Not because the road was hard.
Because nobody was talking.
Lyra walked like she was offended by the existence of my face. Mina walked like she was trying to be mature about it and failing. Roth walked like he had never heard the word jealousy in his life and intended to keep it that way.
Pyon blinked ahead and back, ears twitching.
…tense
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Very tense.”
Valeblade whispered from Mina’s hip, suppressed but smug anyway. “Tension is the forge of legend.”
Mina whispered, without looking at him, “If you say legend again I will test if you can float.”
Valeblade went silent for a full three seconds.
That was progress.
I tried to break the mood.
“I did not ask for the forest to mark me,” I said.
Lyra didn’t slow. “And yet you got marked.”
Mina didn’t look at me. “Can you remove it.”
“I tried,” I said. “I opened settings. It did not have a ‘remove cursed romance aura’ toggle.”
Lyra’s mouth twitched like she almost laughed and then remembered she was mad.
Roth said, “Focus. We are close.”
The trees thinned.
The road widened.
A low wall appeared.
And beyond it, the final station.
East Road Station Three.
Except it wasn’t calm.
Smoke rose from the floodgate hut.
Guards were shouting.
A bell was ringing fast, the kind of bell that means not a drill, not a prank, not a bad day.
An actual problem.
My system flashed.
[ALERT]
Floodgate station in distress.
Integrity: unstable.
Roth broke into a run.
Lyra’s hands ignited.
Mina’s symbol glowed faintly, shaky but present.
I grabbed Pyon’s harness strap and ran with him.
The closer we got, the more the air smelled like it always did when something divine-tagged had been involved.
Sweet. Chemical. Wrong.
The station captain met us at the gate with blood on her sleeve and panic in her eyes.
Not fear.
Duty panic.
The kind that comes when you have a job and the job is dissolving.
“Guild escort,” she barked. “Finally!”
Roth raised the manifest. “Seal rings delivered.”
The captain’s eyes flicked to the crate on Pyon’s harness like it was water in a desert.
“We need them,” she said. “Now. The gate is bleeding.”
Lyra blinked. “Gates can bleed.”
The captain swore. “Not like this. Something is eating the seal plates from the inside.”
My stomach tightened.
Something eating seals.
Not stealing.
Eating.
Mina’s eyes widened. “Corrosion.”
The captain nodded hard. “Blue corrosion. It started at dawn. We tried to shut the flow. It did not matter. The water is pushing like it wants out.”
Roth’s voice went hard. “Take us to the control chamber.”
The captain turned and sprinted.
We followed.
The floodgate tunnel under the station smelled like river water and rust.
And then it smelled like burned sugar and acid.
We hit the control chamber.
The iron wheel that regulated the flow was coated in blue-black slime.
The stone around the grate was cracked like something had grown inside it and forced its way out.
Water poured through gaps it should not have been able to fit through.
And in the center of the chamber, attached to the seal plate like a parasite with teeth, was a growth.
Not a plant.
Not a slime.
A knot of crystal-veined flesh, pulsing, drinking.
Every pulse made the blue residue spread.
The system slammed a window into my vision so hard it felt like getting slapped.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
Floodgate Siphon Node (Elite)
Level: 26
Traits: Corrosive Flow, Mana Drain, Spawn: Siphon Slimes
Weakness: Core exposure, Seal disruption
[FLOOD ALERT]
Gate Integrity: 31% and falling
Lyra swore. “Level twenty-six.”
Roth didn’t blink. “We stop it anyway.”
Mina’s voice was tight. “If the gate fails, the town floods.”
The captain shouted, “And the farms downstream! If this contaminates the irrigation, everyone drinks it!”
My inventory pulsed.
Not in a cute way.
In a warning way.
The sealed box with the S-rank shard inside felt colder.
Do not expose to floodgate water.
My pulse spiked.
Not because I was holding it near water.
Because the thing on the seal plate felt like the kind of thing that would love to taste it.
Roth stepped in front.
“Lyra, keep it off the wheel. Mina, barriers on the grate. Kenta, with me.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed. “Fire will turn this room into steam death.”
“Then do not burn the water,” Roth snapped. “Burn the node.”
Lyra grinned. “Finally. Precision violence.”
Mina raised her symbol. A barrier flared between the node and the widening cracks.
It held.
For a second.
Then the barrier hissed where blue water touched it.
Mina flinched.
Her MP dropped visibly.
“Corrosive,” she whispered. “It eats light too.”
Great.
Of course it did.
The siphon node pulsed.
A wet tearing sound came from the grate.
Two slimes crawled out, thinner than normal slimes, stretched like worms.
They moved toward Mina immediately.
My system chimed.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
Siphon Slime x2
Level: 20
Trait: Mana Bite
Lyra flicked her fingers and launched two thin fire needles, not fireballs, needles.
