The sword was heavy.
Not the fine weapon heroes carried in stories, glowing in sunlight and polish to a mirror shine.
This one looked dull.
A slab of iron with chipped edges and a handle worn smooth by years of use. It smelled faintly of old oil and damp leather.
Skyler adjusted his grip.
His palm burned.
His porcelain-pale and thin fingers tightened around the hilt with visible effort. The weapon felt absurdly large in his grasp, like it was meant for someone else.
On Earth, he had carried a briefcase.
He had carried deadlines.
He had carried the quiet, suffocating weight of obedience.
Now he carried a sword.
The irony was not lost on him.
"Don't just stand there," Lia said, her voice cutting through his thoughts.
Skyler turned slightly.
"Lia," he said quietly. "Did you feel that just now?"
"Huh?"
Her brows knitted together.
"What do you mean, Skyle?"
"A gaze."
He searched the tree line as he spoke.
"Like someone watching."
Lia blinked, then looked around the forest.
"What gaze? I felt nothing."
The woods were still.
Wind stirred the tree branches above them, whispering through the thicket like a secret the forest refused to share.
Skyler was certain of it.
Something had been there.
Watching.
But Lia felt nothing.
He studied her expression for a moment longer.
No deception.
Only confusion.
"It's nothing," he said.
For now, he decided to ignore it.
Lia watched him for a second, clearly unconvinced, but she didn't push the matter.
Instead, she turned and began walking, signaling for him to follow.
She moved through the underbrush with an almost unsettling grace. Branches bent away from her path as if they had learned long ago not to resist.
Her dark hair swayed behind her like a pendulum.
"The wind is shifting," she said. "If we don't find the trail soon, we'll be eating thin soup tonight."
Skyler followed.
At first, the pace felt manageable.
But as the forest thickened and the terrain grew uneven, his body began to protest.
His steps became clumsy.
Uncoordinated.
The air carried the sharp scent of pine and damp soil.
It was his first time moving through a forest like this.
His first time truly wandering.
He watched Lia carefully.
Every step she took.
Every shift of her weight.
The way she avoided loose branches without looking.
The way she paused briefly at crossings of animal tracks.
Skyler observed everything.
He was learning.
Sharpening his mind.
The body he inhabited carried memories and instincts from years spent here, but those reflexes belonged to another person.
He had not lived those experiences.
He could feel them.
But he could not yet move like the boy who once owned this body.
He was someone else.
The real Skyler had grown up on the outskirts of the Abrenzel Forest since the age of four. His father had been the hunter of the family, the one responsible for bringing food to the table.
And his father had forbidden him from using magic.
Not because Skyler lacked talent.
But because his affinity for it was… monstrous.
His mother possessed magic as well, though she never taught him. She only told him that restraint would serve him better in the future.
So Skyler chose the sword.
Unfortunately, there had never been a teacher.
This place was too desolate.
Finding another human near this forest was rare enough to feel like a miracle.
Only those with strong motives ventured here.
"Let's rest a moment," Lia said suddenly.
She stopped and glanced back at him.
Skyler's breathing had grown uneven.
"You're quiet today," she said.
"You're always quiet… but today it feels different."
She studied him.
"As if your silence has an echo."
Then her eyes narrowed slightly.
"And you've been watching me this whole time."
Skyler paused.
He hadn't realised she noticed.
After all, she had not once turned around.
"I'm thinking," he said.
Lia folded her arms.
"That's never a good sign."
"I'm thinking about learning magic."
For a moment, Lia simply stared.
Then her eyes widened.
"Th.. that's unexpected."
A grin slowly crept onto her face.
"Are you planning to become a rebellious son all of a sudden?"
Skyler held her gaze.
"Lia."
"Yeah?"
"The green sparks earlier. When you healed me."
He glanced briefly at the trees.
"Does everyone have that?"
"Or is it something you learn?"
Lia blinked, surprised by the question.
"You mean mana?"
She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"No. Most people just… exist with it."
Her voice softened slightly.
"You have to be attuned to the rhythm of the world to call it."
She studied him carefully.
"Your family used to be the best at it."
Her gaze dropped briefly to his hands.
Hands that hadn't touched magic in years.
"Why ask now?" she asked.
"You used to hate talking about the weight of the heavens."
Then she tilted her head.
"But I'm glad you changed your mind."
Her smile was bright.
"What made you decide after staying obedient for so long?"
Skyler's answer came quietly.
"Because I'm tired of things I don't understand having a grip on me."
His voice carried the chill of winter wind.
Lia felt a faint shiver.
The Skyler she knew was a boy who hid in books.
