Dawn didn't break with force, but with a gentle invitation. A familiar, pale lavender light crept in through the single small window in Corvus Nightshade's bedroom, piercing the thick layer of dust on the glass and painting a silvery streak across the narrow cot where Devon lay asleep. For the first time since his fall into this world, he awoke not to a jolt of terror, not to a searing pain, and not to the sickening movements of a creature trying to devour him. He awoke to silence.
It was a silence unlike the oppressive quiet of the monster-infested woods or the deathly stillness of an abandoned cabin. This was a peaceful silence. The silence of a home. He lay there for what felt like an eternity, his eyes still closed, simply listening. He could hear the sound of his own breathing, steady and deep. He could hear the beat of his own heart, a calm and reassuring rhythm within his chest. And beneath it all, he could hear the soft rustling of wind through the silver birch trees outside, a soothing whisper from a world that, for the moment, had decided to let him live.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. The dark wooden ceiling above him was solid and real. He was inside. He was safe. He wiggled his fingers, then his toes. There was no pain. The green magic stone had rewoven his body with divine efficiency, leaving no trace of the tortures he had inflicted upon himself save for the burning memory. That memory was a ghost in the machine, an echo of suffering that throbbed beneath his flawless skin. He could feel the phantom sting of the burning knife, the gruesome tug of needles in his flesh, and the unspeakable violation as his entrails spilled out. The healing had erased the wounds, but not the trauma. That was his to keep, an invisible badge of his deepest folly.
With a soft groan that was more from stiffness than pain, he pushed himself to a sitting position. The thin, scratchy wool blanket slid off his bare shoulders. He stretched the muscles throughout his body, a morning ritual that felt like an infinite luxury. He raised his arms high above his head, feeling the satisfying pull in his back and shoulders. He rotated his neck, hearing a soft 'crack'. Each movement was a reaffirmation of ownership over his own body, a body that had almost given up on him, a body that he had broken and then, inadvertently, saved.
"Time to start a new life," he whispered into the silent room. The words felt heavy and foreign on his tongue. A new life. What did that even mean? It didn't mean happiness or homecoming. It meant an acknowledgment that his old life was dead, buried with Corvus Nightshade's skeleton beneath that great tree. This new life wouldn't be a gift. It would be a project. A campaign. A war fought every day against a world that wanted to erase him and against the stupidity within himself that had almost succeeded in doing so first.
He swung his legs off the cot, his naked body feeling vulnerable in the cool morning air. The clothes he had worn yesterday—a black t-shirt and canvas pants—lay crumpled on a chair, but he knew he couldn't put them on. They reeked of dried blood and the sweat of fear. He couldn't start a new life wearing the shroud of his old one.
First things first: fuel. He walked barefoot out of the bedroom and into the main room. The place was clean. His actions yesterday of cleaning the blood and dust felt like they had been done by someone else, in another life. It was the first act of the new tenant, and now, in the clear morning light, the cabin felt a little more like his.
He walked to the cold stone fireplace, where Corvus' makeshift kitchen was located. A few heavy iron pots hung from hooks, and on a nearby shelf were several jars filled with dried grains and herbs he didn't recognize. He found the leather pouch of hardtack he had seen yesterday—food more suited for propping open a door than eating. But it was calories. It was energy.
"Yeah, I'll find food later," he muttered. "For now, better recharge."
He needed a fire. He was no longer afraid of the process. He took the red magic stone from the wooden chest, which was now neatly organized. The stone felt warm in his palm, a familiar and terrifying warmth. He placed some dry twigs inside the fireplace, then touched the stone to them, focusing his intent. Fire. With a soft hiss, the twigs burst into a bright, crackling flame. No more struggle, no more pathetic sparks. There was only command and obedience. He was a minor god within his own domain, at least in this regard.
He found a small pot, filled it with water from the seep in the corner—he'd have to find a better solution for that later—and placed it over the fire. He crushed some of the hardtack into crumbs and tossed them into the water, along with a pinch of dried herbs that smelled vaguely of peppermint and soil. The result was a grey, unappetizing gruel, but it was warm and filling. As he sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, eating directly from the pot with a rough wooden spoon, he felt that silence again. He was alone. Truly alone. There was no Kaito to laugh at his prison breakfast. No Rina to analyze the nutritional content of the strange herbs. No mother to scold him for eating on the floor.
The silence was both a freedom and a curse.
After finishing his grim breakfast, another realization began to creep in. A smell. A faint but persistent odor that clung to his skin, to his hair. It was the smell of blood. His own and the goblin's. It was the smell of torture and murder. The green stone had healed his flesh, but it couldn't cleanse the stain. He couldn't start a new life if he still carried the scent of death with him. He needed a bath.
He glanced at the water seep in the corner. Filling a bucket repeatedly would take forever. Then his eyes fell on the chest of magic stones. He had used the red stone for fire. The green stone for healing. A simple logic, the logic of a gamer, began to take hold. There were several stones that were pale blue, as smooth and cold as ice to the touch.
"If blue... means water," he said to himself, a hypothesis born from decades of playing video games. It was a gamble, but after what he had been through, this gamble felt trivial.
He found what he was looking for behind the cabin, leaning against the outer wall: a large wooden tub, big enough for an adult to sit in, bound with rusted iron bands. It was heavy, but the adrenaline of newfound purpose made it feel manageable. He dragged it to the small clearing in front of the cabin, under the gaze of the twin moons now fading in the morning sky.
