Chapter 20: Eastern District Gate Challenge (1)
It had been a few days since that rooftop conversation with Talia — the one that Lanz had absolutely, definitely, one-hundred percent not been replaying on loop in the back of his skull like an unpaid intern forced to run the same commercial over and over.
He’d buried it under school, bad cafeteria coffee, and the faint hope that if he didn’t think about it too hard, maybe it would stop feeling like she’d peeked behind the world’s dumbest curtain.
Now it was Friday night. He was supposed to be gearing up mentally for that Tier 2 Gate he’d clocked on Miko’s sketchy tracking app — the one he kept telling himself was an easy payday if he could just piece together something resembling armor.
Instead, he was sprawled belly-up on his cardboard like mattress, phone hovering above his face at an angle that threatened to drop it right on his nose.
He flicked through the Alt System’s gear screen with the same dead-eyed energy as a kid flipping flashcards before a test he had no chance in hell of passing. The inventory was basically a list of bad jokes that just got sadder the longer he stared.
The Goblin Dagger — rusted to the point that any pawnshop clerk would probably laugh him back out the door. The Aged Blade Fragment? Technically priceless, but also cursed with the world’s most passive-aggressive tooltip that may as well have read, "Bound and Non-transferable. Enjoy your shiny thingy, peasant."
The lightweight chest padding was about as sturdy as wet cardboard. The cracked ring, which gave him a whole +1 VIT, looked like it belonged in a cereal box prize pool. He rubbed a thumb over its chipped edge and muttered, "Maybe if I sell everything at once, I can afford a new pair of boots. Or half a fried dumpling. I don’t f*cking know."
He was halfway through considering whether he could get a part-time gig at a sketchy gear recycler when his phone buzzed violently in his palm.
It was the group chat!
Kenji had dropped something, probably another video of some idiot faceplanting mid-dungeon run — because nothing screamed "study break" like watching other rookies eat floor tiles for likes.
He squinted at the clip thumbnail: [EASTERN DISTRICT GATE CHALLENGE — LIVE HIGHLIGHTS]. A familiar concrete plaza, cheap banner strung up over the entry gate, crowds cheering like it was a neighborhood festival crossed with a minor safety hazard.
Random hunters in mismatched armor sets posing for the camera before throwing themselves into short, timed solo runs just to see if they could squeeze out a tiny bit of prize money.