Chapter 68 - Selection Rights Revoked

The footage replayed.

A black Ancient Tree.

A white mask.

One hand on the bark.

Etzel watched it three times.

On the fourth, he stopped looking at the figure.

“Pause.”

Halven froze the image.

“What?”

“The ground.”

They enlarged it.

Roots.

Not the Tree’s.

Thin black lines beneath the soil.

A network radiating outward.

The same architecture as the corruption they had just removed.

But mature.

Not a wound.

A system.

Mireth stood beside the display.

“It was prepared before the Tree appeared.”

Etzel nodded.

“The roots were waiting.”

Edgar sat under medical observation nearby, pale but awake.

“How would they know where a Tree would appear?”

Nobody answered.

Ancient Tree locations were unpredictable.

At least humanity believed they were.

If the Gardener knew in advance—

then either it could predict the System—

or influence it.

Neither option improved Etzel’s morning.

Renn joined remotely.

“The event occurred nineteen minutes ago in the Karsen Free Territory.”

Etzel looked at the map.

Far.

Too far for immediate intervention.

“What happened to the local team?”

“Three injured. No confirmed deaths.”

“The masked figure?”

“Gone.”

“The Tree?”

Renn changed the image.

Etzel stared.

A stump.

Not cut.

Collapsed inward.

Like the structure had been emptied.

“No awakening?”

“No.”

“Any eligible civilian nearby?”

“One.”

Naturally.

A seventeen-year-old girl had reached the Tree minutes before the event.

She never touched it.

Selection rights revoked.

Her chance gone.

Etzel’s Sanctuary Tree stirred in Soul Space.

The third growth condition echoed.

Growth will not be purchased with another person’s rightful beginning.

The Gardener had done exactly that.

Taken a beginning.

For what?

“Where did the Tree’s System energy go?”

Halven looked at him.

“We don’t know.”

“Track the black roots.”

“Local teams are.”

“Not physically.”

Halven understood.

“System-layer transfer.”

“Yes.”

The dungeon thief had stored ability structures.

The soul facility had stored incomplete souls.

This event might have stored awakening potential itself.

Pieces.

DK’s word.

Etzel looked at the knight.

“Gates of Ash.”

DK nodded.

“Do you remember them taking things?”

“Sometimes.”

“What?”

“Places.”

Etzel frowned.

“Explain.”

“A gate opened. The area around it changed.”

“Corruption?”

“Not always.”

DK searched memory.

“Rules stopped matching.”

That was worse.

“Gravity?”

“Sometimes.”

“Magic?”

“Sometimes.”

“People?”

DK’s silence returned.

Then:

“Sometimes people forgot how to die.”

No one spoke.

Etzel felt cold.

The title of nothing.

A rule he had never questioned because death was the one thing the Rupture had made impossible to ignore.

Five percent dead.

Others transformed.

Hunters awakened.

Monsters multiplied.

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Death had remained death.

Except Limited Necromancer already touched the edge.

Souls.

Summons.

Bodies rebuilt at cost.

Not resurrection of ordinary people.

A different category.

The Gardener’s world-layer interference might be broader.

Etzel asked:

“What happened to people who forgot how to die?”

DK’s voice lowered.

“They wished they hadn’t.”

Etzel did not ask for details.

Edgar looked sick.

“My brother.”

Maybe not.

They had too little evidence.

Etzel refused to turn a missing man into a cosmic theory because it fit.

“Find him first.”

Edgar looked up.

“What?”

“Your brother. We investigate the last known Tree site. We look for records. We do not decide what happened before evidence.”

Edgar nodded.

Renn said:

“You are not going today.”

Etzel looked toward the speaker.

“I didn’t say today.”

“You were thinking it loudly.”

“Everyone has become invasive.”

Renn continued.

“Your leave remains in effect.”

“There is a global Tree attack.”

“And teams on-site.”

“The Gardener—”

“Is not currently here.”

Etzel stopped.

Renn was right.

Annoying.

Etzel had spent weeks reacting to every threat personally.

That was not sustainable.

He was Level 15.

Not SSS.

Not the strongest Hunter in the country.

Not even close.

The world had people whose job was responding to global events.

Etzel’s job, for forty-eight hours, was apparently to eat his mother’s cooking.

He hated sensible governance.

“Fine.”

Halven blinked.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

Mireth looked at him.

“This is unexpected.”

Etzel pointed at it.

“I can make mature decisions.”

DK said:

“Occasionally.”

“Stop reinforcing that.”

Edgar was transferred to Authority intake.

Not detained.

Registered.

His Unfinished Law remained private beyond necessary classification.