He grabbed one of the blue stones and a larger, empty bucket. He carried both outside. He stood before the wooden tub, his heart pounding slightly, not with fear, but with anticipation. This was an experiment. A test. He gripped the blue stone tightly in his left hand, it felt so cold it almost burned. He pointed his empty right hand toward the wooden tub.
He closed his eyes, trying to mimic the focus he had used to start the fire. He didn't just want water; he imagined it. He imagined its purity, its coolness, the sound of it flowing. He visualized clear, clean water filling the empty tub before him.
And sure enough. Something happened.
The surface of the blue stone in his grip began to emit a soft, pale blue light. The air in front of his outstretched hand began to shimmer and ripple, as if heat were rising from asphalt on a summer day. Then, an intricate circle of magic began to form in the air between his hand and the tub. It was made of pure blue light, woven from geometric runes and fluid symbols that twisted and interlocked with hypnotic grace. It was a machine made of light, a cosmic blueprint for creation.
Devon stared in awe, his mouth slightly agape. This was magic. Real, undeniable magic, born from his will.
From the center of the magic circle, water began to flow. Not a trickle or a spurt, but a perfect, crystalline column of water, pouring from nowhere as if from an invisible tap in the sky, and falling with a beautiful gurgling sound into the wooden tub below. The water was cold, clean, and utterly odorless. In less than a minute, it filled the large tub to the brim. Once the tub was full, the magic circle flickered and vanished, and the flow of water ceased instantly.
Devon stood there for a moment, breathless, staring at his handiwork. The blue stone in his hand was once again cold and inert. He had done it. He had created water from thin air. A small laugh escaped his lips—not the hysterical laughter of before, but a laugh born of wonder and newfound power.
Without hesitation, he immediately stripped off his clothes, tossing the t-shirt and pants onto a soiled heap. He stood stark naked beneath the vast lavender sky. He felt no shame. Shame was a social luxury, a construct from a world where there were others to judge. Here? In the middle of this endless forest? Who was going to peek? The giant bear that had stolen his cave? The carrion birds?
"Hahaha," he laughed again, this time louder, his voice echoing among the trees. The freedom from shame felt intoxicating.
He stepped into the tub. The water was so cold it made him gasp, its sharp sting setting every nerve in his body on fire. But after the initial shock, the cold felt cleansing. Purifying. He submerged himself up to his neck, feeling the water envelop him, washing away the layers of grime, sweat, and the faint odor of blood.
He scrubbed himself with near-obsessive focus. He used a rough piece of cloth as a washcloth, scouring every inch of his skin until it was red. He scrubbed his arm, where the goblin bite had been, as if he could feel the phantom remnants of the creature's teeth. He scrubbed his chest, where the leech scars had once been. He scrubbed his stomach, where he had sliced himself open. He tried to erase the memory with friction, trying to slough off the trauma like dead skin. He ducked his head under the water, scrubbing his hair with his fingers, trying to cleanse the smell of smoke from his own torturous fire and the metallic tang of his blood.
When he finally emerged, gasping for breath, he felt... clean. Not just physically. Part of the psychological weight of the last two days felt like it had been lifted, dissolved into the now-murky water.
He sat in the tub, letting the cold water soothe him. That's when his eyes fell on his right hand, resting on the edge of the tub. On his index finger, the black crystal ring stood out, a stark contrast against his pale, clean skin. Its pitch-black color seemed to swallow the light, its polished surface reflecting nothing. It was a small black hole on his finger, a silent mystery.
Corvus had been a man without magic, according to the news reports. But he had enslaved magic, forced it into his weapons. These magic stones were batteries, power sources. They responded to simple intentions: fire, water, healing. But what if there was a way to control them with more... elegance?
He glanced at the black ring on his finger. He raised his hand above the water, droplets dripping from his fingertips. He began to experiment. He didn't know where to start, so he went back to basics, to the language of his old world.
"Fireball," he said, his voice sounding clear in the silent air.
Nothing happened. The ring remained cold and inert. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead.
He tried again, with a different word, a word he remembered from a game. "Ignis!" He spoke it with force, trying to infuse his will into the word.
Silence.
"Aqua."
"Ventus."
"Lumos."
Each word, each spell he remembered from dozens of fantasy novels and thousands of hours of gaming, he spoke into the air. And each time, the world answered with the same indifference. No fireballs erupted. No gusts of wind obeyed. No magical lights danced on his fingertips. There was only Devon, a naked teenager sitting in a bathtub in the middle of the woods, shouting gibberish at the sky.
A sharp spike of frustration began to rise, but it was quickly dampened by a cold, new realization. Of course it didn't work. This world wasn't a video game. There were no shortcuts. No cheat codes. Corvus hadn't become a national nightmare by shouting spells he read from a book. He had done it through understanding, through experimentation, through taking magic apart to its basic components and rebuilding it to his own purpose.
"Yeah... maybe it takes process," he whispered to himself, but this time, the words didn't sound like an excuse. They sounded like a diagnosis. He was an apprentice in the most complex laboratory in the universe. He had barely managed to light the Bunsen burner and turn on the tap. To understand the actual chemical reactions, he had to study. He had to read Corvus's notebooks, even if he couldn't understand the language. He had to study his diagrams. He had to experiment, carefully this time, with each stone, each tool, each weapon.
He stared at the ring again. It wasn't a wand. Maybe it was a key. An amplifier. A focusing tool. Or maybe it was just a piece of jewelry, the last vestige of a man who liked dark and mysterious things. He didn't know. But for the first time, the not knowing didn't feel terrifying. It felt like a challenge.