I walked down the hall.
The air was thick with herbs—sharp, medicinal—and something underneath it. Faintly metallic. Blood, or what remained after healing spells had already done their work.
Every step on the polished stone floor echoed too clearly, as if the building itself was listening.
In one of the rooms, I saw him.
An old man lying in bed.
"He's been in a deep coma since the war," the woman beside me said.
"He was a true warrior."
I studied him for a moment longer.
"…I've never seen him before in my life."
"Oh well," she sighed softly.
The sound felt distant, almost detached from the room itself.
I turned toward her.
"I never asked your name."
She didn't look away from the patient.
"Astrid."
She raised her hands over the man. A faint green light gathered between her palms, slow and steady.
Something about her didn't sit right with me, though I couldn't explain why.
Then she spoke again.
"Are you left-handed?"
I blinked.
That question shouldn't have come from a guess.
"…Yeah. How did you know?"
She gave a small shrug without hesitation.
"Lucky guess."
It came too easily.
Too clean.
I watched her for a moment longer, but she didn't react.
The room settled back into silence, broken only by the faint hum of magic and the soft shift of her sleeves as she worked.
Time stretched.
The glass vials on the shelf seemed louder than they should have been. Even the bedframe creaked like it wanted attention.
Eventually, Astrid stepped back.
Her footsteps moved away from the bed.
Then toward the door.
Then faded completely.
And just like that, she was gone.
I waited a few more seconds before moving.
The air felt colder now.
The man hadn't changed.
Still unmoving.
Still peaceful in a way that didn't belong to something alive.
My fingers twitched before I even realized it.
"…Sorry," I muttered under my breath.
I wasn't sure who it was for.
Then I stepped closer.
And placed my hand on his forehead.
The world broke.
I was somewhere else again.
A place that felt wrong in a way my mind refused to describe properly.
The ground beneath me pulsed—slow, heavy, like something buried still breathing.
In front of me stood a tree.
Gray. Dead. Twisted upward mid-decay.
My hand reached into my pocket. The fragment was still there.
My left hand barely responded, numb and disconnected, like it didn't belong to me anymore.
Still, I had to continue.
I struck the tree. Nothing happened.
I struck it again. Still nothing.
The silence pressed in harder with each attempt.
On the third strike—the tree shattered.
It collapsed into dust.
Where it had stood, there was a body.
The old man.
Lying on the ground as if he had always been waiting there.
I swallowed once, hard, and stepped forward.
Then touched his forehead.
Something went wrong.
Pain didn't come first.
Memory did. Something forcing its way upward—ripped open from somewhere buried too deep to understand.
My knees hit the ground before I even realized I'd fallen. My breath turned uneven. My stomach twisted sharply.
"No—"
Voices flooded in.
Too many at once.
Too close—too familiar.
"You… sick bastard…"
My chest tightened as I tried to pull away from something that wasn't physical at all.
"Stop—stop—"
My voice broke halfway through.
"HELL… HELL… HELL!"
The word came out like it had been there long before I ever spoke it.
Then the system responded.
The body in front of me ignited.
I couldn't look away even if I wanted to.
And the voices didn't leave.
Not echoes.
Not memory fragments.
Something alive in the back of my mind.
Then I woke up.
I hit the floor hard.
A chair scraped. A table edge caught me wrong. Pain flared at the back of my head.
A small box fell beside me.
"AGH!"
I inhaled sharply, disoriented.
The room tilted slightly before stabilizing.
Footsteps rushed in.
Astrid. She was beside me immediately, hands steady as she checked my head for injury.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," I said quickly. "Just... dizzy."
Her gaze lingered for a moment longer than comfortable, then softened.
"You took a hit during treatment. Stay still."
She finished the healing with practiced ease, silence filling the gap between us.
After a moment, she exhaled.
"You're fine now."
"…Good."
"I'll take you to your bed."
[Second Judgement Completed]
[Rewards:]
Second fragment of the Sword
Left hand mobility restored
[New Mission:]
Judge five candidates
[Reward:]
Chains of Light
For a brief moment, something tightened around my wrists. Then it was gone.
Later. The antiseptic smell was gone.
Replaced by stale alcohol, wood smoke, and noise. A bar.
People talking. Laughing. Existing like nothing in the world had ever gone wrong.
I sat at a table, staring into nothing.
I sometimes miss the old world.
But it's gone.
Seventeen years.
And I still don't know how to live in this one.
Sometimes I forget I'm seventeen.
Other times I forget I'm not.
If I add both lives together…
I feel older than I should be.
Too old to be here...
Too young to understand any of it...
"This is too much…" I whispered.
A sharp sound cut through the room.
Astrid slammed her hand onto the table.
"Are you even listening to me?"
I blinked.
The bar snapped back into focus—mugs, voices, flickering torchlight.
"Sorry," I said quietly. "I was... thinking."
She exhaled through her nose.
"I'm trying to help you."
A pause.
"You were with that man yesterday."
I didn't answer.
"He died this morning."
The noise of the bar didn't stop.
But everything in me did.
"I'm not accusing you," she added more softly.
"I'm not—I'm not framing you as a killer."
"…I understand," I said.
And I did.
That was the problem.
She studied me for a long moment before standing.
We left the bar.
Outside, the wind cut colder than before. The street was full of people, but none of it felt alive—just motion without weight.
After a while, Astrid spoke.
"You should leave for a while. Go to the city. Learn magic. Lay low."
"…You think that's best?"
"I do."
Her expression stayed controlled. Too controlled to read.
"I'll handle things here."
She turned to leave, then paused.
"I trust you."
A beat passed.
"So don't make me regret it."