Realm X: Ascending Through The Arcane Tower

"Erwin! Get back here right now! I'm not done with you!"

His father's voice boomed across the dusty courtyard, but Erwin was already halfway to the gate, his massive backpack bouncing against his shoulders.

Einstein, his petite sparrow perched on the shoulder straps of the backpack, dug his tiny claws in tighter.

"You know the rules!" His father thundered. "No talking to villagers about the food. No shortcuts through the woods. And absolutely no—"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it!" Erwin spun around, walking backwards with a cocky grin. "Don't worry, old man. I'm eighteen, not eight. I know what I'm doing."

"That's exactly what worries me," his mother called from the balcony. "Last time you 'knew what you were doing,' you nearly got caught smuggling grain to the Henderson family."

"But I didn't get caught, did I?" Erwin shot back, giving them a thumbs up. "Trust me. I'll be back with water from Kingdom Avalanche in five days. Maybe four if I take my shortcut."

"No shortcuts!" both parents yelled in unison.

"Love you too!" Erwin laughed and turned away, his boots kicking up small clouds of dust from the parched earth as he hurried.

His father stood rigid at the balcony railing, watching his son's retreating form. His wife touched his arm gently.

"He'll be fine," she said softly. "Erwin always is."

"That's not what worries me." His father's jaw clenched. "That boy overconfidence always screams bad news."

---

The market square erupted in noisy chatter the moment Erwin appeared.

"He's here!"

"Is that... I mean, did he bring it?"

"Please tell me you got something!"

Erwin kept walking, eyes straight ahead, acting like he couldn't hear the villagers loud whispers. His heart hammered against his ribs, but he kept his face blank.

One wrong look, one slip, and the wrong person might notice.

He reached the old fountain, which had obviously dried up for eight years now, and stopped.

Einstein chirped nervously on his shoulder. Yes, nervously, this bird could unbelievably show emotions.

"All clear?" Erwin whispered to it.

The sparrow chirped twice; their signal.

Erwin dropped his backpack with a heavy thud, then clapped his hands twice.

The market square emptied in seconds. Vendors abandoned their stalls. Shoppers silently moving into the shadows of nearby buildings. Within moments, only three figures remained, emerging from an alley to his left.

Devilman led them—a wiry, tattooed man who looked like he'd crawled out of a comic book. His two companions, Miki and Maki, walking beside him.

"Well?" Devilman's voice cracked slightly. "Don't keep us in suspense, kid. Did you manage to—"

"Depends." Erwin crossed his arms. "Can you handle bad news?"

The color drained from Devilman's face. He swayed, but Miki quickly grabbed his arm to steady him.

"No," Devilman breathed. "No, Erwin, please. We're down to our last reserves. One more week without food and we'll start losing people. The children, they're—"

"Relax." Erwin kicked his backpack, hard. It toppled over, and vegetables spilled across the dusty ground. Carrots. Potatoes. Even some precious grain in sealed containers.

The silence that followed made it seemed as if time stopped for a while.

Then someone screamed.

Within seconds, the square filled again as villagers poured from every hiding spot. They lifted Erwin off his feet, tossing him in the air while others fell to their knees, weeping as they grabbed the precious food.

"You did it!" Devilman's eyes streamed with tears. "You magnificent bastard, you actually did it!"

"Put me down!" Erwin laughed, flailing. "Come on, guys, this is embarrassing!"

They finally set him down, and he immediately grabbed Devilman in a bear hug, thumping his back.

"Did you really think I'd let you starve?" Erwin said quietly with a gentle smile. "You're my friends. All of you."

Eight years ago was when it all began. One day, earth was peaceful and blissful, the next day the most unprecedented disaster befell.

This disaster is what is commonly called the green rain disaster. Just as the name implies, green rain poured down from the sky continuously for over 48 hours, contaminating the entire water bodies with it's sickly fluid.

The fluid didn't stop there, it also extended its effect to plants.

All the trees and plants that got bathed in the fluid had their life force permanently halted; they couldn't bare new fruit fruit then onward, reproduction was halted too.

All that earth contained were meant to only degrade and decay, plunging the world into era of starvation.

