The last thing Alaric Brandt remembered was the comforting drone of the Berlin U-Bahn rumbling beneath his apartment. He'd been unwinding after a long day of data analysis, a half-empty mug of his slightly-too-strong coffee steaming on his desk, the scent of freshly baked Brötchen from the bakery downstairs a faint, pleasant memory from his morning. The muted chatter of German radio played softly, a familiar lullaby to his meticulously predictable life. He was twenty-four, navigating the gentle currents of an ordinary existence, blissfully unaware that reality was about to shatter. He'd closed his eyes, just for a moment, to savour the quiet satisfaction of a well-ordered day.
Then, not sleep, but a jarring void. A sudden, violent wrenching sensation, as if the very fabric of his being had been stretched and snapped. Light, sound, sensation, all gone, replaced by an incomprehensible, crushing pressure. It lasted only an instant, but it felt like an eternity.
And now, this.
A sharp, metallic tang permeated the air, thick and cloying. It was alien, aggressive, unlike anything he'd ever encountered in his quiet, sensible German life. His eyelids felt impossibly heavy, refusing to obey. He blinked, harsh fluorescent light stabbing at his retinas, searing away the phantom images of his Berlin flat. The ceiling above was stark, unyielding concrete, ribbed with exposed conduits. No comforting peeling paint. No familiar shadows.
He was sprawled on a narrow, uncomfortable cot, the thin mattress offering no give against his aching back. His clothes weren't his comfortable, faded band t-shirt and jeans, but a coarse, dark-blue jumpsuit, stiff and anonymous. A visceral, icy dread began to coil in his gut, a primeval alarm bell ringing louder than any alarm clock. This wasn't a hangover. This was… wrong.
"Hello?" His voice emerged as a raw, scraping whisper, swallowed by the vast, echoing silence of the hangar-like space.
Only the rhythmic, almost imperceptible thrum of heavy machinery answered him, a deep vibration that resonated in his bones. He swung his legs over the cot, his bare feet meeting a floor of unforgiving, industrial-grade steel. The room was immense, rows of identical cots stretching into the gloom, each one empty. A singular, imposing steel door, bolted and reinforced, dominated one wall.
He pushed himself upright, every muscle protesting with a dull, pervasive ache. This was a dream. It had to be. A waking nightmare born from too many late nights immersed in fantasy. But the cold bite of the steel, the metallic taste on his tongue, the unsettling thrum that seemed to vibrate through the very air, and it was brutally, undeniably real.
Driven by a primal urge to understand, he moved towards the steel door, pressing his ear to its cold surface. The distant thrum intensified, momentarily resolving into a faint, guttural snarl, then a sharp, tearing sound that stole his breath. Fear, cold and absolute, slammed into him. This was no dream. No elaborate prank.
High on the wall, a single, grimy observation window offered a distorted glimpse of the outside. He strained, peering through the reinforced glass, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
What he saw defied sanity.
Beyond the glass, the familiar skyline of Berlin was subtly, horrifyingly warped. The iconic television tower in the distance seemed to list slightly, its familiar silhouette now jagged against an unnatural sky. Buildings stood with unnatural fissures, their facades cracked, and in the distance, above what looked like a derelict industrial park, the very air shimmered. It wasn't a heat haze. It was a distortion, a tear in reality, like water swirling impossibly in mid-air. A Gate. Just like in the stories. Smaller than the colossal ones he'd seen in the webtoon, but unmistakably, terrifyingly real.
And then, a flash of movement. Not the monstrous creatures from the later arcs, not yet, but a fleeting glimpse of something that shouldn't exist. A hulking, vaguely humanoid shadow flickering within the shimmering tear, accompanied by a distant, chilling roar that echoed from within the portal itself. The surrounding area seemed to be hastily cordoned off by official vehicles with German markings, their lights flashing, but the truth was sickeningly clear: this was a dungeon break, or at least the very beginning of one, right here in his home city.
It was Solo Leveling. Not the epic he consumed, the thrilling escape from his mundane life. This was the terrifying, nascent reality he'd only ever read about, the world before Sung Jinwoo became a true hunter, before humanity fully understood the scale of the invasion. The gates were appearing, the monsters were starting to trickle through, and the world was just beginning to realize the true extent of its peril.
Alaric stumbled back, his breath catching in his throat. He was just Alaric Brandt, an average German data analyst. He didn't have a System. No holographic notifications. No ding! No stat screens or inventory. He was not the protagonist. He was simply an observer, plunged into a story he knew would demand heroes, and he was profoundly, terrifyingly, ordinary. He was just a civilian in a world on the cusp of its greatest catastrophe, a catastrophe now unfolding on the streets of Berlin.
A profound sense of powerlessness washed over him, thick and suffocating. Yet, beneath the rising tide of despair, something else resonated. A faint, almost imperceptible hum that transcended mere sound or feeling, a deep resonance in the very framework of creation. It was a fracture. Not a flaw in this new, terrifying world, but a fundamental tear in the architecture of existence itself, a cosmic dissonance vibrating just beneath the surface of all reality. And for some inexplicable reason, Alaric Brandt, the ordinary man from Berlin, was the only one who could perceive its silent, persistent call.