Month One
The camp breathes differently now. some weeks ago it was a loose collection of bodies scrambling to survive… now it's a living organism with a pulse of its own.
The mornings have become quieter—not because the forest is less dangerous, but because people have grown used to the rhythm of fear.
That's what humans do best… adapting to the noose they can't remove.
Exploration Team two and three have finally finished mapping the southern corridor.
"South" is a deceptive word—it isn't a gentle plain or a grassy path. It's a mountain.
A steep, unforgiving descent lined with jagged limestone, dark ferns, and mist clinging to the skin like wet cloth. When we first saw the opening in the treeline that sloped downward, I thought it might curve back or end in another dead zone. Instead… it opened wide, breathing like a lung.
The area beyond is massive. Uncomfortably massive. It'll take another month, maybe two, to chart everything properly. But at least now I know it's finite. And that makes it manageable.
I still remember the wind there.
The south's wind smells sharp, thin, like clean steel left under the rain.
Ether…I've learned something critical. Ether is like blood. If it drains completely, you die.
Simple, brutal truth. And that changes the way I move. The way I fight.
It means that resource management isn't just tactical anymore—it's anatomical. My veins are as much a battlefield as the land itself.
And Leo…Ah... Leo.
Stage One is complete. I've successfully isolated him. All the ores have been moved. He lives in the Iron Door Room now, breathing the air of rust and candle, alone.
Only I talk to him. Only I bring him food.
The door clangs softly every time I open it. And every time, his eyes light up with a strange mix of fear and need.
That dependency is ripening.
Month Two
The camp is nearly complete. I can feel the pulse of it every night when I walk through the dim pathways lit by oil lamps—wood splitting, pipes being soldered together.
Klion has almost finished the water distribution system. He doesn't say it, but the faint smugness in his posture every time I pass tells me he knows how valuable this achievement is.
Most of the southern mountain's perimeter is mapped now. Aside from two newly discovered oremine shafts, the land is barren. Empty soil and naked stone.
No ruins, no secret pathways, no nonsense—just raw earth.
Klion has started to propagate Turigavit around the camp perimeter to stabilize the supply lines.
I let him. It makes him feel in control. And when people think they're in control, they stop resisting the leash.
As for ether…Lamentia told me something interesting tonight.
We were sitting beneath the still figure of her sealed statue, moonlight slipping through the forest canopy in fractured beams. She said she has been counting every day since her sealing. T
wo thousand years have passed.
Two. fucking. Thousand. Years.
I looked up at her silver eyes and couldn't help but feel something akin to… respect.
Lysander must have been terrifying. For someone like her to be bound here for millennia, and yet this statue remains—intact, unbowed, like a monument to power itself.
She doesn't like it when I ask about her past. Her voice tightens, and her breath shifts—soft, almost invisible, but I can feel it and I don't stop.
I won't. Information is the marrow of survival.
And Leo…Stage Two has begun.
I've started to reshape him.
It began small. I told him Teddy doesn't exist.
Just little things, carefully placed, and then I denied ever saying them. I'd move objects in the room, then accuse him of misplacing them.
His hands would tremble—he'd insist, "I swear I left it there!"—and I'd tilt my head just slightly, smile faintly, and say, "No, Leo. You didn't."
When he broke down, I criticized him—calmly, cleanly.
"You're a disgrace."
"You're too weak."
"You shouldn't have been born as a man if you can't even carry your own mind."
But then, I'd switch tones. Soft. Gentle. I'd praise Lenmi, his other side, call it "honor", call it "capable."
I let the words slide in like slow poison.
Sometimes he cries. Sometimes he screams, voice hoarse, echoing against the iron door. He hits the floor with his fists, begs me to stop.
But I don't need to raise a hand. I let silence and words do the work.
They're sharper than knives.
When I leave the iron door room, I can still hear his muffled sobs behind the walls. It doesn't bother me.
If anything… it means everything is progressing exactly as planned.
Month Three.
The world outside the inner camp has grown quieter, less wild, as if the forest itself has learned the shape of our footsteps. The morning fog clings lower now, settling around the base of the trees like a sleeping animal.
Klion has been pacing the outer perimeter more frequently—his boots crunch against gravel and dead leaves, leaving clear lines that mark the beginning of what might become roads.
