Chapter 4 - Outside Village
It had been a full day since the mage healed my fractured arm. Thanks to his bizarre, mystical intervention, I was fully recovered now, with no lingering stiffness or phantom aches. I sat in the familiar, comforting quiet of the study room, watching the late morning sunlight spill through the small window, painting the aged parchment pages of my open book in brilliant streaks of gold.
"So..." I hummed softly under my breath, staring down at my unblemished palm. "You just pour mana into it, huh?"
When Damian performed the healing spell, he had muttered a sequence of words under his breath. I had been in too much pain to register the exact incantation because his voice was far too low, but one specific phrase he mentioned afterward stuck firmly in my mind.
He had explicitly stated that he poured his own mana directly into my arm to force the bone to knit back together.
I could still vividly remember the sensation. It was a bizarre, tingling warmth, feeling exactly like trapped sunlight circulating beneath the skin. I knew that distinct feeling now. The memory of it was burned into my consciousness. If magic was simply a matter of moving that internal energy, then maybe, just maybe, I could replicate it on my own terms.
I stretched my right arm forward, locking my elbow, and steadied my breathing. Then, gathering as much confidence as a four-year-old child could muster, I raised my hand toward the wooden desk and began to recite the litmus spell.
"Oh verdant winds and whispers of the woods, heed my call and answer with growth, Verdant To..."
BAM!
The heavy wooden door slammed open with a thunderous kick. I jolted so violently that my center of gravity shifted, nearly sending me tumbling out of the oversized chair. A cold bead of sweat immediately trailed down my temple.
Standing defiantly in the doorway was Lyra. Her arms were tightly crossed over her chest, her face shadowed by the exact kind of simmering, unreasonable glare only an older sister could summon. Her long, sky-blue hair caught the ambient sunlight, framing her like an angry storm cloud.
"Father is calling you downstairs," she snapped.
Then, without waiting for a single word of acknowledgment, she spun on her heel and marched away, her footsteps echoing loudly down the hallway.
I let out a long, ragged sigh, my shoulders sagging in complete defeat. "Damn kid," I muttered under my breath.
The absolute audacity of her behavior was astounding. After nearly breaking my arm the previous day, she was currently strutting around the house like I owed her a personal apology. It was completely crazy.
Still muttering complaints to myself, I closed the leather-bound book and slid it carefully back onto the shelf. I brushed the lingering dust from my tiny shirt, squared my shoulders, and headed down the staircase.
Waiting patiently at the foot of the steps was my father. The bright morning light caught his short blue hair, illuminating the calm, steady warmth in his rose-colored eyes. He looked up, his gaze locking onto me as I descended.
"Want to come outside with Papa?" he asked, his deep voice incredibly gentle. "I need to travel to the village market to buy some heavy gear and construction tools for the new barn."
I froze completely mid-step, my foot hovering dangerously over the riser.
Outside?
Even after spending four full years inside this world, the simple thought of venturing out among complete strangers made my stomach tighten into a painful knot. My mind immediately flashed back to the suffocating crowds of my past life: the packed airports, the cold concrete sidewalks, and the endless, glaring faces of passing strangers. I remembered the paralyzing fear of judgment.
Yesterday, when the mage came to heal me, the sheer terror of society hadn't crossed my mind. I had been far too focused, entirely entranced by the literal manifestation of magic and possibility. The raw excitement had temporarily drowned out my deep-seated social anxiety.
But now, standing in the still, safe air of our home, the crushing weight of going out into the public eye returned with a vengeance. My lips parted to decline the offer, but before a single syllable could escape my throat, Lyra's sharp voice cut through the air like a thrown dagger.
"Kyro is being an absolute wuss," she said smugly, stepping out from the kitchen corner. "I will go with you instead!" She threw her hand high into the air, acting as though she had just bravely volunteered for a dangerous military quest.
Before either Thorskil or I could utter a response, the adjacent kitchen door banged open with a loud rattle.
Reyna marched out into the living space, her canvas apron heavily dusted with white flour. She held a massive wooden ladle gripped tightly in her powerful hand, holding it less like a cooking utensil and more like a defensive war club.
"No you are not, young lady!" she barked, her green eyes flashing with maternal authority.
Lyra flinched instantly, taking an unconscious, defensive step backward. I curled my lips into a small, silent smirk, feeling thoroughly vindicated by her immediate misfortune.
Thorskil moved gently between them, placing a massive, calming hand firmly on Reyna's shoulder to de-escalate the tension.
"It is alright, Rey," he said, his voice low, smooth, and deeply soothing. "I can bring Lyra along with us."
