[ Threshold Reached ]
Miri paused and waited for more but nothing came. With a shrug, she continued. She made a mental note to check her stats later.
The first gathering site lay in a shallow marsh where pale reeds grew in clusters, their stalks faintly luminous even in daylight. Grave-reeds, according to the contract, were plants that drank mana from old grief and bled it back into the soil.
Finding them took longer than she expected.
Not because they were rare, but because the land refused to cooperate. Mud sucked her boots into the ground. Thorny brush snagged her sleeves. Once, she startled a slithering something that hissed and vanished before she could even identify it.
By the time she knelt among the first cluster of reeds, her legs ached and sweat slicked her back beneath the armor.
“Worth it,” she said quietly, as she carefully sliced her knife through the stalks.
She worked slowly and gently, recalling Fluffkins’ voice in her head—alchemy ingredients remember how they’re treated. She cut, bundled, and stored them with deliberate care.
That night, she made camp for the first time truly alone.
The fire took three tries. The stew was… edible. She ate cross-legged in the dirt, watching sparks spiral upward into the dark. Before sleeping, she placed the alarm rune at the edge of camp and traced its activation sigil with a whisper of mana.
The rune hummed softly.
Miri slept deeper than she expected.
* * *
He waited until the lights went out.
He stood across the narrow street, hands tucked into his coat, breathing slow and steady. The night air smelled of damp earth and woodsmoke. Calm. Reasonable. Like this was a normal thing to be doing.
The voice stirred, low and pleased.
He never saw you.
“I know,” he whispered back.
The memory surfaced unbidden: standing in that same office months ago, being talked over, waved aside. Good work, said like an afterthought. Promotion given to someone else. Again.
He had smiled then. Of course he had. He always smiled.
The back door yielded easily. Inside, the house smelled like old paper and tea. Familiar. The man hadn’t changed much.
His former boss sat at the small kitchen table, hunched over a ledger, lamp burning low. He looked up, startled, confusion flickering across his face.
“You—?”
The knife went in cleanly. Not deep at first. Enough to steal the breath. Enough to make the man understand.
“Do you know,” he said calmly, leaning close, “how many nights I lay awake wondering what I did wrong?”
The man gurgled, hands scrabbling uselessly against his chest. The voice hummed in approval.
He never thanked you.
“I know.”
When it was over, he cleaned the blade on the man’s sleeve, stepped back, and took a moment to straighten the chair. Habit. Order mattered.
He turned off the lights, made sure all the curtains were closed. With a flick of his wrist, he ignited a small fire in the kitchen and made sure the ledgers and papers were alight before he turned away.
As he left, he felt lighter. Not happy. No, not that. But… aligned.
Like something inside him had finally stopped itching.
* * *
The second day passed for Miri in a rhythm she hadn’t known she was craving.
Walk. Scan. Listen. Gather.
By midday, the first contract was complete. She felt a small, quiet pride as she sealed the last bundle away.
She turned toward the second site—and nearly walked straight into trouble.
The creature burst from the undergrowth in a blur of fur and tusk, faster than it had any right to be. Miri barely had time to draw her sword before it slammed into her, sending her skidding across the dirt.
Pain flared and fear followed close behind. She forced both down.
The fight was ugly. The creature was strong, stubborn, and territorial. She took a glancing blow to the shoulder that left her arm numb, but she stayed on her feet, channeling mana into her blade until it bit deeper, truer.
When it finally fell, Miri stood over it shaking, breath ragged, blood roaring in her ears.
[ You have defeated a Marsh Boar Lv5 ]
“Hell yeah,” she said, and breathed out a laugh.
The System automatically converted the body’s valuable resources into her inventory. The boar slowly began to lose definition, its color fading. It would decompose within a few hours.
Miri was very glad she wasn’t forced to butcher her kills. The System converted anything usable and deposited it in her inventory.
She made a face as she glanced at one of the newly added items.
“Rendered Fat (Alchemy Grade)?”
Welp, that’s fucking gross.
That night, she camped again. This time, the routine felt less fragile. More deliberate.
The perimeter alarm rune woke her just past midnight.