He's restless. The idea of building new houses beyond the inner fence excites him, but I tell him flatly, "Only around Piedmont Plain."
He furrows his brow. "That's… a small area. It's too cramped for the numbers we might get."
"It's not about the numbers," I reply, my voice low, steady.
"It's about control. We expand where I can see."
His shoulders shift—barely a twitch—but I see it. That's how Klion is: a man who swallows what he wants to say.
We both know the area beyond Piedmont Plain is a labyrinth of slopes, blind turns, and uneven ridges. A perfect place to get ambushed—or to vanish.
Like Hyung-woo and his crew.
I've searched.
I've sent teams out, I've gone myself.
Not a single footprint. Not a scrap of cloth or a faint echo of their existence remains.
It's as if they were swallowed by the mountain. My fingers tighten unconsciously at the thought, nails pressing into my palm.
Is there… a way past the barrier? If there is, he's either found it—or something found him.
But Hyung-woo isn't strong enough to push through alone.
I know that.
I exhale, steady, letting the cool air bite through my chest.
Lamentia has taken on the role of reluctant tutor.
"You already know what matters," she says often, with that faint curl of bitterness that hides behind her composed tone.
"But history… history is a map. You should not walk blind."
Her lessons are sharp, layered, precise. She speaks of great wars with the poise of someone who watched them burn cities into ash.
"The Endless War," she says one afternoon, her tone flattening into a strange calm.
"A century of slaughter that never learned to end itself. Nations died. Faiths rotted. Armies walked in circles, fighting for gods who'd forgotten their names."
Her eyes narrow ever so slightly.
"And I have been the reason it lasted as long as it did."
The silence that follows is not emptiness.
It's pressure. It presses against my throat, cold and heavy.
She doesn't elaborate. She never does when it matters most.
But that almost imperceptible along her jaw—tells me the truth lingers beneath her calm.
Leo… is still resisting.
He clenches his jaw tighter now.
When I speak, he flinches—not from fear, but from the weight of wanting to speak back and knowing it won't matter.
But that's fine. Resistance in stage two is not a threat. It's just a shape to be carved down.
When I visit him at the iron door room in the ore mine, the air is always heavy, metallic, tinged with iron dust. His hands are smeared black from working, his hair damp from the sweat that never truly dries in there.
He looks up when I step in, like a stray dog that's learned not to hope—but still watches.
"Leo," I say softly, stepping close.
His lips press thin. "...Wolf."
I tilt my head, smiling faintly.
"Still holding on, hm? That's good. Clay breaks better after pressure, not before."
He doesn't answer. His fingers twitch slightly, then grip the edge of the table as if it could anchor him.
"You'll understand soon," I murmur, leaning down so my voice grazes his ear.
"Who you really are. What was false. What remains."
His breath shakes. He doesn't cry this time—not like before.
It's quieter now. The way resistance slowly melts into something smaller, more pliable.
The days pass.
The nights stay the same.
Month Four.
The silence of not finding Hyung-woo is worse than the noise of conflict. It leaves cracks in thought. And cracks… invite things in.
I walk the perimeter often at night now, boots crushing damp grass, cloak trailing against the dirt. Each patrol ends the same: empty air, empty path, empty traces.
The camp itself is breathing well.
Fully developed. Food routes, water flow, guard shifts, even sleeping schedules—they've all begun to settle into a rhythm.
Klion looks at me one night over a dim lantern, shadows playing across his face.
"So," he begins slowly, tapping his knuckles against the table. "What's next?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" His brow lifts, faint disbelief tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"After all this, you're telling me we just—"
"—maintain," I interrupt, calm but sharp. "For now, Klion. We build quietly. We don't wake the world if it's pretending not to look at us."
His knuckles still against the wood. Then he nods. He knows. We both know.
Hyung-woo's shadow will haunt him more than mine ever could.
Lamentia teaches me about species, races, laws. The cadence of her voice becomes slower, deeper—like a storyteller settling into her favorite tale. She names creatures that haven't walked the earth for centuries, laws made for kingdoms long buried.
"Power is never just power," she says, her tone like carved stone.
"It's who remembers it. Who writes it."
Leo's mind is crumbling faster now. His eyes glaze more often.
When I call "Leo," sometimes Lenmi answers instead.
That's good progress.
