Orario in the morning feels like someone left the stove on.
It hums beneath your feet.Breathes with steam.Tastes like metal on the back of your teeth.
Not unpleasant.Just... loud.
The kind of loud that wraps itself around you. Makes you forget you're here alone.
Or that you were never supposed to be here in the first place.
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The sword I ended up with was exactly what I deserved. Not good. Not bad. Functional.
The elf who sold it to me had calloused fingers and a poker face that could bluff through divine judgment. He said two hundred thousand valis.
I gave him a kobold claw and a cracked monster crystal.
He stared like I'd handed him a dead rat wrapped in poetry.
Then he nodded.
Deal.
That was the kind of place Orario was.
You didn't need charm. Just timing.
I walked the long way back through the side alleys—where the voices dropped an octave and even the city seemed to pretend it didn't know you.
A couple of kids were arguing outside a potion shop.
"You wore that again? You wanna die?"
"Relax. Nobody here remembers what it means."
"You're wrong."
They didn't see me.
I kept moving.But I caught the symbol.
Burnt red. Flame-twisted.
A sigil that didn't belong.Not in public.Not this early in the story.
Evilus.
They were the part of the narrative people scrolled past.
The "content warning" of a world too clean for real monsters.
And they weren't supposed to be active. Not really. Not yet.
But then again—
Neither was I.
I didn't chase them.
Didn't need to.
Because this wasn't my endgame.
This city?
These gods?
This world?
It wasn't the one I was born in.It wasn't even the one I was supposed to die in.
It was a pit stop. A grind arc. A boot camp painted in myth and blood.
I was here to get strong.
That was it.
No side quests.
No saving anyone.
Just survival, leveled.
But even as I thought that, I felt it.
Something like static.
Like being stared at by a memory.
Not a person.
Just... presence.
And for half a second—
I thought of her.
Alfia.
The only person I'd seen so far who felt like she belonged in a world that tried to chew people out of its margins.
She was sharp in a quiet way.
Not loud-sharp. Not violent-sharp.
More like the last thought before a mistake.
I hadn't seen her since our last encounter.
But I would again.
Not by fate.
Not by coincidence.
Because I planned to.
And when I did?
I wouldn't use swords or stats.
I'd use words.
Modern ones.Soft ones.Ones people in this world had never been taught to fear properly.
Psychology over prophecy.Charm over chaos.
And maybe—just maybe—
I'd make her crack.
Not to win.
Not to conquer.
But because in a world this cruel, breaking something gently felt like the only kind of power worth chasing.
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If Orario was loud in the morning, it was suffocating by midday.
Every conversation felt like it was happening two inches from your skull.Every merchant screamed like they were drowning in coin.Every alley sweated secrets that stank like old meat and oil.
I hated it.
Not because it was loud.
Because it was honest.
And in my experience, honesty came right before something broke.
I was supposed to rest today.That was the plan.I had a new blade. A pouch with maybe half a lunch's worth of coin.My stats were updated. My shoulder hadn't finished healing.
But I didn't go back.
I walked.
Wandered.
Because something in my chest wouldn't sit still.
It wasn't paranoia.
Not quite.
More like gravity pulling me sideways.
It started near the edge of the market, where the buildings got too old to matter and the people stopped looking each other in the eye.
A scuffle.
Not loud.
Not theatrical.
Just... precise.
A boot scraping tile. A gasp.
A whisper followed by a cough that didn't sound like it belonged in a throat.
I turned the corner.
And saw her.
She wasn't tall.She wasn't armored.She didn't look like a threat.
But the man slumped at her feet was still twitching, and the expression on her face said she hadn't decided if she was finished with him.
White cloak. Threadbare. Dirty around the hem like she hadn't stopped walking in days.
And eyes—
Eyes like broken glass that remembered the sun wrong.
She looked up at me.
Didn't speak.
Didn't flinch.
Just looked.
Like I was a bug in her soup.
I didn't say anything either.
Because I recognized that look.
I'd seen it before.
Once, reflected in a window when I thought I was alone.
The guy on the ground gurgled something wet.
She tilted her head and pressed her heel into his neck.
Deliberate.
Soft.
Like she was weighing how much of him was still useful.
"You know," I said quietly, stepping closer, "that's not the most efficient way to strangle someone."
She didn't respond.Didn't stop either.
"Too much pressure and the windpipe collapses. Not enough and they'll just pass out and come back swinging."
Still nothing.
But her eyes flicked to my blade.
Then back to me.
"What are you?" she finally asked.
Not who.
What.
A question you ask a stray dog, or something that shouldn't be walking upright.
"I'm... window shopping."
"You're armed."
"Everyone's armed."
"Not like that."
She meant the way I stood.The way I held my weight on the balls of my feet.The way my fingers kept twitching like they wanted to trace a spell I hadn't fully memorized.
She saw too much.
Which meant I needed to stop letting her look.
"Was he with Evilus?" I asked, nodding toward the man.
She didn't answer.
Which meant yes.
Or worse.
"I don't pick fights," I said, starting to turn.
"Then why are you still standing here?"
"Because I don't like loose ends."
"You think I am one?"
"No," I said."I am."
She blinked.
Just once.
And then smiled.
Crooked. Tired. Almost something human in the middle of it.
"I'll remember that," she said.
Then she stepped off the man's throat and walked past me like I was scenery.
She didn't look back.
Which meant she knew I wasn't stupid enough to stab her.
I waited three full seconds before breathing again.
Then I crouched beside the body.
Still alive. Barely.
Eyes bloodshot. Mind gone wherever people went when they stopped mattering to the story.
He was clutching something.
Not a weapon.
A charm.
Twisted leather cord. Fragment of an old symbol.
And burned into the center—
That same curling flame.
Evilus was surfacing.
And that girl?
She wasn't with them.
But she wasn't not.