Pain in this world is mostly quiet.
It settles into joints before you notice it. It hides in habits—how people stand, how they breathe, how they stop expecting things to get better. By the time you recognize it, it's already part of you.
I wake before dawn because my knee hurts.
That's new.
'Fantastic,' I think, sitting up slowly. 'I reincarnated into early-onset joint issues. Truly a premium experience.'
The room is dark and cold. My breath fogs faintly as I move, careful not to wake Selene curled beside my mother. Outside, Matra hasn't started shouting yet. This is the city's only honest hour—the moment before survival begins pretending it's routine.
I stretch, testing the knee. It complains but holds.
'Not broken,' I decide. 'Just… learning.'
My father is already awake.
He sits near the door, tools spread across the floor, repairing a cracked handle with practiced patience. He doesn't look up when I approach, but he knows I'm there. Parents like him always do.
"You shouldn't be up," he says.
"I woke up," I reply. "Again."
He grunts, tightening a wrap. "Body remembers things before the mind does."
'That sounds important,' I think. 'Or depressing. Possibly both.'
I crouch and help where I can, holding pieces steady with hands that are still too small. The silence between us is comfortable in the way shared labor always is.
After a while, he speaks again. "Your knee?"
I blink. "How did you—"
"You shifted your weight," he says. "Same way I do."
I don't know what to say to that.
So I nod.
By midmorning, the city is awake and demanding.
I'm sent to fetch scraps from the baker who sometimes takes pity, sometimes doesn't. The alley smells like burnt grain and disappointment. A group of older kids loiters near the corner, laughing too loudly.
One of them spots me and grins.
'Here we go,' I think. 'Same quest. Same NPCs.'
"Hey," he says. "Four-eyes. You drop anything today?"
"No," I reply. "I learned."
They laugh anyway.
Someone shoves me. Not hard. Just enough to remind me where I stand in the invisible order of things.
I stumble, catch myself, and straighten.
'Don't react,' I tell myself. 'They're renting space in your head.'
The shove doesn't escalate. It never does when there's nothing to feed on.
They get bored. I move on.
The baker gives me half a loaf and a look that says this isn't kindness so much as exhaustion with cruelty.
"Don't run," he mutters. "They respect it."
'I doubt that,' I think. 'But thanks.'
At home, my mother's cough is worse.
She tries to hide it. She always does. That makes it worse somehow, like she's apologizing to the air for being sick. I sit beside her, holding Selene while my mother catches her breath.
"You're quiet today," she says after a while.
"I'm thinking," I reply.
She smiles faintly. "Be careful. Thinking too much makes you tired."
'Trust me,' I think. 'I'm already a professional.'
That afternoon, I feel the pressure again.
It's stronger today—or maybe I'm noticing it more. The invisible threads in the air tug gently at my awareness, like they're curious. When I close my eyes and breathe slowly, the sensation sharpens.
Mana.
It doesn't answer. But it doesn't vanish either.
'You exist,' I think at it. 'Good to know.'
A headache blooms behind my eyes.
I stop.
'Okay,' I think. 'Boundaries. Even magic respects boundaries, right?'
The headache fades.
I open my eyes and exhale.
'Noted,' I think. 'Curiosity costs energy.'
That night, rain hits Matra without warning.
Water leaks through a crack in the ceiling, dripping steadily into a bowl my mother sets out with resigned efficiency. Each drop echoes in the quiet room.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
I watch it for a long time.
'If this were Earth,' I think, 'someone would've sent a maintenance ticket and waited three months.'
Here, we just adjust.
My father shifts the mat. My mother hums. Selene sleeps through it all.
No one complains.
Lio sits across from me, sharpening a stick into something that's almost a tool.
"You don't get angry," he says suddenly.
I look at him. "I do."
"I've never seen it."
'That's because I already burned it all once,' I think.
"I'm saving it," I say instead. "Anger's expensive."
He considers that, then nods like it makes perfect sense. "I like that."
When the rain stops, the city exhales.
I lie back, staring at the ceiling, listening to Matra settle into uneasy sleep. My body aches in places it shouldn't. My mind refuses to quiet.
'Nothing broke today,' I think.
Not the roof.
Not my knee.
Not my resolve.
In this world, that counts as a win.
As sleep takes me, the pressure in the air feels… closer.
Not responding.
Not helping.
Just watching.