“…okay,” she murmured. “I’ve got this.” Then the bell rang. It wasn’t sharp, nothing frantic. Just a single, heavy toll that rolled through the air like distant thunder. Estelle paused, half-turning.

“…that’s new.” Behind her, the shopkeeper didn’t stop moving, but something in his posture changed. A slight stiffness, an awareness snapping into place behind his eyes. Outside, conversations slowed. Heads turned in the direction of the bell sound, but they continued as they were, faster, quieter. Estelle frowned.

“Is that—?” The bell rang again and something inside er bristled. This time, it cut. Not loud, but absolute. The movement of the village shifted instantly. A woman near the well dropped her pail with a sharp crack against the stone, grabbing the nearest child without hesitation. Stalls were abandoned mid-transaction. Voices rose, not panicked yet, but tight, urgent.

“Two—!”

“Wrap it up—!”

“Get ready—!”

Estelle’s heartbeat stumbled, catching up too slowly.

“…wait,” she said, turning toward the shopkeeper. “What does two mean?”

He didn’t answer. He was already moving toward her, grabbing the hanging swordbelt with the freezeclaw core embedded in it's hilt. The bell rang a third time, and everything broke.

“THREE—!”

“To the Bunker!”

“NOW!”

The village erupted with fear and frantic movement. Hands grabbed at whatever they could carry. People surged towards the market square. The controlled tension shattered into full motion, bodies flooding toward the center, toward the bunker, toward anything that might keep them alive. Estelle froze. Just for a second. Long enough to feel how wrong this was.

“How bad—?” she started, but the shopkeeper grabbed her arm, moving her out the open door and into the fray.

“Run.” The word hit harder than the bell. She stumbled forward as he pulled her into the rushing crowd, her mind struggling to catch up with her body.

“What is it—?!” she shouted over the noise. No answer, there was no time. Then the forest seemed to loom closer, as if trying to encase the village behind the massive trunks. Branches cracked, deep, splintering breaks that echoed like something massive tearing its way through resistance that didn’t matter.

The outer wall shuddered. Estelle turned. She shouldn’t have. Every instinct screamed not to. But she did anyway. The trees parted. Not the soft swaying of the wind or the rougher bending that came with a storm, they snapped inward, torn aside as something pushed through them with unstoppable, furious momentum.

It emerged like a nightmare dragged into reality. A massive horror, easily over ten feet at the shoulder, its body a monstrous fusion of power and rage. A lion’s frame with broad shoulders, muscled, coiled with strength, but stretched too far, loaded with weight that looked like it should collapse under itself, but didn’t. Not with what drove it. Estelle’s breath vanished. It's head was a boar. Thick tusks curved forward, long and jagged, chipped from use and violence. Fangs layered beneath them in a brutal overlap that turned its jaw into something built for tearing, crushing, ending life. Its mane was a deep brown fur. Thick, littered with vine strands threaded through it. Its body, pulsing faintly with a green-gold glow—the mark of something older. Something alive beyond the flesh. Her voice came out as a broken whisper.

“…Leodae.” Not the adorable cub-level she had created, not the mid-tier she had made as a food source. This was an elder. Its eyes burned with raw, unfiltered rage. Not mindless, the beast seemed focused, Like therw was a goal behind those rage filled eyes. Then she saw it, just a flicker, hurt. Directed toward the village.

“NO—” Estelle gasped. “You shouldn’t—you’re not supposed to be here—”

Because it made too much sense. Of course, it would be coming here. To the starting village with its hunters. Dorion had said as much; they gathered beast parts their cores.  Something hit her like a realization too sharp to process cleanly.

“… it's avenging its cubs.” The Leodae roared. It wasn’t just sound. It was intense pressure, shaking the air, and rattling bones, sending people stumbling as the force of it rolled outward like a shockwave. Then it moved, and the distance between it and the wall disappeared in a blink.

It clashed against the wall, its full force slamming against the wood. Spikes snapped, beams shattered, and a section of the barrier crumpled inward as the Leodae slammed against it with unstoppable force. Splinters tore through the air. That's when the screaming started. The wall held, but it wouldn't for long.

“GO!” someone shouted in Estelle’s ear. But she couldn’t stop looking, her body frozen in place. The aetherbeast pulled back, muscles shifting beneath its hide, vines from its mane seeming to grow and flexing like living muscle. Then it struck the bending wall again. The wall gave way completely, shattering with a burst of wood. The Leodae pushed through the gap, too large, too fast, too certain.

