— Day thirteen. Dacia Training Forest. Morning entry.
The Forest Smelled Like Rain That Had Happened Three Days Ago and Hadn't Finished Leaving
King stepped off the transit path at the forest entry point and stopped for a moment, breathing it in—wet stone under dead leaves, the particular green smell of things growing in low light, something deeper underneath that was the forest's own accumulated time. The tree canopy closed overhead within fifty paces of the entry. After that the sky was just patches of light between branches.
Dacia Training Forest, the orientation materials had called it. Bounded by a mana barrier perimeter. Monster density: E to C-rank, distributed across three zones. Inner core may contain B-rank variants in low numbers.
The materials had not mentioned the smell.
"Boots are going to be wet in twenty minutes," Haruto said, from beside him, looking at the ground. The soil was dark and soft and had the particular give of something that held water long after the surface dried.
"Wrap the ankle interface with the wax cloth before you go in," Aki said. She had already done hers. She had done it at the transit stop while everyone else was still adjusting their packs. "Standard forest prep. I have extra cloth if anyone needs it."
"I do," Riku said.
"I don't," Haruto said.
"You will," Aki said, producing the cloth and offering it anyway.
Haruto took it.
King looked at the forest.
He had been in forests before—in the abstract sense of having been everywhere before, the way he had been everywhere before, which was a frame of reference he was actively not using. He had not been in this forest. In this body, at this scale, with the particular weight of a training pack on his back and wet soil underfoot and five people he'd known thirteen days standing beside him.
Different, he thought. New and different. That's the goal.
"Ridge position is northeast from the entry point," Riku said, unfolding the map. "Approximately forty minutes at a normal pace. Longer if the terrain is uneven between here and the midpoint." He looked at the tree line. "We'll need to navigate by landmark—the ridge should be visible once we're above the first canopy break."
"I'll take point," King said.
Haruto looked at him. "You know this forest?"
"I know the map," King said.
"The map is one page," Haruto said.
"It's a clear one page," King said. "Stay in my sightline until we're past the first section."
He walked into the forest.
---
The first section was quiet.
Not silent—the forest was always making noise, the kind of constant low-level sound that wasn't any individual thing but was the collective presence of every small living thing in the canopy and undergrowth. King moved through it and the sound rearranged around him slightly, the way ambient noise rearranged around a new object moving through a space.
He was not doing anything unusual.
He was just walking.
He was also, without fully deciding to, noticing things.
The undergrowth on the left side of the path they were making had been recently disturbed—not by anything large, by a repeating small pressure. Something medium-sized that came through this route regularly. The branch pattern at head height showed rubbing marks from antlers, which meant the deer here moved in from the eastern side. The moss on the northern faces of the large trees was a specific shade that he—he stopped himself before he identified the sixteen-species taxonomy that the moss pattern implied.
Walk, he told himself. Navigate. That's the task.
"There's something under that root cluster," he said, pointing left.
Everyone looked.
"I don't see anything," Haruto said.
"The roots are elevated slightly on the south side," King said. "Something small made a hollow under there."
"That's a tracking observation," Riku said.
"Yes," King said.
"You know tracking."
"Some of it," King said, which was true in the sense that everything he had ever learned was available to him in some form, and tracking animals through undergrowth disturbance patterns was a thing that had been known and was therefore available.
"When did you learn tracking?" Haruto said.
"I read about it," King said.
"The section on tracking is in the week four supplementary material," Sora said. She was three steps behind King, notebook closed, watching the forest with the specific attention she brought to things she was assessing for patterns. "I know because I read ahead too."
"Week four," Haruto said. He looked at King, then at Sora. "Both of you read the week four material before we left for the trial."
"Yes," King said.
"What's in week five?" Haruto asked.
"Dungeon ecology," Sora said.
"And week six?"
"Combat theory advanced module and talent-type conversion drift," King said.
Haruto made a sound that communicated several simultaneous feelings about this information and his own reading pace.
