Three days. Three brutal, restless days. I used to think I understood exhaustion. But after watching Lyra and Levin fight nonstop while I dangled uselessly from her neck, I realized I knew nothing at all.
Aether Tusks with jagged, sword-like tusks. Flying monkeys hurling enchanted stones with deadly accuracy. Slime wolves splitting in two with every strike. Vinecrawlers singing lullabies meant to drag you beneath the soil. Eyeless owls circling overhead, their screeches echoing with languages that cracked Levin once into tears.
Each night, the campfire barely held them together. Each morning, fresh blood painted the grass.
And me? I just hung there, too intact for comfort. Back on Earth, grinding levels in RPGs seemed fun. But when it's real—when blades slash, when fangs tear, when you wake up choking on your own blood, the fantasy isn't quite the same.
Yeah. Not so fun.
Kevin warned Lyra not to rely on me. My power was unstable, too random. That left her to face it all alone. The monsters never stopped. So neither did Lyra and Levin.
Lyra stood near the crackling fire, her sword dangling from numb fingers. Her shoulders slumped, chest rising in shallow, deliberate breaths. Sweat and dried blood streaked down her cheeks, carving paths through dirt caked like old war paint.
Her clothes were torn. Her boots stained. Her knees trembled with every breath, but she stayed standing. The only thing holding her up was the sheer stubbornness in her eyes.
Levin looked no better. Paler than a ghost, eyes glassy and unfocused. His usual pretty-boy glow he always carried—gone. Replaced by clenched teeth and silent, controlled breathing. Just a boy on the edge of collapse, saving every last drop of strength just to stay on his feet.
Kevin stood at the edge, spotless and freshly rested, while the rest of us had just crawled out of a monster-themed meat grinder.
The last of the forest fiends gave a final twitch, then collapsed for good. Steam hissed from its wounds, curling into the morning air.
Kevin didn't offer praise. "That was the last of them," he said, like we'd just finished stretching before the real workout.
Lyra collapsed to her knees. Levin groaned something incoherent and flopped beside her like a felled tree giving in to its own weight.
Kevin?
Still standing.
He pointed toward the eastern treeline.
"Get up. One more."
Levin blinked up at him, voice cracked dry. "We've been fighting since dawn."
"This is the final test," Kevin cut in.
"We're heading into the deepest part of Fosagi Forest. And honestly, this is the perfect time. When you're drained, aching, out of mana. Real strength shows when nothing's left. If you can endure and survive this, you'll have a real shot when the future turns ugly."
He looked at us. "Or you won't. Either way, you'll learn something."
He added, flat as ever, "Call it a growth opportunity."
"So, Kevin," I said, voice dripping with desperate hope.
"How about I stay with you instead while they go into this, uh... clearly death zone?"
He didn't even look at me.
"No. This time, Lyra might need your power."
Of course he'd say that with a straight face. Sadistic maniac.
But… annoyingly enough, he had a point.
A cruel, painful point.
Damn it...he's actually a good mentor.
And if it means Lyra can grow stronger... I won't object.
Whatever fate has in store for her, I know one thing for sure, she needs to be ready.
She can't afford to be weak. Not in this world.
She needs to be strong. Stronger than anyone.
And I'll be damned if I let her go in unprepared.
Against everyone's expectations, Lyra moved first—quiet breath then a step forward.
We walked for maybe fifteen minutes. No one said a word. Not even Lyra. The only sounds were the crunch of boots on dead leaves and the faint creak of branches overhead. Even the wind slipped past, silent, unwilling to get involved.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled low, lonely. Eerie didn't even begin to cover it. The birds had gone quiet. Only the occasional owl called out now, slow and hollow. Each second stretched, swollen with something unspoken.
At that moment we saw it.
The trees ahead weren't just denser.
They were wrong.
Bent inward, bearing the imprint of something that struck without mercy. Twisted in a failed attempt to crawl away. The bark was charcoal-black, curling in brittle patches, flaking in layers that resembled old wounds. No fire damage. Just rot from something deeper.
Pale moss drooped in long strands from the branches, swaying gently even though the air was still. They hung low and leaned inward, watching. Like claws waiting to drag us in… silent, smiling at something only they understood.
Then the fog rolled in, not drifting but pouring, a slow, deliberate tide creeping out from between the trees. It curled around our ankles in cold, coiling fingers then rose higher and swallowed everything and even sound seemed to fade into distant.
Color drained from the world, washed away until everything took on the dull haze of an abandoned memory. I watched Lyra step forward, her boots barely pressing into the ground. It no longer felt grounded.
This wasn't ordinary mist. It pressed in from all sides, heavy and suffocating, colder than guilt and just as hard to escape. It didn't simply exist... it lingered with a quiet awareness, the kind that watched from just beyond sight and listened without making a sound.
And somehow, it knew we were here.
