The words wouldn't change. His eyes scanned through the letter in its entirety. Then, they did it again. And again. The words wouldn't change. Even when his eyes became bloodshot, when they tried to pierce through the letter as though to reach a hidden truth, the words wouldn't change. They were dead. His companions were dead. His brother was dead.
It was just a letter. What harm could a piece of paper cause? Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you, right? If the person that coined such a phrase encountered words conveying the death of their loved ones, they'd surely wish to simply have broken bones.
The weight was immense. It was crushing him. Consuming him. It wasn't tangible. He was just sitting at his desk, endlessly reading the same letter. Yet, he felt the world pressing down on him.
"Aric, snap out of it!"
A sudden voice finally rescued Aric from his trance. His party member, Lysandra, appeared beside him. She was looking at him with great concern. Was she more worried about his state of well-being or the contents of the letter? It was hard to tell. Looking around, it seemed like all of his party members gathered around him at some point.
When did they even get here? Aric looked at them, still dazed.
No, they were here from the start. He remembered.
They had all just returned to Aric's home after a fruitful hunt. So long as you pick your battles wisely, there's no need for adventuring to be a matter of life and death. That's the motto their team lived by. Some might refer to them as cowards; they might be belittled for only facing weaker enemies. But who cares? They help people keep the world safe. Their position in the hierarchy as tier 4 adventurers may be towards the bottom, but that doesn't negate their status as protectors.
When they were at the very bottom as tier 5 adventurers, they'd scatter enemies of the same tier and hunt them as a group. After advancing, they could follow a new simple rule. Never hunt a being of the same tier. Regardless of what others might say, it had been working splendidly.
The hunt they just had was a cakewalk. A small group of goblins had traveled away from the abyssal portal they came through. There was no higher being controlling their actions. Goblins are the lowest tier of monsters, just a little more powerful than regular humans. They can't even use magic.
Needless to say, the group was in a celebratory mood upon arrival at Aric's place. Eld was cheerfully boasting that he could've easily eliminated all of the goblins on his own with fire magic, even though the fight had finished before he could even contribute. With his neat shoulder-length silver hair, intricately designed mage robes, and scholarly demeanor, one might mistakenly believe him to be of noble lineage. His matching hubris could also play a role in furthering that misconception.
As usual, Seraphina was quick to remind him of the kill tally. Her tied-back auburn hair swung left and right as she reprimanded him for his typical arrogance. Her tight-fitting dark leather armor and the exceptionally irritated face she was making formed a stark contrast with the colorfully robed and cheerful Eld. The two often bickered about their accomplishments on the battlefield.
Their party had a fairly standard setup. The rogue Seraphina and the warrior Aric were the frontline combatants. The mage Eld and the cleric Lysandra were rear support. Lysandra's role was to provide enhancement magic to bolster the frontline's strength, speed, and defense with occasional healing when necessary.
Eld was responsible for providing support magic meant to restrict enemy movements. Aric would often grow tired of having to remind him not to use offensive magic unless the rear was attacked, or they faced too many enemies for the melee types to handle. This arrangement was the standard the Adventurer's Guild advocated, having been the most successful to date.
In the previous battle, there were only a handful of goblins to deal with. Seraphina swiftly moved in with her dagger and eliminated the majority while Aric took care of the rest. The other two didn't need to lift a finger. Lysandra was simply happy because if she didn't need to step in, it meant nobody was getting hurt. Eld, however, didn't get to enjoy any chance to show off and had to verbally remind the others of his vast capabilities.
As the two engaged in their regular verbal tussle, Lysandra just watched on with a gentle smile as she prepared dinner for the party. She wore a holy symbol around her neck in the form of a golden sunburst, representing the God of Light Aureon. It greatly complimented her long, wavy golden hair. The others found it to be a baffling mystery how she always managed to avoid staining her pristine white cleric robes, although they speculated that the holy symbol must serve to ward off stains as well as evil.
Aric, being the team leader, was focused on organizing their weekly tasks and looking through their funds. On his desk rested a stack of papers detailing reports of new dungeon appearances, scheduled dungeon maintenance raids, and requests for magical beasts and plants.
Because adventurers tended to be away from their homes for long periods, the Guild set up a system where they'd have weekly reports delivered to a designated address. That way, adventurers could return home first and decide on their next missions before going to the guild for quest acceptance and remuneration for the ones completed. Of course, if they didn't have a permanent residence or just simply preferred looking through everything at the guild, they were free to do so.
The courier had dropped off this week's mail before they got back, and that's what Aric was looking through. He had a slight smile and was humming a bit of a tune, evidently still in a good mood after another successful day.