She came up with her sword already in motion, instincts screaming. Shapes moved at the edge of firelight—low, quick, too many.
The ambush was chaos.
She fought by sound and instinct, Threat Perception flaring hot in her awareness. One creature went down. Then another. Something raked her calf and she hissed, nearly losing her footing.
But she held.
When the last shape fled into the dark, Miri collapsed to her knees, shaking, alive.
The rune dimmed.
She didn’t sleep much after that.
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* * *
The butcher screamed.
It wasn’t loud, more of a startled bark than anything else. He’d been bent over his cutting block when the blow came, blood splattering as the butcher fell to the tiled floor.
“Wait—wait!” the butcher shouted, scrambling backward, hands slick and useless. “What is this?!”
He stood over him, breathing hard, the knife already dripping red. The shop smelled like iron and fat and sweat.
“You cheated me,” he said evenly. “Every time. You think I didn’t notice?”
The butcher laughed—a harsh, incredulous sound.
“Cheated you?” He spat, literally, blood and saliva hitting the killer’s cheek. “I charged you extra because you’re a miserable bastard. Everyone knows it.”
The words landed harder than any blow.
“You come in scowling, snapping at my apprentices, acting like the world owes you something,” the butcher went on, voice shaking with rage and pain. “You think you deserve kindness?”
The voice surged, hot and delighted.
See? They hate you. They always have.
His hands trembled.
“I was polite,” he said, too quickly. “I paid.”
“You glared at my boy like you wanted him dead,” the butcher snapped. “You threw your credits at us like we should be grateful to scrabble after your droppings. I should’ve barred you months ago.”
Something inside him cracked.
The rest was fast. Messy. He didn’t remember the exact sequence—just the sound of the knife hitting bone, the butcher’s voice cutting off mid-curse.
When it was over, he stood in the wreckage of the shop, chest heaving, ears ringing.
Blood everywhere. Too much.
For the first time, something like doubt crept in.
“I didn’t mean for it to—”
The voice wrapped around the thought, smothering it.
He deserved it.
Silence returned. The doubt faded.
As he stepped back into the night, he realized something else had changed.
The first time he killed, he vomited and cried for hours afterward. Stuffing his wife’s body in a trunk and dragging it into his attic step by step was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
The second time, he trembled the entire way home and threw back a couple shots of liquor as the growing fire a few blocks away made the evening glow orange. He blamed the nausea on the liquor.
It was easier this time.
* * *
By the third day, Miri could tell she was improving.
She wasn’t fearless or effortless, but she was definitely sharper.
Her movements were cleaner. Her reactions faster. She noticed things now: the way the forest went quiet before danger, the subtle pressure in her chest when something watched her from just beyond sight.
Threat Perception grew keener. Her sword answered her will with less resistance.
When she finished the second gathering contract, she barely paused before turning toward the last marker on her map.
The fishing spot lay beside a slow, glassy stretch of river with white, sandy banks. Still and quiet, it looked like the perfect place for fly fishing.
The ghost made itself known the moment Miri stepped onto the bank. Cold slammed into her, not like winter air but like plunging into deep water. Painful, all-encompassing, freezing.
Her breath caught. The river beside her went glassy, unnaturally still, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
She armed herself with her sword, flexing her fingers around the grip. Hoping to scout the area before falling back to prepare was perhaps not the brightest idea.
Something pulled itself together out of mist and memory—a man-shaped outline, half-there, edges fraying. Its face was a blur of grief and rage, eyes burning brighter than the rest of it, fixed on her with terrible focus.
“Fuck it, we’ll do it live,” she thought as she swung her sword.
And watched it pass straight through the ghost.
“Oh,” she gasped, stumbling to the side as frost bloomed along her arms. “That’s bad.”
The ghost surged towards her. She jumped back, stumbled in the sand and regained her feet just as the ghost surged again. She uselessly swung her sword through the apparition.
It didn’t hit her so much as pass through her, and wherever it touched, the warmth drained away. Her fingers went numb. Her knees buckled. Panic flared hot and sharp in her chest.
Think. Think.
