The next morning, the boys woke to silence.
By the time they dragged themselves from bed, the sun already sat high enough to spill warm light through the windows. Normally Nora would have woken them by now, or they would've stumbled out earlier for breakfast before their parents left for work.
But today the house was quiet.
Leaving their room, the boys wandered into the dining area, the silence inside the home almost deafening.
Waiting on the table were two bowls of oats and a folded letter.
Talen picked it up first and read it aloud.
"Boys, your parents went to see your grandmother off, and I needed to head to the market. Eat up, and if you decide to go wherever it is you two make trouble all day, stay safe. I'll see you soon. —Nora."
Riven pulled out a chair and dropped into it. "Looks like we're alone for now," Anthony said. "What do you wanna do?"
Johnny grabbed his spoon and started in on the oats. They were still slightly warm, soft and filling in a way that made the exhaustion lingering in his body feel a little lighter.
"Well," he said between bites, "under normal circumstances we'd go practice somewhere nobody can see us…" He glanced toward the hallway leading back to their room. "…but since nobody's here, how about we just read while we eat?"
The books continued to bewilder the boys just as much as they had the day before.
Johnny did his best to wrap his head around the "threads" his book kept mentioning, but every explanation seemed to lead into three more he didn't understand. In the end, all he could really do was keep reading and hope something eventually clicked.
Anthony wasn't having much more success.
He sat with his nose buried in the book, occasionally lifting a spoonful of oats into his mouth without ever taking his eyes from the page.
Time slipped by quietly. Before long, both bowls sat empty, and despite all their reading, the boys had only managed to make it roughly a quarter of the way through their books.
Anthony sat back, pushing his empty bowl aside before laying his book on the table. "You think we're a little in over our heads here?"
Johnny leaned back in his chair and looked across at his brother.
"Oh, one hundred percent," he admitted. "But what the hell else are we supposed to do? In our last lives, all we did was drink, play video games, and work. Those skills don't exactly translate well into an isekai."
He shrugged.
"The only thing we can do is try to interpret how this world works the best way we know how."
Anthony rested his chin on his hand. "So... by getting shit-faced and spending an ungodly amount of time min-maxing our builds?"
Johnny opened his mouth to answer.
Then he stopped.
His brow slowly furrowed.
"..."
"Holy shit."
Anthony blinked. "What?"
Johnny leaned forward, the gears in his head visibly turning. "...You might actually be onto something."
Less than an hour later, the two boys found themselves sitting atop the same grassy hill they had quietly claimed as their own.
The village stretched peacefully below them, smoke curling lazily from chimneys as a cool breeze rolled across the swaying sea of green. It was secluded enough that no wandering eyes would question what the twins were doing.
Between them sat a dusty glass bottle. Its amber contents sloshed gently whenever the wind nudged it. Anthony stared at it for a long moment before rubbing a hand over his face.
"...You know," he began, breaking the silence, "we've come up with some god-awful ideas before..." He looked from the bottle to Johnny. "...but this one's really climbing the ranks of stupid and irresponsible."
Johnny shrugged, entirely unbothered. "Add it to the list." He reached down, plucked the bottle from the grass, and gave it a small shake. "And it ain't stupid if it works."
Anthony snorted.
"I'm pretty sure that's exactly what stupid people say before they end up in the emergency room."
Johnny grinned. "Yeah..." He looked down at the bottle again. "...but we don't have one of those."
The two boys drank lazily atop the hill, passing the bottle back and forth between them.
The liquor was harsh.
It burned all the way down, carrying the sharp bite of alcohol beneath an unpleasant blend of bitter berries and something earthy that lingered on the tongue long after each swallow.
Johnny's face twisted into a grimace.
"GOD DAMN!" he sputtered. "That's boozy as fuck. Is our dad an alcoholic or something?"
Anthony took the bottle, cautiously taking his own sip. He immediately regretted it.
His face puckered as he swallowed.
"...What if it's our mom's?" he said, coughing once. "Women can be alcoholics too, Johnny."
Johnny stared at him for a beat before nodding. "...Fair point." He looked down at the bottle. "...Still tastes like someone fermented a forest floor."
After a few swigs, the boys began to feel the effects.
The hill refused to stay still. The floor seemed to tilt beneath them, their small bodies instinctively swaying as they tried to compensate for movement that wasn't really there.
Johnny blinked hard, narrowed one eye, then frowned at the floor.
"...Fucking adolescent body," he grumbled. "With a tolerance like this, I couldn't outdrink a squirrel."
Anthony snorted. "You're an alcoholic fatass in every fantasy, Johnny."
Johnny shot him a look.
"I'm not an alcoholic," he said with exaggerated offense. "I can quit whenever I want."
Anthony stared at him for a beat. "...That's exactly what an alcoholic would say."
Johnny opened his mouth to argue, paused, then pointed an accusatory finger at him.
"Shut up."
"Alright," Johnny said, rolling his shoulders. "Let's get down to business. Pull out your magic and see if you can make a thread. Hell, even a line would be a good start."
The two boys closed their eyes and focused.
Johnny was the first to summon the familiar blue glow between his hands, the light pulsing softly as it gathered. Across from him, Anthony strained to do the same.
His brow furrowed. His jaw clenched. Nothing.
Johnny peeked through one eye and immediately grinned. "What's wrong, fuckboy?" he laughed. "Your magic got whiskey dick?"
Anthony cracked one eye open and shot him a deadpan stare. "Go fuck yourself."
Johnny burst into laughter, nearly losing the glow between his palms.
"I'm just a little out of practice," Anthony grumbled. "I didn't think we'd be trying this so soon."
"Sure," Johnny smirked. "Whatever you say, buddy."
A moment later, the familiar blue glow finally blossomed between Anthony's hands.
