Chapter 236: A Warrior Returns

Garran opened his eyes in Sanctuary’s hospital with one hand still raised toward a cup that no longer existed.

The movement pulled his arm free of the blanket. He stared at his fingers until the last memory of Valhalla’s great hall separated itself from the white ceiling above him. His body felt rested. No spear wound burned beneath his arm, and the leg cut during the escape from the orc camp had vanished before his consciousness ever reached the Fields of Victory.

The body had been lying here, alive and restored, for the entire twelve hours.

A gnome attendant noticed his movement and approached the bed.

"Welcome back. Do you know your name?"

"Garran."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Sanctuary’s hospital."

"Good. Sit up slowly. Your body has not moved since it arrived."

Garran obeyed. His muscles felt stiff rather than injured. A final system notice waited at the edge of his sight.

[Afterlife visit completed.]

[Consciousness returned to physical body.]

[Earned progression retained.]

[Unspent victory marks retained: Two.]

He opened his skill record before the attendant finished checking his eyes. Shield Brace had not gained a level, but its progress bar extended well beyond the point he remembered from before the orc camp. A separate record identified the improvement earned during the bridge defense and the lesson that followed.

[Shield Brace progression earned in Valhalla: Confirmed.]

[Formation Wall initiation: 4 percent.]

The locked technique had not existed before his death.

"How long was I asleep?" Garran asked.

"Eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes, and enough seconds that you should not accuse me of guessing. Your party has asked that question repeatedly."

The attendant directed him toward a changing screen where his repaired equipment waited. The shield was missing. It had broken inside the instance and would need to be replaced, but the rest had been cleaned and stacked beside the bed.

Garran dressed quickly.

His companions waited outside the hospital. The swordsman rose first. Their scout and mage followed, while the healer remained seated with one arm held carefully against her side. A healing service had repaired the worst of the spear wound, but survival had not made the injury disappear.

The swordsman crossed the room and punched Garran in the shoulder.

"That was for making me leave."

Before Garran could respond, the man pulled him into a crushing embrace.

"And that was for making sure we survived."

The rest of the party closed around the bed. Their relief quickly gave way to questions, most of them asked before Garran could answer the last.

The healer finally raised her voice over the others.

"Give him a moment. He has only just awakened."

She waited until the others quieted before turning back to Garran.

"The attendant told us your body had been restored, but that your consciousness was somewhere else. She would not tell us where."

"I went to Valhalla."

The name meant nothing to them. Their silence made that clear.

Garran told them about awakening in the darkness and being offered a choice. He described the message confirming that his physical body had already been restored and was sleeping in Sanctuary’s hospital while another form carried his consciousness into Valhalla.

He expected questions, but none of them interrupted. By the time he reached the Fields of Victory, even the scout had stopped looking toward the healer for a more sensible explanation.

"There were two armies fighting over a bridge. I joined one of the shield formations and helped defend it."

The swordsman stared at him.

"You woke up after dying and immediately joined another battle?"

"I did not know how long I would be there. Standing around seemed wasteful."

"You could have rested."

"I rested at the feast."

The swordsman’s expression sharpened with interest.

"There was a feast?"

"A large one. I did not get to finish it."

The scout folded his arms.

"This sounds like a resurrection dream."

"I thought the same thing at first."

Garran shared the relevant portion of his skill record with them.

The scout’s expression changed as he read it. Beside him, the mage ignored everything except the entry for Formation Wall.

"You did not have this skill yesterday."

"I had never heard of it yesterday."

"It is only at four percent."

"That is four percent more than I had before I died."

Garran explained the lesson he had purchased and how the captain had taught him to distribute the force of an impact across a connected line of shields. He used his hands to demonstrate the position, growing increasingly animated as he described his failure during the first volley.

"The captain told me I was one piece of a wall and needed to stop behaving like a door."

The swordsman laughed.

"I like him."

"You have never met him."

"I have heard enough."

The healer continued studying the shared record.

"It says you earned three victory marks."

"They are used in Valhalla. I spent one on the lesson. The best trainers required more marks, and some demanded achievements before they would teach me anything. I also found challenges, quests, and sections of the hall I was not permitted to enter."

The scout read the record again.

A dream might have given Garran memories of an imagined battle. It might even have convinced him that those memories were real. It should not have created a new technique, recorded measurable progress in an existing skill, and returned him with currency belonging to a place none of them had ever heard of.

"So you can go back?" The scout asked.

Garran’s excitement faded.

"So you can go back?" The scout asked.

"Not unless I die again or find another way into Valhalla."

The healer made Garran sit still while she checked him despite his insistence that nothing hurt. His body had been completely restored before his consciousness entered Valhalla, and twelve hours of sleep had left him feeling better rested than anyone else in the room.

Once the hospital attendant confirmed that he was free to leave, Garran dressed and followed his party outside.

They had barely reached one of Sanctuary’s busiest paths before the questions resumed.

People traveling between the portal plaza, training areas, and market slowed when they heard the words death, Valhalla, and retained progress. Garran lowered his voice, but that only encouraged the nearest listeners to move closer.

One man abandoned any pretense of passing by.

"Did you say the Dungeon Master built a place where dead adventurers can train?"

"It is called Valhalla. I went there after I died, but I do not know why I was allowed inside."

"You returned with a new technique?"