The person standing before her now looked like someone dissecting the world with his eyes.
"Let's continue," Skyler said.
They moved again.
Moments later, Lia suddenly submerges into the shadow of a large oak.
Skyler followed her gaze.
And froze.
In the clearing ahead, beneath a twisted tree, the beast waited.
A tusk-boar.
A grotesque mound of grey muscle and bristling fur.
It rooted through the dirt with wet, snorting breaths that sounded like broken bellows.
The ground trembled faintly beneath its weight.
Lia glanced at skyler.
Her sapphire eyes glittered.
"Your turn."
Skyler studied the creature.
In a novel, this would be the moment when the protagonist charged forward with reckless courage.
Skyler felt no such thing.
He felt… clinical.
Observation.
Height: approximately three feet.
Mass: near two hundred kilograms.
Primary weapons: twin tusks, eight inches.
Weakness: soft tissue beneath the jaw.
Jugular exposed during charge.
He looked at his trembling hands.
If he fought like the old Skyler…
He would die.
Or worse.
His ribs would shatter.
His lungs would collapse.
He did not charge.
He did not shout.
Instead, Skyler crouched and picked up a jagged stone the size of his fist.
He weighed it carefully.
Then he looked at Lia.
She was waiting for him to draw the sword.
He didn't.
"Don't use your magic unless I'm about to be crushed," he said.
"I want to do this alone."
Then he began moving.
Wide circle.
Downwind.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
But his mind remained still.
Like a frozen lake.
'My entire life I followed paths others drew for me.
A strategist does not follow the map.
He redraws it.'
He positioned himself behind a thorny thicket directly above the boar's path.
Then he threw the stone.
Crack.
The rock struck a hollow log ten feet to the left.
The boar exploded into motion.
A blur of muscle and fury.
Its massive weight carried it forward with brutal momentum.
Tusks lowered.
Charging toward the sound.
As the beast passed beneath the thicket.
Skyler moved.
He did not leap.
He did not roar.
He simply leaned forward and released the sword.
Gravity did the rest.
The iron blade plunged into the back of the boar's neck with a wet, grinding crunch.
The beast screamed.
A high, furious squeal.
Blood sprayed across the grass.
Skyler fell with it, his body crushed beneath the creature's dying weight.
He did not pull away.
Instead he gripped the hilt with both hands and pushed down with every ounce of strength he possessed.
The boar thrashed violently.
Its snapping jaws inches from his face.
'Die.'
'Just die.'
For a moment their eyes met.
Two creatures struggling against a script neither had written.
Then the light faded.
The thrashing stopped.
Silence returned to the forest.
Skyler lay beneath the corpse, drenched in hot blood.
His first adventure.
It smelled like iron.
Lia stepped out from the shadows.
Her expression had changed.
She looked at the boar.
At the sword buried in its neck.
Then at Skyler.
"That wasn't the swordplay you practiced."
"No," Skyler agreed.
He wiped the blade clean on a patch of moss.
"You're being… quiet again," Lia said softly.
Skyler didn't look at her.
"Silence is the only thing that's free in this world."
He didn't say the rest aloud.
'And it may be the most powerful tool we have.'
Lia watched him carefully.
The boy she knew was gone.
In his place stood someone colder.
Sharper.
Then the sensation returned.
Ice needles.
A pressure inside his skull.
The world pulsed.
[…Synchronisation Awaiting…]
The presence pressed against his mind like an unseen tide.
Aggressive.
Insistent.
Skyler closed his eyes.
And pushed back.
He refused.
The pulse faded.
Lia stepped closer.
"Are you okay, Skyle?"
Before he could answer~
The gaze returned.
Watching.
From somewhere deep within the forest.
Then it vanished.
Far away, hidden among the trees, a shadowed figure chuckled softly.
"Interesting."
The forest swallowed the sound.
Skyler opened his eyes.
"Lia," he said quietly.
"Have you ever felt like something was trying to control you?"
She frowned slightly.
"You mean the world's will?"
She shrugged.
"But it protects us. It doesn't control us."
Skyler looked skeptical.
But he didn't argue.
Instead he simply nodded.
Silently making a promise to himself.
He would never allow himself to become a puppet.
The sun was setting now.
The sky burned with bruised purple and dull heavy orange.
"Let's go," Skyler said.
"The shadows are getting long."
Lia followed.
But she kept glancing at him.
Maintaining a small distance.
For the first time in her life…
She felt like she didn't know the boy walking ahead of her.
And for the first time in his life.
Skyler had learned how to walk.
He was finally holding the pen.