The winter came early.
Kaelen stood at his window, watching the first snow fall over the capital, and felt the cold settle into his bones. It was not the cold of the air or the cold of the season.
The system flickered:
[Season: Winter – Early Onset]
[Mana Density: Elevated across all regions]
[Note: Winter in this world is not merely seasonal. It is a convergence. A time when the barriers between worlds thin and the old things stir.]
He knew. He had read it in the novel. The assessment was set for midwinter, the coldest point of the year, when mana density peaked and the creatures that slept beneath the city grew restless.
In the novel, that winter had been a massacre. The beast chained beneath the capital, an ancient thing bound by wards laid before any living memory, had broken free. Thousands had died. The protagonist had survived, had risen from the chaos, had used the disaster as the foundation of her legend.
Since the beast holding the bond had escaped, he was more than sure the bond was weaker.
And Caelus Verant had died. A tragedy mentioned in passing.
Kaelen turned from the window and hugged Sprite, rubbing his face in its fur.
"Master, someone dropped this for you. I could not see their face."
The system flickered the moment his fingers touched the parchment.
[Alert: Sender identified]
[Identity: Protagonist]
Kaelen stared at the words, then at the note in his hand.
Tomorrow at noon. We meet.
He could see why it took the protagonist's team long to finish tasks. How was he supposed to know where the letter was from? What did she mean? Tomorrow at noon. We meet.
Meet where?
,,,
The tea shop was modest, its windows fogged with steam. She sat alone in the back corner, head down, dark hair pulled back.
"You were right," she said.
"We found a temple. Buried under the eastern district, near the old cisterns. Children inside. Locked in cages. Starving." Her voice was flat, but her knuckles were white. "We could not risk alerting them. Not all the kids were there."
She paused, then leaned forward.
"Tell me what you know. Everything. About the temple, the children, why they're there. And in exchange, I owe you a debt. I don't forget debts."
Kaelen paused.
[System Notification: New Mission]
[Objective: Assist the Protagonist in the liberation of the temple children.]
[Primary Task: Locate or secure the "Seal,Breaker" (key to the temple wards).]
[Secondary Task: Ensure the Protagonist survives until the temple wards fall.]
[Time Limit: Before the Midwinter Assessment (approx. 6 weeks).]
[Rewards Upon Completion:
· One sealed memory.
· One "Thread of Favor" – the Protagonist's debt becomes tangible; usable once to redirect fate.
· One tier increase to [Passive: Cold Resistance]. Current: Minor. Projected: Moderate.]
[Penalty for Failure: Timeline deviation exceeds acceptable threshold. Consequence: Death]
Sealed memory?
Death?
,,,
He told her about the trafficking.
"An underground ring across three nations. They take children from border villages, orphanages, city streets. Places where no one notices the missing. They started to become more brazen even kidnapping in plain sight when their power increased"
The children weren't sold for labor, but for mana.
"Raw, living mana. Children produce it at higher densities. Their souls aren't settled yet. The old temples have ritual circles built into the stone—systems that draw mana from living bodies over weeks or months. The children don't die quickly. But they don't survive whole."
Her face went very still.
"The buyers are mages who've burned through their reserves. Nobles who want to skip decades of training. And other things. Things not human."
"Once the child completes it's purpose they are sold into brothels as mindless puppets with no use but pleasuring people."
She said nothing. But her eyes flickered calculation, disgust, and something colder.
In the novel, the trafficking ring had a specific origin: a network of merchant houses that moved children like cargo. One of those houses had been her family's competitor. In the original story, her parents had died because they stumbled too close to the truth a "bandit attack" that was really murder ordered by that rival house.
The thought sat in his chest like a ghost a tragedy that hadn't happened yet and might never happen now that he was here. He kept it to himself.
Instead, he pressed forward.
"There's more," he said. "The ring isn't just criminal. It's… older. The stolen mana doesn't only power mages. Some of it goes upward. Toward that silence."
He paused.
Further in the novel, 'gods' were introduced. This 'god' they were sacrificing to was one of the first, and despite being the weakest, it killed many. The one who finally stopped it was Lysander.
Lysander.
His heart skipped a beat.
Kaelen's face went hot. A flush crept up his neck, spread across his cheeks, the kind of betraying warmth that came from nowhere and announced itself to everyone. He scowled, forced himself to focus. Be serious, he told himself. This is not the time.
Across the table, the protagonist tilted her head. One eyebrow arched, just slightly. She looked at him not with suspicion, exactly, but with the quiet curiosity of someone cataloguing a strange reaction.
"You just went red," she said. "Why?"
"No reason," he said too quickly. "Important matters. Gods. Death. Moving on."
She stared at him another beat, then let it go. But her mouth twitched, as if filing the moment away for later.
,,,
She watched him for a long moment. "You're not telling me everything."
"No," he admitted. "Some things… even in a world of magic, a being that powerful is difficult for normal people to accept. You'd think I was mad."
Or worse, you'd believe me he thought expressionlessly and that belief might wake what should stay asleep. In the book the protagonist was a believer in the occult telling her about 'gods' would derail her search.
She was nosy.
Like you.
A voice echoed and he pushed it out
"Then tell me what I can use," she said. "The temple. The children. How do I break the wards?"
Kaelen exhaled. "The wards are keyed to a specific bloodline or a specific object. They called it a 'seal,breaker.' I don't know where it is. But I know it exists."
,,,
The winter snow fell harder against the tea shop windows.
Kaelen looked down at his hands and thought of the beast chained beneath the capital, the thinning bonds, the assessment still months away.
One problem at a time