It wasn’t testing, it wasn’t probing, it was destroying. Intent glazed over its features like an impenetrable armor. The vines within it's main seemed to crawl out and cover its entire body and steam huffed from flared nostrils. Villagers scattered before it. One didn’t move fast enough. Estelle saw it. A single arc of motion. A swipe. Claws that caught light for less than a second, and the person was gone. There was no sound to say it had been flung, no running feet, just a burst of red mist. 

Estelle’s stomach dropped out from under her. Her breath hitched, caught, refused to come back. 

“This... this isn’t...” she choked. “This isn’t balanced.” It wasn’t a fight, it wasn’t a challenge, It was a massacre. The Leodae turned its head, nostrils flaring, scanning, searching, hunting. 

“…it knows,” she whispered. It wasn’t random or blind rage. It was looking for something, or maybe someone. Behind it, movement flickered at the broken treeline. Smaller shapes. Quick and low to the ground. Cubs, Estelle’s heart twisted violently. They weren't helpless, not innocent, just young.

The elder roared again, shorter this time, sharper, as if calling them forward. It was a communication, as if to say this is the place.

“You brought them here,” Estelle tried to breathe. The words weren’t directed at anyone. Not even at the hunters, at herself. Because she had built them this way. Given them behavior, instinct, and attachment. 

She staggered back as the crowd surged around her, someone slamming into her shoulder hard enough to nearly knock her down.

“MOVE!” someone screamed. The voice was familiar, and her frozen mind began to thaw. The apothecary’s hand slammed into her back, shoving her forward. 

“Run!” This time, she did. The bunker entrance yawned ahead, people pouring down into it, disappearing below ground. The roar swallowed everything. Shouts, screams, the crash of breaking structures, the roar of something too strong to stop. Estelle stumbled forward, legs barely listening, her gaze dragging itself away from the destruction behind her, from the Leodae that she had created on a whim. As a test of strength for starting players. 

She crossed into the bunker just as another roar shook the air above, the ground trembling beneath her feet. Darkness swallowed her, and the sound dimmed slightly. Above them, the village broke. In the small, shrinking part of her mind that could still think, only one thing remained. A repeating note that echoed in her mind and refused to let go. 

"I did this to them..."

“Move, further in!” 

“Is anyone still outside?”

“Close it, close it!”

The door, made of some strange-looking stone, slammed shut. Hard. The echo rolled through the chamber like another bell, final, unavoidable. Something in Estelle’s chest tightened. It was the same as when she had just arrived in Terralia. The unease, the feeling of dread and sadness. 

She found herself pressed near one of the rough stone walls, the cool surface grounding in a way nothing else was. Her hands were still shaking, though she didn’t remember when they’d started. She tried to breathe. In. Out. The air didn’t feel like enough and everything else felt like too much. 

Voices filled the space. Some quiet whispering to each other with words of hope and safety. Some sharp and angry at the world. Some are breaking under the strain of holding together too much at once.

“Did you see?”

“The wall...”

“They weren’t fast enough...”

“Don’t, please, just don’t say it.”

Estelle squeezed her eyes shut. She could still see it, the Leodae. Its size, the way it moved, the person who... She pulled in a breath too quickly, choking on it.

“No,” she whispered under her breath. “Don’t do that right now.”

“Hey.” A voice cut through the noise. Close, grounded, not panicked. Estelle blinked, lifting her head. The woman beside her steadied someone else before turning her attention fully to Estelle. Hands steady. Posture firm. Familiar. 

“Sit.” The word wasn’t harsh, but it wasn’t optional. Estelle obeyed before she could think about it, lowering herself onto a rough bench along the wall.

“…Helena?” she managed, voice still uneven. The woman paused, just slightly, then shook her head with a sad smile.

“Adelaide.” Estelle blinked.

“…what?”

“The well,” she added, as if that explained it. It did. Too quickly. The braid. The steady hands. The one who passed her the bucket before she asked. 

“…you were...” Estelle stopped because recalibrating took effort. “…at the well.”

“Yes.” Adelaide’s expression didn’t change, but something in her eyes softened just a fraction.

“And you were nearly dropping buckets on your feet.” Estelle let out a weak, breathless huff.

“…yeah, that tracks.” The world became quieter between them. She felt grounded for a moment. Above them, a roar tore through the earth. The sound bled through stone and soil, warped by distance, but no less terrifying for it. It vibrated through the bunker, dust sifting faintly from the ceiling. Someone cried out as more voices rose.

“Hold the doors!”

“Are they breaching?!”

“No...it’s just...”

Another roar. Closer. Angrier. Estelle’s hands clenched in her lap.

“…it’s still here,” she whispered. Adelaide didn’t answer immediately, she just listened. Like she was measuring something. Then, another sound, it wasn't a roar, it was harsher, a clash. Metal making impact. Shouts from above, sharp, coordinated, cutting through the chaos above with something Estelle hadn’t heard yet.