I lean against the cold wall of the iron room one night, watching him tremble with a knife in hand—not at me, but at the voice inside him.
"It hurts," he whispers, nails digging into his scalp.
I kneel in front of him, gently tilting his chin upward with two fingers.
"Of course it hurts. Change always does."
My voice softens, slipping between comfort and command.
"But you'll be better, Lenmi. Not him. Him… he's weak. You're not."
His breath breaks like a glass edge. The sound isn't loud, but it's real.
I give him a moment. Then I smile, warm and deliberate. "Good child."
The camp grows steadier. He grows weaker. I grow sharper.
Month Five.
I call Klion in the early dawn, when the fog still crawls across the ground like a tired beast. His eyes are rimmed with fatigue.
"No more searching," I tell him plainly.
He stares at me for a heartbeat too long. Then he breathes out through his nose, steady but low. "You really think he's just… gone?"
"I think he's watching," I say.
The Utility Teams expand their reach without their name changing.
They gather, scout, teach, ferry supplies. I keep the Hornmaw field to myself now—its monsters are aggressive, but predictable. Perfect for solo hunts.
Their claws scrape stone. Their breath stinks of wet soil. Their roars echo against my spine. And each kill tightens the feeling of ownership.
Lamentia's lessons have turned to religion now. Gods. Names half-remembered, temples swallowed by dirt.
She leans into the words like she's feeling them, like they taste bitter in her mouth.
"Some gods were nothing more than echoes," she mutters.
"But some… some you should never speak of twice."
She refuses to say more.
Leo is different now.
Stage three is almost ready. His body carries Lenmi more naturally.
The way his voice softens when I call that name, the way his shoulders stop shaking when I touch his hair, the way he looks at me for permission to speak.
"Straighten your back," I say one night, voice quiet but edged.
He obeys.
"Again. Posture."
He corrects. His hands rest where I told them to. His tone mimics the softness I've built into Lenmi. Every repeated motion, every dictated phrase… a layer peeled from him, a layer shaped into something else.
His real name is still Leo.
But soon, he'll forget that too.
And I will make sure of it.
Month Six
The air in camp has grown heavier—with something subtler.
Control. Routine.
Quiet restraint that's been shaped, month after month, into the rhythm of survival.
Klion's discipline, my manipulation, and their faith—each a cog turning in this well-oiled cage of order.
Klion has finally begun assembling what he calls his Special Unit. Men and women he trusts more than himself, trained under his eye, bound to his word. It's a logical move. Predictable, even.
He says it's "for faster response" in case of emergencies. But I can see it.
The flicker in his gaze when he looks at me—the faint suspicion that never dies. He's preparing for me, too. A countermeasure in human form.
Well, let him.The stronger he becomes, the more stable this structure stands.
When he came to report this plan, the conversation was sharp, almost surgical.
"The hunters are thinning," he said, standing by the camp's central fire. Sparks rose between us, golden motes carried by the night wind.
"You mean your soldiers are getting bored," I replied, my tone thin, dismissive, lips curved faintly.
"I mean they need something to fight. Someone to fight," Klion's eyes held steady, almost daring.
"And you think that someone will be me?" I asked softly.
The question was almost playful, but my gaze didn't blink. He smiled—a brittle, humorless smile—and said, "Wouldn't that make things interesting?"
The silence stretched after that. Just the crackle of firewood. The rhythm of breath. Then I laughed—gently, like a man amused by a child's temper—and clapped his shoulder.
"Interesting, yes. But unnecessary. You're doing well, Klion. Keep building your unit. Train them well. Just don't forget who built the kitchen you're eating in."
He didn't flinch. That's what I respect about him.
He just nodded and left.
Still, I could feel the weight of his suspicion trailing behind like smoke.
As for Leo… no, Lenmi. The boy that once trembled at every word now answers to a name that isn't his. His posture has changed—shoulders pulled inward, head slightly tilted when he listens.
There's a softness now in the way he speaks, almost melodic, uncertain but eager to please.
The transformation is beautiful in its cruelty.
He still stumbles sometimes. A faint "Leo" slips through his lips when he forgets himself, and I watch his face twist in confusion, shame, and panic.
That's when I remind him—quietly, tenderly—"No, no, that name belongs to someone weak. You're Lenmi. You're better now. You're mine."
