The rain hammered the windshield like short needles. Kaito counted the intervals — 0.032s, 0.031s — until the pole pierced the car like a blade. Everything ended in a crunch of metal and glass; then the silence that comes before panic.
He woke with the taste of iron and a body that turned pain into equations: broken ribs, noisy breathing, a dislocated jaw. Over the palm of his hand a translucent window floated, cold as a monolithic interface:
WELCOME, USER
PROFILE: Kaito_Achi
ROLE: Administrator (TEMPORARY)
SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 99.99% — ANOMALIES: 1
MAIN QUEST: SURVIVE (? SEEK SHELTER)
There was no time for disbelief. Around him, a village of low houses, smoke from hearths, people whose faces counted the world in hunger and caution. He tried to stand and his ribs protested; the window offered
RESTORE — HEALINGPROTOCOL_v1 with cost and warning: COST: 5 XP | TRACE: LOW | NOTE: Non-sentient edits recommended.
Kaito hesitated. In Tokyo he fixed servers; here an option appeared like a promise while the consequences were vague. He applied the patch with hands that remembered wires and screws. Flesh knitted, the pain subsided. The HUD updated:
XP +5. A boy in the street screamed when he saw him; women ran with looks that mixed superstition and hope. “He healed!” someone whispered.
Soon after, a shout cut the lane. Two drunk men began fighting over a scrap of ration. One shoved a child who was trying to pick up crumbs. Kaito tried to step back, but something like protection lit inside him — maybe the guilt of being saved.
He grabbed a wooden bar nearby by instinct. The first blow was clumsy and brutal; it hit the man’s jaw and he heard the crack of bone under skin. Blood sprayed. A second opponent lunged with a knife, face twisted with hate. Kaito tried to lever the body, missed balance, got struck in the stomach. The impact was physical, primitive. He answered with a cross punch; the metallic taste of blood in his mouth had the honesty of something that can't be fixed with a commit.
The fight ended messy — one man unconscious, another fleeing with a split face. People approached with ambiguous looks: gratitude and fear. The HUD blinked a line Kaito read like a hammer:
OBJECTIVE UPDATED: LEARN HOW TO LEAVE WORLD — SOURCE: UNKNOWN.
Escape. The word became a logical mission. He didn’t know how yet, but he knew staying meant being a piece on boards he didn’t understand. That night he slept badly, feeling the world alive and ready to bite.
The First Patch and the First Blood
Morning brought more than wind: it brought questions. A muffled cry came from the elder’s house; a girl was shaking with fever. Kaito opened the menu by reflex. The interface, this time, offered beyond
RESTORE a hint: QUEST TIP: CONSULT TEMPLE PRIEST — RITUAL ANCHORING MAY BE KNOWN. The System didn’t grant miracles for free; it gave clues.
He applied a direct, simple patch to lower the fever —
ANTIPYRETIC_v2 — taking care not to change profiles beyond necessary. The HUD registered: XP +10 | TRACE: MODERATE. The mother dropped to her knees, tearful and terrified. Kaito, who had always measured everything in efficiency, felt the weight of a trail left behind: every edit left scent, a track, a signature someone could follow.
It didn’t take long for the village to be tested again. The clatter of hooves announced raiders: men with filthy cloaks and eyes that had killed for bread. On the HUD he saw what ordinary sight could not:
PROFILE SCAN — RED SQUAD: ARMORED LIGHT — TACTIC: RAID/STEAL — WEAPONS: SWORDS/SHORT BOW.
Kaito was not a warrior. He had never learned to wield a blade. But the information let him direct the villagers: block routes, set traps, use boiling caldrons as deterrents. When the men attacked, the scene was brutal and immediate — swords scraping wood, spears through ribs, an arrow that punched through a boy’s shoulder. Kaito watched a woman use a sickle as an axe and swing so hard she severed a raider’s arm; the man screamed and fell among mud and rotten pork guts.
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In the heated center of combat, Kaito didn’t cast spells. He shouted instructions, yanked ropes, toppled a stake so a raider tripped on a stone — that allowed an old man with a short sword to finish the attacker. The fight was sweat, iron, and fear, not pixels. The HUD gave
XP +20 (Tactical Support). The cost appeared later: TRACE: HIGH | GUARDIANS_NEARBY: 1 (DISTANT).
At dusk, after blood had been rinsed from the ground with dirty water, a trembling boy handed Kaito a sealed slip stamped with a black falcon — a mark Kaito didn’t know, but the HUD marked in red:
NOTATION: FALCON MARK — UNKNOWN PLAYER PRESENCE. The note said little and felt more like provocation: “I see you are new. Come do something larger. — Falco.”
