Rowan and Lyrielle walked up a gentle slope, one of the many grassy hills that overlooked the sprawling valley below. The tall, slender blades whispered against their legs as they moved, stirred by a cool and steady wind that carried with it the scent of pine and the distant promise of rain. At the crest of the hill, Rowan sat down heavily on the sloping terrain, the earth firm and cool beneath him. He looked up at Lyrielle, who stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest, her expression a careful mask of calm over clear unease.
"What's wrong with Koby?" he asked, his voice low and direct, almost lost to the breeze.
Lyrielle took a slow breath before answering, her gaze drifting toward the distant treeline where Koby had vanished between the shadows of the oaks and pines. "It's going to be a miracle if he survives this world, Rowan."
Rowan's posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. He already knew where this was headed, and he didn't like it one bit. "His pathways are torn, aren't they?"
Lyrielle nodded in quiet affirmation, her eyes not leaving the woods.
"But how is that possible?" Rowan pressed, frustration edging into his tone. "He doesn't even use that much aura yet."
"It wasn't aura that tore his pathways."
Rowan's eyes sharpened, the placid brown now intent and searching. "What do you mean?"
Lyrielle hesitated, her words measured as though weighing each one. "Well, I sensed traces of dark energy in his pathways." She held her breath as she watched Rowan's face, the lines around his mouth tightening. "I know he's not a daemon—but the dark energy couldn't be mistaken."
"He is not a daemon, Lyrielle," Rowan said firmly, his voice leaving no room for doubt. "He's human."
"Then explain the dark energy in his body?"
Rowan stood abruptly, the movement swift enough to stir the long grass around him into a soft, rustling wave. "We're done talking about this," he stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "And don't mention anything about dark energy to Koby or the others." He stepped closer and placed his hands on her shoulders, his grip firm but not harsh. "Promise me, Lyrielle."
A seemingly long silence stretched between them, filled only by the wind sweeping over the hill, carrying with it the distant rustle of leaves and the faint, clean scent of wet soil. Finally, she responded, her voice barely above a whisper. "I won't."
"Thank you." Rowan released her shoulders and began to walk away, but after a few steps he turned back, his expression softening beneath the fading afternoon light. "I know this is hard on you, Lyrielle. I'm sorry for putting you through this…"
Lyrielle's eyes softened slightly, though the worry in them remained, like shadows beneath still water. "Why do you feel the need to help them?"
Rowan looked out across the valley, his gaze distant, as if seeing something far beyond the trees and the sky—a memory, a vision, or perhaps a burden only he could carry. "I don't know. I just do. Just me being sentimental, I guess." He paused, then added quietly, "I see promise in them, Lyrielle."
"Promise for Nyxoria?" she asked, the name of their world hanging in the air like a whispered hope.
"You could say that."
And with that, Lyrielle turned and walked down the hill, her steps careful on the uneven ground. Rowan followed a few paces behind, his boots pressing softly into the earth. Their footsteps were quiet, absorbed by the grass and soil, yet the weight of their conversation lingered between them like a low cloud, heavy with unspoken thoughts.
Some distance away, in the dense woods that carpeted the valley floor, a voice cut through the rustling leaves like a clear bell.
"Hurry up, Koby, would you?"
The girl's voice was bright and lightly teasing, ringing through the trees as she moved with effortless grace from branch to branch. She hopped between limbs with such natural agility that she seemed almost weightless—a fleeting shadow against the green canopy, her movements fluid and sure.
Koby rushed up behind her, much less gracefully. Branches snapped back into his face, their leaves brushing his cheeks with damp, earthy touches. Bushes tugged at his clothes, thorns catching on fabric, and more than once he stumbled over protruding roots, the forest floor seemingly determined to slow him down.
Not as graceful as the girl, he thought wryly, pushing a low-hanging branch aside with more force than necessary.
"I'm trying," he called up, slightly winded, his breath forming small clouds in the cool, shaded air. "I'm not as skilled as you in climbing trees."
"I thought players were supposed to be strong," she remarked without looking back, her voice carrying a note of playful challenge.
"What?"
"Aren't you a player?" She paused for a brief moment on a sturdy branch, the wood creaking softly under her slight weight, allowing Koby to catch up beneath her.
Koby came to a halt, catching his breath, his hands resting on his knees. The forest around him was alive with sound—the chirp of hidden insects, the distant call of a bird, the gentle sigh of wind through a thousand leaves. "I am. But how did you know that?"
She looked down at him from her perch, her green eyes keen and observant, catching fragments of filtered light. "You brought out a weapon from your inventory. Not a lot of people can do that."
A calming silence settled between them, broken only by the soft, melancholic calls of distant birds and the gentle, persistent sigh of the wind through the leaves. It was Koby who finally broke it, his tone softer, more conversational, as if trying to bridge the gap between stranger and companion.
"You're the first other citizen of Nyxoria I've met that's my age, you know."
She tilted her head slightly, a curious gesture that made her dark hair shift across her shoulder. "What makes you think I'm in your age range?"
"Probably your appearance. The way you talk?"
"The way I talk?" She laughed, a light, genuine sound that seemed to brighten the shaded woods around them, as if the very leaves trembled with amusement. "That's very presumptuous of you."
Her laughter faded abruptly as she turned her attention back to the forest ahead, her body stilling into a posture of acute alertness. Her eyes scanned the trees with focused intensity, narrowing slightly as she peered into the layered shadows.
"What is it?" Koby tried to ask, but was met with a sharp shush from the girl, her hand rising in a swift, silencing motion. He complied instantly, holding his breath, the air in his lungs suddenly feeling thick and still.
She had spotted it—the injured stag. It stood slightly apart from the rest of the herd, head bowed low as it tended to a wounded foreleg. The other stags grazed peacefully nearby, their glowing antlers casting faint, ethereal light on the grass around them, like scattered pieces of captured moonlight.
"Just shoot it with your bow now," Koby's voice came softly, right behind her.
She flinched, nearly losing her balance, one hand snapping out to grip the branch beside her. "How did you get up here?" she asked, looking down the tree to where he'd been standing just moments before, her voice a mixture of surprise and irritation.
"Just because I struggled to keep up doesn't mean I don't know how to use aura properly to some extent," Koby said, a hint of satisfaction in his tone as he steadied himself beside her on the wide limb.
She smirked at the explanation, a quick flash of amusement in her eyes, then pointed toward the stag with a slender finger. "It still has a lot of strength, and if I miss my shot, it'll alert the whole herd. They'll scatter into the deep wood, and we'll lose our chance."
"So what do we do?" Koby asked, his voice dropping to a near-whisper.
"You go down there and try to chase the injured stag away from the herd, and I'll strike it down when it's isolated."
"Those things don't attack, do they?" he asked, a note of caution threading through his words.
"If they feel very cornered, they will," she said, a wide, almost playful smile spreading across her face, though her eyes remained serious, calculating.
"You're not even trying to hide how dangerous this is," Koby remarked flatly.
"You wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't…"
"Released the stag. I know," Koby cut in, his tone dry. "You've said this like a hundred times already."
"Then get to work already, before it runs off again."
Before Koby could form a reply, she placed a hand firmly against his back and shoved him off the branch.
He fell not with a cry, but with a startled gasp, the world tilting around him—a blur of green leaves, brown bark, and dappled light. The ground rushed up to meet him, but he twisted mid-air, aura flaring instinctively around his limbs, cushioning his fall just enough to land in a clumsy but quiet roll among the ferns below.
Above him, the girl was already nocking an arrow to her bow, her expression focused and utterly still, a hunter poised between breath and release.