Kel's fingers lingered in the empty air where the status window had just faded.
Even after it disappeared, the numbers felt etched behind his eyelids.
Vitality no longer scraping the bottom.
Strength no longer a fragile pretense.
Curse—gone.
His lips curved without permission.
I can breathe… and I am strong.
The thought itself felt unreal, like a dream he had no right to touch.
Behind him, footsteps brushed against damp stone.
"Kel."
Reina's voice, steady, low.
He half-turned, the faintest movement. Reina stood a few steps away, cloak drawn around her, damp ends just above the mist. Her eyes, focused as ever, watched his face and the space where the window had been.
"You can admire your new self later," she said softly. "For now… let's leave this place."
Landon came to stand to her right, his expression its usual solid calm, but his posture looser, more fluid—as if the lake had quietly oiled rusted joints.
"Sera says the path back through the mountain will not stay open forever," he added. "The lake's will may shift."
Sera stood a bit further back, near the receding mist of the shore. One hand still rested over her chest, as if she could not stop checking that nothing gnawed at her life anymore. Her pale hair clung to her cheeks and neck, eyes a little too bright.
"We received more than we dared hope," she said, her voice colder than Reina's but soft in its own way. "Lingering might… anger the balance here."
Kel listened.
He turned his gaze once more toward the invisible tunnel that had brought them, now veiled by dull, waiting mist.
Leaving.
That had been the plan.
First task: reach Scarder Lake.
Second task: lift the curse.
He exhaled.
First task completed.
Second task… completed.
But there had always been a third thought lurking behind the first two—the one no one in this world knew.
The one only a player of Destiny would remember.
No… not yet.
I still have something to do here.
His fingers relaxed.
His smile faded, replaced by calm focus.
I didn't come only to live.
I came to gamble higher.
Contract.
He remembered, with patient clarity, five separate runs of the game—out of twenty—where he had managed to trigger the secret route.
A hidden lake guardian.
A hidden contract.
A hidden key.
Sometimes she had refused. Sometimes he had mis-timed the words. But five times, he had succeeded. Five times, she had answered differently.
He turned back toward the lake.
The mist over the surface was thin now, drifting in long, lazy sheets. The water's grey expanse lay flat and expressionless, as if no divine presence had ever risen from it.
"Kel?" Reina stepped closer, her brows drawing together. "What is it?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he walked slowly toward the shore again. His boots brushed the thin mist, disturbing it. The subtle weight of three gazes settled on his back.
Landon's quiet concern.
Reina's wariness.
Sera's sharpened attention.
Kel stopped at the edge of the lake.
The surface was still.
His reflection did not appear.
He drew in a slow breath.
In the game, it was simple. A hidden flag. A precise dialogue branch. A few points in Charisma. A specific condition: curse or no curse… and the willingness to look at her not as a mechanic, but as a person trapped just like me.
His lips moved around a soundless sigh.
In the original code, he had done it with detached curiosity.
Now…
He felt the loneliness at the edge of that water as something very real.
He lifted his head slightly, eyes half-lidded.
"Oh guardian of Scarder Lake," he called, voice low but clear, "I request your presence."
The words fell into the mist.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing.
Then the lake shivered.
Mist coiled upward once more—not violently, not with the immense weight of their first meeting, but in a smoother, narrower column. The vapor wrapped around itself, forming the outline of a tall, feminine figure above the water's surface.
She emerged again.
A woman-shape woven from fog and pale light, upper body framed by drifting veils, lower half dissolving into lake and sky. Her face remained indistinct—imperfectly defined as if the world could not quite handle clarity. But her presence was unmistakable.
Her head tilted.
"What more do you have to say, Kel?" she asked.
Her voice was softer this time, amused caution in its tones. She had granted them more than most already.
Behind him, he sensed Reina shift, cautious. Landon's boots rasped once against stone. Sera, however, did not move—her eyes fixed on the guardian as if seeing a saint and a jailer at once.
Kel clasped his hands loosely before him, shoulders relaxed.
"Nothing… to take," he said. "I was merely thinking."
"Thinking?" A faint ripple passed through her mist-veils. "Mortals always think when they want something."
"Sometimes," he agreed. "Sometimes they think… simply because silence hurts."
The guardian was quiet.
Kel breathed in.
"Earlier, when we spoke," he continued, "you said you were the guardian of this lake."
"I am," she replied.
"How long?" he asked. "I mean… you are surely ancient. But how long exactly have you guarded it?"
For a moment, the mist around her eyes darkened, as if shadows had passed across an unseen face.
"Long enough that numbers lose their teeth," she said. "You may say… since the moment Scarder Lake came to exist, I have been here. Its mirror. Its keeper. Its boundary."
Kel's fingers flexed.
"So from the beginning," he said quietly. "From the first reflection."
"Yes."
The single word echoed.
"So," Kel continued, tilting his head slightly, "you've been alone… since the beginning."
The mist trembled.
Her head turned, fractionally, in that vast, slow way of something that did not need to rush.