“The hunters,” Adelaide said quietly, no hint of relief. Estelle swallowed.

“They can stop it?” She looked up at Adelaide hopefully, her fervent wish that she would say yes. The older woman sighed, patting her hand. 

“They can try.”

The sounds above intensified with each passing second. Loud crashes and the sound of splintering wood. A roar cut short by a pained cry, then returned, louder, angrier. Estelle leaned forward slightly, every instinct telling her to go up. She needed to do something. She gripped the edge of the bench instead, knuckles whitening.

“Stay,” Adelaide said, not looking at her.

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.” A pause.

“…yeah.”

The fight stretched on. Rather, it seemed like it did. Everything seemed to merge together, warping around them as everything both felt like it was standing still and moving way too fast. Time was impossible to measure within the bunker. 

Each impact felt like it lasted forever, each second between them feeling longer. Then, a single, earth-rattling thud. Squeals of younger leodae, and then everything stopped. Instantly. The sound was heavy, final. Like something enormous hitting the ground and not getting back up. The silence that followed was worse. She had just gotten used to the roars and crashes, to the shouting of the hunters, the dull whispers in the bunker, and now, this deadly still silence covered everything. Estelle’s breath hitched.

“is that...” No one answered, no one dared to break the silence yet, and the squeeze from Adelaide's hand told her to wait. No one moved. The entire bunker held itself in that silence, as if movement alone might break whatever fragile line had just been drawn above them. That's when the echoing sound of three knocks floated through the bunker. It was a steady, measured sound. Deliberate.

The rhythm carried through the stone passage like a signal passed down through time itself. Recognizable, known, the knocks had a deeper meaning than Estelle knew, and it seemed to make everyone take a breath. The door unbarred, though it was slow, careful. Light spilled in, muted, late, wrong for the hour. A rough, tired voice from above echoed through the bunker.

“…it’s down.”

The words hung heavily in the air almost unreal. Relief didn’t come immediately. It couldn’t. Not with the enduring silence that followed. Not with the absence of other voices that should have been there. Adelaide exhaled slowly beside her.

“…good,” she said. The way she didn't sound like victory, it sounded like how Estelle started every workday. When she had finished the last of her morning tea and sighed, readying herself for what came next. That's when it really hit her. When reality settled on her mind like a weighted blanket she couldn't remove. Estelle knew, even before anyone moved and people began to stand, slowly, uncertainly. Something had been taken, and it wasn’t coming back.

Estelle stared at the light spilling down the bunker entrance, her chest tightening again, this time not from panic, but understanding. This world didn’t reset. There was no save point to go back to. It didn’t give you another try. It was her game world, she hadn't given much thought to the human NPC's. It was supposed to be an exploration and monster-culling game so that players could earn hero titles. Estelle could barely hold down the churning contents of her stomach. All of this heartache and hurt this village has encountered, it was all her fault. Her disgust boiled over within her as she stepped out of the bunker beside Adelaide. 

The pyre. The smell of smoke. The weight of blood on her hands that hadn’t been hers. She sat up again eventually, the motion slow, deliberate, like she didn’t want to startle the quiet around her.

The village had settled into something heavy and subdued. Not total silence, just softer sounds. Quieter voices. The kind of stillness that came after everything important had already broken. Estelle drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

“…okay,” she murmured. If she couldn’t sleep, she could work. The System responded the moment she reached for it. Not physically, like, with a gesture. It was just a thought, the memory of how it had felt when it flickered into existence at the pyre, and it was there again, hovering faintly at the edge of her vision.

Uncertain still, but present. She willed herself to focus. The image sharpened, panels slid into place, as instantly as if they had always been there and she had simply learned how to see them.

“…that’s a little too easy,” she muttered. There were no buttons. No cursor. Just options. When she thought about one, really thought about it, the way she would have clicked or tapped before, the panel shifted, obeying the intention behind it. It took a few tries to get used to. Her first attempt sent everything flickering, the interface reacting too quickly, flipping between screens before she could settle on one.

“Whoa, crud... okay, slow down,” she said under her breath. She tried again, more deliberate this time. Instead of reaching, she held the idea. Main menu. The system settled on a page that held together without flipping all over the place.

It wasn’t overwhelming. That surprised her. She had expected… more. Layers, a complexity. Something that felt like the full weight of everything she’d built. Instead, it was… simple. Clean. Organized. At the center was a general layout, a foundation. Her stats listed plainly enough that even now, half-exhausted and overwhelmed, she could follow them. Nothing spectacular. Nothing broken. Just… baseline.

