide how far we can push.”

  After a moment he said, “We press onward for one more week. Then we return. No farther.”

  And so we continued—through a forest bursting with false life and empty silence—for two more days. Then came another grassland, endless as the first.

  We didn’t expect to find anything new.

  Then we reached the river.

  Except calling it a river was wrong.

  We stood at the edge of a thirty-meter cliff, staring down into a roaring blue ocean—water crashing below with enough force to pulverize stone.

  Across the gap, blurred by distance, we could faintly see the far side. It seemed about seven kilometers away.

  “This… is impossible,” someone breathed.

  The water didn’t flow across.

  It flowed downward, as if the entire ocean were a waterfall.

  Crossing meant death. Even our strongest swimmers—enhanced by stats—would be shredded long before they reached the bottom.

  And then we saw the bridge.

  A two-kilometer-wide giant of pure granite stretching across the chasm.

  No railings.

  No carvings.

  Just a perfectly smooth stone slab connecting cliff to cliff.

  Walking across it felt like stepping onto the world’s cruelest balance beam—one mistake, and you fell into the roaring abyss.

  My grandfather stared at it, then shook his head.

  “That’s it. Our food is gone, and I doubt we’re even halfway to the goblins’ portal. We return and report. Scouting this far is pointless if their numbers are as the System predicted.”

  No one argued.

  None of us enjoyed the empty grasslands or the silent forests. None of us wanted to cross another impossible landscape that seemed designed by a god with no concept of mercy.

  And, as it turned out, there was a reason only our group made it this far.

  Other scouting parties got lost long before reaching the forest. Their compasses spun endlessly, their maps became useless, and even the stars offered no guidance—nothing in the sky matched Earth anymore.

  Past four days’ walk from the portal, every known navigation tool failed.

  But for us?

  We had Karl.

  He had unlocked a rare profession: Pathfinder.

  With it, our navigation tools still worked—barely—and Karl even managed to sketch a rough map on the way.

  Meanwhile, the governments of Earth wouldn’t figure out the truth of the world’s navigation for another month.

  And when they finally did…

  that was also how they discovered where people respawned.