The Last Stand: The Fool and the Regressor

The last thing Harry remembered was the voice.

[The final chapter of humanity begins now. Welcome to The End.]

[Survive, or perish.]

His vision went black before he could hear the rest of the words. For a moment—or perhaps an eternity—there was nothing. No sound, no sensation, no thought. Just an overwhelming void that stretched on and on, pressing against the edges of his consciousness.

And then, with an agonizing slowness, the void cracked open.

"!"

Harry gasped as his senses came rushing back.

His lungs burned, his head throbbed, and his body felt like it had been slammed against a brick wall. Blinking rapidly, he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

Where was he?

What was happening?

He pushed himself upright, wincing at the ache in his muscles, and finally took a good look around.

"W-Woah..."

What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.

It was a forest, but not like any forest he'd ever seen. The trees were massive, their twisted trunks reaching high into a blood-red sky.

Jagged cracks ran along the ground, glowing faintly with an ominous orange light, as though magma pulsed beneath the surface. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and decay, and a faint wind carried an unsettling sound—a distant, hollow wail that sent shivers down his spine.

"What the hell?" Harry muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Is this a... dream?"

He pinched his arm, hard.

"Ouch-!"

Nope.

Definitely not a dream.

As his senses sharpened, Harry noticed he wasn't alone. Around him, scattered among the twisted trees and cracked earth, were people.

Some were his classmates—he recognized a few faces from the back of the class—but there were also strangers, people he didn't know. They were sprawled on the ground, some groaning as they woke, others frozen in panic as they took in their surroundings.

"What is this place?" someone whimpered.

"Are we dead?" another voice cried, trembling.

Before Harry could respond, the air around them shimmered, and the voice returned. It was cold and emotionless, reverberating through the forest as if the trees themselves were speaking.

[Welcome to The End.]

[You have been chosen to participate in humanity's final trial. Your world has been deemed unworthy, and its survival now rests on your shoulders.]

Harry's heart raced as the voice continued. This was it. The stuff of his wildest fantasies.

Only it felt a lot less fun when it wasn't happening on a screen.

[The End is not just destruction. It is a purge, a reckoning. A test of resilience, ingenuity, and cooperation.]

[The End is the great equalizer, a thread woven into the tapestry of creation. It is neither cruel nor kind, merely inevitable.]

[The End is not an event of judgment, nor is it destruction alone. It is a cycle—a turning point in the fabric of existence. Worlds rise, worlds fall, and yours is neither the first nor the last to face it.]

[The End is a passage, a crucible through which all things must pass. It is not unique to you — it is a truth as old as it gets, unyielding and impartial.]

[Many will fail. Few will rise. And those who succeed will shape the new beginning.]

The voice finally paused as if to let the words sink in.

The people around Harry exchanged frightened glances, some whispering furiously, others too stunned to speak.

[Stage 0: Introduction to The End will now commence.]

[Objective: Survive for 12 hours.]

[You will be provided with basic resources and a weapon of your choice. Use them wisely. The clock starts now.]

As soon as the voice stopped, Harry felt a sudden weight in his hands. He looked down to see a small leather pouch and… a sword?

No, it wasn't quite a sword.

It was more like a short blade, light and unassuming. The hilt was plain, and the blade looked dull—not exactly his first choice from the weapon racks of his imagination.

"Seriously?" Harry muttered, holding the weapon up to the light. "No flaming greatsword? No enchanted bow? Just this... thing?"

He gave it an experimental swing, nearly losing his balance. "Great. I'm gonna die holding a glorified butter knife."

The pouch jingled, drawing his attention.

He opened it to find a small loaf of bread, a flask of water, and what looked like a basic first-aid kit. Not exactly a feast, but it was better than nothing.

"Guess this is the old and niche beginner stuff."

"Hey, Harry, is that you?" a familiar voice called out. He turned to see one of his classmates, a lanky boy named Tim, stumbling toward him with a dazed expression. Tim held a crude spear and looked just as confused as Harry felt.

"Yeah, it's me," Harry said, forcing a grin. "Welcome to the apocalypse. How's your first day on the job?"

Tim didn't laugh. "What… what do we do?"

Harry shrugged. "Survive, I guess? The voice wasn't exactly big on details."

As more people began to gather, the panic in the air grew palpable. Questions flew back and forth.

Where were they? Why were they here? What did they have to do to survive?

No one had answers.

Harry, meanwhile, tried to piece together what little he knew.

A fantasy setting, a survival scenario, a system that provided weapons and resources… It all felt like something straight out of the novels, comics, and games he'd spent so much time obsessing over.

But in those stories, there was always a guide, a tutorial, some kind of helpful exposition.

Here?

Nothing but cryptic messages and a bunch of scared people with no clue what to do.

'Wait? Why am I not scared? Is it because I already imagined about such stuff a lot?'

"Alright," Harry said, raising his voice to get the group's attention. "Here's an idea. Let's not run around like headless chickens. If this really is some kind of survival trial, we're gonna need to stick together."

"And who put you in charge?" someone snapped.

Harry raised his hands defensively. "Hey, I'm just saying! And I don't know what's going on either, but running around like idiots will only make us easier targets. At least if we stick together, we might stand a chance."

The grumbling subsided, but the tension remained thick.

Harry sighed and turned to Tim.

"Guess we should start looking for a place to hunker down," he said. "And maybe figure out what kind of hell we just got dropped into."

As the group began to reluctantly follow Harry's suggestion, a faint growl echoed through the forest. Harry froze, his grip tightening on the hilt of his short blade. His heart hammered in his chest.

"Please tell me that was your stomach," he whispered to Tim.

Tim shook his head, his face pale. "I don't think so."

The growl came again, louder this time. And from the shadows of the twisted trees, glowing red eyes began to appear.

"Well," Harry muttered, his voice shaky but still managing a hint of humor. "I guess this is the part where we find out if butter knives are any good against monsters."