The forest thinned as the sun climbed higher. Arin walked in silence beside Lia, his small steps careful, measured. His body still felt fragile, as if one wrong movement might tear something inside him open again. Each breath came easier than before, but the fear lingered, clinging like a second skin. He didn't know where he was going. Only that standing still was no longer an option.
The berries they'd gathered sat in a cloth bundle tied to Lia's belt. The sound of her boots against the forest floor was steady, practiced. She walked with the ease of someone trained to survive outdoors, her posture relaxed but alert, eyes scanning ahead and to the sides without conscious effort.
Arin noticed everything now. Not just her strength—but the way she moved around him. She kept herself slightly forward, subtly placing her body between him and open spaces. When a branch needed to be cleared, it was always her hand that did it. She was a living shield, and the realization stirred something complicated inside him. Satoshi's mind recognized the survival logic. Arin's heart felt a fragile, warming gratitude.
They hadn't gone far when the air changed. Arin felt it first—not as a sound, but as a pressure. A presence. Heavy. Watching.
Then came the growl. Low. Wet. Vibrating through the ground itself.
Lia stopped instantly, one hand already reaching for the crude knife she'd carved from a broken branch. Her eyes narrowed, scanning the dense undergrowth to their left.
Arin's breath hitched.
The bushes parted with a violent rustle. A Thornback Boar emerged. It was massive—easily as tall as Arin's chest—its thick hide a pincushion of jagged, dirty quills. Tusks like curved daggers gleamed as it snorted, hot breath pluming in the cool air. Its small, furious eyes were fixed on Lia.
Before Lia could even fully raise her weapon, Arin moved.
She's still healing. Her body needs rest. I can't let her face this alone.
"Get back!" he shouted. The sound of his own voice surprised him—high, thin with fear, but there was no hesitation in his body as he stepped forward, placing himself squarely between Lia and the boar.
His hands lifted. He didn't think of a spell. He thought of distance. A wall. A shove. Get it away from her.
Mana stirred. Golden light flickered uncertainly around his palms, unstable but present, wavering like a candle in a strong wind. He was trying to protect her.
She looked at Arin—his small, trembling hands still faintly glowing with fading golden light, his chest heaving with more than just fear.
He had stepped forward. He had seen a monster, seen her (a stranger, and one who had hurt him at that), and his first instinct had been to put himself in harm's way.
Lia's heart clenched painfully. It made no sense. It shattered every image she had of boys.
The image of boys she'd grown up with—an image etched by bitter experience and universal teaching—cracked like thin ice. Those boys had been selfish. Pampered princes in their sequestered worlds, their conversations laced with a bored, entitled narcissism. They saw women as servants, as guards, as potential threats, or at best, as necessary nuisances for procreation. Their world revolved entirely around their own safety and comfort. Courage was a foreign concept; it was the women's job to risk their lives for men.
But Arin…
Arin had just acted with a selflessness that left her breathless. It wasn't calculated. It wasn't for show. It was a raw, instinctual flare of protectiveness. Foolish? Goddess, yes. Reckless enough to make her heart stutter with panic. But it was real.
It was courage.
A kind of courage she'd only ever seen in the eyes of her fellow soldiers before a dangerous charge. The courage to face something bigger and fiercer than yourself for the sake of someone else.
"Arin!" she snapped, not in anger, but in command.
She moved. One hand pressed firmly between his shoulder blades, pushing him back just enough to clear her path—a motion that was protective, not violent.
Then she struck.
Her kick was a blur, landing squarely on the boar's snout with a sickening crunch of cartilage. The creature squealed, a sound of pure shock and pain, stumbling back. Lia didn't let it recover. She flowed forward, pivoting on her heel, and brought the heavy, knotted hilt of her branch-knife down in a short, sharp arc against the boar's temple.
THWACK.
The boar's legs buckled. It stood dazed for half a second, then, with a panicked, guttural screech, it turned and fled, crashing back into the forest until the sounds of its flight faded into nothing.
Silence returned, heavy and profound.
Arin stared, his mouth agape. The entire confrontation had lasted less than ten seconds. The strength she had displayed—measured, efficient, overwhelming—was nothing like the chaotic pulse of his own magic. It was precision. It was certainty. She wasn't just a wounded girl. She was a warrior.