His eyes always glisten then. Wide, searching for affirmation.
He nods.
"Y-yes… I'm Lenmi."
"Good child," I whisper, brushing a strand of hair from his face.
"Keep working. Don't think too much."
He smiles then—small, fragile—and turns back to his notes, continuing the delicate assembly of a new homunculus with trembling fingers.
His obedience is almost poetic. It feels less like control and more like sculpting.
Still, I must keep him dependent. Love is a leash more effective than any chain.
Teddy, though… Teddy is a thorn. He's loud, crude, and infuriatingly human. Always showing up in places he shouldn't. Poking around the ore mine.
Asking questions like,"Hey, Wolf—why's that iron door locked all the time? You keeping ghosts in there?"
He laughs after saying it, but I can see it—the curiosity, the nervous joke that isn't quite a joke.
I smile back, of course.
"If I told you there were ghosts, would you go inside?"
He shrugs.
"Depends if they can pay rent."I chuckle. "Then you'd best stay outside."
He doesn't know how close he is to being a corpse some days. But Klion's presence—his watching eyes—keeps my hand still.
Killing Teddy now would open a wound in this careful balance.
Lamentia, meanwhile, continues her endless lectures from her prison.
This month she spoke of Culture—songs, rituals, gestures of peace and insult. Her voice, though forever resonant and commanding, trembled with longing when she described festivals long gone.
I leaned back against the cold pillar, arms crossed.
"Sounds inefficient. Peace rarely breeds strength."
That earned me a sharp hiss from her.
"Peace breeds memory, Wolf."
"Then perhaps I'm precisely what this world deserves," I said, smirking faintly.
She didn't respond. The next few days, she refused to speak to me at all.
Month Seven
The air turns dry, thinner somehow. The scent of metal and earth clings to the camp now that construction has slowed.
The calm is unsettling—too quiet for men like Klion, too peaceful for me.
He continues his duties efficiently, but his eyes linger on me longer than before.
He suspects I know something. And he's right.
Teddy, meanwhile, has gathered his little flock of the discontented. Old men mostly.
The tired, the afraid, the ones who never understood me but still follow because they fear the alternative.
They whisper about releasing Lenmi.
They speak as if he's a prisoner. They still call him Leo as though that boy exists.
I confronted them one evening.
They stood near the outer tents, torches swaying in the mountain wind.
"So," I said, stepping through the flickering light, "you think I've done something cruel."
Teddy's jaw clenched.
"We think you've gone too far. The boy's losing his mind. You've got him locked up like some kind of—"
"Experiment?" I interrupted smoothly.
"He is an experiment. That's his purpose."
"You're sick," an old woman muttered.
I smiled at her.
"And yet, I keep you all alive."
Their anger rippled, but so did their fear. I could see it—how their eyes darted, how none dared step closer.
"Go home," I said quietly. "Sleep. Dream of the days when you had choices."
None of them spoke after that.
Lamentia, ever my silent scholar, moved on to new lessons.
She spoke of Factions—of human dynasties, warring lords, and ethereal races bound by philosophy and blood.
Her tone softened when she mentioned old alliances. Hardened again when she spoke of betrayal.
At times, I wonder who she truly is.
When I ask, she only replies,"I am what remains when faith outlives its worshippers."
Lenmi's transformation is complete now.
The boy's body is no longer his—it's a vessel filled with a new soul I've carved into him.
He refers to himself with a serene certainty, his voice delicate yet composed.
"Master, I finished the formula," he said once, eyes shining faintly under the torchlight.
"Good," I replied.
"Now tell me—who are you?"
He smiled faintly, almost shyly.
"I'm Lenmi."
"Excellent."
Sometimes, as a game, I tease him.
"You know," I say, leaning close, "you could pass for a girl easily."
He blushes, shoulders twitching.
"D-don't joke like that, Master."
"Why not? You're prettier when you fluster."
He bites his lip, looking down, and whispers, "You shouldn't say things like that."
I laugh quietly.
"Then stop making it so easy."
The identity reshaping itself day by day. Boy, girl—it doesn't matter.
All that matters is obedience.
Month Eight
The camp feels... taut. Like a string pulled too tight. Klion has begun pushing boundaries, testing authority under the guise of strategy.
He questions more, observes more. His tone grows clipped, deliberate.
