By the fourth day, Caius had stopped expecting the village to treat him fairly.
He no longer approached the foreman. He no longer tried to sell carvings in the busiest part of the market. He searched for quiet tasks, back doors, and moments when the town's perfect routines seemed to slip. Yet every attempt to improve his circumstances led him back to the same narrow circle: no work, no money, no food, no strength.
On the fifth day, he cried behind the bakery.
The tears came without warning. He had endured the Duke's contempt, watched Caius's memories flood into his mind, and stood before a broken system without begging anyone for help. He had told himself that fear was useless, that he would adapt, that survival was simply a problem waiting to be solved.
But the body did not care about his theories. It wanted food. It wanted warmth. It wanted sleep. Each need became a demand that grew louder than every clever thought he had.
He wiped his face and tried again.
On the sixth day, he found a bin behind a food stall. He pulled out discarded vegetables, a handful of scraps, and a piece of bread spotted with mould. He ate anyway. The first bites brought a rush of relief; the next brought nausea. He retched against the wall and lay curled on the ground until the cramps eased.
He had never imagined that a single piece of bread could become the difference between shame and survival.
On the seventh day, he stopped speaking unless someone addressed him. Words used energy he could no longer spare. The villagers' laughter seemed distant, as though he watched their lives through a window. The fruit seller continued polishing apples. The blacksmith continued striking the same bar. The little girl never appeared again.
Caius checked the wooden bird every morning. The scratched symbol remained, but no new clue emerged.
At night, the trial became crueler. He dreamed of his old bedroom, of his mother asking him to eat, of Lilia's eyes lighting up at the sight of ice cream. In the dream, he could reach the table but never touch the food. When he woke, hunger had sharpened into pain.
On the eighth day, he tried to walk to the fountain. He forgot where he was going halfway there. The square swayed, and his own shadow seemed to lag behind him by a heartbeat. He sat down against a cold wall and watched people pass without seeing him.
On the ninth morning, Caius could barely move his legs. He pushed himself along the ground, dragging his body toward the market because some stubborn part of him still believed that if he reached the stalls, he might find a way to live.
Eldenbrook had never looked more beautiful. Sunlight glowed on wet rooftops. Children ran around the fountain. Birds fluttered along the balconies. The fruit vendor smiled at a customer and wiped the same apple with the same white cloth.
Caius collapsed near the edge of the square.
He stared at the blue sky and tried to remember the reason he had come to the mountain. The artifact. The academy. Leon. His future. They all seemed to belong to another person's life.
A message blinked into view.
[TRIAL FAILED]
[Cause: Starvation]
[Time of Death: Day 9]
Caius tried to laugh. It came out as a dry breath.
"So that's it?" he whispered. "I die because I couldn't buy bread?"
The village flickered. The children froze mid-step. The fruit vendor's smile stretched into a blank line. Every sound faded until Caius could hear only his own shallow breathing.
The wooden bird slipped from his fingers. It struck the cobblestones and broke into two pieces.
Darkness closed over him.
Then he woke beneath the same tree where the trial had begun.
Sunlight warmed his face. The smell of roasted chestnuts drifted from the market. His clothes were clean. His stomach was empty, but he could stand without trembling.
A panel appeared.
[TRIAL UPDATE]
Day 1
Objective: Survive 30 Days
Reward: Unknown
Failure: Loss of Sanity
Caius stared at it, unable to speak.
He remembered everything: the hunger, the stolen bread, the little girl, the wooden bird, and the final message that had appeared as he died.
The trial had reset.
In the final hours before his death, Caius tried to bargain with himself. He would rest for five minutes, then get up. He would ask one more person for food, then find a place out of the rain. He would keep moving until the dizziness passed. Each promise lasted less time than the last. He thought of his former life and felt embarrassed by how often he had complained about being bored, directionless, or misunderstood. Those problems had been real, but none of them had threatened his next breath. The trial was stripping him of every comfortable excuse until all that remained was the simple fact that he wanted to live.
He tried to keep track of the hours by counting the bells from the town square, but the numbers blurred together. Sometimes the bell chimed when the clock hands did not move. Sometimes the sun remained fixed above a roof for so long that he wondered whether time had stopped. He had no reliable measure except the system's silent count and the changes in his own body. When he closed his eyes, he saw the stable, the Veyne mansion, and his mother's kitchen. He tried to hold those images as proof of another life, but they began to feel like scenes from a novel he had read long ago.
Once, he thought he heard a familiar voice saying his name. He turned toward it, expecting his mother or Kenji to appear at the edge of the square. Instead, the voice dissolved into the repetitive chatter of the village. That was when he understood how the trial could break him: it did not need to invent a new fear. It only needed to repeat the things he missed until memory became a blade.
But he had not.