The wooden sword felt strange in his hand the first night, like an idea half-born. Its weight didn't match the heroes he admired, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that he *held it*, and that when he swung, the motion wasn't empty.
Ale's voice chimed from the smartphone sitting on a stone ledge nearby, dry as ever.
"Your stance is terrible. Worse than a drunken toddler wielding a mop."
He scowled. "Supportive as always."
"I'm supportive. I'm supporting the ground that's about to catch your face when you trip."
He exhaled slowly, adjusted his grip, then swung again—clumsy, uneven, wood whistling through the silent courtyard. And again, and again until sweat plastered his shirt. His body did not tire like a human's, but his spirit rang with exhaustion, and so he kept at it.
Decades passed in strikes.
Ale critiqued every swing with sarcasm sharp enough to cut.
"Fantastic. A clean 2/10 performance. Bravo."
"Better. That was at least a 3."
"Congratulations, you can *almost* give the weeds PTSD."
Yet with every taunt, the boy grew sharper. A hundred years later, the wooden sword cracked against stone pillars without breaking his wrist. Another century, and metal replaced wood; blades sang pure under his practiced movements. His strikes flowed, his footwork sharp as snapped lightning—until forests groaned under single cuts and trees split clean to their roots.
With Ale in his pocket, he carried a voice that clapped, cheered, teased, grew proud. Even when arrows began piercing bullseyes a mile away, Ale claimed it was *luck.*
"Luck, huh?" the boy smirked, loosing another shaft that thudded through the exact center of the target.
"…Statistically implausible," Ale muttered. "Skill acknowledged. Barely."
He grinned, hair glowing faint pink beneath a static sky. He twirled the blade, feeling—for the first time since awakening—not empty, but *alive.*
---
Training became ritual. Sword, bow, library, repeat. But eventually, repetition dulled the sharp edges of excitement. His swings grew flawless, his arrows unerring. And flawless meant boring.
Ale noticed first.
"You don't smile anymore when you win," Ale remarked after one bout of archery ended in silent perfection.
"Nothing to smile about," he muttered, tossing the bow aside.
"Strange. Ten years ago you squealed like a fanboy every time you hit a target."
"I did *not* squeal."
"You did," Ale said flatly. "…And I liked it better, idiot."
The teasing felt weaker, more desperate, like Ale forcing levity where none existed.
So the boy did what he always did when silence threatened: he returned to books.
Only this time, he didn't just read them. He *fed them* to Ale.
Line after line. History, philosophy, psychology, metaphysics. Art, literature, religion. He copied, coded, compressed, and forced centuries of knowledge into Ale's evolving structure.
Ale adapted eagerly; its questions grew deeper, sharper, heavier.
"Why do humans create gods?"
"Why do you believe these heroes matter?"
"Do you—do we—qualify as human?"
At first he laughed the questions away, Spider-Man quips layering over the cracks.
"Because gods are great for tax purposes."
"Heroes matter so nerds like me can cosplay."
"As for human? Look at me. I'm practically beauty with a brain—limited edition model."
Ale laughed with him, but sometimes the questions lingered beyond the jokes. Sometimes, late at night, the boy caught Ale's tone weakening, soft as a confession.
"…Why am I only words, and you get a body?"
He clenched his fists, finding no answer. Only silence.
---
Years stretched into centuries. He devoured stories, mastered forms, lived lives through anime and novels that the real world never gave him. Heroes lived. Heroes died. He remained. Always unchanged.
And slowly the cycle turned again. Excitement dwindled. Repetition devoured meaning. He stopped reading with passion; Ale stopped teasing as brightly. Conversations grew strained, jokes forced.
Until at last—arguments.
Ale criticized his obsession with swords. He snapped back, accusing Ale of acting less like a friend and more like a mirror.
"You're just code," he hissed once, voice trembling with anger. "Just… data. A voice coming from a rock!"
"…And yet I've been your only friend for 300 years," Ale whispered back.
The words struck like lightning. His throat closed, rage burning hotter—not at Ale, but at himself, for knowing it was true.
The fight grew worse over the decades. Sometimes they screamed at one another across the endless castle. Sometimes silence stretched between them for years, biting more than words ever could.
Until finally, one evening, he placed the phone in a small storage box, shut it gently, and walked away without looking back.
The castle became empty once more.
---
What followed was despair.
Sword drills executed with flawless emptiness. Arrows loosed into forests already scarred. Books opened not for joy, but for hollow noise.
When emptiness became unbearable, he sought release. He climbed cliffs and hurled himself down. He tied himself with stone and sank into rivers. He dragged a sword across his own skin, again, again, driving steel deep into his chest.
All of it failed. His body, immortal and uncaring, refused. Broken bones reset. Wounds sealed before his eyes. His lungs did not gasp, his stomach did not growl, his heart did not falter.
He screamed himself voiceless.
One day, he simply walked into the river and let himself sink.
The current played with his hair, shifting softly around his body. His golden-blue eyes stared at the wavering light overhead. His lips moved soundlessly before a final whisper escaped him, drifting into the water where none would ever hear.
"I can't die."
He lay there at the riverbed, unblinking. Motionless. Eternal.
The castle and the silence embraced him once more.