I can see it in his stride, in the sharp tilt of his head when he passes me—he's trying to measure me.
I smile at him each time. A predator's patience.
He tried once to assert control.
To "restructure command."
I allowed it—for a moment.
Then I reminded him, politely, what happens when control is tested.
Teddy's little group? Gone. Sent to the Hornmaw field for expedition training.
Half returned. The rest became fertilizer for the soil.Klion understood the message without words.
Lamentia continues teaching—now languages.
Her tone frustrated, her pace uneven
."I've forgotten much," she admits, her voice a strained whisper through the marble.
"The world changed, tongues died. I remember fragments, not roots."
"Fragments are fine," I say, leaning lazily against her pedestal.
"I'm good at filling in the blanks."
She doesn't find it amusing.
Lenmi is obedient now. Perfectly so.
He wakes before dawn, eats little, works long into the night. His body is pale, but his eyes—those eyes are devoted.
When I pass by, he always rises immediately.
"Master," he says softly, bowing his head."
Work," I reply, brushing his hair lightly as I move past.
"Yes, Master."
He no longer dreams of escape. Only of approval.
Month Nine
The air tastes different now—thicker, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks.
The camp is restless. Everyone feels it, even if they don't understand it.
The buffet is near.
And I, at last, begin to uncoil the strength I've kept hidden beneath months of patience.
Klion and Teddy—two barking dogs who finally realize they share the same chain—have started to circle each other.
I allow it. Let them unite, let them whisper in the dark.
When Klion called me out before the watchfire, his tone was steady, too steady.
"Wolf," he said, standing across from me with that soldier's posture—arms clasped behind his back, eyes half-shadowed by flame.
"We need to talk about your control over the ore mine and your… private experiments."
I didn't answer at first. Just kept sharpening my wakizashi.
The steady shink, shink of metal scraping stone was the only sound between us. Sparks fluttered briefly in the dark like dying fireflies.
Teddy was there too, arms crossed, face twisted with his usual half-grin, half-snarl.
"Yeah, man. You've been running things like it's your personal empire. We're not your servants."
I looked up then, slowly, blade in hand. My expression calm, almost gentle.
"Empire?" I repeated softly.
"Teddy, if I wanted an empire, you wouldn't be standing here breathing."
The silence that followed felt alive. The flames flickered lower as if listening.
Klion took a step forward.
"I'm warning you, Wolf. This won't last. People are starting to notice—"
I rose. The blade caught the light."Then maybe they need a reminder."
In one motion, I struck. The blade didn't touch him—but it sliced the air so close that it split a strand of his hair.
He didn't flinch. That's why I respect him. But Teddy did—he staggered back, hand instinctively going to his throat.
I smiled.
"You talk about peace and control as if they're yours to decide. they lived because I decided they should."
My tone remained quiet, controlled, but every syllable dripped venom.
"Now—shut your mouths, both of you. Enjoy your fragile alliance. You'll have your little victory soon… right before you choke on it."
Klion didn't respond. His jaw clenched.
Teddy muttered something under his breath, but didn't meet my eyes.
Good. Let them unite.Let them believe they have strength.A false hope makes the despair sharper when I tear it away.
Lamentia, having seemingly exhausted her vast library of history and philosophy, began teaching something new. Combat.
Her tone, as always, was regal—icy, unbending."Ether control without the discipline of movement is waste," she told me one afternoon, her voice echoing through her marble cage.
"A warrior's body must adapt to the scarcity of the battlefield. So I will teach you a system devised during the famine wars—the Integrated Survival Combat System."
I raised an eyebrow.
"It's survival distilled," she said sharply.
"Control and Restriction under Scarcity. Learn it, and you can defeat those who drown themselves in abundance."
Her explanation unfolded like a scripture—fluid, precise. She spoke of disarming without killing, striking to cripple rather than destroy, conserving energy when Ether runs dry. Grappling, redirection, nerve suppression—all methods born from starvation, from desperation.
As I trained, my body rediscovered hunger—not for food, but for efficiency.
Every strike felt sharper, every movement leaner. The wilderness around the camp became my dojo; the sound of falling water, my rhythm. I even began modifying her teachings—mixing them with techniques from my old world. Joint manipulation, grounded leverage, subtle breathing.