"It's helpful to read ahead," Aki said, cheerfully. "There's no rule against it."
"I know there's no rule against it," Haruto said. He was already moving again, following King's path. "I just like knowing the material fresh. It feels more real if I didn't read it in advance."
"That's an interesting learning philosophy," Sora said.
"It works for me," Haruto said.
"I know it does," she said. It was not a criticism.
---
King stopped seventeen minutes into the walk.
He stopped abruptly enough that Haruto almost walked into him.
"What," Haruto said.
King crouched.
There, at the base of a large tree—the root system was substantial, three visible surface roots each as wide as a person's forearm, creating a shallow enclosed space at their junction—was a plant that should not have been there.
Not dangerous. Not threatening. Just wrong for the location.
He looked at it. Low growth, grey-green leaves with a particular serrated margin, the stem structure of a mountain-altitude species. This was mid-forest terrain, canopy-filtered light, high moisture. Mountain-altitude plants needed direct sun and low humidity. This one was—thriving, somehow, in conditions that should have killed it weeks ago.
Interesting, he thought.
"What is it?" Sora asked. She was beside him immediately, because she had noticed him stop and crouch and those were actions she catalogued.
"A plant," King said.
"I can see it's a plant," she said.
"It's a mountain species," he said. "Luris fern, southern variety. It grows above the snowline in the Prussonia Mountain range. It shouldn't survive at this altitude and this moisture level." He looked at the soil around it. "The root system is adapted—it's found a mineral pocket in the rock beneath the roots, probably drawing nutrients directly instead of from the soil."
Sora was writing.
"How do you know what it's called?" she asked.
"I read the Academy's botanical survey files," he said. "The library archive section."
"Week when?"
"Last week," he said. "The morning after the Welcome Purge. I couldn't sleep."
She wrote this.
King stood. He looked at the tree canopy above the fern. The light pattern through the leaves—there was a gap in the canopy, small but consistent, that channeled direct sunlight through to this specific spot for a portion of the morning. The plant had found it. Had grown toward it over what was probably months.
It found the one spot where it could survive, he thought. And it stayed.
He looked at it for one more moment.
Then he stood fully and kept moving.
---
He found fourteen more plants in the next twenty minutes, each one mildly notable for reasons he catalogued quickly and moved past—one growing at three times its typical size, which meant unusual soil mineral content; one with an adapted leaf structure that had flattened to increase light capture; two species that appeared to be in symbiotic relation on the same root system, which was unusual but not unheard of.
He didn't stop for all of them. He noted and moved.
By the time they reached the canopy break that marked the beginning of the mid-forest zone, he had seventeen.
"You keep stopping to look at plants," Haruto said.
"Yes," King said.
"Is that—is that part of the trial?"
"Probably not," King said.
"But you keep doing it."
"They're interesting," King said.
Haruto looked at the latest one—a fern he couldn't see anything unusual about, at least not from where he was standing—and then at King. "Okay," he said, in the tone of a person filing something in the long-term folder. "Okay. Plants. All right."
---
The ridge was better than the map had suggested.
The map showed elevation—it didn't show the specific quality of the rock outcropping that formed the ridge's southern face, which created a natural shelter with a roof-overhang of about three feet, deep enough to sit under in rain and wide enough for five people to work from without crowding. It didn't show the line of sight—from the ridge's highest point you could see both the eastern and western zones clearly, the canopy below creating a texture that told you where the clearings were, where the animal paths ran, where the density changed.
The stream was where the map said it would be, thirty paces below the ridge's eastern slope, running clear and cold.
"Good position," Riku said. He said it with the spare approval of someone who had been skeptical of plans on principle and was now acknowledging this one held.
"Better than I expected," Sora said.
"The overhang is useful," Aki said, looking at the shelter. "If we're here overnight on day two we don't have to build anything."
