Insomniac Player

The reunion hug lasted until John decided three people weren’t enough and wrapped his massive arms around all of them at once.

Something cracked.

Rahul froze. "Was that my spine?"

"The sofa," Damien said from somewhere under John’s arm.

Imran glanced at the expensive furniture. "Probably both."

John let them go with a booming laugh. "Still fragile! Thirty years in this world and none of you have grown proper bones."

"You used to hide behind Damien whenever the Goblin Chief so much as looked at you," Rahul said.

"That’s an outright lie. I was protecting him."

They settled around the living room, though John took up enough of the sofa to count as a fifth person on his own. Food and drinks showed up from Damien’s online order, and within minutes the years between them started melting away.

Rahul pointed accusingly at Damien. "Do you know how many times I dreamed about this man?"

Damien raised an eyebrow.

"Most of those dreams involved him stabbing me."

"That actually happened," Imran reminded him.

"More than once!"

"You came back fully healed," Damien said. "You’re welcome."

John slapped his own knee. "Best medical treatment in the Second Tutorial! No bandages, no medicine, just Damien walking over with that horrible dagger."

Rahul mimicked his calm voice. "’You’re injured. Hold still.’ Then, stab!"

"It was efficient."

"You could’ve warned us."

"I did."

Imran nodded. "He said, ’This will hurt.’"

Rahul stared at him. "That’s not a warning. That’s a threat."

Their laughter filled the whole penthouse. Damien found himself smiling more than he had in years, or from his own perspective, weeks. Imran still delivered every joke with the face of a man reviewing military reports. Rahul still talked enough for two people. John’s mustache still bounced whenever he laughed.

Some things had survived the end of the world after all.

"We missed you," Imran said once the laughter died down.

The plain honesty of it hit harder than Damien expected.

Rahul leaned back and studied him. "We searched for months. John searched longer than any of us. Eventually we had to accept you were either dead or stuck somewhere we couldn’t reach."

"I was asleep."

John’s expression twisted. "A coma is not sleeping."

"I kept telling people a coma isn’t the same thing as sleeping, especially after one that lasted two years."

Rahul sighed. "You know, if that coma hadn’t caught you, you’d probably be somewhere in the sky by now."

Damien glanced toward the windows. "I live on the top floor. Close enough."

"He means your level," Imran said.

"I knew that."

John pointed at him. "You were the smartest one of us, back then. While we were swinging at monsters, you were counting them, tracking patrol routes, turning caves into death traps. Give you two years and you’d be standing above all of us by now."

"Or hiding behind a better trap."

"That too," Rahul admitted.

John looked at Imran. "How’d you two even find out he was back? I was about to reach out to you both when you showed up at the door."

"The gatebreak footage," Imran said. "Saw that dagger in his hand."

Rahul nodded. "He called me in the middle of a club and demanded I watch a blurry recording right then."

"It wasn’t just the dagger," Imran went on. "It was how he reacted. Watching the battlefield instead of the monsters. Counting threats. Giving orders without wasting a single word, moving before anyone else understood what the danger even was." He looked straight at Damien. "It reminded me of the Second Tutorial."

Rahul smiled. "Once we had the face and the dagger, a quick search filled in the rest. Sleepless. Viremont. Mysterious low-level player. Government interrogation. Terrible fashion sense."

Damien glanced down at his clothes. "One of those seems irrelevant."

"Fashion is never irrelevant."

Curious, he focused on both of them, and a familiar blue glow formed across his vision.

➤[Name: Imran Ali]

➤[Alias: Mountain Cleaver]

➤[Level: 398]

➤[Class: Battle Fiend (Epic)]

His eyes narrowed slightly. Imran had joined the army and climbed all the way to Two-Star General. The calm, dependable man who used to coordinate axe strikes in a monster-filled forest now commanded entire divisions.

He checked Rahul next.

➤[Name: Rahul Modi]

➤[Alias: Spear of Style]

➤[Level: 377]

➤[Class: Spear Dancer]

Rahul had become vice leader of one of the world’s major guilds. More unexpectedly, he’d also somehow become a genuine global style icon.

