Riku learned quickly that silence didn't mean peace.
The days after the creature's death passed with strange efficiency. The Lorian rebuilt damaged parts of their grove without being asked, using tools grown from bone-roots and singing moss to stitch together living shelters. They gave him space but no guidance, respect but no affection. A ruler, yes — but one still on thin ice.
And the system? Quiet.
No new messages. No changes to his interface.
Riku spent hours fiddling with the vine-wrapped tablet that came in his starter pack, hoping for a breakthrough. Most of the symbols remained unreadable. But then, on the seventh day, a flicker. A pulse of light. And then:
[GLOBAL INTERFACE UNLOCKED]
[World Chat Activated]
[Regional Trade Listings: 0]
[Alliance Board: EMPTY]
[Top Queries: "how 2 not die," "does anyone have rice," "WHERE IS JAPAN"]
He blinked.
Then it loaded.
[WORLD CHAT // PUBLIC THREAD]
>> User: BigTusk
— Can someone tell me how to make fire with wet rocks? Asking for a frozen tribe.
>> User: SolusTenebris
— anyone else getting weird dreams? not like stress dreams. I mean things are watching me through the mist.
>> User: CrabMagnet69
— I taught my tribe how to gamble and now they want to sacrifice me every 3rd day.
>> User: JuneBuggy
— DON'T TRUST THE VINES. IF THEY HUM, RUN. Not kidding. Vines with little red nodes. They're not plants.
>> System Moderator Response:
— Warning: Misinformation may result in territory demotion. Please refrain from false claims.
>> User: JuneBuggy
— It's not false if I still have one arm.
Riku scrolled through the chaos, fascinated and horrified. Some users had formed crude alliances. Others were begging for food, weapons, or knowledge. Several messages were simply "HELP" repeated endlessly.
Then a message popped up.
[Private Chat Request: User – JuneBuggy]
Accept? Y/N
He hesitated. Then tapped yes.
>> Private Channel: [User: JuneBuggy]
JuneBuggy: You're in a Tier 3 zone, right?
Riku: ...how do you know that?
JuneBuggy: Because the system just pinged you as a "Stabilizing Region." Only Tier 3s are doing that this early. That puts you on a lot of radars.
Riku: Is that bad?
JuneBuggy: It's visible. And visibility means blood.
Riku: What are the vines you mentioned?
JuneBuggy: The "Nerveweeds." They grow near Fold anomalies. Not part of this world. They… hijack tribes. Saw it happen to the Vinekin down south. Not pretty.
Riku: You're joking.
JuneBuggy: I had two hands last week.
Riku's hands hovered over the interface. Fold anomalies. Nerveweeds. Tier 3 visibility. All pieces of a puzzle he didn't have the corners for.
He switched to Regional Chat. No one was nearby. No listings. No alliances.
His tribe was alone.
That evening, he went to speak with Nilo, the eccentric Lorian who spent most of his time whispering to tools. He found him near the edge of the grove, hunched over a bioluminescent vine that coiled unnaturally around itself.
"I need to know if that's normal," Riku said, pointing.
Nilo looked up. Blinked. "No," he said flatly. "That one's listening."
Riku froze. "Excuse me?"
"It's listening to you. All the way to the roots." He scratched his cheek. "Might be the system. Might be something pretending."
Riku's skin crawled.
"What happens if I cut it?"
Nilo shrugged. "Depends who notices."
That night, Riku dreamt of mirrors. Fractured reflections of himself, twisting in strange geometries. One had his face, but golden eyes. Another wore a crown of roots. A third had no face at all—just a hole leaking numbers.
When he woke, the vine was gone.
And a new system message hovered in front of him:
[Fold Warning: Anomaly Detected in Cultural Layer]
[Adaptive Mutation Risk: 11%]
[Suggested Action: Prune Identity Node]
He had no idea what that meant.
But for the first time, he realized something terrifying:
The Fold wasn't just changing the tribe.
It was changing him.