The day after my life was both spared and repurposed, I woke before the first grey light of dawn. There was no internal debate, no lingering desire for the comfort of sleep. A new sense of duty, heavy and absolute, had settled into my very bones. I was the scout now. And a scout did not wait for the sun.
After a quick wash, I saw it lying neatly folded at the foot of my bed. A cloak. It was made of a dark, durable material, almost black, but woven with fine, intricate gold thread that formed subtle patterns resembling circuitry or geological ley lines. It was heavy, functional, and yet undeniably elegant. And it was achingly, painfully familiar. It was Silas's style.
I picked it up, the fabric cool and smooth in my hands. Lyra must have left it here while I slept. I swung it over my shoulders, the weight settling comfortably. It wasn't a piece of armor, designed to protect. It was a statement. A uniform for a job I never applied for. Looking at my faint reflection in the dark glass of the window, I didn't see Kael, the glitched player. I saw the new scout for the Builder Faction. A replacement.
I pushed the thought down. There was no room for it. There was only the duty.
When I entered the dining hall, Lyra was the only one there, arranging the simple breakfast spread. She looked up as I entered, and for a moment, her usual placid expression faltered, replaced by a flicker of something sad and nostalgic before she composed herself.
"Good morning, Kael-sama," she said, her voice a soft, gentle melody. "You are awake early." Her amber eyes swept over me, taking in the new cloak. A small, genuine smile touched her lips. "It suits you. You look… quite dashing."
A faint heat rose in my cheeks at the unexpected compliment. "Uh, thanks, Lyra," I mumbled, pulling the cloak a little tighter around myself. "It's… really well made."
"It was a gift," she explained, her gaze softening. "To celebrate your new position. A promotion, of sorts."
A promotion. The word felt hollow, a polite euphemism for the grim reality of my situation. But I saw in her eyes that she meant it kindly, a gesture to help me feel like I belonged, that I had earned my place here rather than simply inheriting a dead man's shoes. I wasn't going to dishonor her kindness by arguing the point.
"Right," I said with a small nod. "A promotion. Thank you, Lyra."
The others arrived shortly after, one by one. Fen, Valerius, Elara. They all took their usual seats. The empty chair was still there, a silent, unacknowledged monument to our loss. I saw each of them give my new cloak a brief, passing glance. No one commented on it, but I saw the flicker of memory in their eyes. They saw him too.
Breakfast was a quiet affair, even more so than usual. The silence was a conversation, and it was all about the person who wasn't there. We ate with a shared, unspoken understanding. We were a machine with a missing part, and we were all still learning how to function around the void.
When the meal was over, the routine took over. Valerius stood, gave a curt nod, and headed for the training yard. Fen followed, pausing only to look at me and jerk his head toward the north wall, a silent reminder of our ongoing repair work. I shook my head slightly. "New duties today, Fen." He grunted in understanding and left for the workshop. Elara simply vanished, as she often did, likely off to commune with the city's data-streams.
Soon, it was just Lyra and me in the quiet hall as she began to clear the table.
"Good luck today, Kael-sama," she said softly. "Your first day can be daunting."
"Thanks," I said, giving her a small smile before turning to face my new reality.
The Builder had said I would be taking over Silas's duties, and my mind had immediately conjured images of perilous treks into the uncharted wasteland. But my first official assignment, left for me on a neat data-slate by Lyra, was something different. It was both less dangerous and, in its own way, far more overwhelming.
Objective:Conduct a full structural integrity survey of Out of Boundary City. Identify and log all areas requiring immediate or future maintenance. Report findings to Foreman Fen.
It was a city-wide inspection. I wasn't being sent into the unknown dangers of the wasteland. I was being tasked with understanding every street, every alley, every single corner of the home I was now sworn to protect. It was a monumental task, a way for me to learn the city from the ground up, to truly understand the scale of what the Builder had created and what Silas had died to protect.
Lyra had also left me a map. I unrolled the thick, durable parchment on the table. It was the first time I had ever seen a complete, detailed schematic of the city. My eyes widened.
The city wasn't a haphazard collection of districts that had grown over time. It was a perfectly designed wheel. At the very center, the hub, was a large, circular district simply labeled 'Core'—the Builder Faction headquarters. Extending from it, like four massive spokes, were the other primary districts.
To the north, a sprawling, fortified area was labeled 'Sector Alpha.' A small, crossed-swords insignia marked it as the Adventurer Faction's domain. To the east, the tall, orderly grid of the 'Sector Beta' was marked with the scales of justice—the Administrator Faction. To the south, a dense, chaotic but clearly wealthy district, 'Sector Gamma,' was marked with the sign of a gold coin—the Merchant Faction.
But it was the fourth spoke, the one extending to the west, that made me pause. It was just as large as the others, a complex network of streets and buildings. But it had no faction insignia. It had no official designation like the others. It was simply labeled, in plain, blocky letters: 'Neutral Sector.'
My finger traced the border of the unlabeled district. I had been to the other three. I had faced the Adventurers' brutal pragmatism, been processed by the Administrators' rigid bureaucracy, and glimpsed the Merchants' chaotic commerce. But this place… this was a blank spot on my mental map. A place of unknown purpose in a city where everything had a purpose.
In a world built on order and function, an intentional void was the most intriguing and potentially dangerous thing of all.
My mission was to survey the entire city. There was no prescribed order. I could start wherever I wanted.
My choice was already made.
I rolled up the map, my heart pounding with a new, unfamiliar mixture of trepidation and burning curiosity. My first day as the city's scout. And my first destination would be the one place that nobody had ever bothered to tell me about.