The road beyond the Academy was quieter than I expected.
No mana channels humming beneath stone. No detection arrays brushing against my thoughts. No invisible hands correcting reality before it could misbehave.
Just wind.
Just dirt beneath my boots.
Just the world—unmanaged, unfiltered, and honest in its danger.
[Environmental mana: Wild.]
[Stability: Low but natural.]
I breathed more easily than I had in days.
This was how magic was meant to exist—not caged, not optimized, not endlessly corrected. It surged and ebbed like weather, unpredictable but alive.
The city lights faded behind me as dawn crept in from the horizon. Ahead lay rolling fields broken by patches of forest and the distant silhouette of a trade town.
My first stop.
I needed distance.
Information.
And time for the erosion to settle.
[Memory erosion: Stabilizing.]
That didn't mean it was done.
Just… quiet.
By midday, I reached the outskirts of the town. Wooden palisades replaced stone walls, and watchtowers manned by bored guards scanned the road more out of habit than vigilance.
No Academy insignia.
Good.
At the gate, a guard raised a hand. "Business?"
"Work," I replied simply.
He glanced at my cloak, then shrugged and waved me through.
Inside, the town was smaller, rougher. Market stalls sold dried meat and tools instead of enchanted trinkets. Adventurers still existed—but here they looked tired, scarred, practical.
The kind who dealt with problems before institutions noticed.
I headed for the guild hall out of habit—and stopped.
This one was different.
No grand banners. No magical lighting. Just a sturdy building reinforced with iron bands and old ward-stones embedded directly into the walls.
Practical.
I stepped inside.
The air smelled of oil, sweat, and ink. A quest board dominated one wall, cluttered with handwritten notices.
My eyes caught on several immediately.
[Village erased — cause unknown]
[Hunters missing near Blackroot Forest]
[Memory sickness spreading in river towns]
The Authority Fragment stirred uneasily.
The world didn't wait.
I approached the counter, where a grizzled man with one eye was stamping papers with methodical precision.
"Name?" he asked without looking up.
I hesitated.
Echo had weight now.
But weight could be dangerous.
"…Call me Warden," I said.
He paused, then glanced up, eye narrowing.
"Funny choice."
"Accurate one."
He grunted and wrote it down. "Rank?"
"Low," I replied.
He slid a badge toward me. Plain iron. "Then take low-risk work. This region chews up heroes."
I almost laughed.
As I turned toward the board, a familiar pressure brushed my senses.
Not a fragment.
Not erasure.
Something… sealed.
Deep.
Old.
[Forgotten spell resonance detected.]
[Source: Blackroot Forest.]
I stared at the notice again.
Hunters missing near Blackroot Forest.
Of course they were.
I reached out and tore the paper free.
"First job?" the clerk asked.
"Yes," I said.
He snorted. "Figures."
I stepped back into the sunlight, the forest's dark silhouette visible beyond the fields.
A world without wards didn't hide its scars.
It bled them openly.
I pulled my cloak tighter and started toward Blackroot Forest.
The Academy had taught me how to survive secrets.
But out here—
I would learn how to survive truth.