And then, there were those with the golden finger in this current era, and those were people like Erwin and his family who had been large scale farmers.

They were the ones that had the least fear, even though the food stuff the didn't have wasn't sufficient. The could eat three square meal... A week.

"How did you even smuggle this much?" Miki asked, staring at the pile of supplies. "Your parents guard that farm like it's made of gold."

"They searched me for an hour before I left," Erwin grinned. "Checked every pocket, every fold of my clothes. Even made me open my mouth to check if I was hiding seeds."

"So how—"

"False bottom in the backpack." Erwin tapped his nose. "And a few other tricks I'm keeping to myself."

Maki stepped forward, her eyes soft. "You risk your relationship with your parents for us every single time. How can we ever repay you?"

"By shutting up about it," Erwin said quickly, his cheeks flushing. "Seriously, don't make it weird. I'm not some hero, I just... I have enough to eat while you don't. Simple math."

"Simple math," Devilman repeated, shaking his head in wonder. "This kid calls it simple math."

"Speaking of math," Miki interjected, "we calculated what you'd need for your trip. Five days to Kingdom Avalanche and back, right? We packed you supplies."

She held out a different backpack, smaller but well-stocked.

Erwin took it gratefully. "Thanks, I'll need every bit of this. The shortcut through the forest cuts two days off the trip, but—"

"The forest?" Maki's eyes went wide. "Erwin, no. The infected—"

"Are just rumors," Erwin cut her off. "Old wives' tales to scare children. I've been through those woods a dozen times and never seen anything worse than a dead tree."

"The rumors say they hunt at night," an elderly woman called from the crowd. "Creatures of shadow with red eyes and impossible strength. They used to be human, you know. Before the starvation drove them to drink from the green rain."

"If they exist, I'll handle it." Erwin patted the axe strapped to his new backpack. "Besides, I've got Einstein watching my back."

The sparrow chirped with what could be seen as a firm resolve, and several people laughed.

"Just be careful," Devilman said seriously. "We need you coming back with that water. But more than that, we need you coming back alive."

"I will." Erwin adjusted the pack, Einstein hopping from his old perch to the new one. "Five days, maybe less. You guys be careful on how you consume the supply i brought, it should last until I return."

The crowd parted as he walked toward the village edge. People called out blessings, good wishes, and so on while Erwin waved at them all, keeping his expression confident.

But as he reached the dirt road leading out of the village, his mind wandered and his expression shifted to seriousness.

'They're right to worry about infected,' he thought. 'The green rain eight years ago poisoned everything. Killed the crops, contaminated water and turned the world into a wasteland. And some people, driven mad by hunger and thirst, drank it anyway.'

'The ones who drank it... they changed. Became something else. Stronger, Faster and Mindless.'

'But that was years ago. Surely they're all dead by now. Nothing can survive eight years without water.'

'Right?'

He glanced at Einstein, who seemed content despite his earlier brush with death during their last trip when he fell into a pit in a bushy area.

The sparrow was an anomaly and everyone would have to admit. As a matter of fact, it is the only bird Erwin had seen in eight years. He'd found him three months ago, half-dead in a dried creek bed, and nursed him back to health.

"How did you survive all these years in this era of starvation?" Erwin wondered out loud, not for the first time.

The sparrow offered no answers, just ruffled his feathers like a typical bird and continued staring at the path ahead.

Erwin walked for two hours before reaching the fork in the road. Left led to the main path, but it would take five full days to reach Kingdom Avalanche. Right led to the forest, his shortcut. Three days, maybe less.

He didn't hesitate. He turned right.

'I've done this before,' he reminded himself. 'The path is safe. Ninety-nine percent sure.'

'Ninety-nine percent isn't one hundred percent, but it is enough for me.'

---

The forest was a graveyard.

Every tree was skeletal, branches reaching toward the sky like the fingers of drowning men. The leaves that littered the ground had been dead for years, crunching under Erwin's boots with each step. No insects buzzed. No birds sang—except for Einstein, who remained eerily silent on his shoulder.