Reyna frowned, a shadow of profound uncertainty clouding her sharp eyes. "But Thors, Lyra is strictly grounded. Aren't we supposed to be actively punishing her? She nearly got Kyro killed yesterday. What happens if she carelessly hurts him again while you are out in the village?"
Thorskil chuckled softly, using his free hand to brush a stray lock of blue hair behind his ear. "She still isn't allowed to eat any sweets for the rest of the week, remember? Besides, the kids have me protecting them. Absolutely nothing is going to happen."
"I..." Reyna began, clearly prepared to mount a fierce counter-argument. But the moment her green eyes met his calm, rose-tinted gaze, her rigid resistance completely melted away. She let out a soft sigh, lowering the heavy ladle. "Fine. Just... please be incredibly careful out there."
"I always am." Thorskil smiled warmly, leaning down to press a gentle, affectionate kiss against her lips.
The display of unabashed parental affection caused both Lyra and me to let out a simultaneous, visceral groan.
"Ugh," Lyra muttered, visibly recoiling in disgust. "Can you two seriously not do that right in front of us?"
I winced alongside her, but my discomfort was rooted in a fundamentally different reason. My sister's disgust was merely typical sibling cringe, but for me, the sight triggered a painful cascade of old, buried memories. I remembered the sterile, suffocating loneliness of my past life on Earth. I remembered the heavy silence of a household fractured by divorce, the absolute absence of affection, and the bitter environment where love never seemed to touch anyone.
And yet, here I was now, trapped in a new existence with parents who held each other without a shred of shame, loving each other openly, loudly, and genuinely.
My father and mother from my past life used to be like that, a long time ago, I thought, a bitter ache blooming in my chest.
I quickly looked away from them, raising a hand to brush an invisible speck of dust from my sleeve to hide my changing expression. "Let's just... go already."
***
We rode along the dusty outer path of Ytval Village, the quiet, isolated agricultural settlement we called home. It was tucked away securely near the kingdom's outermost borders, far removed from any bustling metropolitan areas.
The entire village was surrounded by an incredibly sturdy, towering wooden fence that stretched for miles around the perimeter of the farmlands. The defensive wall featured three major checkpoints: individual fortified entrances and exits located at the northern, eastern, and southern points of the territory. Armed guards roamed the boundaries on a regular schedule, ensuring that roaming bandits or predatory monsters never threatened the vast, vital farmlands. Directly adjacent to the western side of Ytval was a dense, ominous forest. According to the local rumors, the deeper one ventured into the thick canopy, the wetter and more treacherous the terrain became.
What in the world was I thinking? I thought bitterly, staring blankly at the horse's mane. I could have easily just declined the entire trip. Argh! It's too late for regrets now, I am already out here in the open.
I sat at the absolute front of the saddle, feeling every rhythmic shift of the horse's massive weight beneath my small frame. Behind me, Lyra rode at the very rear, softly humming a cheerful tune to herself, clearly delighted to be granted temporary freedom from her house arrest. With every gentle stride the horse took, her mood seemed to brighten further.
"Thank you, Papa," she said happily, wrapping her arms tighter around Thorskil's broad waist.
He didn't respond with spoken words, but a faint, affectionate smile tugged at the corner of his lips. As for me, I remained entirely silent. I reached up and pulled the heavy cloth wrap tighter over my head and across my lower face, intentionally styling it to function like a deep, obscuring hood. I gripped the fabric tightly with one hand, ensuring it stayed firmly in place.
I desperately didn't want to be seen. I feared the casual stares of the farmers, the whispers of the villagers, and the imagined judgment lurking within the eyes of complete strangers. Even if absolutely no one was actually paying attention to a toddler on a horse, the residual trauma of my past life kept me paralyzed.
What would they think of me if they looked closely? What would they actually see?
I let out a silent, internal sigh. I simply wasn't ready to find out.
The soft, rhythmic clop of hooves echoed along the hard dirt path, mingling naturally with the distant birdsong and the rustling wind weaving through the tall trees. On the surface, the environment was completely peaceful.
But something subtle in the ambient air suddenly tugged at Thorskil's trained senses. He detected a discordant note beneath the natural quiet of the morning. His nose twitched subtly, identifying a sharp, bitter trace hanging precariously in the wind. It was incredibly thin, but to an experienced warrior, it was completely unmistakable.
Fear. Thorskil smelled pure, unadulterated fear.
It wasn't the wild, primal adrenaline stirred up by predatory beasts or a sudden, physical danger. His brow furrowed deeply as he shifted his rose-colored gaze downward, letting his survival instincts guide his eyes until they landed squarely on the small boy sitting directly in front of him.