Night fell heavy. The System kept whispering:
MAIN QUEST: FIND CODE STATION — LOC_NORTH — REWARD: ARCHIVE_ACCESS (POSSIBLE EXIT_CLUE). Kaito pinned the word “Station” in his head as a possible destination. To leave, he’d first need to understand the world that held him.
The Sentinel, the Templar and the Blood Test
On the next dawn, hooves and boots striking mud signaled the Watchers: men and women with austere insignias, closed faces, a discipline that seemed to bend the air. Among them, a woman pulled him from the corner — not with kindness, but with calculated necessity. Lyra.
She had the posture of someone who learned to survive by hammering steel and vows. The hand on the short sword’s hilt was steady; the gaze a triage program scanning the soul. When the HUD fixed on her, it showed:
ALLY_SCAN — Lyra — CLASS: Templar — SKILL_HIGHLIGHTS: MELEE_COMBAT, RITUAL_KNOWLEDGE.
“You’re lucky to still be breathing,” she said. “But luck saves no one. If you want to survive — and if you want that Code — you need to learn to fight for real.”
She didn’t suggest theory classes. She dragged him to a courtyard where the Watchers trained in silence. First came basics: guards, stances, weight shifts. Lyra struck with a speed that rhymed with precision; each block matched a timing calculation. Kaito took hits — bruised arms, split lips — and learned the value of a well-placed center of gravity.
Then came throws: Lyra spun him, pulled, used his own weight to toss him. “If you fall angry, you die,” she said, merciless. “If you fall with a calm head, you learn.” There was a moment when Lyra’s blade grazed Kaito’s throat while she said, “Moving a blade is teaching a body to obey death. Respect that.”
In the middle of training an alarm sounded outside — metal against metal, screams. A messenger wearing a falcon brooch had been seen on the trails; Velarn, or his servants, were already sending wolves. Lyra didn’t wait; she dragged Kaito toward the gate. “Real test now,” she said. “You hear what the System shows and act — that will serve.”
Outside, a small group of agents ambushed the yard. They were fast, cloaks that absorbed light, runes bright on their blades. One man, hooded, murmured words that scraped the air — a shock-magic that burned a Watcher’s skin. The blades were keen; the magics, cruel.
Kaito, without technique, breathed and used what he’d learned: he blocked a strike with his forearm (blade tearing flesh), then pivoted, unbalancing the attacker; a punch to the gut and a fall, followed by a knee on the neck to neutralize him. It was not pretty — it was necessary. Lyra at his side cut with surgical precision: quick thrusts, disarms that dismantled guards. A conjurer tried a burst of black fire; a Watcher answered with rune patterning — a stone fist that smashed the caster against the wall.
During the chaos Kaito managed to pull the hood from the leader — revealing a thin face with eyes that calculated chances as if they were spreadsheet columns. Seeing the silver falcon on the man’s chest tightened something in Kaito’s throat. The HUD flashed a quick scan:
ENEMY PROFILE — FACTION: FALCON — TACTIC: HIT_AND_WITHDRAW — MAGIC_USERS_PRESENT.
When the last agent fell, dust and ragged breathing filled the yard. Lyra came close, looked at Kaito’s hands — the hands of a man trying to be something else — and spoke with a coldness that hid approval: “You didn’t completely disappoint me. But know this: information saves lives. The blade too. The world rewards those who hit where both meet.”
She made a blunt offer. “We go to the Code Station. There are archives your HUD won’t show — texts, rituals, anchoring instructions. If you want out, that’s where you go.” There was another, unspoken reason: Velarn had already logged his name as an accounting line. Staying meant becoming bait.
Kaito accepted. Not from nobility — from fear of staying. As they moved to prepare departure, his vision filled with a line burning red on the HUD:
MAIN QUEST UPDATE: TRAVEL TO CODE STATION — PRE-REQUISITES: ESCORT / PROVE_ABILITY (OPTIONAL)
NOTIFICATION: VELARN_PRESENCE: ACTIVE (REGIONAL)
That night, before sleep, Kaito closed his fingers around his palm and repeated the last HUD line:
FIND PATH OUT OF AETHEL. The promise surrounding him was a forge: hot, fierce, ready to shape whoever dared touch it. He didn’t know if he would survive; he only knew that staying meant being devoured. And that every cut he struck now — with knife, fist, or mind — would have a price.
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