Chapter 2: Dummy
Lanz stood completely still, his hand still gripping the sword he didn’t remember picking up.
The walls around him looked like they were carved straight out of old gray stone, clean in a way that didn’t make sense.
He reached out and placed his palm flat against the wall. It was solid, not game-like, but actually real-real. Like the kind of real you felt in your teeth.
He looked down at his feet, still beautiful. His hoodie was still too big, and his shirt was riding up under it a little. This wasn’t some fantasy dream where he had armor and glowing eyes and cool tattoos that pulsed with power. He looked exactly the same. Just a guy with a sword and a lot of questions.
He turned to the dummy he had smacked earlier, the one still laying crumpled in the corner like someone rage-quit a tutorial. Sparks fizzled weakly from its joints. He walked over and gave it a gentle prod with the tip of his foot.
Thankfully, it was still dead.
He squatted down beside it, resting the sword on his shoulder. "Okay. So let me get this straight," he said, speaking more to the silence than anything else. "I touch a busted crystal from a sketchy old man who eats cup noodles in public, and now I’m inside some low-budget training simulation where I can actually gain stats and swing swords and pick loadouts like I’m in a retro arcade game. Hype~~~."
He looked around. The stone corridor gave him nothing back.
"And it’s just me. No tutorial NPC, no system voice telling me I’m the chosen one, no dramatic music. Just... this."
A soft thunk echoed behind him.
He turned around slowly, shoulders already tense. Another dummy had dropped from the ceiling, landing upright just a few feet away. It didn’t move, but it didn’t need to. Its head was tilted forward ever so slightly, like it was watching him.
Lanz stared at it and it stared back, in the most unblinking, lifeless way a training dummy could.