"We're making good time," King said. "We have most of the day." He looked at the zones below. "The eastern clearing has movement—I can see canopy disturbance. Probably E-rank, maybe D. Good for trial points without high risk."
"Starting with the eastern clearing," Haruto said, with the energy of someone who had been patient about walking and was ready to do the other part.
"Moving through it, not staying in it," King said. "We identify, assess, engage if the risk is appropriate. We don't fight things that would hurt Aki."
"I can handle things that would hurt me," Aki said.
"I know," King said. "I'd rather you didn't have to."
She looked at him. She opened the green notebook, wrote something, closed it.
"Fine," she said. She said it warmly.
---
They moved.
It was on the way down the ridge's eastern slope, picking their path through the undergrowth toward the clearing, that King heard it.
Not a large sound. Very quiet, actually. The kind of sound that the forest's ambient noise covered easily unless you were listening at a specific register.
He stopped.
"What," Haruto said. Immediately, because King stopping was always a data point.
"Small," King said. "Left side. Fifteen meters, maybe less."
He moved off the path.
The undergrowth was thick here—fern fronds and low bushes with small leaves that clung to whatever passed through them. He moved carefully. Not silently—he wasn't trying to be silent, just attentive. The sound was intermittent. Small. The frequency of something that was breathing in a way that required effort.
He found it under the base of a fallen trunk.
A fox kit.
Small—young, maybe six weeks by size, the particular oversized-ear, undersized-body proportions of fox kits at that age. But not quite an ordinary fox. The ears were slightly too large even for a kit, the colouring was off—white base with faint orange patterning that shifted as the light caught it, which was a bioluminescence marker. A mana-touched variant. The kind of animal that was common in training forests and not dangerous at kit stage.
It was curled against the base of the fallen trunk with its front right paw held at a slightly wrong angle.
Injured, King confirmed. The paw. Something stepped on it, probably. Or it fell.
He crouched.
The kit looked at him.
He looked back.
It was not afraid, exactly. Its ears were up—not flat, not defensive. Just—watching. With the specific cautious attention of something small that had been hurt and wasn't sure yet what category the large thing crouching in front of it belonged to.
King looked at the paw.
Small fracture or bad sprain, he thought. The bone structure is intact from the angle of it—it's load-bearing but painful. If it stays here it won't be able to forage when it's old enough to need to.
I shouldn't do anything, he thought. I'm in a training forest on a trial. I should note it and move.
He held both hands out, palms up, at ground level.
He waited.
The kit looked at his hands.
It took approximately twenty seconds—long seconds, during which King did not move—and then it limped forward two small steps and put its front paws onto his hands.
He picked it up.
Gently. The specific, deliberate gentleness of someone calibrating every degree of pressure with careful attention. He held it in both hands with its weight distributed across his palms, its bad paw unsupported from below so it wasn't bearing weight.
The kit looked up at him.
He looked back.
Don't, he told himself firmly. Don't do anything. You're holding it. That's all. Just holding.
He held it.
His hands were warm—body temperature, normal—and the kit's small body settled into the warmth the way cold things settled into warmth, a gradual adjustment of posture as the tension came out.
The paw looked better.
He had not done anything to the paw.
The paw looked better anyway.
I wasn't doing anything, he thought. I was just holding it.
He looked at the paw very carefully.
The swelling had reduced. Not gone—reduced, in the specific way swelling reduced when circulation improved, when the tissue settled from acute stress into a lower inflammatory state.
I wasn't doing anything, he thought again. I was just holding it.
He stayed very still and thought very firmly that he was just holding a fox kit in a training forest and nothing unusual was happening and this was fine.
The kit, for its part, had tucked its nose under the edge of his thumb and appeared to be making a decision about whether to sleep.
"King."
He looked up. Haruto was standing at the edge of the undergrowth, looking at him holding a fox kit, with the specific expression he made when King had produced a new situation that Haruto hadn't predicted.
"It was injured," King said. "The paw."
