This time was no different from the times before…
and that was what made it worse.
Her sword was chipped along the edge, her left arm barely answered her will, and the crimson rot crept through her body with stubborn slowness—not like an enraged beast, but like an old debt come to be collected. And yet, Malenia stood.
She always stood.
Before her stood her opponent.
That Tarnished (the name given to cursed exiles, returned from death) who refused to die as he should.
He was breathing hard, his armor shattered, his scabbard nearly empty—but his eyes… they gleamed. Not with strength, but with that ridiculous persistence, the kind born not of greatness, but of pure, obstinate refusal.
"Once more…"
he muttered, lifting his trembling sword.
"Even if I die again."
She did not answer.
She had not answered for a long time now.
He charged.
Malenia moved to meet him, as she had hundreds of times before—but this time, her body betrayed her. A delay no more than a fraction of a second, invisible, immeasurable, yet enough.
The blade pierced through.
Not with force…
but with precision.
The world froze.
It was not pain she felt, but surprise. A faint, cold surprise—like discovering that an ancient rule had finally been broken.
Her sword slipped from her hand.
She knelt.
Then she fell.
The Tarnished did not move at once.
He stood there, staring at the body that moments ago had been an unstoppable storm. He waited for the familiar explosion, the scarlet bloom, the theatrical end.
Nothing happened.
"…Is it… over?"
he whispered, as though afraid the world itself might hear.
One second passed.
Then another.
Suddenly—
he screamed.
"It's over! It's finally over!"
He raised his sword, waved it, ran in an uneven circle, stumbled, got back up, then snapped open the menu in frantic haste.
"Where's the achievement?! Where are the runes?!"
Nothing.
The interface vanished.
The screen froze.
"…No."
He pressed a button.
Then another.
"Don't do this to me now!"
A small window appeared—no frame, no music:
— ERROR —
Then…
blackness.
…Strange.
Death was not what she had expected.
No eternal darkness, no collapse, not even blind rage. There was only one sensation: something being torn from her.
She felt it clearly.
Something that was not truly part of her, yet had clung to her through battle, through countless attempts, through that opponent who refused to yield. A system… watching, counting, rewarding.
You…
It was not a voice, but a thought.
…are not mine.
Her will extended—not as a hand, not as a blade, but as pure decision. She did not ask. She did not bargain. She did not even think.
She pulled.
The severing was disturbingly quiet, as though the system itself had never been meant to be resisted.
— Connection unstable —
— Attempting separation —
Mine.
Then—
everything cut out.
The first sensation was air.
Cold, salty, filling small lungs unaccustomed to it. Then came a sound—a sharp, piercing cry, torn from a throat that knew nothing of swords or wars.
She opened her eyes.
The sky was gray, cut through with distant smoke. Footsteps, clipped orders, the knock of wood against stone. The smell of the sea mixed with the faint scent of fresh… blood.
She was small.
Far too small.
She was lifted quickly, wrapped in cloth, pressed to the chest of a woman whose breathing was steady, strained with worry.
"A child… at a time like this?"
a man's voice said.
"The gods show no mercy."
This… is not my world.
But the body was not rotting.
The decay was… still.
— Body: Stable —
— Vitality: Low —
— Control: Unformed —
…Numbers.
They were few. Not intrusive. But they were there.
Days passed.
Oshiyogakuri (a coastal settlement; the name bears no clear known meaning) was no paradise, but it was no slaughterfield either. People worked, laughed at times, and prepared for war without living inside it every moment. Seals were everywhere—not as ornament, but as part of daily life.
Malenia grew slowly, watching more than she spoke.
By the age of five, she knew how to walk without making a sound.
By six, she knew where to stand to stay out of the way.
One day, a child fell in front of her, split his knee, and began to cry.
She reached out without thinking.
A faint warmth, barely visible, passed through her fingers. The bleeding stopped faster than it should have.
She froze.
— Crimson Affinity: Unstable —
She pulled her hand back at once.
The child stood up and laughed, as though nothing had happened.
But she did not forget.
That evening, she sat near the inner fence, watching the sea. Another child sat beside her, uninvited.
"You're always here,"
he said, swinging his legs.
"Guarding the ocean?"
"No,"
she replied after a moment.
"I'm thinking."
He smiled.
"I think when I run. But I fall a lot."
His name was Kai (a common name that in some cultures means "sea").
Loud.
Chaotic.
And seemingly unaware of the meaning of silence.
"You're strange,"
he added after a pause.
"But not in a scary way."
A strange… achievement.
That night, the dream came.
Rotten land.
A broken sword.
And distant light.
— Runes still present —
— Assimilation: Delayed —
This world… does not bar me.
She opened her eyes slowly.
I will not grow stronger to rule.
I will grow stronger… to endure.
And elsewhere, someone stared at a black screen, pressing a button that would not respond, muttering in fury:
"But I… won!"
The world did not answer.
Because the story…
did not begin there.