Levin squinted into the fog, his face pale. "Uh… is it supposed to look like that? I can't even see the trees clearly anymore."
"The fog wasn't this thick before," Lyra muttered, her brow furrowing, unease and concentration etched clearly across her face. "Back in the outer woods, I could still feel my mana breathe. Here, it's... like it's sinking. Something's pressing down on it."
Kevin didn't answer right away.
He stood at the edge, eyes locked on the fog.
"This is the real Fosagi," he said at last. "The part no villager dares to chart. The Guild calls it a perfect training ground for newbies."
He paused.
"But only the ones ready to lose their grip. Ready to forge themselves and come out tempered."
I twitched in Lyra's necklace. "Okay, seriously. What's the deal with this fog? What even caused it? This isn't normal. Fog doesn't muffle sound like this."
Kevin glanced down at me. He didn't brush the question off.
"No one knows for sure," he said quietly. "But the oldest Guild records call this place a mana grave."
That shut us up. The silence that followed hung heavier than the fog itself.
"A long, long time ago—maybe a thousand years, maybe more. Back in an age even the oldest records barely remember, there was a battle here. One so massive, it tore through the forest and left behind a scar of condensed, corrupted mana. Magic that didn't fade, it sank."
Lyra's fingers twitched at her side.
His voice dropped.
"They say the forest tried to bury it. Tried to forget. But it couldn't. So now... it dreams."
Levin crossed his arms, more out of instinct than cold. His eyes flicked toward the trees, unsettled, like he could feel someone watching from just beyond the fog.
"Because this forest doesn't follow rules. Not normal ones. Mana interference. Hallucinations. Memory distortion. The mist feeds on mana. If you don't shield your mind or if your shield cracks—it gets in. Twists what you see, what you feel. Maybe even what you are. Some say it's cursed. Some say it's alive."
Levin flinched, foot dragging back through the leaves with a soft crunch. His grip tightened around his sword, knuckles pale.
Kevin lifted a hand not to stop us, but drawing an invisible line we weren't meant to cross.
"Beyond this point," he said quietly.
"You'll need to shield your minds. One step in, and the world changes. The trees blur. The sky dulls. The air turns wrong. Your thoughts might not be yours. Voices will lie. Sights will trick and if your mana wavers for even a second…don't think about it."
"Just like before, I won't protect you," he said flatly. "From here on out, you standor fallalone."
His voice was calm. Then Kevin stepped forward into the mist, it folded him instantly.
The fog swallowed him whole without a sound.
"Did he just vanish like that and leave us here...?" I muttered blankly.
"S-So... what do we do now?" Levin asked, voice tight with panic.
"The obvious," Lyra said, stepping forward. "I want to be strong."
She inhaled slowly, then wrapped her mana around her mind and just like that, she vanished too into the fog.
"Hey—wait for me!" Levin yelped, scrambling after her.
I felt it the moment Lyra stepped into the fog. The air shifted, dense and slow, thickening around us with a quiet weight that pressed deeper with every step. It carried more than just moisture, something older, drawn from memory, threaded with presence.
The mist reeked of bitterness, heavy enough to make the air tighten in our lungs. As we moved further in, the cold deepened, the kind that seeped beneath the skin and made every breath feel unwelcome.
Around us, the world thinned, edges losing shape as reality turned fragile. Lyra's skin appeared dusted in ash.
I stayed strapped to her chest, watching her eyes glaze over like she was slipping into someone else's dream.
The fog drifted close and traced along my edges, probing with quiet persistence. I felt it pushing in, searching for a way through, the moment it touched my surface, something changed.
It hesitated and pulled back.
The mist moves around me in cautious loops, as if not quite convinced of what I was, probing with quiet suspicion.
It crept in again, slower this time.
But as soon as it neared, it pulled back—jerking fast, almost startled, like it had brushed against something it was never meant to touch.
One last circle. Then... it gave up.
And that's when I felt the shift.
I think it came to a decision.
If it couldn't get to me…
It would take the next closest thing.
Lyra.
The pressure peeled away from me and pressed inward toward her.
She stumbled, the ground buckled or maybe it didn't. Her boots sank into something soft. Too soft to be real. Her breath caught mid-step and a tremble passed through her body.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her sword, bracing for something she couldn't see. The fog lingered, holding the threat in its silence—waiting to scream her into madness.
And I just dangled here powerless, unaffected, forced to watch the girl I swore to protect walk into a nightmare… while it looked straight through me.…
Treated me like I didn't exist.
I don't like where this is heading.
Every part of this feels wrong.
No.
Not again.
I won't let her face this alone.
Even if all I can do is burn from the inside, I'll find a way.
My core pulsed hard and something stirred.
Older than memory.
Something that knew it and was known in return.
It began as instinct.
Then became recognition.
The fog held something deeper than hate...
It remembered us.
And in the stillness, I heard a voice.
"Is it you?"