Below that is a skill list. Mostly empty. She stared at it for a moment longer than necessary. The annoyance of not having any overpowered protagonist specialties she could get excited over.

“…yeah, that’s about right.” She sighed. There was space for an inventory, though it was limited, structured, and contained. Not infinite, not forgiving. Along the side, a set of additional options. A map, faint and incomplete. A bestiary, locked for now, though she could sense it wasn’t entirely empty. Core management. That was a new category she would have to explore deeper, later. Then, inventory. A handful of things she recognized instantly… and a few she didn’t look at yet.

She didn’t open anything deeper. Not tonight. That wasn’t what this was about. She leaned back slightly, her gaze unfocused as the System hovered faintly in front of her.

“I made you,” she said quietly. It felt strange to say out loud. Stranger still that it might be true. A week ago, this would have been, exciting. Unreal in the best way. A system. A progression path. A way to interact with the world she’d created, to shape it, to fix problems with tools and logic and careful design.

She would have loved this before. Now, her stomach twisted. Because the memory of the Leodae wouldn’t leave. The way it moved. The way it hit the wall. The way that person... She shook her head, hard, cutting off the thought before it became a recurring vision in her mind. She closed her eyes briefly.

“…this is because of me.” 

Not the System. Not the monsters. Not even the hunters, not entirely. She had built a world where that chain of events made sense. Where it could happen. Where it would happen. Given enough time. Her hands tightened slightly in her lap.

“So what are you going to do about it?” she asked herself the empty room. She couldn't leave it like this. The System flickered faintly at the edge of her vision, like it was waiting, listening. 

“I can use this,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a realization. The map. The creatures. The rules underneath everything, if this was really what she thought it was… 

Then this wasn’t just a survival tool. It was control. And that thought, scared her more than anything else had. Because she knew what she was like. She knew how she built things. Quick decisions. Interesting ideas. Systems layered on top of systems without always stopping to think about how they interacted. Good enough had always been enough. Until it wasn’t. 

She looked down at her hands. Still steady now. Still capable. But yet, they had changed since she first arrived. Callouses had formed from the hard work she had done in the months since her arrival. Small cuts that weren't there only days before.

“If I start changing things…” she said slowly, “what else breaks?”

The question lingered, her fears of causing more harm than good. No answer came. The village outside shifted faintly, someone moving, a door closing, the quiet continuation of life that didn’t stop just because something terrible had happened.

They were still here. Still working. Still rebuilding. She exhaled, long and slow. The village moved forward through this chaos before; they would do it again now, and again in the future. She looked down at her hands again, how they had changed, improved. 

“I can’t do nothing,” she whispered. That wasn’t an option anymore. Not after the pyre. Not after what she’d seen. The System pulsed faintly in response. It altered itself in a way that was barely noticible, as if agreeing to her intentions.

“But if I rush this…” she continued, her voice tightening slightly, “I make it worse.” She had done that before. Built something that looked right at a glance but collapsed under pressure. Scaled poorly, connected badly. Turned into something unstable without meaning to. It was how she started most of her maps. But this needed to be different. It needed to be given her full attention from the start. She couldn't go back and fix the past, and she wouldn't be able to fix things as she goes. She needed to use that wild brain of hers and think ten, no, fifty steps ahead. 

Her gaze shifted toward the faint outline of the map again. Incomplete. Fractured. Uncertain. 

“This isn’t a game,” she said. And for the first time, she meant it completely. Not as a statement. Not as a realization. But as a rule. She let the System fade, just pushed aside like a mini-map. 

Estelle lay back slowly, staring up at the ceiling. Her body still ached. Her mind felt heavier than ever. But there was something new beneath it all. Not hope. Not comfort. Responsibility. She closed her eyes.

“I’ll fix it,” she said quietly. Then, after a moment she added “…carefully.”

She should have closed it. Let herself rest. Let the night pass without adding anything else to the weight she was already carrying. Instead, something pulled at her. A memory. Not from earlier today. Not from the village. From before the storm, from the moment everything started to go wrong. She sat up slowly as the memory began to solidify.

“There was something else…”

Her breath slowed, her mind turning inward, piecing together fragments she hadn’t wanted to touch. The Void. Her stomach dropped.

“…no.”

The word slipped out before she could stop it. Of everything she had left unfinished, everything she had abandoned or rushed past, that was the worst. Her focus snapped to the System, fingers curling instinctively as she tried to open the map again. It responded immediately. The panel expanded. 