Haruto looked at the paw.
"It doesn't look injured now," Haruto said.
"It's better," King said.
"How."
"I held it," King said.
A pause.
"You held it," Haruto said.
"Yes."
Haruto looked at the kit. The kit looked at Haruto from the warmth of King's hands with the expression of something small that had found a comfortable situation and was weighing whether this new presence was going to disrupt it.
The others had come through the undergrowth behind Haruto. Sora's notebook was already open. Aki was looking at the kit with the assessing attention of someone evaluating an animal patient. Riku's journal was in his hand.
"It's a mana-touched fox kit," Aki said. "Forest variant. The bioluminescence markers show active mana sensitivity." She looked at King's hands, at the kit, at the paw position. "That paw was injured?"
"Yes," King said.
She looked at it for a moment longer. Then she looked at him. "I want to assess it, if you'll let me."
King held the kit toward her.
She took it carefully—she handled it with the clean, practiced competence of someone who had done this before, supporting the weight correctly, checking the paw angle. She pressed gently around the joint. The kit flinched once, then settled.
"Residual tenderness," she said. "But the acute injury response is—reduced. Significantly." She looked at King. "You held it for thirty seconds."
"About that," King said.
She gave him the look.
He received the look.
She handed the kit back.
The kit went back into his hands and immediately returned to the previous position—nose under the thumb, settling. Its tail curled once.
"You can't carry it through the trial," Riku said. Practical. Already working the logistics.
"I know," King said.
"It'll follow if it's mana-bonded," Sora said. She was writing. "Mana-touched animals develop proximity sensitivity if they have sustained contact with a specific mana signature. Thirty seconds may have been enough."
"I don't have a mana signature," King said. "The instruments don't read me."
Sora looked at him. "Something made the paw better," she said. Carefully.
King looked at the kit.
He set it down gently on the undergrowth—supporting it completely until the paws touched the ground, releasing the weight slowly.
The kit stood.
It put weight on the right paw.
It stood without favoring it.
It looked up at King.
King looked at it.
"Miso," he said.
Haruto blinked. "What."
"I'm going to call it Miso," King said. "If it follows."
Haruto looked at the kit. The kit looked at King. Everyone watched to see what the kit did.
The kit took three steps forward and sat on King's boot.
"Miso," Haruto said, in the specific tone of someone accepting a new permanent addition to the group's situation. "Okay. Miso."
"We need to move," Riku said. "Eastern clearing. We've used time."
"I know," King said. He looked at the kit on his boot. "Come if you want," he said to it. "Or stay."
He took a step toward the clearing path.
The kit trotted after him.
Miso, he thought.
All right.
---
Behind them, at the ridge position, Edward Johnson appeared from the observation path that ran along the forest's eastern perimeter.
He had been maintaining visual contact with Squad Zero since they entered the forest.
He had watched the plant observations—seventeen of them, identified correctly as far as he could tell from distance, most of them species he'd never have noticed himself.
He had watched King find an injured fox kit under a fallen trunk.
He had watched him hold it for thirty seconds.
He had watched the paw.
He had extensive experience with Radiant Bloom healing—Shimizu Aki's talent, which could accelerate cellular recovery in living tissue over a sustained application. He had watched it work. He knew what it looked like. It looked like nothing, from outside—just the healer's hands and the subject and time.
What he had just watched looked nothing like Radiant Bloom.
It looked like a person holding a fox kit.
He wrote in the margin of his observation sheet: Paw injury resolved during 30-second contact. No visible mana output. No technique. No activation.
He looked at King's retreating back.
He wrote: The animal is following him.
He looked at the forest.
He had been in this forest a hundred times. He had watched a thousand squads enter it. He had watched talented students, gifted students, students who had gone on to SS-rank and left their names on the Guild's record boards.
He wrote, at the bottom of the sheet:
I have not seen anything like this.
He underlined it.
He followed Squad Zero toward the eastern clearing.