The result was… elegant brutality.
Lenmi surprised me this month.
"Master," she began one evening—soft voice trembling as if walking barefoot across glass.
"Could you… could you bring me some… girl's clothes?"
I turned toward her. The torchlight painted her pale face in gold and shadow. Her fingers were interlaced nervously, eyes flicking away each time they tried to meet mine.
"Oh?" I smiled faintly, intrigued. "
Why the sudden curiosity?"
"I… I don't know. I just… want to see. I think it might help me understand who I am."
How beautiful, I thought.
How perfectly human.
"Very well," I said at last.
"I'll bring them. But remember—you wear them only when you're with me. Outside, I still need my diligent assistant, not a doll."
Her face lit up with fragile joy, and she bowed her head.
"Thank you, Master."
That night, I couldn't sleep. Watching her shift between identities was like observing a delicate metamorphosis—a fragile
Month Ten
The air in the camp has shifted again—not violently, but subtly, like a slow tightening of strings.
The kind that makes even silence sound taut.
Nothing much has happened this month. But that itself is suspicious.
Klion's soldiers move a bit too efficiently; their patrol routes overlap in ways that look unintentional at first glance but aren't. Teddy's group lingers too close to the south ridge, though I can see the patterns...
I know what this means.Klion is planning something in the shadows.But plans mean nothing to me. I am the shadow that plans are made to fear.
I've been spending time alone in the evenings, sitting by the cliff near the waterfall.
The air there is sharp and cold, a constant hiss of falling water swallowing every thought except the important ones.
It was there that I remembered my wakizashi—I'd nearly forgotten about finding the man who forged it.
A weapon without a name, wielded by a man who never remembers the hand that made it.
So, I began searching.
It took days of questions, trades, and silent observation before I found him—a wiry old man who lived near the river, hammering scraps into shape for tools and armor. His hair was gray and tied in a knot that looked like it had survived too many battles. His eyes were dark, still sharp, reflecting the fire of his forge.
When I approached, the old man barely looked up."You've been walking around here for three days, boy," he said, voice raspy but steady.
"You're either lost or too patient for your own good."
I smiled faintly, stepping closer. The orange glow of molten metal painted my face in half-light. "Neither," I said.
"I've been looking for you."
He Siyuan—that was his name. The man who forged my blade.
When I placed the wakizashi on his anvil, the old man's hands stopped mid-motion. His eyes traced the length of the blade as if seeing a ghost.
"This was… one of mine," he murmured, voice caught between pride and regret.
"Didn't think anyone still carried this craft."
I watched him.
"Then teach me."
He squinted at me.
"You know how to shape iron?""Only the basics.""That's not enough.""Then make it enough."
For a moment, silence. Then a grin, slow and weary, cracked his weathered face.
"Fine. But don't blame me when your hands bleed."
And they did.
The next weeks were filled with the roar of fire, the ring of steel, the sting of blistered skin. He Siyuan's teaching was raw and unrelenting—no speeches, only rhythm and precision.
Every motion was correction, every failure a scar.
But beneath that brutality was art.
He taught me how metal breathes when it cools, how it remembers the shape of its hammer, how forging is not making—it's listening.
"Metal's like people," he said once, holding a piece of glowing iron.
"You force it too fast, it breaks. You listen too long, it cools. Strike when it listens back."
I didn't say it, but I understood perfectly.
Lamentia, meanwhile, had taken a strange turn in her lessons. She began teaching me about stranded in her days—a phrase she used to describe the remnants of human structure: how societies, broken and scattered, still carry their customs like ghosts dragging chains.
"Humans cannot exist without a framework," she said, her marble lips almost forming a smile.
"Even when the gods abandon them, they build their own prisons."
"Then what am I?" I asked. "A builder or a warden?"
Her voice echoed, low and layered.
"You are both, Wolf."
I laughed softly at that. Maybe she was right.
Lenmi's behavior this month was… interesting. One evening, as I brought her food, she looked at me—hesitant, shy, eyes wide like a child about to confess something sinful."Master," she murmured, fidgeting with her fingers.
"Could you… bring me more girls' clothes."
I tilted my head.
"Why?"She nodded quickly. "I want to… try... more"
I could have refused. I didn't. The slightest tremor in her voice was enough reason.