"Alone?" she repeated.
Her tone had changed.
He met the place where her eyes should be.
"I mean," Kel said, "you never leave the lake. You don't walk the land. You don't feel the sun in different skies, different springs. You don't hear people laugh outside this mist. You're here, always. Protecting it. Watching it. From the same shore. From the same silence."
He inhaled, letting the words settle.
"You don't know how vast the world is beyond this water," he said quietly. "How loud, how foolish, how beautiful, how ugly. You're here, protecting… and the world keeps turning without you."
He lowered his gaze briefly.
"I know what that feels like," Kel added. "To be caged in a room. To see four walls as your world because your body won't let you leave."
The guardian said nothing.
The mist along her shoulders drooped slightly, like veils sagging under unseen weight.
When she finally spoke again, her voice had lost its teasing curve.
"…It is my duty as guardian," she said. "To keep this lake's balance. I cannot leave even if I wish to. This is the shape of my existence. My fate."
The last word held a quiet, tired resignation.
Kel let out a breath.
His eyes were somber.
"That's what I thought once," he replied gently. "That my curse was my final shape. That being the doomed heir of Rosenfeld was the only role I'd ever get. A death flag. A background tragedy."
His lips curved, neither bitter nor bright.
"I was wrong," he said. "The lake proved that. Fate… can be negotiated."
Her veil-like hair rippled, as if stirred by a non-existent wind.
"Negotiate with water," she murmured. "With stone. With death. Yes. Mortals have tried that often enough. Their bones feed the mountain."
Kel shook his head slightly.
"I'm not asking you to leave your post," he said. "I'm asking if you want to… see."
The guardian's presence sharpened.
"See," she repeated slowly. "What do you mean?"
Kel raised his eyes again.
"I have a way," he said, voice low but firm, "for you to see the world beyond this lake—from my eyes. You wouldn't have to leave. You wouldn't abandon your duty. But you would watch the world as I walk it."
The mist around her brightened—just a little.
"So you offer dreams?" she asked.
"No," Kel replied. "Perspective."
A pause.
She leaned forward slightly, enormous and insubstantial, veils trailing.
"Is that truly possible?" she asked.
For the first time, something unguarded slipped into her tone.
A thread of yearning.
Kel did not rush.
"Yes," he said simply. "If you are willing to hear my idea."
"…Tell me your idea first," she said.
Behind him, Reina exhaled quietly, a sound almost lost to the mist. Landon shifted his weight as if anchoring himself more firmly to the ground. Sera was entirely still.
Kel took a heartbeat to gather his thoughts.
In the game, this was just a choice.
This time… it feels more like a promise.
A lonely guardian who has watched this lake since its first breath… To bind her, I don't need chains. I need honesty. The right words, at the right wound.
He looked up again.
"Become my contracted partner," Kel said.
The word partner left his lips with deliberate clarity.
"This way," he continued, "you can see the world from my eyes—feel what I feel, watch where I go—without ever leaving Scarder Lake."
The still water trembled.
Just once.
The mist about her flared—
Then whipped tight like a veil snapped in anger.
"You…" her voice dropped, echoing deeper, "…want to make a contract with me?"
The air around them grew heavy.
Her presence pressed down more forcefully, though it did not quite crush.
"Do you take me for a fool, mortal?" she asked.
The lake rippled under each word.
"You wish to bind me, reduce me to a servant tethered to your soul, a summoned thing to be used at your convenience?" Mist cracked like distant thunder. "You bring pretty words of seeing the world… and hide a leash beneath them?"
Reina's hand flew to her spear.
Landon's muscles locked, ready.
Sera's fingers tightened at her sides, eyes narrowed with the fear of losing something she did not yet fully understand.
Kel did not flinch.
He did not step back.
His gaze did not waver.
His voice, when he spoke again, was firm, clear.
"I do not intend to make you my servant," he said. "If I had wanted that, I would have chosen different words."
The pressure around them eased by a hair.
Kel raised a hand slightly, palm open.
"I'm not offering a master–servant contract," he continued. "I offer you a mutual contract. A partnership. One where you keep your will in full. One where you are free to choose whether you help me—or refuse—at any time."
The guardian's towering outline stilled.
"You claim," she said slowly, "that even bound, I would be free?"
"Yes."
His answer was immediate.
She watched him, mists swirling.
"And how," she asked, the words like cool blades, "am I to trust that you will not betray this promise later?"
Kel's jaw tightened.
"I swear," he said, "on my life."
The mist stilled.
Reina's breath caught.
Sera's eyes widened sharply.
Landon's gaze hardened but did not leave Kel.
Kel's hand curled slowly into a fist over his own heart.
"If, at any time," he said, enunciating each word, "I try to force you to do something against your will—if I attempt to twist the contract to command you—you may break it instantly. At that exact moment, our bond will be severed, and you will be free."
He met the guardian's unseen eyes.
"And I," he added quietly, "will pay for that betrayal with my life."