Fluffkins’ voice echoed in her head, maddeningly calm.
Spirits aren’t solid. They are intention given shape. You can’t hit intention, you must interrupt it.
The ghost lunged again, faster this time. Miri threw herself sideways, boots skidding in the damp sand. Nerves screamed as something raked across her back—not claws, not hands, just a tearing cold that left her gasping.
She rolled to her feet and snapped her fingers.
“Flame!”
A tongue of fire sputtered into existence — and passed harmlessly through the specter, its edges dimming as if embarrassed.
The ghost’s mouth stretched into something like a smile.
“Right,” Miri wheezed. “Wrong tool.”
She backed away, heart hammering, mind scrambling for anything that made sense.
Her sword was useless. Flame did nothing. Every attack passed straight through.
“Okay,” she gasped aloud, because saying something felt better than screaming. “Okay. Fine.”
She didn’t know how to fight a ghost.
It struck again.
Miri hit the ground hard, breath knocked from her lungs. She rolled, scrambling for space, but the cold followed her, dragging at her limbs. Every movement felt slower than the last.
Her hands shook, her sword felt too heavy to hold.
She swung wildly, desperately. The blade passed through empty air. The ghost laughed—a soundless, vibrating pressure that rattled her bones.
I’m losing. The thought landed with terrifying clarity.
Another blow ripped through her, and this time she screamed as the cold reached deep, scraping against something vital. Her legs buckled. She barely caught herself on one knee, gasping, throat burning.
Her fingers brushed the potion at her belt. She fumbled it free, hands clumsy and numb, and drank, choking as warmth clawed its way back through her chest.
Think, she told herself wildly. Do something.
And then, stupidly late, the thought hit her.
“I have a goddamn magic bolt,” she rasped.
She threw out her hand and fired.
The Arc Bolt slammed into the ghost in a blinding flash. It shrieked as its form tore apart, pieces of glowing mana scattering like embers in water.
For half a heartbeat, hope flared.
The mana surged back together. Faster. Tighter. Angrier.
It wasn’t enough.
The ghost loomed, gathering itself. Its shape tightened, growing more solid as she fell apart.
Miri dragged herself backward through the sand, heart hammering so hard it hurt. Her sword trembled in her grip. Her thoughts scattered.
No spells. No tricks. No ideas.
Just her sword.
The ghost lunged again, and Miri screamed—more in frustration than fear—and poured mana into her blade.
Not measured, not stable, not controlled. Just all of it.
The sword shrieked in her hands, vibrating so hard it hurt. Light spread along the edge, stretching beyond the steel in a jagged aura that burned her palms.
She swung.
This time, the blade met resistance.
The ghost shrieked as the sword tore through its form, light ripped a glowing wound across its torso. It recoiled violently as its shape destabilized, edges shredding like fabric caught on barbed wire.
Miri froze for half a heartbeat and stared.
“That—” she breathed. “That worked?”
The ghost screamed and charged again, fury overriding caution.
Miri didn’t stop channeling.
Pain flared up her arms as mana burned through her faster than she’d ever dared before. Her vision swam. Her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached.
She met the ghost head-on.
One strike. Then another.
Each blow carved light through mist, tearing the specter apart faster than it could pull itself back together. The cold weakened. The pressure eased.
The ghost lunged one last time. Miri took the hit, rolled, came up on one knee, and swung with everything she had left.
The blade cleaved through the center of the ghost’s form. It unraveled in a soundless scream, dissolving into motes of fading light that scattered and vanished into the night air.
Silence rushed in.
[ You have defeated the Ghost of Phendrick Horm Lv6! ]
Miri dropped to her knees, sword sinking into the wet sand as her arms finally gave out. Her chest heaved, breath coming in ragged gasps.
There was nothing but the pounding of her own heart. She stared at her trembling hands.
“…Holy shit,” she whispered.
For a long moment, she could only breathe.
Then—
[ Congratulations! You have reached Level 5! ]
Miri laughed weakly, then groaned as the adrenaline ebbed.
A new message appeared.
[ Element Selection Available ]
She stared at the options, heart pounding—not from fear this time, but from anticipation.