They pierced the slimes’ cores and popped them without splashing.
She looked smug for half a second.
Then the node pulsed again.
Four more slimes formed.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The captain shouted, “It keeps spawning!”
Roth slammed his drake shield into the nearest slime and crushed it against the wall.
Blue goo hissed on his shield.
The drakehide held for one second.
Then the surface started to smoke.
Corrosion Resistance moderate.
Moderate was not enough.
Roth’s jaw clenched.
He didn’t step back.
He stepped in.
He swung his sword at the node.
The blade hit crystal-veined flesh and bounced like he’d struck bone.
The node did not react.
It pulsed again, stronger.
The gate integrity dropped.
[FLOOD ALERT]
Gate Integrity: 24%
I didn’t think.
I crafted.
My hands moved before my brain could argue.
Seal rings. Resin. Seal dust. Drake scale shard.
I slapped them together like I was making a weapon out of panic.
A spike. A nail. A seal pin.
The system chimed.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Seal Spike (Rare) x3
Effect: Corrosion suppression (Minor)
Effect: Mana grounding (Moderate)
I shoved one into Roth’s hand. “Pin it. The core. Wherever it pulses.”
Roth didn’t ask questions.
He drove the spike into the node.
The spike flared.
The node screamed.
Not with sound.
With vibration.
The whole chamber trembled.
The blue spread slowed for half a second.
[EFFECT APPLIED]
Mana grounding active.
Lyra’s eyes lit up. “Do that again.”
I shoved a second spike into another pulsing vein.
Roth drove it in with the flat of his sword like he was hammering a nail.
The node’s crystal veins flickered.
The gate integrity stopped falling for one heartbeat.
Then it dropped faster.
[FLOOD ALERT]
Gate Integrity: 18%
Mina’s barrier shattered.
She staggered, gasping.
“I cannot hold it,” she whispered.
I looked at her and my brain flashed the alley again.
Mina at level one.
Mina apologizing.
Not again.
I threw Minor Heal at her without thinking.
A weak glow sank into her shoulders and steadied her.
Not enough. But something.
The system chimed.
[SKILL EXP]
Healing Magic +31%
Minor Heal +24%
Lyra shouted, “Kenta, do not die trying to be a healer!”
“Too late,” I shouted back. “I am already collecting the class!”
The node pulsed again.
This time the water behind the grate surged like a beast pushing on a door.
The whole seal plate bent.
The captain screamed, “It is going to blow!”
Roth’s voice went razor sharp. “Kenta. Core. Now.”
The node’s crystal veins flickered around the spikes, angry.
I focused.
Appraisal.
The window snapped open.
[APPRAISAL]
Floodgate Siphon Node
Core location: behind left vein cluster
Condition: exposed briefly during pulse
Timing window: 0.6 seconds
Six tenths of a second.
Great.
I could work with that.
Athletics S made my body fast.
Footwork made it exact.
Mental Resistance made it possible.
I waited for the pulse.
The node swelled.
The core flickered behind the vein cluster like a blue heart.
I moved.
Guard Break, not on a shield, but on the node’s rigid crystal plating.
My blade struck at the moment it hardened.
The plating cracked.
The core flashed open.
Precision Thrust fired.
My sword punched into the blue heart.
The node convulsed.
Blue liquid sprayed.
It hit my glove.
It burned.
My HP ticked down.
[HP -27]
Corrosive contact.
I did not pull out.
I pushed deeper.
I twisted.
The core ruptured.
The node made a sound like a wet rope snapping.
Then the gate behind it surged.
Water slammed against the compromised seal plate.
The plate cracked wider.
The captain screamed again.
Roth threw his whole weight into his shield and braced the seal plate with his body like he was holding back a river with stubbornness.
“NOW!” he shouted. “SEAL IT!”
I ripped my blade free and ran to the crate on Pyon’s harness.
I tore it open.
Seal rings. Dozens. Fresh. Clean. Not corrupted.
I grabbed them and started slamming them into the plate seams like nails.
Resin. Dust. Wax. Tighten. Press. Seal.
My hands moved in manic rhythm.
The system chimed so fast it became background noise.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Emergency Seal Patch (Uncommon)
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Emergency Seal Patch (Uncommon)
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Emergency Seal Patch (Rare)
Lyra controlled heat, not as attack, but as a drying furnace, evaporating the moisture so my resin set instantly.
Mina crawled forward, symbol trembling, and cast Purify in short bursts, clearing blue residue right where I worked.
Valeblade whispered from her hip, oddly quiet. “She is… impressive.”
Mina snapped, breathless, “Not now.”
Gate integrity stopped falling.
Then rose, slowly, like a dying person breathing again.
[FLOOD ALERT]
Gate Integrity: 5%
Stabilizing…
7%
11%
16%
My arms shook.