Silence fell like a curtain.
The lake lay utterly still.
Above it, the guardian's shape flickered faintly, as if her form had grown less stable with the weight of what was being said.
"…You swear your life," she repeated. "On a mortal tongue, that is loud. On the lake's hearing, that is binding."
Her mist-veils shifted.
"Very well," she said at last, voice softening into something vast and solemn. "Do not forget your words, Kel."
He exhaled slowly.
The air felt sharper.
The mist around her lifted, rising higher.
"Then hear mine," she continued. "If I perceive your intention twisting—if you wield me like a chain—I will cut it. I will cut you from me. And the lake… will judge you as oathbreaker."
Kel nodded.
"I accept," he said.
The guardian extended one hand.
It was not flesh.
It was mist taking the shape of a hand—long fingers, half-formed, trailing fog that dripped slowly back into the lake as light.
Kel stepped to the very edge of the shore.
Reina took one involuntary step forward, then caught herself.
Landon's hand drifted toward his sword again, then fell away. This was not an enemy.
Sera's lips parted.
Kel lifted his own hand.
Their fingertips met.
Cold.
Not chill.
Not frostbite.
Something primal, like touching the first winter.
Mist surged around their joined hands, coiling up Kel's arm, winding into his coat, brushing against his skin, searching his aura core, his lungs, his heart.
His breath hitched.
The lake hummed.
A voice—hers and not hers—whispered without sound.
[Contract Condition Detected.]
Words appeared at the edge of his mind's eye, as if written on the inside of his skull.
[Proposed Bond: Mutual – Non-Compulsory Assistance]
[Dominance Clause: None]
[Terminating Clause: Forced Compulsion → Self-Break Trigger]
"Speak it," she whispered.
Kel's lips moved.
"I, Kel von Rosenfeld," he said, the name ringing like a chord in the still air, "swear that the bond I form with the guardian of Scarder Lake will not be used to enslave her will. If I ever attempt to force her against her desire… may this contract shatter, and may the cost fall upon me."
The guardian's voice followed, layered, distant and close.
"I, the Watcher of Scarder Waters," she said, "accept this pact only as equal. I will see through your eyes what the world beyond my mist becomes, and I will answer when I choose. If compulsion is turned upon me, I will sever the bond and let the lake decide your fate."
Mist spiraled wildly around them now, then contracted sharply, drawing tight as a knot.
Light—muted, pale, yet profound—flared where their hands met.
[Mutual Contract Formed]
[Title Gained: Lakebound Witness]
[Spirit Link: Scarder Guardian – Established]
Kel's lungs seized for a second, as if someone had plunged icy water directly into his chest.
Then—
The feeling passed.
The light faded.
He staggered half a step back, blinking.
The mist-lady's form steadied, now subtly clearer—and something about her presence felt less… distant. Less anchored solely to the water.
A thread of awareness brushed across his mind—not intrusive, not prying.
A presence.
Curious.
Testing.
So this is how mortals… feel wind…
The thought was not words, but an impression—hers—brushing lightly across his senses.
Kel exhaled.
He smiled.
It felt like the world itself had just shifted a little off its old axis.
He lifted his head.
The guardian regarded him.
"You are reckless," she said, but there was a strange warmth buried under the words. "And interesting."
Her gaze slid toward the others standing behind him.
"They may not see me through your eyes," she murmured, "but they will feel echoes. My judgment of them remains unchanged. My curiosity, however…"
The mist around her shoulders rose in a semblance of a shrug.
"…has expanded."
Kel's hand dropped to his side.
"Then our pact stands," he said simply.
"Until it breaks," she replied. "Or until one of us stops walking."
The lake's surface shivered once more, then calmed.
Her shape began to thin, dissolving back into mist.
"Go, Kel," she said, voice turning distant. "You have torn your death-script apart. Now write the next pages carefully. I will be watching…"
Her last words curled through his veins like cold silver.
"…from within."
Her figure vanished.
The lake was just water again.
Kel exhaled very slowly.
He turned around.
Reina's eyes met his, searching. There was exasperation there—yes—but also a reluctant, quiet admiration.
"That," she said, "was not in the plan you mentioned to us."
"It was in the plan he only mentions to himself," Landon rumbled, but there was a ghost of a smile near the corner of his mouth.
Sera stepped closer, her gaze sharp.
"You made a contract with her," she murmured. "Not as master and summoned beast… but as equal." Her fingers tightened slightly. "Do you always walk so calmly along edges that drop into death?"
Kel chuckled softly.
His chest did not hurt when he did.
It still surprised him.
"I don't know how to walk any other way," he replied.
He lifted his eyes one last time toward the lake.
His heartbeat was calm.
Curse lifted. Contract gained. Hidden key… obtained.
"Now," he said quietly, turning fully toward the mist-hidden passage, "let's leave."
This time, when he took the first step away from Scarder Lake, he did so with no weight gnawing at his life—
and with a slumbering presence of water and mist watching curiously from somewhere just behind his eyes.