Once Simone finally managed to steady her breathing and push down the lingering tremor in her hands, words began to pour out of her. At first, they came hesitantly, as if she were afraid that speaking too much might invite the stress back in. But soon enough, the dam broke.

  “There’s… a lot that’s changed,” she said, exhaling slowly. “More than you’d think.”

  She gestured vaguely toward the horizon, where the lights of the Heartland glowed even as evening crept closer.

  The most obvious change was scale.

  What had once been a vast, empty stretch of land—four hundred kilometers by four hundred kilometers of flat, windswept nothing—had been completely consumed by construction. Towering apartment blocks dominated the skyline, packed tightly together like an artificial mountain range of steel and stone. Between them sprawled utility facilities: water treatment plants, fusion reactor hubs, distribution depots, hospitals, and logistics centers, all laid out with ruthless efficiency.

  “It’s all been built up,” Simone continued. “Every bit of it. There’s no empty land left inside the residential zone.”

  One of the more ironic developments, she noted, was the transportation system.

  “For the first time in… well, ever, public transport is actually taken seriously,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “There just isn’t room for cars anymore. Roads clogged instantly, so they banned them.”

  Bikes had become the standard for short-distance travel—quiet, efficient, and easy to maintain. For longer distances, underground trains and surface trams formed a dense web beneath and between the apartment blocks, running on precise schedules.

  “It’s strange,” Simone admitted. “People complain, of course. But it works. Better than before, honestly.”

  Beyond the designated residential zone lay another layer of the city—what people had quickly begun calling the wealthy districts.

  They weren’t reserved for old money or inherited wealth. Not anymore.

  “These areas are only affordable for people who’ve fought on the front lines,” Simone explained. “And even then, mostly for experts. Faction leaders. Specialists the military wants to keep happy.”

  The implication was clear. Status was no longer defined by what one owned, but by how useful one was to survival.

  Past even those districts lay a transformation that hurt Simone the most to describe.

  “There used to be rivers,” she said quietly. “Long, winding ones. Rolling hills. Forests that stretched for kilometers. Snow-capped mountains in the distance. It was… beautiful. Like something from an old painting.”

  Now, factories stood there instead.

  Massive structures of steel and reinforced stone dominated the landscape. Fortunately, they no longer spewed black smoke into the sky. The advent of controlled nuclear fusion had made that particular horror obsolete. The air was cleaner than it had been in decades.

  “But the forests are gone,” Simone said. “Cut down.”

  Wood, it turned out, was still essential.

  Even with advanced materials and manufacturing, certain things simply worked better when made from wood—spears, bows, arrow shafts. Attempts to grow wood artificially had failed in unexpected ways. The accelerated growth process produced trees that looked fine but lacked one critical property.

  “They don’t absorb mana,” Simone explained. “Not properly.”

  Such wood became known as waste wood. It couldn’t harmonize with mana-rich environments and was unsuitable for most weapons. Spears made from it cracked too easily. Handles warped. Only arrow shafts could tolerate the flaw—and even then, it slightly reduced effectiveness.

  “But not enough to matter,” Simone added. “Scientists studied skill activation—at least the basic ones. Apparently, when an archer activates a skill, most of the mana flows through the bow itself. The arrowhead matters more than the shaft.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  That discovery had led to a brief push for hand-crafted arrowheads. Skilled artisans shaping metal with mana-infused techniques. But even that practice faded quickly.

  “The goblins just aren’t resilient enough,” she said bluntly. “If the archer is strong, the arrow goes straight through them anyway.”

  With most of the Heartland’s forests already gone, resource shortages loomed. To compensate, expeditions were sent beyond the Trial itself. One such forest lay five hundred kilometers from the portal. A forest intended initially to be the first line of defence if the sea Fortress failed.

  Transporting the wood was slow. Painfully slow.

  “They’re still trying to fix that,” Simone said. “No real solution yet.”

  The mountains, at least, offered something more promising.

  They were being mined relentlessly. Stone and minerals pulled from deep within, infused with mana so thoroughly that the results bordered on miraculous. The granite used to construct the Sea Fortresses had come from these mountains.

  “It’s incredibly sturdy,” Simone said. “They tested it. Even a nuclear blast wave couldn’t damage it.”

  Scientists were still arguing over why. No one had a definitive answer yet.

  “But they’re not waiting for one,” she added with a faint smile. “They’re using it anyway.”

  By the time Simone finished speaking, she realized she had been talking for far longer than intended. Her voice trailed off, and she rubbed her temples sheepishly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you like to stay informed, Karl.”

  Karl, who had been listening intently the entire time, nodded slowly.

  “That’s good progress,” he said. “But it makes me wonder… do these resources regenerate?”

  He frowned slightly. “The Trial doesn’t have a defined duration. If it lasts long enough, we could run out of metals entirely.”

  Simone hesitated. “That hasn’t been answered yet.”

  Karl sighed quietly.

  “Figures.”

  After a brief pause, Simone shifted uneasily.

  “There is one thing I wanted to ask,” she said. “About… dying.”

  Her gaze drifted to her husband.

  “I can’t imagine it was pleasant.”

  Dennis scratched the back of his head, his expression uncertain.

  “It’s… strange,” he admitted. “I know what happened. I remember checking my status. My points. The shop. What I could buy.”

  He frowned.

  “But the rest? It’s like floating. No sensation. No pain. No wetness. Just… drifting.”

  He hesitated, visibly uncomfortable.

  “I think I went a little insane in there,” he added quietly. “But now I can’t remember most of it. Like something suppressed it.”

  Dennis had never been forgetful. That alone unsettled him.

  “Teun,” he called out suddenly.

  Teun, who had been speaking with his wife—currently frantically searching for their youngest son—turned around.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you remember anything from when you were dead?”

  Teun froze, then put on a thoughtful expression. He stood still for a long moment, eyes unfocused.

  “…No,” he said finally. “Aside from checking my status and the shop, there’s nothing.”

  He stretched his arms, rolled his shoulders, then did a few quick warm-up movements.

  “I feel a bit weak,” he said. “But otherwise… better than ever.”

  A silence followed.

  “How do you think Arin did?” Teun asked suddenly, turning toward his father. “You saw him last, right?”

  Karl nodded.

  “He made it into the fort,” he said. “If everything went well, we’ll hear tomorrow.”

  His expression darkened slightly.

  “I’m looking forward to finding out whether he shot the hiding coward.”

  For the first time in a long while, his voice carried something sharp.

  Regret for a missed prey.

  And anticipation.