[ Help revive the Goddess of Reincarnation. ]

He stared at the words and tried to push himself up, but his elbow buckled immediately and dumped him back into the dirt.

"Yeah," he whispered, voice rough and wrecked, "sure, let me just..."

The sentence died there because the world suddenly tilted sideways.

[ Stream status unstable ]

[ Host consciousness failing ]

[ Disconnecting broadcast... ]

The fire turned into a smear of orange, the panel dimmed with it, and a second later everything went black.

[ Stream disconnected ]

123456

Strangers

Morning had barely settled in when a group of adventurers came down the forest path, dirty from an overnight mission and already arguing like they hadn't spent the last few hours fighting side by side.

"I am telling you, the best cut should obviously go to me," one of the men said, shifting the pack on his shoulder. "If I didn't pin that thing down, both of you would still be running around screaming."

"Pin it down?" the other shot back with a laugh. "You got thrown into it by accident. If anyone earned the best cut, it's me."

The first man scoffed and kept walking.

"Earned it how? By swinging late after the hard part was done?"

"Late?" the second man said, turning toward him. "Who was the one yelling for help ten minutes in?"

They kept going like that, each one talking over the other while the girl walking with them stayed half a step behind.