The two boys closed their eyes once more.
Johnny focused on the light pooling in his palms. It wasn't a thread. It wasn't even a shape. Just... raw energy. The book had called it formless.
He frowned. If it isn't already a thread... then how do you make one? His thoughts drifted.
What was a thread? Thousands of tiny fibers twisted together.
String was nothing more than countless fibers spun into a single strand. Rope was several strands twisted together again. Cloth was those same threads woven into a pattern, everything started with fibers. Johnny took a slow breath.
Then that's where I start.
In his mind, the blue mana unraveled. The smooth glow separated into impossibly fine strands, each one no thicker than a hair. Slowly—almost painfully slowly—he imagined them twisting together as they flowed from his palm.
Nothing happened. Then... The mana quivered.
A single strand rotated.
Then another.
The formless glow began to spin as it left his hand, hundreds of tiny filaments wrapping around one another until, little by little, they became something thinner, something tighter, a thread.
Johnny's eyes flew open. "...Holy shit." The thread wavered between his palms, unstable but unmistakable. As he watched it turn, a wave of dizziness crashed over him.
His stomach dropped.
"Oh..."
Before he could react, he doubled over and emptied the contents of his breakfast onto the floor. The thread snapped apart instantly.
Anthony's eyes widened.
"Oh fuck... you good?"
Johnny wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still blinking as the room slowly stopped spinning.
"Ahh... fuck," he groaned. "That was really disorienting."
"Fucking lightweight," Anthony said.
Johnny looked over.
Between Anthony's hands hung what looked like a thread.
...Sort of.
It lacked the intricate detail of Johnny's own. Instead of countless microscopic fibers twisted together, Anthony's looked more like a thin wire pulled from the formless mana—a single strand stretched into shape through sheer force of will. It was crude, but it worked.
Anthony didn't seem bothered in the slightest.
Johnny frowned.
Was it really the alcohol? That didn't make sense.
Usually there were warning signs. The room would slowly begin to spin. His mouth would flood with saliva. A bitter taste would creep into the back of his throat. He always knew he was about to throw up.
This... This had happened almost instantly.
Johnny swallowed and formed another thread. This time he watched every tiny fiber twist together. The process was agonizingly slow. Like watching dust drift through a beam of sunlight.
One by one, the strands wrapped around each other until a single thread stretched between his hands.
Solid, Flexible. So finely woven it looked as though he could feed it through the eye of a needle and stitch a torn shirt.
For just a moment, he couldn't help but admire it. Then the nausea returned. It hit harder than before. The thread unraveled in an instant. Johnny doubled over, dry heaving as his stomach protested despite having nothing left to give.
Anthony visibly recoiled.
"Oh, dude... fuck."
He took an instinctive step backward, somehow maintaining the crude strand between his hands.
"Don't do that. You're gonna make me puke too."
Johnny didn't understand.
Anthony had been maintaining his thread this entire time, yet Johnny couldn't keep his together for more than a few seconds before doubling over like a complete fucking amateur.
"...What the hell?" Johnny muttered. "Why isn't this working?"
Anthony shrugged, still absentmindedly holding the crude strand of mana between his hands.
"Are you using enough mana?"
Johnny blinked. "...I'm using all of it."
Anthony frowned. "All of it?"
"Everything I've got. How much are you using?"
Anthony looked down at the glowing strand, genuinely thinking about it for a moment. "I dunno." He shrugged. "Maybe... an eighth?"
Johnny's expression went completely blank. "...An eighth?"
"Give or take."
Johnny slowly looked down at his own empty hands, then back at Anthony.
"...Wait." Anthony raised an eyebrow. "...Do I have more mana than you?"
"No."
"Oh my God..." A grin spread across Anthony's face. "Oh my God, I do!" He burst into laughter.
"Even in this life, I guess I got the bigger package."
Johnny didn't even hesitate.
"Suck my dick. We're twins. Biologically we're the same—there's no fucking way you have more mana than me."
Anthony struggled to get another sentence out between laughs. "Maybe reincarnation buffed the important stats."
Johnny tried again.
And again.
Over the next several attempts, he exhausted every ounce of mana he could muster, waiting a few minutes for it to recover before forcing himself through the process again.
Each attempt ended the same,the thread unraveled, his stomach lurched, his knees weakened.
And sooner or later, he found himself doubled over, fighting back another wave of nausea. Still, he refused to stop.
One more try, just one more.
Johnny closed his eyes, letting the mana gather once again. He unraveled the blue glow into countless delicate fibers, twisting them together one by one with painstaking precision.
The thread formed. It wavered.
His heart sank, expecting it to snap apart like every attempt before it.
It didn't.
Johnny slowly opened his eyes. A single thread drifted lazily between his hands, glowing with a brilliant blue light, It held.
His hands trembled violently. Cold sweat clung to his palms and ran down his brow. Each breath came shallow, as though simply drawing air had become an effort.
The nausea was gone...But in its place was something almost worse. Exhaustion.
It settled deep into his bones, making every muscle in his body feel impossibly heavy. Standing upright suddenly felt like a challenge, as though every fiber of his being was fighting to keep him on his feet.
"...I did it," he whispered, hardly believing it himself.
The thread drifted lazily between his hands, swaying through the air with slow, graceful movements, like a serpent gliding beneath still water. It twisted gently around itself, its brilliant blue glow unwavering for the first time.
He couldn't help but smile, It worked.
His vision blurred, the distant hills bled together into streaks of green and gold, and the breeze against his face suddenly felt impossibly cold.
His legs gave out, the world rushed upward. As Johnny fell, the thread lingered where it was, meandering aimlessly through the air for a heartbeat before slowly unraveling back into formless mana.
Darkness.