If there's one thing that can shatter conditioning, it's unresolved doubt. So I indulged her.
A few days later, I brought them—a short dress, simple but soft, pale blue like washed sky.
She hesitated before touching it, tracing the fabric with trembling fingers.
"It's… pretty," she whispered.
"It suits you," I said.
Her cheeks flushed. "You think so?"
"I wouldn't have brought it if I didn't."
Month Eleven
The situation remains stable, but too quiet—unnaturally so. The air feels staged, as though Klion and Teddy have learned to act.
They avoid confrontation now, whisper instead of shout, linger together longer than before. Their patience reeks of conspiracy.
"Perhaps they're waiting," I mused one night, watching the smoke curl from my cup of boiled herbs.
"Perhaps they think time favors them."
But it doesn't.Because the one who controls the waiting controls the ending.
When I cross paths with Klion, his expression is calm—too calm.
"Wolf," he says curtly, "it's been a while since you hunted.""Peace makes monsters hunt lose it interest," I reply.
His gaze sharpens.
"And when you say monsters... are you referring to the ones outside the camp, or the ones within it?"I smile.
"Depends which one bares its fangs first."
He doesn't answer. Just nods, stiffly, and walks away.
Fool.
Lamentia continues her lessons, though I sense she is nearing exhaustion—or perhaps disinterest. This month's topics drifted to weapons, and then—inevitably—to what she called the holes in history.
"There are years no one remembers," she told me, her voice low.
"Decades erased, not by war or disaster, but by choice. As if the world itself decided to forget.""Convenient," I murmured. "History rewritten by survival.""Or by fear," she said.
"Do you not wonder what this world was like before you woke here?"
Her question lingered longer than I wanted it to.
Lenmi—no, she—has embraced her new identity completely. Her voice has softened, her movements fluid and delicate, yet her eyes still burn with the same quiet loyalty.
When I call her "she," she smiles, almost shyly. It costs me nothing, and it keeps her close.
"Master," she said once, holding her hands behind her back, the hem of her dress brushing her knees.
"Do you like this one?"I looked up from the forge.
"It's simple. It fits."Her smile widened, faint but genuine.
"Then I'll wear it for you."
Month Twelve
The final month.
The air tastes different now—charged, metallic, alive with the quiet pulse that always precedes violence.
I can feel it in every movement of the camp—the stiffness of routine, the way soldiers double-check their weapons, how Teddy laughs too loud, and Klion avoids my gaze entirely. They're waiting. Plotting. Counting their days without knowing they've already run out.
I will end this farce soon.On the last day of this month, my plan will unfold.
Still, one concern haunts the edge of my thoughts—Hyung-Woo.
His absence is too convenient. His silence too deliberate. If he truly can see fragments of the future, then perhaps he already knows what's coming.
If so… then he might join with Klion and Teddy.
That would make things messy.Not impossible. Just… interesting.
Today, I visited Lamentia early. The deep forest was drenched in fog; the morning light bled through in ribbons of silver.
Her statue loomed among the moss and roots, still beautiful, still cruelly serene.
She greeted me before I spoke.
"You are early, Wolf.""There's much to do," I said, my tone calm. "And I need you to do as I instructed."
Her marble eyes flickered faintly, the vines at her base tightening. "You intend to break what you've built..."
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, with a sigh like cracking stone:"As you wish."
I returned to the ore mine after that. The iron door groaned open for the first time in months. Lenmi stepped out, blinking at the sunlight that poured across her pale face.
Her eyes widened, glistening.
"It's… bright," she whispered."
You'll get used to it," I said, gently resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Come. I want to show you something."
We walked through the forest path together. The sound of cicadas echoed like faint music, and the trees swayed with the slow rhythm of wind.
She looked around, childlike wonder in every step.
"It's beautiful…" she murmured."It is," I said quietly. "Remember this feeling."
When we reached the deep forest near Lamentia's statue, I stopped and let her go ahead.
She turned back to me, smiling—soft, pure, trusting.
"Can I stay here?""Yes, get used to this place. You'll be here often."
She nodded, then wandered forward, tracing the moss-covered stones.
Everything is set.Every piece where it should be.The board is ready.
I inhaled deeply, feeling the cold wind fill my chest.
"It's time," I whispered.
Wolf exhaled.
It was time to execute the plan.