"You’re twenty-one levels below Imran," Damien said.

Rahul put a hand over his heart. "Not even five minutes and he goes straight for my deepest wound."

Imran took a drink. "I kill monsters. He attends fashion events."

"I also kill monsters."

"While dressed for fashion events."

"Civilization needs standards."

John tugged at Rahul’s sleeve. "How much did this cost?"

"More than your first mace."

John let go of it immediately. Damien nodded, solemn. "The mighty John Jones has finally found something he’s afraid to damage."

The doorbell rang. All three of them looked toward the entrance.

"They must be here," Damien said, standing.

"Who?" Rahul asked.

"My new friends."

John gasped, theatrical. "He replaced us."

"I upgraded."

Imran nearly choked on his drink. Damien opened the door.

Doctor Smoke walked in first, cigarette between her lips, mechanical arm hanging loose at her side. Naked Nun followed, all flirty gestures, then Madam Marvel, composed and proud as ever. Delulu came last and stopped dead after two steps inside.

Hamari looked slowly around the massive penthouse.

"Bro." A whisper. "This isn’t a home. This is a whole tax bracket."

"Try not to touch anything," Salma said, exhaling smoke.

Hamari was already touching a decorative crystal.

Naked Nun glanced down the long hallway. "How many bedrooms?"

Daria’s expression went cold. "Control yourself."

"I’m just assessing the battlefield."

"You have never once assessed a bedroom as a battlefield."

"Then you’ve been using bedrooms wrong."

Damien closed the door. "I regret inviting everyone."

The girls finally noticed the three men sitting in the living room.

Hamari’s hand slipped off the crystal entirely. Daria’s composure cracked for half a second. Even Salma paused with her cigarette halfway to her mouth.

John Jones. The legendary hero whose name filled history books.

Imran Ali. A Two-Star General, one of the highest-level military players in another region entirely.

Rahul Modi. A famous guild vice leader whose face showed up on everything from combat gear to luxury fashion lines.

Naked Nun’s hidden eyes settled on John. "Can I fight him?"

"No," Salma said instantly.

John rose, towering over the whole room, mustache lifting with his grin. "Damien! You never told us your new companions were this interesting."

"That one’s got a sword the size of a door," Rahul observed.

Naked Nun leaned toward him. "Want to see how well I handle it?"

Rahul blinked. Imran quietly shifted his chair further away.

Introductions followed, stiff at first. Daria stayed formal, Salma stayed suspicious, and Hamari looked like she was fighting the urge to ask Rahul for a photo. Naked Nun asked John how much force it would take to throw her through a wall.

But John could make friends with a hostile goblin given enough time and enough food.

Soon he was loudly re-enacting how Damien had used the Legendary Horn of the Goblin Chief to send an entire horde into a panic.

"The sound was magnificent!"

"It sounded like a dying cow," Rahul said.

"A legendary dying cow."

Hamari laughed hard enough to nearly fall out of her chair. Salma started trading dry insults with Imran about military decision-making. Daria loosened up entirely once Rahul asked her opinion on enchanted fabrics. Naked Nun tried to negotiate a spar with John in exchange for revealing "a sacred technique."

Within half an hour, none of the girls saw three legendary players anymore. They just saw an oversized uncle, a worn-out soldier, and a dangerously well-dressed man, all three arguing about whether stabbing your own teammates counted as healthcare.

"It absolutely counted," Damien said.

Imran’s amusement slowly faded as he looked around the room. "The system brought chaos. More than any of us could’ve imagined. Gates, monsters, destroyed cities, whole governments turned upside down."

The room went quieter.

"But it brought something else too. Magic reshaped agriculture, engineering, medicine. Diseases that used to kill millions barely register as a threat anymore." He paused. "Cancer’s a hundred percent treatable now."

Damien’s smile disappeared. His fingers tightened around the glass in his hand.

"Insomnia." The word came out sharper than he’d meant it to.

Every head turned toward him. He leaned forward, looking straight at Imran, then at Salma, the actual military doctor in the room.

"Can insomnia be treated?"