Previously in The Engineer’s Dilemma: A Retirement Party from Hell
David Robertson was seventy-five years old, one hour into retirement, and already tired of the cafeteria food. He’d just handed in his last university ID badge, ready to spend his golden years avoiding email and perfecting his pancake recipe. Instead, he woke up face-first in a magical forest with moss in his nose, bark in his hair, and no idea where or what he is.
His body? Younger, stronger, and suspiciously free of arthritis. His memories? Intact, though fuzzy on how he got to where he is. Where is he? His first act in this new world? Saving a red-haired herbalist named Seraphina from a goblin with nothing but a mossy rock and a misplaced sense of chivalry.
Welcome to Brackenreach, a town full of distrustful villagers, passive-aggressive quest boards, and no plumbing.
Seraphina, our fiery survivalist with a “Villager” class and an unexpected personal prophecy, reluctantly allows David to come along. She takes him to her family’s home, where her father grills him, her brother annoys him, and he’s fed some delicious but tough bread. It’s all charmingly medieval until David’s status screen reveals… nothing. No class. No race. No explanation. Just a glitchy, undefined mess that frightens Seraphina half to death and would probably get him burned at the stake if shown in public.
So they keep it secret. Mostly.
David adjusts to village life like an unsure uncle at a Renaissance fair, sweeping floors, avoiding prophecy questions, and drawn to the blacksmith’s forge like a moth to molten steel. It turns out, he still has the hands of a master smith. Even the local grump, Garron, is impressed.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Meanwhile, across the realm, the stars are shifting. The king’s mages are panicking. Something about “The Engineers” returning as a group once powerful enough to break reality and rewrite it. Supposedly extinct. Except maybe… not?
David tries to stay under the radar. He assists at the forge, befriends a few apprentices, awkwardly flirts with Seraphina, and picks up new skills like Inspect and Craft with the casual indifference of someone still figuring out the user manual of the universe.
But fate doesn’t care about quiet lives.
A sinister caravan rolls into town, filled with traders and nervous guards. Rumors spread quickly. Something evil is brewing in the north: demon scouts, corrupted animals, and missing villagers. Piece by piece, everything starts to fall into place. David isn’t just from somewhere else. He might be the key to everything falling apart… or holding it together.
Eventually, David, Seraphina, and the rest become caught up in a series of events that rapidly escalate from a simple “church meeting” to a “cosmic meltdown.” He has been taken to sacred sites, examined by priestesses, and almost dissected by scholars. Every faction, kingdom, cult, and demon wants a piece of him. Some seek worship, some seek war, and others wish him very, very dead.
He doesn’t help his case when he instinctively modifies ancient magical technology during a royal demonstration and intentionally seals a demon rift from inside, causing it to explode in a spectacular burst of engineered magic. Half an army vanishes. The other half flees. And David wakes up groggy, sore, and with a new label on his status: Engineer.
The Demon Lord, yes, there is one, hearing about the same thing. A rift has been torn apart. One of the demon generals has been destroyed. And the only one capable of that kind of magical middle finger-wagging? An Engineer.
King Thalen, hearing about the Rift's collapse and the engineer behind it, also targets David. But unlike the demons, he doesn’t want to destroy him; he wants to use him.
As the final pages turn, storms gather across the kingdoms, alliances are whispered in candlelit war rooms, and both gods and monsters begin to stir. David, once just an old man with a retirement plan and a killer pancake recipe, has become something far more dangerous.
A wild card in a world obsessed with order. And that’s where we left off.
