Three days later, tired of being confined inside, Lusian decided to explore the castle.
Umber walked so close behind him that Lusian could feel the warmth of his breath: protection... or surveillance. Following a few steps behind was Miss Monica, Albert's daughter and Sophia's personal assistant. She watched Lusian's every gesture with patient precision.
—Are you following me now too, Monica? —Lusian asked with a faint smile.
Monica adjusted her glasses —a subtle, precise movement— before answering.
—It is not following, my lord. It is supervision.
—Supervision?
—The Duchess ordered me to make sure you did not get yourself into trouble again.
—Again? —Lusian raised an eyebrow—. I only died once. I do not think that counts as "trouble."
For the first time, Monica did not answer immediately.
Her eyes remained fixed on him for a moment longer than necessary.
—You are right, my lord —she finally said—. Dying should not be considered an everyday problem.
Lusian felt his smile freeze for a moment. Without responding, he continued his walk through the magnificent castle, observing every detail with an almost childlike curiosity, like a child discovering an entirely new world before his eyes.
The enormous columns, the ancient tapestries, and the weapons displayed along the halls were not simply elements of a setting like he had seen countless times in the game. They were here, right in front of him.
Real.
Tangible.
"This world feels so real... too real," he thought.
Lusian ran his fingers across the carved wood of an old bookshelf. In the game, that object had been nothing more than a decorative texture, a piece of scenery players ignored after two seconds. But now he could feel the tiny cracks beneath his fingertips, the dust settled between the carvings.
And he understood something terrifying: the inhabitants of this world were not characters waiting for a quest.
They had memories.
They had fears.
They could truly die.
Days passed, and Lusian soon faced a problem that pushed him to the edge of despair. Despite the collection of techniques he remembered from the game, there was an insurmountable gap between him and the power he needed.
He could not feel mana.
He closed his eyes and took a breath.
In the game, activating a skill was a simple action.
A click.
An animation.
A number increasing on the screen.
He tried again and again, searching within himself for what everyone described as a current, a vibration, a pulse. But he found nothing.
Only frustration.
Each failed attempt chipped away at his confidence. Because in this world, only the strong survived.
Days later, Sophia decided that leaving the duchy would be beneficial for Lusian's recovery. A change of scenery, she believed, would help both his mind and his body.
Their destination was Thruin, a small trading city far from the tensions of nobility.
Lusian expected to find something familiar. Something resembling the places he had explored hundreds of times in the game.
But what he found was something completely different.
The streets were overflowing with life. Merchants announced their products with rough voices, stalls were filled with fruits, spices, and colorful fabrics, and the scent of freshly baked bread mixed with medicinal herbs and roasted meat. Wooden houses with sloped roofs and flower-covered balconies looked as if they had been taken from a peaceful painting. Children ran between carts and horses while adults continued their daily routines without a single sign of fear.
It was an ordinary place.
A living place.
And that was what unsettled Lusian the most.
Because he knew another Thruin.
In his memories, that city was not a peaceful trading hub.
It was a battlefield.
Collapsed walls.
Buildings reduced to rubble.
Destroyed barricades.
Streets marked by the trails of creatures that had passed through, leaving death in their wake.
He had played that area dozens of times. He remembered the maps, the escape routes, the enemies that appeared among the ruins.
But now, standing before him, there were no monsters.
No corpses.
No destruction.
Only people living their lives.
Lusian looked toward the central plaza and stopped in front of a stone fountain.
He recognized it instantly.
In the game, that place had been little more than a landmark. A broken structure players passed without stopping while fleeing from high-level creatures.
Now it was untouched.
Water flowed gently over the carvings in the stone. Children played around it, laughing as they tossed coins into the bottom.
A little girl closed her eyes and made a wish before releasing her coin.
Lusian felt a chill run down his spine.
Because he remembered what would happen there.
He remembered that same fountain covered in blood.
For a few seconds, both images existed in his mind at the same time: the lively plaza before him and the scene of death that only he knew.
He lowered his gaze toward his hands.
In the game, Thruin was a zone players cleared to obtain rewards, experience, and rare items.
But this was not a zone.
It was a home.
And someday, it would no longer be one.
The question was no longer whether he could prevent the tragedy he knew.
The question was far more terrifying:
The future... can change.