Etzel made Renn promise the boy would be told before any invasive testing.

Renn replied that Authority already had consent procedures.

Etzel replied that procedures were not the same thing as people remembering to use them.

Renn did not disagree.

Before Etzel left, Edgar caught his sleeve.

“My brother’s name was Tomas.”

Etzel stopped.

“Tomas Voss.”

“Okay.”

“If you find something—”

“I’ll tell you what we actually find.”

“Even if it’s bad?”

“Especially then.”

Edgar released him.

Etzel went home.

This time he stayed.

For six hours.

Neris considered that a personal record.

“You’re terrible at resting.”

“I slept.”

“You left before breakfast.”

“I returned before dinner.”

“That’s not rest. That’s commuting.”

Etzel sat on the kitchen counter.

Ismera pushed him off it.

He sat at the table instead.

Veydan repaired a broken cabinet hinge.

DK watched.

Not because the hinge was interesting.

Because Veydan had refused help twice.

Finally DK asked:

“Why not replace it?”

Veydan looked at the old hinge.

“Because it still works.”

“It is damaged.”

“So are most useful things.”

DK went silent.

Etzel saw the line land.

Veydan did not know Orsik’s full history.

He did not need to.

Sometimes fathers accidentally said things philosophers spent years ruining.

Saeva helped Neris with homework.

Badly.

The assignment involved geography.

Saeva kept naming places by emotional description.

“Cold mountain.”

“That is not the name.”

“Angry river.”

“Rivers are not angry.”

Saeva looked offended.

Etzel laughed until Neris threw a pencil at him.

Normal.

For a while.

Then the Sanctuary Tree appeared in Soul Space without being called.

Etzel felt it.

He closed his eyes.

Inside, the sapling stood taller than before.

Only slightly.

The black knot in its trunk pulsed.

Contained foreign pattern.

Not external handshake.

Something else.

A response.

Etzel approached.

The unnamed soul’s light hovered nearby.

It had grown more coherent over recent chapters of his life, though still without a name.

The protected fragment rested among the roots.

Saeva’s bond shimmered at the edge.

Etzel touched the trunk.

System text appeared.

He frowned.

“I didn’t ask you to decode it.”

The tree did not care.

The black Tree event.

It had provided a comparison.

Two samples.

Now the Sanctuary Tree could distinguish common architecture.

A pattern emerged.

Not language.

Coordinates?

No.

Intervals.

Sequence.

Etzel stared.

The foreign corruption was not merely receiving commands.

It followed a growth cycle.

Seed.

Root.

Graft.

Harvest.

Four stages.

The soul facility—

which?

Root?

Dungeon thief—

graft?

Ancient Tree—

harvest?

He needed evidence.

Witness remained silent.

Etzel did not know yet.

The Sanctuary Tree showed one more element.

A marker attached to every cycle.

Not a name.

A destination.

Something beyond local System space.

Etzel focused.

The marker resolved poorly.

Then:

He opened his eyes.

DK stood across the room.

“You left.”

“Mentally.”

“I noticed.”

Etzel told him.

DK became still.

“Non-spatial.”

“You recognize that?”

“Yes.”

“Gates of Ash?”

“Maybe.”

Etzel sighed.

“Your memories have a very abusive relationship with certainty.”

DK ignored that.

“If the destination is not a place in this world—”

“Then the Gardener may not be here.”

“Or not entirely.”

Etzel leaned back.

That helped.

And did not.

A threat operating through System-layer structures did not need to stand nearby.

The masked figure could be an agent.

Projection.

Hunter.

Construct.

Anything.

Etzel’s communicator lit.

He considered ignoring it.

Then saw the sender.

Sivenne.

He answered.

“If this is another dungeon, no.”

“It isn’t.”

“Monster?”

“No.”

“Missing person?”

“No.”

“Then I’m proud of you.”

“Maerin wants to talk.”

Etzel sat straighter.

“Is she okay?”

“That depends on your definition.”

The line shifted.

Maerin’s voice.

“Claimed Ground changed.”

Etzel’s expression tightened.

“How?”

“I can feel places I have claimed before.”

“That’s new?”

“Yes.”

“Could you always remember them?”

“Remember, yes. Feel, no.”

Etzel looked at DK.

“Since the theft?”

“Yes.”

“Only places after the dungeon?”

“No.”

Maerin continued.

“I can feel the dungeon.”

Etzel’s heart slowed.

“The one we closed?”

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“My apartment.”

Distance.

A residual connection.

The foreign object had left scar tissue in her ability signature.

Halven had seen it.

“What do you feel?”

“Something is using the empty space.”