"You feel it too, huh?" Erwin muttered to the sparrow. "This place is extra strange today."

Chirp.

"Yeah, I know. But it's still the fastest route. We'll be through it by nightfall if we keep moving."

He adjusted his pack and continued, trying to ignore the oppressive silence. The forest had never felt this quiet. Something was different this time.

'Stop being paranoid,' he scolded himself inwardly. 'You're just creeped out because of all that infected talk. There's nothing here but dead trees and your overactive imagination.'

Rustle.

Erwin froze mid-step.

'That... that wasn't me.'

He turned slowly, scanning the skeletal forest around him. Nothing. Just dead trees and shadows.

"Hello?" he called out. His voice sounded small in the vast silence. "Anyone there?"

No response.

'Probably just a branch falling. These trees are so dead, they're practically falling apart.'

He kept walking, but his hand drifted to the axe at his side... Instinctively.

Rustle.

This time, it was closer. Definitely not a falling branch.

"Okay, this isn't funny!" Erwin spun in a circle, heart racing. "If someone's following me, show yourself!"

The shadows between the trees seemed to deepen, writhing with movement that shouldn't exist.

Then he saw it.

A figure, barely visible behind a tree trunk twenty meters away. Humanoid shape, but abnormal fundamentally.

Its skin was dark as shadow, making anyone doubt if it was actually real. And its eyes...

Red. Glowing like red flame in the darkness.

"Oh no," Erwin breathed. "Oh no, no, no."

The creature stepped out from behind the tree, moving slowly like a predatory sizing its prey. It stood at least six feet tall, built like a bodybuilder despite the starvation that should have reduced it to nothing.

An infected. A real, living infected.

"I thought ninety nine percent was all I need," Erwin said to no one in particular. "I don't want to see an infected. I really, really don't want to see one."

The creature's head tilted, studying him with those horrible red eyes.

Then it roared.

The sound was nothing human, not even like a wild animal. Erwin's blood turned to ice.

Erwin should have run, but his body had already made another decision. He dropped his pack and grabbed his axe in one smooth motion, because he knew deep in his mind that running from this thing was death.

The infected lunged.

It crossed twenty meters in a heartbeat, moving faster than any human should be capable of. Erwin barely got his axe up in time, blocking the creature's gaping maw from closing on his throat.

The force of the impact drove him backwards, his boots skidding through dead leaves.

"Get off!" Erwin shoved with all his strength, but the creature didn't budge.

Then its fist drove into his chest.

The pain was excruciating. Erwin felt his ribs crack as he flew backward, slamming into a tree with enough force to snap it in half, then he crashed to the ground in a shower of dead wood.

'Can't breathe,' Erwin thought distantly. 'Can't... can't...'

The infected was on him again before he could fully process the pain. Another hit, this time to his ribs. Then another. And another.

Erwin lost count after the fifth blow. His vision went red, then black at the edges. Blood filled his mouth.

'Is this how I die?' The thought was strangely calm. 'After everything, I die in a forest to something that used to be human?'

The infected lifted him by the throat, those red eyes boring into his. It was as if it was confirming of Erwin was still alive.

Then it threw him.

Erwin's body bounced across the forest floor like a rag doll. Once, twice, three times before slamming into another tree. His axe flew from his hand, landing several meters away.

He tried to move but his arms weren't responding anymore, his legs were numb and his blood pooled under him.

'I'm going to die here.'

The infected approached slowly now, with that behavior like he was sizing Erwin again. It had all the time in the world, after all, Its prey was broken.

Erwin's eyes found Einstein. The little sparrow was struggling to fly with a broken wing, chirping frantically as he tried to reach his human friend.

'I'm sorry,' Erwin thought. 'I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I couldn't bring water back to the village. I'm sorry, Mom. Dad. Everyone.'

The infected loomed over him, raising one massive fist for the killing blow.

Suddenly, somewhere deep inside Erwin's broken body, something stirred. 'No. I can't die like this. Never like this.'

---

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

[DIMENSIONAL ESSENCE SYSTEM - UNLOCKING]

[Scanning for Essence Compatibility...]

[Compatibility: 99.97%]

---