Kyro.
The child sat completely rigid at the apex of the saddle, his posture stiff and his small hands clenched into tight, trembling fists over reins he wasn't even holding correctly. The heavy cloth was wrapped tightly around his head and face, completely obscuring his features, leaving nothing visible except for his wide, hyper-vigilant eyes. He looked incredibly small, far smaller than usual. It looked as though he were actively trying to vanish into the fabric itself.
"Kyro?" Thorskil's deep voice cut gently through the hush of the path.
I flinched violently at the sound of my name. "Y-yeah?"
"Are you alright, son?" Thorskil asked, his tone remarkably even, carrying zero judgment, filled only with a quiet, protective concern.
A heavy pause settled over us. I refused to turn around, keeping my eyes locked dead ahead.
"I am completely fine," I lied, the words rushing out of my mouth far too quickly to be convincing. "It is just... it is incredibly sunny today. And dusty. I just didn't want to accidentally sneeze or anything while we were riding."
Thorskil hummed low in his throat, neither affirming my obvious lie nor directly calling me out on it. He allowed the heavy silence to breathe for a moment, letting the steady, comforting rhythm of the horse fill the emotional space between us.
Then, he spoke softly, his voice dropping to a confidential register. "You know... fear has a very distinct scent, Kyro. It hangs much stronger than dust. It is even wilder than raw onions."
I froze completely, my breath catching in my throat.
Thorskil leaned forward slightly, his massive presence framing me like a shield. His voice sounded seasoned with years of hard-earned wisdom. "It is entirely alright to be afraid. The world existing beyond familiar, protective walls can easily feel enormous. It will feel loud. It can easily become too much to handle all at once. I have felt that exact same weight before."
My tight grip on the cloth wrap slackened, if only a fraction of an inch.
"I used to freeze up entirely just crossing the grand city gates when I was younger," Thorskil continued, a faint, self-deprecating smile evident in his voice. "It didn't matter how tall I stood among my peers, or how heavy the steel sword strapped to my back was. Fear isn't impressed by physical strength, Kyro. It just wants to convince you to turn around and hide."
He reached forward, his large, heavily calloused fingers resting gently yet firmly on my small shoulder. "But you do not have to face the size of this world alone. You have me standing right behind you. And you have Lyra, even if she is currently just a little bit of chaos wearing a dress."
"I heard that!" Lyra's indignant voice chirped instantly from the rear, though her tone was clearly edged with a playful, muffled giggle.
I didn't offer a verbal response. But under the reassuring weight of his massive hand, I found the courage to loosen the cloth wrap just enough to properly look out at the surrounding environment.
Vast, beautiful fields of green wheat stretched out from the edge of the dirt path, still unripened by the season but waving proudly under the golden sunlight. A pair of local farmers stood near a split-rail fence, their casual chatter drifting faintly on the wind.
Thorskil raised his free hand high in a warm greeting. "Good morning, lads!"
"Good morning, Mr. Thorskil!" one of the farmers called back cheerfully, wiping sweat from his brow and waving back with a wide smile.
I watched the brief exchange in absolute silence. The genuine warmth in the farmer's smile and the casual, unspoken trust in his neighborly tone felt completely foreign to my cynical worldview. Yet, it was oddly, undeniably comforting.
Then, Lyra tilted her head, her sharp yellow eyes narrowing. "Is Kyro actually afraid?" she asked with unvarnished, childhood innocence.
Before Thorskil could formulate an answer, she leaned out dangerously far over the saddle to peek directly at my covered face. "Why are you so scared, anyway? There is literally absolutely nothing out here to be afraid of."
I kept my mouth shut, refusing to engage. There was no point. It wasn't like a real child could ever understand the architectural trauma of a ruined adult life anyway.
"What an absolute wuss," she muttered, pulling herself back into the saddle and crossing her arms with a heavy huff.
"Lyra," Thorskil said, his deep voice instantly shifting, turning gently firm. "Do not treat your younger brother like that."
"But Papa..."
"No buts, young lady." His tone didn't rise in volume, but it carried an innate, unyielding gravity that required no shouting. "He is your brother. You two are supposed to be actively watching each other's backs in this life, not digging holes in them."
Lyra shifted uncomfortably in the saddle behind him, grumbling various complaints under her breath. "But Papa, he is just so weird! You and Mama always told me stories about how much I used to cry when I was a tiny baby! But Kyro? He only cried once, then the day after that, he never cried! He always just sits there... staring at us. He is always completely quiet. And now he is just acting in character again, he won't even speak a word to us."