Terralia spread out before her, faint, incomplete, but unmistakable. The shape of the continent, the sweep of biomes, the fracture lines she had drawn without realizing how much they mattered. There in the corner of the interface, something new. It was a simple bar. Thin, dark, and yet impossible to ignore once seen. Void Encroachment: 2%

Estelle stared at it. She didn’t move, nor did she breathe.

“…two percent,” she whispered. It didn’t sound like much. It wasn’t much. In another context, it would have been nothing. A minor statistic. A footnote. But this wasn’t a game. And percentages didn’t just go down. Her throat tightened.

“How big is two percent?” she asked, quietly. The System didn’t answer. It didn’t need to. Too big. Her gaze flicked across the map, trying to find it, trying to see where it existed, what it had already taken. Nothing obvious stood out. No blackened sections. No empty holes. Just, normal. Or what passed for normal now. 

“That’s worse,” she muttered. If she couldn’t see it, then she couldn’t track it. And if she couldn’t track it, she couldn’t stop it. Her chest tightened, the beginnings of panic threatening to surface again. Too soon. Too much. Void. Monsters. The village. The dead... 

“Stop.” She forced the word out, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead as if she could physically hold her thoughts in place.

“One thing at a time.” She dragged in a slow breath. Let it out. Again. 

“Focus on what you can do.” The words were quiet, but steadier. Not confident. But enough. She let the map panel fade, pushing it aside before she could spiral further. The Void wasn’t something she could fix tonight. Not yet. Not without understanding it. 

Her focus shifted back to the main interface. Stats. Skills. Inventory. Skills. She paused. There hadn’t been anything there before. Or if there had been, she hadn’t looked closely enough. Her intention settled on it. The panel opened. A single entry sat there. Siphoning. Estelle frowned.

“…that doesn’t sound good.” She focused on it, letting the description surface slowly, the way the System seemed to prefer, no sudden pop-ups, no flashing alerts, just information unfolding when she gave it her attention. A way to draw energy. From creatures. From the environment. From… whatever held it. Her stomach twisted. Of course it was. 

“Everything costs something,” she muttered. She already knew that. She had designed it that way. Still, it was something. A way to gain energy. A way to recover. Her thoughts cut off. She froze. Her gaze snapped back to her stats. She hadn’t really looked at them before. Not carefully. Not like this. Now she did. And her stomach dropped. Her health wasn’t stable. It was moving. Slowly, but undeniably, dropping. Her breath hitched.

“…no.” She stared at it, willing herself to be mistaken. Wishing it to stabilize, to pause, to correct itself. It didn’t. A small note flickered faintly beneath it, something she hadn’t noticed before. 

Status: Energy Deficit — Health Depleting (1 pt/hour)

Estelle’s chest tightened hard enough to hurt.

“…I’m starving.” Not just hungry. Not just tired. Breaking down. Her body. Her system. Her hands started shaking again. Faster this time. Colder.

“How long?” she whispered. Her eyes tracked the number. Doing the math without meaning to. Without wanting to. Hours. Not days. Her breath came quicker now, uneven, her mind scrambling to keep up with what her body already knew.

“I just ate...” she said, voice thin. “I drank, Helena, she...” It didn’t matter. Not enough. Not for this. She had been stuck in the bunker for goodness knows how long, and she certainly didn't eat anything then. And when she had left there, she had gotten straight to work. Of course, her energy had been depleted. Her gaze snapped back to the skill.

Siphoning. Her pulse spiked. 

“I have to use this,” she said. Not a question. Not a debate. A necessity. But the knowledge didn’t come with understanding. 

“How?” She stared at the skill, willing instructions to appear. A button. A prompt. Something, anything that gave her more than 'A way to transfer energy from a target into oneself.' Nothing changed. No tutorial. No guidance. No safety. Of course not. Her breath shook.

“Think,” she forced herself. “It’s a system, it’s intent-based, just, do what you would have coded!” That stopped her. Cold. 

“…no.” Because what she would have coded was not safe. Not balanced. Not complete. Her hand drifted slightly, as if she could physically reach for something that wasn’t there. 

“I need energy,” she said, her voice tightening. Her gaze flicked to the door. To the quiet village beyond. To the world filled with living things. Her stomach twisted harder.

“…don’t let this be the answer.” The System didn’t respond. It never did. The health counter dropped again. One point. Small. Insignificant. Except it wasn’t. Estelle swallowed hard, forcing her breathing to slow even as panic clawed upward.

“…figure it out,” she whispered.

“Now.”

Outside, the village tried to recover. Inside, something far more dangerous had just made itself clear. She wasn’t just responsible for the world. She was already losing her place in it.  And if she didn’t learn how to use what she had created, she wouldn’t survive long enough to fix anything.