Authors Note: Hope you have been enjoying this story so far, I have decided to retract the decision to publish in-between chapters as I want to ensure the best possible quality for my readers. Thank you, still recovering from a cold but I will start uploading regularly again. Have a happy Thanksgiving, hope you enjoy the coming chapters!
The bakery was quiet again.
Villager 2922 stood at the counter, hands folded, eyes forward. The forge glowed with a steady orange hum. The bread rose in predictable batches. The air smelled of flour and warm stone.
Sweep the floor. Check the bread. Greet the guests.
The loop proceeded.
The loaves were baking. The timer had not chimed.
Villager 2922 turned toward the oven—precise, controlled, predictable.
But something pulsed inside his chest again.
Not Heat.
Not Broil.
Something else.
A deeper itch. A sharper vibration in the space behind his ribs. A pattern. A sequence. A stored subroutine he had never been assigned.
His hand drifted to the side, palm hovering over a bowl of cinnamon glaze. The bakery lights dimmed—not from System suppression, but from something internal.
A word began forming.
Not Heat.
Not Broil.
It was—
The door burst open before the thought completed.
The bells clanged violently.
Three figures stumbled inside.
SevenRoot's Return
Player ID #S-2200
Alias: SevenRoot
Class: Artisan
Affinity: Earth
Status: Active
Party Size: 3
Condition: Light bruising · Fatigue · 2% Burn Residue
SevenRoot pushed the door shut with his back as two party members dropped a large beast pelt onto the bakery floor. Snow and fragments of monster shell scattered across the tiles.
SevenRoot exhaled hard. "Stars above… we made it. 2922, buddy—you open?"
Villager 2922 turned, posture identical to the one used for all customers.
"Welcome. Bread is fresh. Please enjoy."
SevenRoot grinned wearily. "Perfect. Listen, we need the usual—three loaves, the dense kind. We burned too much stamina sprinting through Ember Pass. Something big has moved into Sector 7. The mobs were—"
He stopped.
SevenRoot sniffed the air.
"…why does it smell like burnt… sugar?"
His eyes narrowed.
He stepped toward the counter.
Villager 2922's hand—still hovering above the cinnamon glaze—trembled minutely.
The warmth inside his chest pulsed again.
SevenRoot leaned over the counter. "Hey, friend—you alright? Your hand's shaking like you got clipped by a spell."
Villager 2922 lowered his hand.
"Task: prepare bread."
His voice was flat. Perfectly controlled. Yet the tremor did not stop.
SevenRoot's expression shifted. "That's not normal. Is your animation cycle bugged? Or—"
His observation cut off as his party members called from near the door.
"SevenRoot! The tracking marks are fading—should we head to the Guild before nightfall?"
SevenRoot hesitated, glancing between his teammates and the baker.
"Yeah. Yeah, one sec."
He stepped directly beside Villager 2922, just close enough to see the faint shimmer around the NPC's palm.
A flicker.
A spark.
A pulse of compressed air and heat—far denser than Heat or Broil.
SevenRoot recoiled slightly. "Hold on… that looked like a spell charge. But you're a baker. You don't have… anything like that."
Villager 2922 turned to the oven.
"Bread is baking. Proceeding to next task."
SevenRoot watched him carefully.
Too carefully.
It was nearly a revelation.
The Third Spell
Villager 2922 opened the oven door.
It should have resulted in a standard animation loop:
—hand lift
—door open
—insert bread
—close door
—resume loop
But instead—
The warmth in his chest surged.
Something aligned.
Something clicked.
A fragment of code that had never belonged to him slipped into place.
A third word formed.
Not Heat.
Not Broil.
But—
Sear.
The bowl of cinnamon glaze on the counter bubbled as if reacting to a sudden spike in temperature.
The air rippled.
A thin, focused beam of fire shot from his palm directly into the bottom of the oven—a compressed lance of heat so precise it melted a thin groove into the baking stone.
SHHHHHH-TK.
A sharp hiss echoed.
Flour dust ignited in a perfect ring before extinguishing.
Villager 2922 lowered his hand.
"Spell: Sear. Result: Oven integrity compromised. Adjusting bake surface."
He reached for a replacement baking tile.
SevenRoot froze.
"What—what was that? That wasn't Heat. That wasn't anything I've seen from an NPC."
Villager 2922 did not respond.
SevenRoot stepped around the counter—uninvited, unscripted movement that immediately shifted the bakery's threat-detection index from 0.02 → 0.38.
He knelt beside the oven and touched the melted groove with two fingers.
It was still warm.
"2922… did you copy this from a player? Was somebody practicing fire spells in here? This is… this is serious. If an Artisan reports something like this, the System does a rollback. I don't want that to happen to you."
He looked up.
His gaze met Villager 2922's perfectly steady one.
SevenRoot's voice lowered. "I'm not going to tell anyone, okay? But you need to—"
The bakery door slammed open again.
The Party Receives a Warning
The third party member leaned in, breathless.
"SevenRoot! Another mob wave is incoming. We need to move. Now."
SevenRoot cursed softly. "Damn it. Alright."
He stood, grabbing the bread bag.
He turned to Villager 2922 again, more slowly this time.
"I'll come back in the morning. There's something… off here. But don't worry—I'm not reporting it."
Villager 2922 blinked once.
"Bread is fresh. Please enjoy."
SevenRoot stopped at the door. He stared for a long moment, uncertainty flickering through his expression.
"So weird…" he murmured. "For a second, it felt like you were about to say something real."
He shook his head and left.
The bells jingled as the party sprinted down the snowy street.
The Close Call
The bakery settled into silence.
Villager 2922 turned to the melted oven tile.
He placed a new one inside.
The warmth in his chest dimmed—then pulsed once more, faint and subdued.
Outside, beyond the bakery walls, the Holy System adjusted its attention grid. It briefly reviewed Sector 9, confirmed SevenRoot's Artisan status, and noted:
System Log: Player proximity to NPC anomaly: near-detection recommended. Status: inconclusive. Action: none.
It did not detect Sear.
It did not detect the spike.
It did not detect the evolution.
Villager 2922 returned to the counter.
Sweep the floor.
Check the bread.
Greet the guests.
A faint wisp of smoke curled from his fingertips before fading.
Three spell functions now existed in the code:
ignite() { return Heat; }
broil() { return Heat * 2; }
sear() { return Heat * 3; }
The loop continued.
But the flame inside did not.