Bonus story : The Fighter from 4B : Party 1 : The Neighbor Who Dies Every Night

The evening had begun perfectly normally. Aldric had returned home a little after seven, prepared his dinner, put away the dishes, and taken a shower before settling into the living room with a book. He was halfway through a chapter on weaponry when a shout rose from the lower floors.

"NO! NO! NO!"

Aldric looked up. The sound seemed to be coming through the stairwell or carrying through the walls of the building, loud enough to reach his apartment on the fifth floor.

"NO! NO! NO! BACK UP!"

Aldric slipped a finger between the pages of his book. The shout most likely came from the apartment below, probably 4B.

He barely knew its occupant, as they had only crossed paths a few times in the stairwell and had never gone much beyond a brief greeting.

Aldric waited, but no sounds of fighting, violent impacts, or calls for help followed. Since arriving in this world, he had learned that shouting did not necessarily mean someone was in danger. People could raise their voices while watching a football match, a movie, during a phone conversation, or simply because an object was not working as intended. He therefore returned to his reading.

"I'M DEAD!"

Aldric slowly closed his book.

"Reasonable..."

He remained attentive nonetheless, and ten seconds later, the voice started again.

"I'LL BE BACK IN THIRTY SECONDS!"

Aldric placed the book on the table and checked the time on his phone: 10:14 p.m.

"Hold on for thirty seconds! I'm coming! I'M OUT OF MANA!"

This time, Aldric straightened. He knew mana. He had used it for years and had seen it flow through artifacts, enchantments, and living beings. He also knew how to recognize its effects when a significant amount was being manipulated nearby, yet he could sense absolutely no fluctuation, no disturbance, and above all, no trace of magic.

He glanced briefly toward the floor, and roughly thirty seconds after the announcement of his death, the voice shouted again.

"I'M COMING!"

A resurrection in thirty seconds would already have been a considerable feat in his world, as even the finest priests and healers had never been capable of restoring the dead so easily, certainly not without producing the slightest detectable emission of mana. He considered several explanations, including the possibility that he had misunderstood the term or that "mana" had some modern meaning he was unaware of, but none seemed particularly convincing.

He was just about to resume reading when another shout echoed through the building.

"I'M DEAD AGAIN!"

Aldric retrieved his notebook, opened it to a blank page, and wrote:

10:14 p.m.: Death No. 1.

10:15 p.m.: Probable return to life.

10:21 p.m.: Death No. 2.

A few minutes later, another shout made him reach for his pen again.

"HE'S CAMPING ME!"

Aldric added "Possible hostile encampment." It seemed coherent enough. If an enemy group controlled a passageway or the surrounding area of a position, a fighter could indeed be unable to leave without being attacked.

"THE JUNGLER'S HERE AGAIN!"

Aldric's pen stopped above the page.

"The what?"

Aldric therefore wrote: "Jungler: hostile individual or creature. Role undetermined."

At 10:29 p.m., the neighbor announced a third death, followed by a fourth ten minutes later and eventually a fifth. Each time, he returned to life after a short period ranging from roughly thirty seconds to nearly a minute. Aldric began searching for some kind of logic and noted several new expressions: "He's fed," "I don't have Flash," and "He ulted."

"Very useful..."

At around 11:30 p.m., Thomas announced his sixth death, and Aldric waited for his return before confirming that he had indeed started speaking again.

The following morning, when Aldric left his apartment to buy some bread, he encountered the neighbor from 4B in the stairwell. The man appeared to be just under thirty and was of average height, with a fairly thin build and slightly hunched shoulders. His pale face bore obvious signs of a night that had been far too short, including faint dark circles beneath still-tired brown eyes. A few days' worth of stubble covered his jaw, while his brown hair was a mess. He was heading downstairs with a garbage bag in one hand, dressed in black sweatpants, an oversized gray sweatshirt, and sneakers, with a pair of black headphones resting around his neck. More importantly, he showed no signs whatsoever of having died six times in succession: no bandages, no bruises, no visible injuries, and not even a painful gait.

"Good morning," Aldric said.

"Hey..."

Thomas continued down another two steps before Aldric spoke again.

"Are you feeling well?"

Thomas stopped and turned around.

"Yeah... why?"

"No particular reason."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Right..."

A slightly awkward silence passed between them before Thomas resumed his descent.

"Have a good day."

"You too."

The conclusion was reasonable enough that Aldric decided to abandon the matter. There was probably a perfectly simple modern explanation he had yet to learn. His neighbor might have been watching a movie, participating in a game, following some kind of program, or simply using terms whose meanings differed from Aldric's interpretation of them. In any case, it was none of his concern.

The following evening, Aldric returned from work, ate, and picked up the same book. For almost an hour, no shouting carried through the building, until Thomas's voice rang out once again.

"WATCH THE JUNGLE!"

Aldric continued reading, since he had decided not to concern himself with the matter anymore.

"THERE ARE TWO IN THE JUNGLE!"

He turned a page, then realized that he had just read the exact same sentence again. Eventually, he put down his book.

"Paris does not have a jungle."

Aldric retrieved his phone and conducted several searches. He found various parks, botanical gardens, and places with assorted names, but no jungle that might contain two hostile individuals anywhere near his building. Even after broadening his search, he found nothing relevant.

"I'M OUT OF MANA!"

He tried to resume reading and managed to ignore the following shouts until an entirely different term emerged.

"DRAGON IN ONE MINUTE!"

This time, Aldric did not even turn the page. He lowered his gaze.

"Dragon?"

"COME TO DRAGON!"

He therefore walked over to the window and looked outside. The street appeared perfectly normal. Cars drove past, several people walked along the sidewalk, and a woman was pushing a stroller. No dragon was visible.

"START IT!"

Aldric looked up at the sky but still saw nothing.

"THEIR JUNGLER'S COMING!"

He stepped away from the window and moved closer to his apartment door.

"KILL THE DRAGON!"

Aldric stared at the last two lines. The System was clearly trying to reassure him, but the problem was that he had lived long enough to know that "extremely low" did not mean "impossible." Several events in his life would once have had ridiculously low probabilities, yet he had survived some of them and had even been transported to another world after killing a Demon King. Low probabilities had therefore lost much of their ability to reassure him.

He remained near his door as the shouting continued from 4B.

"HE'S AT HALF HEALTH!"

A few seconds later, Thomas shouted again.

"KEEP GOING! WATCH OUT!"

Aldric placed a hand on the door handle.

"WE GOT IT!"

Another, much quieter voice seemed to answer through Thomas's speakers before laughter followed. Silence returned, and Aldric remained by his door for a while longer, but there was no commotion in the stairwell, no sirens sounded in the street, no beating of wings came from the sky, and no explosion had shaken the neighborhood.

Aldric finally returned to his couch, retrieved his notebook, and opened it to the page dedicated to his neighbor. Beneath the information from the previous evening, he added "Dragon mentioned," followed by "Battle against dragon apparently successful," before writing down a more general conclusion: "The neighbor appears to participate in battles that cannot be observed from the outside."

He closed his notebook, but he had barely put down his pen when Thomas's voice carried through the building once again.

"BARON IN FIVE MINUTES!"

"Who is Baron?"