"The beginning of one."

That distinction disappeared before the story traveled twenty paces.

By the time Garran and his party reached a food stall, someone near the portal plaza was claiming that death now awarded secret skills. Another version insisted that every brave adventurer entered a hall filled with legendary trainers. A third declared that the twelve-hour waiting period had become a hidden dungeon level.

Disbelief did not slow the rumors. It sharpened them. Adventurers argued about whether Garran had discovered an afterlife or hallucinated one. Several asked to inspect his skill record. Others wanted to know whether his victory marks could be spent in Sanctuary.

The dangerous misunderstanding arrived before Garran finished his meal.

Two young fighters at the next table began discussing which Orc Highlands battle would provide the fastest heroic death. One intended to hold the arena gate while the other escaped. Then they would reverse positions during a later attempt so both could qualify for Valhalla.

Garran set down his spoon.

"That is not what happened."

The nearest fighter turned toward him.

"You stayed behind so your party could escape."

"Because they needed time. You are planning to create a danger so you can pretend to save each other from it."

"The system might still count it."

"Then you would be gambling your lives on the hope that the system is stupid."

Someone farther down the table joined the argument.

"Even if Valhalla refuses them, they still revive in the hospital."

"Floors One through Four send the dead to this hospital. That does not make dying profitable. I lost a shield, ended our run, and left my companions to finish without me." Garran said.

"You also gained twelve hours of training."

"After a legitimate defeat. I would have earned more if I had survived, collected the escape reward, and spent the same time training while awake."

That answer stopped one argument and began three more.

Some adventurers understood. Others treated Garran’s objections as an attempt to protect a profitable discovery. A few began composing increasingly elaborate deaths that they believed would appear courageous to whatever judged entry.

Garran realized the story had escaped him more completely than the elves had escaped the orc camp.

Max heard the worst versions through Sanctuary before any adventurer reached the Orc Highlands entrance.

He stood with Anna and Quin in the core room while overlapping conversations reached him through the dungeon. Most people were merely curious. A smaller number had already begun treating Garran’s experience as a reward they could reproduce by arranging the correct death.

Anna listened to one pair debate whether betrayal followed by a last-second rescue would appear more heroic than an ordinary sacrifice.

"They have known about Valhalla for less than two hours. They are already planning how to deceive it."

"Adventurers test rules. Usually they test them without volunteering to die first." Quin said.

Max dismissed three proposed announcements. The first explained too much about how destination matching worked. The second invited arguments about edge cases. The third sounded like a challenge to discover a qualification he wanted people to ignore.

"Could you publish the requirements and state that deliberate attempts fail?" Quin asked.

"Then they will manufacture situations that satisfy every listed condition while insisting the danger was accidental. Anyone who misses one requirement will try again with a more convincing death."

Anna pointed toward Garran’s location. "He is already telling them that survival would have earned more."

"The ones who understand him are not the problem."

Max would not reveal the complete qualification system. It evaluated danger, purpose, available choices, and intent. Turning those judgments into a public list would transform bravery into a checklist and encourage adventurers to build tragedies around it.

He reduced the announcement to three facts. Each addressed a dangerous assumption without teaching anyone how to pursue an afterlife.

A system notice appeared above Sanctuary before anyone could leave to test a theory.

[Afterlife Guidance]

[Death does not guarantee entry into Valhalla.]

[A pointless death is not an act of courage.]

[Afterlife qualifications will not be publicly listed.]

Every argument paused while people read it.

One of the young fighters frowned.

"How are we supposed to qualify if the Dungeon Master will not tell us the requirements?"

"You are not supposed to qualify. You are supposed to survive." Garran said.

The notice did not end the excitement. It removed the easiest excuses for deliberate deaths, but it also confirmed that Valhalla existed and that qualifications mattered. Questions shifted from how to die toward what the afterlife contained.

Garran spent the next hour repeating details he had already explained. The Fields allowed formal battles without harming the restored body. Victory marks remained attached to him after waking. Rare trainers required achievements. Leaving early would have awakened him in the hospital, but returning would have required another qualifying death or discovery of a living entrance.

The Five Knots arrived after most of the reckless speculation had faded.

They did not ask how Garran had died. They asked what had remained locked.

Garran described Master Ordan’s training yard and the requirement to hold the Ash Bridge without breaking formation. He mentioned smaller challenges available for marks and doors inside the hall that had not opened for him. He also repeated what the guide had said about a living road into Valhalla.

By that evening, several versions of Garran’s story were circulating through Sanctuary.

Most people focused on the endless battles, the feast, or the possibility of continuing to gain strength after death. The Five Knots were more interested in the claim that Valhalla possessed an entrance for the living.

Their reputation had been built in the air. They were among Sanctuary’s best adventurer fliers, and purchasing their own airship had given them the freedom to investigate distant locations without relying on scheduled transportation.

None of them knew whether an airship would help them find Valhalla’s entrance. They only knew that a path supposedly existed and that no one had discovered it yet.

That was enough to capture their interest.

Garran shared the record for Master Ordan’s training. The Five Knots studied each line, then moved aside to speak privately.

Their discussion remained quiet, but Garran heard enough to understand that they were not planning to imitate his death. They intended to continue challenging the dungeon normally and pay closer attention to anything that might connect to the afterlives.