Goblins may be weak, but they're still a menace to normal humans. Just killing a few is enough to make a good day's wage for them. Not everyone becomes an adventurer, after all. The few that do need to be compensated for facing the beings that others wouldn't dream of going against, even if such beings are small fry like goblins to the adventurers.
"Hmm?"
There should've only been letters from the Glawood City branch of the Guild nearest to his home, but Aric noticed one of them was from the Coln branch, one city over. It was about a day's travel away, and there wasn't any reason why they'd be contacting him. Not any good reason, at least.
The slight hum faded into silence, and his expression became stern. He had a sense of foreboding as he opened the letter. He knew Coln City was where his brother Arth and his party were located.
His brother wasn't nearly as cautious as Aric would've liked. His constant attempts to persuade Arth to follow the same principles that he did always fell on deaf ears. Arth's party members were all childhood friends of the two brothers. One of Aric's greatest fears had always been receiving a letter about his reckless younger brother and his friends. Now, in his hands, he looked at what could be such a letter.
He tore it open. All noise disappeared. He no longer heard the harmless banter from his companions. He couldn't hear the sound of Lysandra moving dishes as she cooked for them. There was nothing. The little scribbles on the paper were straightforward and concise, yet he found them to be incomprehensible. He couldn't understand. No, he didn't want to understand.
His brother recently advanced to being a tier 4 warrior. The rest of his party was still at tier 5, but they were allowed to enter tier 4 dungeons which had at most one being of that tier.
There are different types of dungeons. All of them are caused when a spatial portal connects their world with the Abyss. Sometimes, beings without sentience like goblins would cross through and do nothing but cause chaos. Such dungeons were to be exterminated immediately. The monsters would be killed, and the portals would be closed.
Then, there were dungeons that had those sly demons cross through. They were organized, but nonviolent, supposedly. All they wanted was to invade the world, denounce the God of Light, and spread the word of their evil God.
A long time ago, they tried leaving the portals they passed through to infiltrate society, but they were driven back. After that, they started to just come through and fortify their bases around the dungeon portals. When confronted, they'd only fight if humans went after the portals to disrupt them. Otherwise, they'd just calmly attempt to brainwash those that enter.
At first, the humans would only try to find and eliminate all dungeons. However, after the discovery of advanced magic plants developing by the portals, they decided to let some of the dungeons remain and even advance to higher tiers, as the portals grew stronger to accommodate more powerful demons. This allowed quality materials to come into existence, and the demons would allow them to be collected.
A delicate balance was formed. The kingdoms and the Adventurer's guild would only allow dungeons to advance to tier 2; they could not allow any beings rivaling the strongest existences on the planet to come through.
Those in charge would assess new dungeons being formed and the ones already being 'maintained'. They'd then decide which dungeons needed to be fully removed, which to have their portals disrupted and reduced to a lower tier, which to be maintained at their current tier, and which to advance further.
This would depend on the location of the dungeon, how many of that tier was already around providing materials, and how many available adventurers there were to be able to handle them if there were any problems.
According to the letter, Arth and his party had accepted the simple mission of collecting magic herbs from the relatively new tier 4 dungeon. It was deemed one to be maintained at that tier for the time being, so there shouldn't have been any issues. It wasn't even Arth being reckless and taking risks. His party went to the dungeon a few days ago, and they never returned. Scouts for the guild confirmed they were killed in action.
It was clear-cut. So clear that he loathed it. How could the message about his brother's death be so simple? How could mere words bring the end to his brother's existence in his mind? How could they suffice to steal Arth and his friends away from him?
He hated it. He kept rereading the letter. His sanity was slipping. His mind was in turmoil.
"Aric!"
"Aric!"
That's right. He remembered now. His party was already there with him. They noticed his change in demeanor and were calling him. He just was checked out from reality. He looked over at Lysandra. Her sky-blue eyes were tainted with worry. He couldn't think of anything to say, so he simply passed the letter over. All of his companions looked through it; they all forgot the joyful mood they had been in. Despair began to take over.
Looking at the others start to lose their composure, Aric snapped out of his daze. The state of confusion and denial was replaced with wrath. He stood up fast enough to send the chair he was in tumbling over. He looked at his friends.
"I'm going to fucking kill them." It was a growl. The words were barely audible, barely comprehensible as they escaped his raspy throat.
"I'm going to that dungeon, and I'm going to fucking kill them!" This time, it was a scream.
Perhaps, the only thing Aric wanted more at that moment than to kill the demons, would be to change those pesky little scribbles on a piece of paper. But in the end, the words would never change.