Roth’s stance shook.
Lyra’s breathing was ragged.
Mina’s face was pale.
But the water stopped trying to murder the world.
The node’s remains slumped, dead, crystal veins dissolving into sludge that smelled like copper.
And then the system chimed like it had waited until we survived to hand us dopamine.
[ELITE DEFEATED]
Floodgate Siphon Node slain.
EXP +1,450
Loot: Siphon Vein Residue (Uncommon)
Loot: Core Sliver (Rare)
[QUEST OBJECTIVE COMPLETE]
Deliver seal ring shipment (3/3)
I exhaled so hard my lungs hurt.
Lyra leaned against the wall and laughed like she wanted to cry.
“That,” she rasped, “was stupid.”
Roth slid down the seal plate slowly, shield smoking, face tight.
“That,” he corrected, “was duty.”
Mina sat on the floor, symbol limp in her hands, eyes unfocused.
“That,” she whispered, “was too close.”
I stared at my burned glove.
My hand was shaking.
Not from fear.
From the realization that if my timing had been half a second off, a town would be underwater and my friends would be dead.
By the skin of our teeth was not a phrase anymore.
It was a measurement.
The captain stared at the sealed plate in disbelief, then at us.
“You,” she whispered, “saved it.”
Lyra pointed at me. “He did. He is the problem.”
I managed a weak laugh.
Then my inventory pulsed again.
Cold.
The S-rank shard.
It was still sealed.
But I could feel it reacting like a sleeping animal had opened one eye.
I did not like that.
We filed the delivery properly because Roth refuses to let paperwork be optional.
The station captain stamped the manifest, then stamped it again like she wanted to bruise the ink.
My system flashed.
[QUEST COMPLETE]
Floodgate Supply Escort
Delivered: 3/3
Stolen crate recovered: 1
Cache discovered: 1
Theft source identified: Lucky River House
Reward: Gold + Guild Contribution + Promotion credit
Note: Authority report flagged.
Dopamine hit.
Clean.
Then the deeper threat hit right after.
The captain lowered her voice.
“This is not the first node,” she said. “We found one two days ago, smaller. We thought it was a strange slime. We burned it.”
Lyra snorted. “Burned. Great plan.”
The captain ignored her. “After we burned it, the blue residue appeared in our water catchments. It spread downstream. We had to shut the channel.”
Roth’s eyes narrowed. “So killing it wrong spreads contamination.”
The captain nodded, grim. “And this one was bigger.”
Mina’s voice was tight. “How many stations have seen these.”
The captain hesitated.
Then she pulled out a small map.
Three stations on this road.
Two marked with black ink.
“One here,” she said, tapping Stonebridge area. “One here. Us.”
Roth stared at the map. “That is a line.”
Lyra’s expression sharpened. “A route.”
Mina whispered, “A pipeline.”
I felt my stomach drop again.
Pipeline. Water. Floodgates. Divine tags.
Someone was feeding on the system that kept towns alive.
And we were walking right along it.
The captain continued, voice lower. “We reported to the Church. They sent inspectors. They blessed the water. Then they left.”
Lyra’s mouth twisted. “Blessed it.”
Mina did not speak. Her eyes were too tight.
Roth asked, “Did they take samples.”
The captain nodded. “They took everything. They told us not to speak of it.”
Lyra laughed once, humorless. “Of course they did.”
My inventory pulsed again. Cold.
Do not expose to floodgate water.
The shard felt like it was listening.
I hated that.
Roth stood. “We report to the Crown. Directly.”
The captain nodded. “Please. Because the next node might not wait for you to arrive.”
That sentence hung in the air like a curse.
We slept in the station barracks that night because none of us wanted to walk another mile after holding back a river.
Lyra passed out in ten seconds.
Roth sat with his smoking shield and stared at it like it had betrayed him.
Mina sat on her cot, quietly rubbing her wrists, exhausted.
Valeblade whispered occasionally, but the liner suppressed him so hard it almost sounded like he was learning humility.
Almost.
I sat at the workbench and did what my brain does when it is scared.
I crafted.
Manic. Focused. Fast.
First, Roth’s shield.
The corrosive contact had eaten a strip of drakehide near the rim. I cut it out, replaced it with layered drake scale plates, and inlaid siphon vein residue as a corrosion bait, so the next time a node tried to eat something, it would eat the wrong thing first.
The system chimed.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Drakehide Kite Shield (Enhanced)
Effect added: Corrosion Bait Layer (Minor)
Durability restored: 340 / 340
Roth lifted it, tested it, then nodded once.
“Good,” he said.
Still the highest compliment in the world.
Second, Mina’s protection.
She was the one who paid costs in this world. Resurrection cost. Healing fatigue. Moral weight.
