I sat in my bed while an old man clad in a priest’s robe waved a candle in front of my face, checking for... something. Adjusting his spectacles, he peered into my eyes as if they might offer a significant revelation about my condition. He was supposedly checking my pupils’ reaction, but given the current lighting conditions in this hospital, and his usage of a candle, an extremely uneven light source, I had doubts about his methods. Hayla wanted him to examine me though, and I went with it.

“Hmhm... Could you look up now?” he instructed. “Alright, and now back and forth from left to right. Very good, and up and down.”

He proceeded to check my throat, my ears, and even my nose, almost burning it in the process.

Seriously... What are you hoping to learn with this nonsense? I lost my memories, do you think you’re going to find them in the back of my nostrils?

After a few such exercises, one seeming more pointless than the one before, he eventually nodded in satisfaction and sat down on the edge of my bed.

“Physically, you’re perfectly healthy. I also can’t find any signs of damage to your brain or mind, nor an indication for the Sickness. That’s the good news. Unfortunately this also means we’re pretty much at the end of the rope here. Whatever happened to you, it seems to have taken your memories with it when it left,” he said, chuckling lightly to himself. “You shouldn’t worry about it too much for now though. Don’t force anything, and simply let the memories come back to you. Learn a bit about your life, that might help. In other good news, there’s no reason for you to stay here.”

“Uh... Alright. I guess. And if they don’t come back?” I asked doubtfully.

“In that case you’ll be able to experience a whole new world! I know, that might seem intimidating, but you wouldn’t believe all the patients I’ve had with brain injuries and permanent amnesia over the years who ended up enjoying their new lives!”

Is this guy for real? I wondered, raising an eyebrow.

He was about to get up when Hayla interjected. “Wait, doctor. Do you realize that him not having his memories is potentially a big issue for all of us? Is there nothing else we can do?”

For all of us?

“I understand that this might seem like we’re doing nothing, but letting the body and mind heal themselves is oftentimes the best medicine. It is remarkable what they’re able to do on their own. No potion I could mix would change anything here. If you’ll excuse me now, I’ll check on my other patients.”

Without another word, he got up and left us behind as he staggert from bed to bed and looked the people in them over. Asking a doctor for their opinion did sound like a decent enough idea, but the result was very dissatisfying.

“That was... irritating,” I mumbled to myself.

“Why?” Hayla asked.

“Well, I mean, what kind of diagnosis and treatment is that? ‘We don’t know anything, so let’s do absolutely nothing and hope for the best? Oh, but let me thoroughly check your nose while I’m at it!’ It seems... weird.”

“There are many illnesses the doctors don’t have any remedies for, and we can’t do much about it. Maybe the healer will be able to help with your problem once they find her. Do you remember Shadi?”

“Healer...” I parroted.

Magic user, has scripts for manipulating mana, which primarily aim to improve natural regenerative abilities, but can alternatively be used to cause serious harm if used correctly. Still generally considered one of the weaker jobs. Do I remember meeting a healer though?

“I don’t think so. Wait... Is there only one around?”

The way she said ‘the healer’ seemed odd. I felt like there would have to be more than that, but I also considered the possibility that no more lived near this location.

“She’s the first and only one, she got her Calling today.”

“Eh?” What kind of backwater town am I in here? “How many magic us— I mean, how many Sourcerers are there?”

“As far as I know, there are three, including you and Shadi. And the two fakes.”

“Three?” I asked, flabbergasted. This made no sense. Even if this was a relatively small village, could there really be only three magic users? And how was it possible that this Shadi girl was the first healer? “Okay, and what’s a fake?”

“There are two fake Sourcerers, who’re able to do similar things, but they didn’t get this power through the ritual.”

“Awakened humans... Huh.”

It was a rather fascinating piece of information. Apparently there were almost as many of them as there were people with the Calling. This, too, seemed very unusual.

I was contemplating how this ratio was possible and what the population of this place must be like, when I noticed Hayla looking at me with a quizzical expression.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You don’t know anything about yourself or anyone else, right? But Sourcerers and scripts you do know. They’re the only things you’ve been certain about so far.”

My eyes widened in surprise. I hadn’t realized at all. Magic users, healers, awakened humans, all these terms came to me naturally, though even my own name sounded unfamiliar.

“I suppose so. But... even those memories I can’t quite grasp on my own...”

As if each little piece of information in my brain was locked inside a drawer all on its own, I was unearthing new things as I went. When Hayla mentioned healers, I immediately knew what she was talking about, but I hadn’t thought about them even a little bit before that point. Even though such a thought might have made sense, seeing how something was obviously wrong with me, and a healer might have been able to help. It should have been my first thought really.

“You can trigger memories though. Maybe Dr. Tandu’s suggestion of learning about your life wasn’t so bad. We could get out of here and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The thought of walking out of here without answers, at the side of some girl I just met, was a strange one, but I didn’t have all that many options, and she was my fiance after all.

“Alright, let’s do that,” I said. As I scooted around and let my legs dangle from the bed, I glanced around the other patients in the room once more. Hayla said there was some kind of ongoing beast incident, and given the clothes and physic of the people I saw here, I assumed them to be combatants, who came here for treatment and recovery. “By the way, what was that about beasts appearing outside of town? What happened exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “They just show up, coming out of some kind of gate. One of the guards called it... a dungeon, I think?”

Dungeons. Spaces disconnected from this world, where monsters of varying power levels spawn and live. Accessed via portals that appear in random locations around the world.

“Huh, that’s exciting,” I said, assuming that a dungeon appearing in this seemingly small town would have to be good for the citizens.

“Uh... I’m not sure that’s the word I would choose. The guards have been fighting for hours, and from what I heard here, there’s no end in sight.”

“Oh... Is it a high-level one then?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“My question was whether the monsters inside are particularly strong. In that case it would naturally be more dangerous. Although...” I scanned the hospital once more. “I guess if that were the case, more beds would be occupied...”

“You know what that dungeon thing is?” she asked, surprised.

“Of course. Don’t you?”

She shook her head with a frown.

I felt like this was common knowledge, but Hayla’s expression told a different story. She didn’t know what a dungeon was, and them potentially being high-level didn’t mean anything to her either.

Is it possible that this village is so secluded and small that they have barely any magic users and never had a dungeon portal appear in recent memory? No... That makes no sense. Don’t I live here? How do I know these things then?

“Hayla, did I move here or something?”

“No, you were born here in Alarna. You did leave briefly, but as far as I know you only went as far as the neighboring town.”

Maybe my world view is skewed because I remember things from that trip? That other town might be the capital or something...

“How small is Alarna exactly?”

“Small...? It’s the largest town I know of by far. We have over four thousand citizens.”

“Four... thousand?”

The suspicion had already been gnawing on me, but this revelation made it quite clear that something was wrong. With such a population, there should be way more magic users, and unless Hayla had lived under a rock all her life, she should have heard about dungeons. None of it met my expectations, though I still didn’t know where they were coming from. I would need to get some of my memories back, in the hope of figuring out the source of this discrepancy.

“Okay...” I said. “Please show me around.”