She pointed an accusing finger over Thorskil's shoulder, leaning forward to make her point.
"Lyra." Thorskil's voice turned remarkably sharp, the softness completely evaporating from his delivery.
She pouted heavily, slouching back into the seat while muttering something entirely incomprehensible.
I didn't move a single muscle, nor did I speak.
I kept my head tilted sharply downward, staring at the leather of the saddle. The damp cloth still clung heavily to my skin, warm from the condensation of my rapid breathing, but the fabric suddenly felt incredibly cold against my cheeks the moment that specific word left her mouth.
Weird. That miserable word again.
I wasn't genuinely surprised that she said it. Lyra was a child, and she always blurted things out without an ounce of forethought. But that reality didn't stop the word from settling deep into the center of my chest, heavy and cold, like a smooth stone dropped into the dark waters of a quiet, isolated lake.
Maybe she was entirely right. Maybe I was fundamentally weird.
I remembered the concept of crying, not as an infant in this world, but I remembered the desperate, suffocating desire to weep back during my old life on Earth. I remembered sitting alone in that gray bedroom, hiding behind locked bathroom doors, and navigating school hallways packed to the brim with people who looked right through me. Back then, I always cried in absolute silence too. I didn't want people looking at me. I didn't want their eyes tracking my failures. I didn't want their thoughts or their unspoken judgment. Society always had something cruel to say, even when they said absolutely nothing at all.
My mind involuntarily drifted back to the high school reunion.
It was a single, agonizing event that my stepfather had practically forced me to attend, utilizing his fake, performative authority just to physically push me out of the house for a few hours.
It will be incredibly good for your social health, Paul, he had said, smiling tightly. It wasn't good for me. It was a complete nightmare. He was merely pretending to care about my well-being whenever my mother was within earshot, but I knew the objective truth. He genuinely disliked my existence. He was significantly harsher, colder, and more dismissive whenever the two of us were left entirely alone.
Everyone else from my old graduating class had accomplished something tangible. They possessed glowing corporate careers, happy families, and beautiful children with bright eyes and messy hair. Some of my old peers had three children, others had four, their faces filled with proud smiles, endless stories, printed pictures, and shared laughter.
And me? When they finally turned the conversation toward my direction, what could I actually say to them?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I had no wife, no kids, no career, and hell, I didn't even possess a single dream left intact.
I vividly remembered stammering through my words, my voice shaking as I quietly admitted to the table that I hadn't landed that specialized chemistry job I used to talk about so passionately in school. The exact position I swore to everyone I would chase until the end. I could still remember the sudden, heavy silence that suffocated the table afterward. The way their eyes instantly drifted away from my face, looking down at their drinks or across the room. No one knew what to say next.
Or worse... they absolutely did know.
I remembered the lingering stares they shot me when they thought I wasn't looking. It was a toxic mixture of pity, confusion, and a distinct twinge of embarrassment; whether they were embarrassed for my failure or for themselves, I could never genuinely tell. In that crowded room, surrounded entirely by different races, and lives that kept moving forward at a blinding pace, I felt like an object that had completely stopped. Or maybe, I had never really started living in the first place.
I had been the weird one in that room. And now, here I was, inhabiting another life, carrying another name, and existing in an entirely different world. I thought I had successfully escaped that suffocating evaluation, but it had followed me across the boundaries of death, woven tightly into this new skin.
My small fingers curled tighter around the edge of the saddle, the leather straining under my grip. I didn't look back at my sister. I didn't want Lyra to see whatever broken expression was currently painted across my face, whatever vulnerability I couldn't hide fast enough.
He is in character again... I repeated her voice inside the hollow spaces of my mind.
What was that phrase even supposed to mean? Was that truly all I was to this world? A specific role to play? A quiet, broken character? Maybe I was simply pretending. Pretending to be a normal child. Pretending that I actually belonged in this beautiful, warm family. But inside my own thoughts, I didn't feel brave, I didn't feel strong, and I certainly didn't feel like a kid with a bright, unfolding future.
I felt like something borrowed, a fragile, broken soul tucked carelessly inside a young body that didn't belong to me.
But then, the physical sensation broke through my mental spiral. Thorskil's massive hand was still resting gently on my shoulder. It was incredibly warm. He hadn't pulled his hand away after Lyra's outburst, nor had he shifted his weight. He didn't speak another word to me, either, allowing the path to remain quiet.
But that specific silence... it wasn't cold like the others, at least, that's what I thought.
[End]