The Last Rule of Death

Etzel made it three streets from home before stopping.DK stopped beside him.Neither spoke.Etzel looked toward the familiar roofs ahead. Then at DK. Then at the pack hanging painfully from his shoulder. Then back at DK.The knight waited.Etzel sighed.“Again.”DK’s expression did not change.“Again.”“Soul Space.”“You are beginning to sound offended.”“I am beginning to recognize a pattern.”Etzel pointed at him. “Careful. Recognition is apparently my thing now.”DK stared at him.Etzel lowered his finger. “Right. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”“No.”“Good conversation.”He looked toward home again. Sending DK away was easy. Explaining DK to his family was not. Unfortunately, the knight was only half the problem.Etzel shifted the pack. Pain immediately ran through his ribs. He stopped shifting the pack.“I also can’t bring half a dungeon home.”DK looked at the bag. “You cannot place it in the Soul Space.”“I know.”“You attempted it.”“I was optimistic.”“It failed.”“Repeatedly mentioning my failures is not an attractive personality trait.”DK said nothing.Etzel frowned. “You’re getting better at that.”“At what?”“Winning conversations by refusing to participate.”Etzel pulled out his communicator. There was one obvious person to ask. He sent a message.Etzel: Small problem.The answer came surprisingly quickly.Maerin: Which one?Etzel stared at the screen.Etzel: Offensive.A few seconds.Maerin: Accurate.Etzel looked at DK. “I regret making friends.”DK nodded once. “That seems reasonable.”Etzel typed again.Etzel: I can’t take the Regent materials home.This time Maerin took longer. Then:Maerin: Leave your material share with ours until appraisal.Another message followed.Maerin: It will be recorded as yours. Nothing gets sold without you.Etzel considered that. It solved one problem. Several, actually. He couldn’t legally sell dungeon or monster materials yet anyway. Until he registered with the state Hunter system, the Regent materials were valuable objects with no legal path to becoming money. Keeping them with the group was safer than walking into his house carrying pieces of a dungeon boss.Another message appeared.Sivenne: So basically you own expensive things you can’t sell and won’t physically have.Etzel narrowed his eyes. Apparently this was a group conversation now.Etzel: When you say it like that, it sounds terrible.Sivenne: Congratulations.A pause.Sivenne: You invented banking.Etzel stared at the message. Then slowly put the communicator away.“I hate all of them.”DK looked at him. “You smiled.”“That proves nothing.”They doubled back far enough to meet Maerin. The exchange was brief. No dramatic reunion. No discussion of the dungeon. All four of them needed rest more than conversation. Maerin checked Etzel’s portion against the record she had made, sealed the materials with the others, and gave him a look when he tried to help lift something.“Your ribs.”“I still have arms.”“Your arms are connected to your ribs.”Etzel paused. “That seems like a design flaw.”Maerin stared at him.Nothing happened. No System message.Etzel waited. Still nothing.Maerin’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”“Testing something.”“On your anatomy?”“Apparently unsuccessfully.”She shook her head and took the pack.Etzel kept only the Veinbound Ring. The dark metal sat comfortably around his finger. Everything else stayed with the group. His property. Their custody. His inability to legally sell any of it. Wonderful.When they separated again, Etzel waited until he and DK were alone.“All right.”DK understood immediately. The knight vanished into the Soul Space.Etzel felt the connection remain. Faint. Stable. Present.He took one breath. His ribs complained. He took a smaller one. Then he walked home.Ismera saw him before he managed three steps inside. Her eyes moved over him once. His clothes. His posture. The way he favored one side. The ruined hatchet handle still tucked into his belt.“No.”Etzel stopped. “I haven’t said anything.”“Whatever explanation you prepared. No.”“I feel judged.”“You should.”Neris appeared from the next room. She looked at Etzel. Then at the broken hatchet. Then back at him.“Did nature win this time?”Etzel considered the question. “Draw.”Neris smiled. Ismera did not.“What happened?”“Work.”“That is not an answer.”“It is technically an answer.”“Etzel.”He knew that tone. It had survived the end of the old world. Monsters. Hunters. Ancient Trees. Apparently nothing had evolved enough to defeat a mother saying her son’s name in exactly the right way.Etzel lifted both hands. Bad idea. His ribs objected. He lowered them.“Long day. Bad terrain. A few things went wrong.”Ismera looked at the bandaging beneath his clothes. “These were treated.”“Yes.”“By whom?”“Someone who knew what they were doing.”Not technically a lie. Tessa definitely knew what she was doing.Ismera continued staring. Etzel smiled. It did not help.Then Veydan entered. He didn’t ask what happened. Not immediately. His eyes moved over Etzel with the same quiet attention Etzel remembered from childhood. The damaged clothes. The wrapped ribs. The way his son was standing.Then his gaze stopped at the hatchet.“Give me that.”Etzel looked down. “My beloved weapon?”“Hatchet.”“That distinction feels unnecessarily cruel.”“Etzel.”He handed it over. Veydan turned the broken remains in his hands.Neris leaned closer. “So?”Veydan ignored her. His thumb moved over the split wood near the head. He rotated it. Examined the fibers. Then looked at Etzel.“You didn’t break this chopping wood.”Etzel hesitated. “Technically there was wood involved.”Veydan’s eyes lifted. “Etzel.”“Very aggressive wood.”Neris made a choking sound that might have been a laugh. Ismera looked at her. Neris immediately became fascinated by the wall.Veydan returned his attention to the hatchet. Etzel watched him. His father ran a finger along the break. Then slightly farther down the handle.“There.”Etzel stepped closer. “What?”Veydan pointed. At first Etzel saw nothing. Then—a thin discoloration. Almost invisible. A line following part of the grain.“Old crack,” Veydan said.Etzel frowned. “That wasn’t there.”“It was.”“I would’ve noticed.”“No. You would’ve noticed when it became large enough to notice.”“That sounds unfair.”“Materials don’t care.”Veydan turned the hatchet. “The last impact didn’t break it.”Etzel looked at him. “What?”“The last impact finished it.”Veydan tapped the damaged section. “It started breaking long before that.”Etzel went still.His father continued. “Repeated impacts. Same load path. Too much stress transferring through the same section.”He indicated the point where the reinforced head met the more flexible wooden handle. “The head survives the impact. The lower handle flexes.”His finger touched the damaged transition. “This part has to deal with both.”Etzel looked more closely. The old fracture. The grain. The direction of the break. He remembered the moment the hatchet had finally failed. He had thought the last strike had destroyed it. But that wasn’t what happened. That strike had only completed something already happening.Etzel took the broken hatchet from his father. Slowly this time. He turned it. The head was harder. The handle was more flexible. And between them—the transition. A region forced to repeatedly transfer stress between two parts behaving differently.“So the head wasn’t the weak point.”“No.”“The handle wasn’t either.”“Not exactly.”Etzel traced the old crack. “The transition was.”Veydan looked at him. “More specifically?”Etzel thought. That question felt different now. He looked at the fibers again. Not just where they had broken. How.The crack had begun along one section. Repeated loading had expanded it. The final strike had simply exceeded what remained.“The load wasn’t spreading evenly.”Veydan nodded once.Etzel continued. “Every strike kept concentrating stress here.” He touched the line. “So even if the entire handle looked fine…”“It wasn’t.”

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