She needed something that told the world no.
I took a drake scale shard, shaped it into a small plate, wrapped it in treated cloth, and stitched it into a pendant that sat under her collar. I added a seal dust circuit that stabilized mana spikes and dampened charm effects, because I was still angry about Whisperwood.
The system chimed.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Priestess Guard Pendant (Rare)
Effect: Mana Stabilization (Moderate)
Effect: Charm Dampening (Minor)
Mina stared at it like it was a gift she didn’t deserve.
“Kenta,” she whispered, “you do not have to keep fixing everything.”
I didn’t look up.
“I do,” I said quietly. “Because the world keeps breaking it.”
Third, Lyra’s focus.
She had burned herself dry twice in two days. Fire resist enemies. Steam risk. Precision needed.
I crafted a wrist ring with a drake bone core and a thin siphon residue channel to reduce mana waste during sustained casting.
The system chimed.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Ember Conductor Ring (Rare)
Effect: Mana Efficiency +8%
Effect: Heat Control Stability (Minor)
Lyra was asleep. I slid it next to her cup like a peace offering.
She would pretend not to like it.
She would wear it anyway.
Fourth, Pyon.
I reinforced the blinkpack harness with drakehide strips and stitched in a seal pattern that reduced blink strain.
Pyon blinked onto the bench and watched me work like he was supervising.
Thought: …more
“Yeah,” I muttered. “More.”
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Blinkpack Harness (Enhanced)
Effect: Blink Strain Reduction (Moderate)
Then my system chimed and my sealwork rank ticked.
[SKILL RANK UP]
Sealwork: A -> S
I froze.
S.
That should have felt amazing.
It did feel amazing.
Then it felt terrifying.
Because I got it by sealing a floodgate at five percent integrity while a divine-tagged parasite tried to eat the world.
That was my path now.
The system wasn’t asking if I wanted it.
It was paying me for surviving.
I stared at my hands.
Burn marks. Resin residue. Tiny cuts.
These were not hero hands. These were worker hands.
Hands that patch holes in reality.
And I realized something that made my stomach drop.
We won by the skin of our teeth.
If that node had been level thirty, we would have died.
If there were ten nodes, the kingdom would drown.
If someone higher up was moving these things like pieces on a board, we were not ready.
Not even close.
I looked at Roth.
He was cleaning his sword, calm, methodical. He had almost died twice and acted like it was Tuesday.
I looked at Lyra.
She was asleep, face finally relaxed. She had lost all our gold and still found a way to laugh in the pit.
I looked at Mina.
She was awake, watching me, eyes soft and tired and stubborn. She had resurrected four idiots and paid everything. She had still stepped into a drake’s path.
Pyon blinked onto my shoulder.
…together
I nodded slowly.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Together.”
Then the thought hit like a hammer.
If I want them to stay alive, I have to be even more broken.
Not for ego.
Not for numbers.
For them.
For the next node.
For the next ambush.
For whatever is feeding on floodgate water behind divine-tagged black bars.
I swallowed.
I opened my party menu.
Not to kick anyone.
Not to min-max murder.
To plan.
To build something intentional instead of reacting.
A new tab blinked that I had never seen before.
Probably because I had never been desperate enough to deserve it.
[NEW MENU UNLOCKED]
Training Protocols
Condition met: Party under-leveled vs threat
Condition met: Leadership recognition (Hero Standard)
My pulse kicked.
Lyra stirred in her sleep, muttered something rude, then fell quiet again.
Roth looked up, noticed my expression.
“What,” he asked.
I pointed at the window.
Roth’s eyes narrowed slightly, then he nodded once.
“Good,” he said.
Mina leaned forward, weary but curious. “Kenta… what are you going to do.”
I looked at her.
Then at the door.
Then at the dark line of the river outside, still roaring under the station like it had almost eaten the town.
“I’m going to make a plan,” I said quietly. “A real one.”
Lyra’s sleepy voice drifted from her cot. “If your plan involves romance skills, I quit.”
“It does not,” I said instantly.
Lyra muttered, “Good.”
Valeblade whispered, barely audible, “Destiny training.”
Mina whispered, “Quiet.”
Valeblade whispered, “Understood.”
I stared at the Training Protocols tab.
My finger hovered over it.
My heart was beating fast like I was about to jump off a cliff.
Because I knew what a training montage meant in this world.
It meant pain.
It meant obsession.
It meant turning the system’s hunger into a weapon.
And it meant risking becoming exactly the kind of person Mina warned me about.
The kind I might hate.
But the image of the gate at five percent integrity flashed in my mind.
The river trying to break free.
Roth’s shield smoking.
Mina’s barrier shattering.
Lyra gasping for breath.
Pyon’s ears flat, thinking hurt.
I swallowed hard.
Then I clicked.