Ascension: Rune Evolution System

’Well... shit. Of fucking course!’

Frost screamed inwardly as he glanced around the rundown structure they were currently resting in.

He didn’t even know what to call the damned thing.

It certainly wasn’t a building, as far as he was concerned!

The entire structure looked like it was one terrible lean away from collapsing in on itself, its walls made from mismatched sheets of wood, rusted metal, and some other strange material that Frost couldn’t identify, all crudely fastened together in a way that made him question whether whoever built it had ever heard of structural integrity.

And somehow, this was where they had ended up.

After leaving the Central Transit Plaza, Syrn had led them through Linden and eventually onto some sort of large transport vessel that carried them through the city.

Frost hadn’t even gotten enough time to properly appreciate everything he was seeing before they were taken straight toward the outskirts and eventually beyond the main city itself.

That was how Frost and his fourteen surviving classmates had found themselves sitting inside what could generously be described as a tent-slash-shack in a sprawling makeshift settlement outside Linden.

Why, you might wonder?

Well, according to Syrn, Linden, as enormous as it was, was already packed with people. Mostly locals, residents, and travellers from afar.

And now, with hundreds of thousands of otherworlders suddenly appearing without warning, the city simply didn’t have enough available housing to accommodate everyone.

So this little settlement had been arranged for them.

Well...

Arranged was probably giving them too much credit.

As far as Frost could tell, they had basically just been thrown out here.

And the longer he looked around, the more obvious it became that this settlement hadn’t simply appeared because of the otherworlders.

It had already been here, long before them.

They had seen enough of it on their way in for Frost to figure that much out.

The settlement stretched for what seemed like kilometres outside the city, composed of countless cramped shacks, tents, patched-together buildings, and narrow dirt pathways. More importantly, many of the people living here certainly weren’t human.

Frost had even spotted one hunched figure covered almost completely in coarse brown fur.

Judging by their worn clothing, tired expressions, and general living conditions, these weren’t visitors either.

They lived here.

Frost leaned back slightly, although the unsettling creak from the wall behind him immediately made him reconsider that decision.

’Well, shit...’ His eyes narrowed. ’This is where the outcasts live, isn’t it?’

He obviously couldn’t know that for certain yet, but everything he had seen pointed toward it.

Linden itself was this absurdly advanced metropolitan city filled with towering buildings, magical technology, floating platforms, enormous screens, teleportation networks, and more people than Frost could count.

Then, right outside all of that prosperity, there was this.

A slum.

And when hundreds of thousands of confused people from Earth began dropping into their world, somebody had looked at the situation and decided...

’Yeah, throw them in there too.’ Frost rubbed his face. ’Wonderful!’

They hadn’t been here long, but even during their short journey through the settlement, the group had already spotted several people who were unmistakably from Earth.

Their clothes alone made that obvious.

Jeans, T-shirts, hoodies, those expensive sneakers, and formal suits.

One middle-aged man had still been wearing half of what looked like a business suit, although the jacket was gone and his white shirt was now stained brown with dirt.

Their living conditions didn’t look any better than those of the settlement’s original inhabitants.

If anything, most of them looked completely lost.

Frost exhaled through his nose.

’So much for arriving in another world and immediately being treated like some legendary chosen heroes.’

Reality had other plans.

The entrance flap suddenly opened.

Frost’s eyes moved toward it as a lanky man ducked inside.

He wore strange, loose-fitting clothing that reminded Frost somewhat of a kurta pajama, though the material was unlike anything he had seen before.

Another man entered directly behind him.

Frost’s eyes immediately dropped toward what he was carrying.

’Is that a fucking gun?’

It certainly looked like one.

The weapon had a stock, a grip, and something resembling a barrel, but that was where the similarities to any firearm Frost recognised ended.

Frost slowly straightened.

’Wow, wow, wow...’

His eyes moved from the weapon to the two men.

’They’re not planning to get rid of us, are they!?’ Several of his classmates seemed to have reached similarly unpleasant conclusions.

Frost swallowed.

With everything he had seen so far, this world was beginning to look suspiciously like some kind of dystopian fantasy society.

There was the magnificent city surrounded by impoverished settlements.

There were walls keeping monsters outside.

Armed guards everywhere.

An obvious divide between those living inside Linden and those scraping by beyond it.

And now they had conveniently dumped the clueless otherworlders among what appeared to be the lowest rung of society.

Frost really hoped this place didn’t share every similarity with the dystopian societies movies had educated him about.

The lanky man looked across the fifteen wary faces before him. His gaze settled briefly on the armed man standing beside him.

”Put that away. You’re frightening them.”

Frost blinked.

The armed man looked down at his weapon as though he had only just remembered he was carrying it.

”Oh.”

He casually slung it behind his back.

Frost stared.

’...Well, that’s reassuring.’

The lanky man sighed before looking back toward the group.

”My apologies. He isn’t here to harm you.”

Frost felt several shoulders around him visibly relax. The man then clasped his hands behind his back.

”My name is Horad. I’ve been assigned to register your group, explain your current circumstances, and answer the questions I’m certain all of you have.”

’Finally!’

Someone whose actual job was to explain what the fuck was going on, because Frost had quite a few questions.