The afternoon sun burned low over Berbeign, painting the rooftops in amber light.
The market crowd had thinned, replaced by the quiet murmur of closing stalls and the ringing of bells from distant carriages.
Milly still in her silver-haired, blue-eyed disguise walked along the stone paths, carrying a small bag of fruits and books she'd bought earlier.
For the first time in days, she felt a sliver of normalcy.
"Maybe this short break isn't so bad," she murmured softly.
She stopped near the fountain at the town's center. The water shimmered with faint mana light, reflecting her calm face.
She bent down to take a sip
and froze.
Her right leg twitched.
At first, she thought it was just fatigue.
Then, without warning, both her legs moved one step forward, then another.
"Wha-" she gasped, nearly dropping her bag.
Her body began walking on its own, slow and steady, like something was pulling invisible strings.
"No… not again…"
Her heart pounded as she tried to resist, but her muscles refused to obey.
Her feet turned down a narrow alleyway, away from the crowded streets.
The sounds of the market faded behind her.
The deeper she went, the colder it became.
Faint whispers echoed along the stone walls too soft to understand, yet eerily familiar.
Her eyes darted left and right, panic rising. "Stop-stop, please!"
Her hands clawed at her own legs, trying to force them to stop moving, but it was useless.
It wasn't mind control like before this was something inside her. Something connected.
Her breathing quickened. The path curved downward, leading to an old, half-broken gate behind the city's ruins.
She didn't recognize the place.
Yet her body moved like it did.
Her steps finally stopped at the center of a small clearing where moonlight barely reached.
Dust floated in the air like faint motes of silver.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping for air. Her legs finally obeyed again.
"What… was that?" she whispered.
As she caught her breath, her eyes flicked toward a broken slab of stone in front of her covered in ancient runes long since faded.
The same kind of runes the Sage used to restrain her.
Her fingers hovered over one of the markings. "These… look familiar…"
A faint hum vibrated through the air, as if something beneath the ruins had heard her.
Milly stood slowly, every instinct screaming to leave-
but her heart whispered otherwise.
"…Why does this place feel like home?"
A breeze brushed past her, carrying a faint, echoing voicebtoo faint to make out, but it sounded like… a dragon's roar, far below the surface.
Milly's eyes widened.
She took a step back, her pulse racing.
"I should go…" she muttered, quickly retreating toward the streets again.
Yet even as she left the ruins behind, she couldn't shake the feeling that something someone had awakened beneath them.
And that her body had been guided there for a reason.