The scent of smoke clung to the rafters of the orphanage like an old story, warm and worn at the edges. Outside, the late spring wind rustled the budding ivy that crept along the stone walls, and from the garden came the soft chatter of children chasing the first signs of sun. Inside, Koda sat cross-legged at the desk he had helped repair nearly a year ago, the surface still marred with a dozen shallow knife scores and ink stains.
A candle flickered beside him, though the light wasn't needed. Habit, maybe. Something steady in a world that hadn't stopped changing since the gate collapsed beneath him.
He dipped the pen again, glancing down at the parchment—already half-filled in his sharp, deliberate hand.
—-—-
Maia,
You'd laugh if you saw me now. Uniform's always half-wrinkled, hair's too long. But I know what I'm doing these days, mostly. I think I've seen more of the world in a year than I thought I would in a lifetime.
We patrol the outer roads, some further north, sometimes out west toward the coast. Less direct danger than before, though it still finds us now and again. The beast activity's been rising in pockets the guilds are still trying to map. No one agrees why.
I still think about that first scar.
Our friends who were left behind. What we lost.
What we barely made it out of.
My new unit's solid. Not like the first group, no one quite like Erilan or Grent. But they're capable. Vren's the kind of spearman who can anchor a front line without flinching, and Seta—well, her drone tech has saved our necks more than once. And there's this archer, Eno, who swears half his power comes from his temper. I think you'd like them.
I haven't told any of them the truth about my patron. I haven't told anyone. Just as we agreed. They think I'm Shield now. Maybe I am, in a way. The system seems to be leading me down a path I don't fully understand yet.
Anyway—I'm level sixteen now. The difference is real. I can feel it in the way I move, in the quiet between breaths. My blade's faster. My reach longer. The world doesn't feel as heavy.
But some nights, it still feels just as cold without you here.
I miss you.
Six months. I'll be waiting.
—- Koda
—-—-
He paused, eyes lingering on that last line, ink barely dry.
Then folded the parchment neatly and sealed it with wax.
He would bring it to the Holy Mother's church when he next set out to have delivered.
The room was quiet again. Only the tick of the old clock in the hall. The matron's distant voice coaxing someone in for dinner. The rustle of leaves beyond the shutters.
Koda leaned back in the chair, breath slow. A long year—one carved with scars and weight, but also with purpose. He had become something he could hardly recognize back when this all began. But not something he hated.
He stood, stretching, and summoned the window. Just to see.
⸻
Koda of the Eternal Guide
Level 16
HP: 200 / 200
Mana: 200 / 200
Stamina: 200 / 200
Stats:
Strength: 20
Vitality: 20
Agility: 20
Intelligence: 20
Wisdom: 20
Endurance: 20
Traits:
Balance (Divine) – All stat increases apply equally to all attributes. Harmony is growth.
Skills:
Blade of Conviction – Active
Summon a weapon forged of pure will. The more clarity and purpose you hold, the stronger the blade. Willpower and Wisdom affect damage.
Mantle of Echoes – Passive
Passive aura forged from experience. Strength scales with Wisdom.
+Minor Fear (enemies), +Minor Focus (allies)
⸻
His fingers curled at his sides. The city felt quieter now, like the world itself had paused for breath. But he knew better.
The next storm was already building. He could feel it—rising just beyond the edge of the horizon.
____
The season had shifted again, and with it came the strange, heavy quiet that settled over Oria like a warning. Koda felt it more than he heard it—an ache beneath the noise of the city, like something drawing breath below the surface.
Trade routes had slowed. Merchants whispered of strange tremors near the cliffs south of the Obsidian Crest—an old volcanic ridge thought long dormant. The Shield had begun rotating scouting teams closer to that edge, watching for signs of instability. Koda's team, one of the more seasoned after a year of near-constant deployments, had been quietly reassigned in that direction.
Vren, tall and broad-shouldered, with a spear longer than most horses, had cracked his knuckles when the assignment came down. "They're not telling us everything," he said bluntly. "No one reassigns half a dozen patrol teams over bad merchant dreams."
Seta agreed, though she said less. The pale shimmer of her Forge-bound drone zipped overhead in tight, anxious loops, as though even it felt the tension in the air.
Eno, always grinning, simply packed an extra quiver. "Trouble burns just the same as everything else," he muttered, fingers brushing the edge of his summoned bow, its heat pulsing faintly even at rest.
And Koda… he listened.
He watched the sky. And he felt the pressure in the air.
Tasted the iron in the winds that rose from the south.
There had been signs, small at first.
Wilted animals found in the outer hills with half-missing flesh but no blood. A collapsed tunnel near an abandoned mine—caved inward, not down. And the sudden migration of lesser monsters away from the Crest altogether, something Koda noted during routine field reports but that no official seemed willing to connect.
The last few missions had run too smooth. Too clean. Something was building. Like the earth was swelling with breath.
And now, the ground had started to hum.
Only when the wind died at night could you hear it—a slow, barely-there throb underfoot, like the world itself had developed a pulse.
The Eternal Guide did not speak but Koda's instincts twisted sharp and cold in his gut.
Something was coming. Something big.