Lia exhaled slowly, her shoulders relaxing only when she was sure the threat was gone. She turned to him, her eyes sharp with concern.
"Are you hurt?"
Arin shook his head, still stunned. "I… I was trying to help."
"I know," she said. And she did. For the first time, she felt she understood something fundamental about him. This wasn't a boy hiding behind walls. This was someone who, when pushed, would try to build a wall in front of someone else. The smile that touched her lips was unfamiliar on her own face—tender, amazed, and fiercely proud. "You can always rely on me."
It was a promise, and a plea. Let me be the shield so you don't have to be. Let me repay this bravery by ensuring you never have to be that brave again.
She was the guide, the protector. He was the one to be guarded. She nodded, more to herself than to him, and gestured down the path.
"Let's keep moving. Silverford isn't far."
As they joined the main road to Silverford, Arin's newly opened eyes began to see the world for what it was.
The travelers were almost all women. Tall women in chainmail, lithe women with bows, sturdy women driving carts. They walked with an easy confidence, their voices loud and their laughter unchecked.
The few men he saw were different. They were older, their postures subdued. One was flanked by two stern-looking women in leather armor, their hands never far from their sword hilts. Another had his face half-hidden by a deep hood, his steps hurried. They moved through the world like precious, fragile objects being transported under heavy guard.
A cold understanding settled in Arin's stomach. This world is not like mine. The norms were inverted. The power, the presence, the public space—it all belonged to women.
Lia followed his gaze. "There's been a recent increase in attacks on nearby villages by orcs and goblins," she said quietly, her voice dropping so only he could hear. "They're targeting men the most. That's why every man you see is guarded like a royal treasure."
Arin swallowed, the pieces clicking into a terrifying mosaic.
They stopped by a shallow stream in the afternoon to rest. Lia knelt to refill her waterskin while Arin sat on a mossy log, the day's exhaustion seeping into his bones.
"Where did you learn to use magic?" Lia asked after a comfortable silence.
"It… came naturally to me," Arin said, choosing his words carefully. "I feel instinctively that if I do this, it will heal. I don't know how I know."
"Wow, Arin," Lia said, her tone full of sincere awe. "You're a genius. To grasp mana manipulation without any formal teaching… you could become a great mage."
"So, are men generally mages?" Arin asked, probing for more of this world's rules.
Lia shook her head, sitting back on her heels. "No. They usually don't leave their family estates or city quarters. Men generally can't use combat magic. Their affinity is supposed to be faint. We see very few men in adventurer guilds. If there are any, they take purely administrative roles in society. It's… very rare to see a man adventuring. If they do, they're always carried by a full party of female protectors."
"Oh," Arin nodded, the word heavy. He was an anomaly on multiple levels.
They reached Silverford as the evening sun gilded the wooden palisades. The town was guarded by large, muscular women who looked more like seasoned brawlers than soldiers. Their eyes, sharp and assessing, scanned everyone who entered. There was no formal checkpoint, but the weight of their collective gaze was a palpable pressure.
To them, Arin—maintaining his "Aria" illusion as a blonde, unremarkable girl—was invisible. But their eyes lingered on Lia, appraising her weapons, her athletic build, the subtle signs of her training. They were looks that calculated threat and value. Arin felt a deep, instinctual unease slither down his spine. He drifted closer, his small hand finding and clutching a fold of Lia's tunic.
Lia booked a single room at a bustling inn called The Sturdy Oak. The room had two narrow beds. That night, sheer exhaustion claimed Arin the moment his head touched the rough pillow, pulling him into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Lia, however, lay awake for hours. She lay on her side, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest in the moonlight filtering through the shutters.
The reality of it was overwhelming. A kind, magically gifted, breathtakingly brave boy was sleeping mere feet from her. It was a fantasy she'd never dared entertain, made flesh. A fierce, possessive warmth bloomed in her chest—a sudden, vivid image of claiming him, of him belonging to her and her alone. It was so intense it stole her breath.
It was followed immediately by a wave of guilt so cold it felt like a plunge into an icy river.
He's a child. He trusts you to protect him, not… not to conquer him.
She clamped down on the spiraling thoughts, focusing on the innocent curve of his cheek, the softness of his sleep-slackened mouth. She was a soldier. She had discipline.
The world will break him if I don't stand between them, she thought, the vow solidifying in the quiet dark. She would be his shield. She would control herself.
She had to.