Etzel stood.

“What empty space?”

“Where the stolen abilities were stored.”

The dungeon core had secured forty-one structures whose origin owners were absent.

Etzel’s stomach dropped.

They had left them there because the dungeon could protect them pending compatible origin contact.

A reasonable choice.

Maybe a wrong one.

Maerin whispered:

“Etzel.”

“I’m here.”

“One of them just disappeared.”

“Returned to an owner?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the space didn’t close.”

Etzel grabbed his jacket.

Veydan looked up from the hinge.

“Going?”

Etzel stopped.

Tonight.

He had promised Ismera.

The communicator remained against his ear.

Maerin breathed.

Another pause.

“Two.”

Etzel closed his eyes.

Responsibility.

Not every emergency required him.

But this one existed partly because of his decision.

He had placed the stolen structures in that core.

That changed the equation.

“I’m going.”

Veydan nodded.

No accusation.

“Come back.”

“I will.”

DK was already standing.

Saeva flew from Neris’s room.

Etzel pointed at her.

“You stay.”

She froze.

“No.”

“You’re tired.”

“No.”

“You used Sanctuary today.”

“No.”

“That is not a complete argument.”

Saeva crossed her arms.

“Etzel.”

He stared.

She stared back.

DK said:

“You will lose.”

“Everyone is against me.”

Neris leaned out of the hallway.

“She goes.”

Etzel sighed.

“Fine.”

They left.

Mireth met them at Authority.

Renn did not bother pretending he could stop this one.

The dungeon gate was gone.

Closed.

Normal.

Maerin stood over the site.

Her hand hovered above the ground.

“I can still feel it.”

Halven checked core telemetry through remote System instrumentation.

“Forty-one structures secured after the event.”

He looked at the new count.

“Thirty-eight.”

Etzel’s jaw tightened.

“Where are they going?”

“No transfer signature.”

Maerin shook her head.

“There is.”

Everyone looked at her.

“Not outward.”

She pressed her palm to the ground.

“Down.”

Etzel stared.

The dungeon did not physically exist underground.

Its space was System-mediated.

“Down where?”

Maerin’s face changed.

“I don’t know.”

Then she jerked her hand away.

Claimed Ground activated by reflex.

One line.

A single line.

The scar in her ability lit black.

Etzel shouted:

“Release!”

She did.

Too late.

Something had touched back.

The closed dungeon gate reappeared.

Not blue.

Black.

A vertical slit in the air.

DK drew the Greatblade.

Mireth whispered:

“Door.”

Etzel’s Sanctuary Tree erupted inside Soul Space.

The contained foreign pattern responded.

The threat in front of them had not shifted just because they had named part of it. Etzel wrote the new fact down before memory could polish it into something cleaner than it was. He had learned to distrust elegant explanations. Elegant explanations were how Hunters walked into bad dungeons convinced they understood the rules. He left blanks where blanks belonged. If the truth wanted those spaces filled, it could earn them. Whatever 'Selection Rights Revoked' meant by the end of the day, Etzel wanted the next choice to be theirs.

Etzel kept his attention on the immediate threat instead of the enormous theory trying to form behind it. Ancient Trees, other worlds, broken selection rules—every truth wanted to become ten questions. He refused. One question at a time. One fact they could touch. One consequence they could survive. Orsik approved of the method, which Etzel found mildly insulting because it meant he was beginning to think like the knight on purpose. Whatever 'Selection Rights Revoked' meant by the end of the day, Etzel wanted the next choice to be theirs.

They took a minute to check what the revelation had actually shifted. No one had become more dangerous. No enemy had politely explained itself. The ground was still hard beneath Etzel's boots, his shoulder still ached when he turned too quickly, and the people beside him were still mortal. He found the ordinariness reassuring. 'Good,' he said. Orsik glanced at him. 'What is good?' 'Reality is still being rude in familiar ways.' Saeva made a tiny approving sound. Whatever 'Selection Rights Revoked' meant by the end of the day, Etzel wanted the next choice to be theirs.

Etzel wrote the new fact down before memory could polish it into something cleaner than it was. He had learned to distrust elegant explanations. Elegant explanations were how Hunters walked into bad dungeons convinced they understood the rules. He left blanks where blanks belonged. If the truth wanted those spaces filled, it could earn them. Whatever 'Selection Rights Revoked' meant by the end of the day, Etzel wanted the next choice to be theirs.

One final System line appeared.

The black gate widened.

From the other side came the smell of ash.

DK stopped breathing.

Etzel looked at him.

“Your world?”

The knight stared into the darkness.

Then answered with absolute certainty.

“Yes.”