The city walls of Whitepeak grew from a smudge on the horizon into a formidable bastion of grey stone, its peaks clawing at the sky. The traffic on the road thickened around Kaito. He saw wagons laden with salvaged belongings from outlying farms, their drivers' faces etched with a grim exhaustion. He saw patrols of armored guards, their eyes constantly scanning the tree line, their hands never far from their weapons. The air was tense, a bowstring pulled taut.
It was a world of rules, of walls and weapons and ranks. And he was a question mark walking silently in its midst.
His own nature was a quiet hum of confusion in the back of his mind. He knew he was powerful. The ease with which he had trapped the boar, the way the very earth answered his will—it felt as natural as breathing in this new body. But the why of it was a locked door. [Sage] offered data, not understanding.
[Sage, these people… they have to train to get stronger. They have levels. Why is it so different for me?]
[Your physiological paradigm operates on principles outside the standard growth matrix of this reality,] came the calm, measured reply. [You do not accumulate power; you… integrate it. The system lacks the necessary framework to quantify this process.]
Integrate. The word felt significant, but the meaning slipped away from him, like trying to hold water. He remembered the Titan, but the memory was a ghost—a feeling of immense size and a loud noise, followed by the solid weight of the staff in his hand. The connection between the two was a blur. He was a book with all the pages glued together.
A commotion ahead broke his reverie. A merchant's cart, overloaded with wooden crates, had a wheel stuck in a deep rut. The driver was whipping his horses, their flanks lathered in sweat and fear, but the cart only groaned, sinking deeper.
Without a thought, Kaito stepped off the road. He didn't raise his staff or chant a spell. He simply looked at the mired wheel and the patch of earth beneath it, and he willed it to be solid. It was a tiny, focused application of the same power that had moved mountains. The mud hardened to packed clay. The wheel found purchase. With a lurch, the cart rolled free.
The driver stared, his whip forgotten. He looked from the suddenly firm ground to Kaito, his expression a mixture of awe and suspicion. "Th-thank you, stranger," he stammered, not waiting for a reply before snapping the reins and hurrying his cart towards the city gates.
Kaito felt a pang of that now-familiar isolation. He had helped, but the act only highlighted his difference. He was a stone dropped in a pond, and the ripples he caused were not like anyone else's.
He joined the line of people waiting to enter the city, his simple clothes and lack of visible weapons making him just another refugee in the crowd. The guards at the gate were questioning everyone, their voices sharp with stress.
"Reason for entering Whitepeak?" a guard barked at him, his eyes scanning Kaito up and down.
"I'm here to help," Kaito said, his voice calm. It was the truth.
The guard gave a humorless snort. "Aren't we all? You an adventurer? Where's your guild badge?"
Kaito had no badge. He had nothing but the clothes he'd made from dirt and the staff that felt like a part of his own arm. He was saved from answering by a sudden shift in the atmosphere.
A wave of palpable relief swept through the crowd. People were pointing towards the sky above the city's central keep. Kaito looked up and saw it—a banner, now being raised, depicting a silver sword piercing a crimson heart on a field of blue.
"It's the banner of the Argent Vanguard!" someone whispered, their voice filled with reverence. "A Hero is here! We're saved!"
Kaito watched the banner unfurl in the wind. So, the other powerful one was here. Not a wandering anomaly like him, but a recognized part of this world's order. A "Hero."
As he finally passed through the massive gates and into the bustling, anxious city, his purpose solidified. He would find this Hero. Not to fight, but to observe. To understand the rules of this world he was trapped in, and to see if there was a place within its walls for a being who, for reasons he could never remember, had none.