The forest had shifted while I was gone. It wasn’t darker, exactly, more like quieter, thicker. The wind had taken a lunch break, and the birds were whispering behind cupped wings. Golden beams of afternoon sun pierced through the canopy in dramatic rays, the kind that made you feel like you were on a pilgrimage or in a really well-directed nature documentary.

  My boots crunched softly over the mossy path as I walked alone, the restaurant and the fading scent of stew far behind me now. Rasta vilge wasn’t too far, just an hour’s walk if you didn’t get distracted or ambushed by something getinous. I had my cloak back over my ears again, though honestly, I was getting tired of pying pretend elf. The moment I stepped back into my room, the ears were coming out and getting some air.

  The trees opened up slightly into a small clearing up ahead. I paused at the edge of it, squinting. Something glistened in the middle of the clearing, like someone had spilled jelly on the moss. Bright green. Semi-translucent. A bit wobbly. Definitely not dessert.

  “A slime,” I muttered, exasperated. “Of course.”

  It wasn’t very big, about the size of a small beanbag chair. But it was pulsing gently, as if it was breathing. Every few seconds, it made a soft, wet fwomp noise as it bounced in pce, clearly excited by my presence.

  “Listen, friend,” I said, taking a cautious step back, “I’m not in the mood to be digested. I’ve got stew in my stomach, which I’m very protective of. Can we not do this?”

  The slime fwomped again, a little more aggressively, and began hopping toward me with all the terrifying speed of an angry pudding.

  I sighed, drawing my training sword. “Fine. But you brought this on yourself.”

  “Draw… You need to draw… Mashiro.” The voice came out of nowhere. Soft and distant, but eerily clear, like it had skipped through yers of reality just to jab me in the brain.

  I froze mid-step, my boots sinking slightly into the mossy forest floor. My fingers twitched near the hilt of my training sword, while my eyes darted around the trees, searching for the source. The forest was still. The sun filtered gently through the leaves above, birds still chirped in the distance, and the only visible movement was that of the slime ahead, bouncing zily in the clearing like a happy getin arm bell.

  “…Um,” I mumbled, adjusting my grip. “What?”

  There was no one in sight, no strange hooded figures lurking behind trees, no magical glows or shimmering illusions. Just the trees, the slime, and me. The perfect setup for a horror movie.

  “Draw… what?” I asked aloud, more to myself than anything. I pulled my hood up more tightly around my ears, the comforting weight of the dark fabric settling back over my head like armor. “Is someone there? I’m warning you, I bite.”

  No response. Not even the wind.

  “Draw… You need to draw… Mashiro.”

  It was the same phrase, the same tone, like a recording stuck on repeat, except it wasn’t mechanical. It was haunting, intimate, like someone whispering from just behind a curtain of thought. My heart began to thud faster, and I shifted my stance, muscles tensing as I held my sword a little tighter. Every training instinct from my gamer brain kicked in: unknown voices meant quest triggers… or boss battles.

  That was when I noticed something odd.

  I stood there like someone had pressed pause on the universe. The slime, up until now my only mildly concerning getinous companion, was no longer zily bouncing in the clearing. Instead, it had gone into full-on panic mode, ricocheting from rock to root like it had just remembered it left the oven on at home. That should’ve been my first real warning sign. Slimes don’t run from battles. They blob. They blorp. They get whacked. But they don’t bolt. Not unless something way worse is about to show up.

  “Hey!” I tried to chase after it, boots crunching against dry twigs, but I never got the chance. The moment I turned, a cold gust of air smmed into my face, sending a visible puff of breath into the afternoon sun. My skin prickled. The birds stopped chirping. “Come back here! I’m not done judging you yet!”

  I barely had time to call after it, my voice dying on my lips as the atmosphere changed around me in an instant. One moment, golden sunlight filtered peacefully through the leaves above, and the next, a shivering gust cut through the forest like a bde. It wasn’t just cold, it was bone-deep, the kind of cold that carried secrets. My breath fogged the air, and the sudden silence that followed was not peaceful. It was expectant. The birds had stopped. Even the insects had gone still. The forest held its breath.

  Then, it screamed.

  The sound was not of this world. A scream razor-edged and distorted, like a dragon’s cry passed through a storm of shattered gss. It reverberated through the trees, through my skull, like it wanted to shake memories loose. My head jerked upward, and I saw it: a shape hurtling down from the sky like a meteor of darkness and wrath. Wings tattered but wide. A frame lean but deadly. Not a dragon, not fully. Its body was too narrow, too agile. A wyvern, maybe.

  And then… I heard it. A shrill, jagged screech, part pain, part fury tore through the sky like a bde on gss. My head snapped up just in time to see a dark shape descending fast, its wings spread wide and ragged, its form blurring in the sunlight like a shadow made of smoke and bone.

  I moved before I had time to panic. My fingers opened, and with a shimmer of light and a puff of sparkles, I dismissed my training sword into my inventory. That familiar flicker of game logic still worked. Good to know. Immediately, I reached deep into my inventory space for Yumi, my newly acquired bow, the weapon I hadn’t even had the chance to test yet. The moment my fingers brushed the curved grip, the bow shimmered into existence with a hum that felt… responsive. As though the weapon recognized me. As if it had been waiting.

  I raised the bow, backing into a steadier stance, the kind I remembered from rhythm boss battles, feet apart, center low, breath steady. I pulled the string. It offered resistance, but not too much. It wanted to be drawn. And as it came back, a bolt of glowing energy shaped itself into an arrow, weightless but deadly, its point glowing faint violet at the tip. That’s when I noticed something shift behind me.

  A ripple. A pulse. A reaction.

  My cloak, the same dark one Yuzu had used to hide my fox ears, fred out behind me, not from the wind, but from magic. Runes shimmered faintly along the seams, faint purple light threading through the fabric like veins. And just beside my temple, beneath the edge of my hood, I felt a small movement, something poking. Ears. My ears. My real ears had pushed up beneath the hood on their own, reacting to the magic, to the danger, to the call to draw.

  “…Oh,” I muttered, realization dawning like a slow sunrise. “That’s what it meant.”

  The voice hadn’t meant draw in the artistic sense. It hadn’t even meant “draw near.” It had meant draw your bow. And now, with my hands steady and the arrow aligned, I had done just that.

  The wyvern shrieked again, barreling downward, wings slicing through the air like scythes. I could make out more detail now, the long, spiked tail that whipped behind it, the rows of teeth that gleamed in its narrow jaws, the eyes that glowed not with rage but recognition. As if it, too, had been seeking me.

  I was scared, no, terrified. The kind of primal, heart-shredding fear that short-circuits your body and makes you want to curl into a ball and disappear. My hands were trembling so hard the bowstring quivered in sympathy, and my knees wobbled like jelly.

  Every step the wyvern took closer, every thunderous beat of its wings, sent shockwaves through the air that rattled my ribs. Each guttural growl it made punched through my stomach, threatening to bring up everything I’d eaten since breakfast. I couldn’t tell if my heartbeat was too fast or had stopped altogether, just that I felt it, everywhere, like a drumline for my impending doom.

  And then, the voice returned.

  “Draw… You need to draw… Mashiro.”

  Just like that, a wave of calm surged through me. Not artificial, not magical exactly, but real. Grounding. Like someone had pced a warm hand on my shoulder and whispered, "You've done harder things. You can do this too." The shaking didn’t stop entirely, but it became manageable. I could breathe again.