The decision should have settled something inside her. Instead, it sharpened everything; she did not know why, but what she sensed just now was no friend. She could feel it in her bones that she may or may not have triggered something else.
She looked away from the sky and her brows furrowed in confusion. Even as she walked away, she could still feel a gaze pressing down on her skin, the way the air pressed more firmly against around her body, the way sound carried just a little too clearly, and for some reason her instincts refused to relax even after the elders had spoken.
Being allowed to stay did not feel like safety. It felt like a threshold she had crossed, one she could no longer step back over.
The one who was watching her from afar chuckled, their eyes glowing a red and purple.
"This game is only just getting started. I wonder what you will do, what your purpose here is?" Their voice echoed through the air before they vanished in a flash of smoke, leaving nothing behind.
The village resumed its rhythm cautiously. People returned to their work, voices lower than usual, eyes lingering longer than politeness allowed. Some nodded to her in tentative gratitude, while others looked away as if fearing that meeting her gaze would bind them to something they did not understand.
Aria stayed close, not hovering, but present in a way that told her she would not be abandoned the moment things grew difficult. It grounded her more than she expected. Still, beneath that warmth, something else stirred.
A warning.
It wasn't the sharp alarm of imminent danger, nor the cold pull of the distortion's call. This was subtler, threaded through her bones like a low vibration that refused to fade. Her evolution had not simply released power. It had announced her existence, maybe to some she did not know, friend or foe.
The system responded to the thought unprompted.
[Status Update: Post-Evolution Resonance Detected]
[Observation: Core Signature Recorded]
[Probability of External Interest Increased]
Her steps slowed at its voice and her eyes narrowed, she knew she had to take another step, she could not afford to slow down.
"Aria," she said quietly, testing the sound of her own voice again. It was steadier now, though still unfamiliar. "How often does the council meet?"
Aria glanced at her, brow furrowing. "Only when something threatens the village. Why?"
"Because they didn't just decide my fate," she replied. "They decided theirs as well, in more ways than one."
That earned her a sharp look, but Aria didn't argue.
The elders reconvened briefly after the square cleared, not to revoke their decision, but to reinforce it. Guards were reassigned. Wards were checked. Runners were dispatched to neighboring settlements with carefully chosen words that did not mention distortions, evolutions, or inhuman cores. The village was tightening its perimeter, not against invasion, but against uncertainty.
Elder Rean watched all of it from the lantern tree's shadow.
When the girl approached her alone later that afternoon, behind Aria's back, the elder did not feign surprise. "You feel it too," Rean said quietly, not a question.
"Yes," she answered. "Something changed when I stabilized and you did not say anything."
Rean studied her more closely now, eyes tracing the faint, inconsistent glow beneath the girl's skin and the way her presence subtly distorted the ambient mana around her. "They do not need to know that, and even if they did, it will not do them any good. Your core isn't just evolving," she said at last. "It's anchoring."
Hearing that, her breath caught. "Anchoring to what?"
Rean stepped forward, her long raven hair flowing behind her, her dress clinging to her figure as she reached out to touch the girl's fox ears. The gentle gesture sent a shiver through her in a way she had never felt before, and the elder chuckled softly.
She did not answer her question immediately, her gaze lingering on the girl. When she did, her voice was lower than it had been during the council. "You are a bit sensitive due to your new form, your change; what you are being anchored to, slightly, is this world. Or to whatever touched it through you."
That was the terrifying part she did not say aloud to anyone else.
She deliberately ignored the part where Rean commented on her sensitiveness, but hearing the other half, she fiddled with her ear a bit as she absorbed that silently, her instincts turning inward. "Then watching me won't be enough."
"No," Rean agreed. "But pretending you don't exist would be worse."
The system pulsed again, faint but deliberate.
[New Directive Available]
[Growth Condition Identified: Authority, Territory, Stability]
She looked up, eyes narrowing slightly. "If I become something this world recognizes," she said slowly, "it will stop treating me like an anomaly."
Rean's gaze sharpened. "Or it will draw attention you cannot yet survive."
"Either way," she replied evenly, "standing still isn't an option."
By evening, the village had accepted the council's ruling publicly, if not comfortably. She was given a place to stay, temporary and modest, positioned close enough to the wards that her presence could be monitored without drawing suspicion. It was not kindness. It was caution disguised as hospitality.
She accepted it without protest.
As night settled, the atmosphere shifted again, subtle but unmistakable. The wind carried unfamiliar mana. The lantern flames bent, not extinguishing, but leaning toward a direction none of the villagers noticed.
Far from Lystern, the figure on the mist-covered ridge appeared there once again and lowered their gaze from the stars.
The smirk returned, sharper now.
"So the world chose you," they murmured. "Or perhaps you chose it. either way, we shall meet in the future."
Back in the village, she stood at the threshold of her newly assigned dwelling and looked up at the same sky, her new instincts aligning with something vast and unseen.
If being seen was the price of staying, then she would make sure what saw her understood one thing clearly. She was no longer running and she glanced back at the village, a plan forming in her mind.
As the figure disappeared, she knew it was time to take her next step, to change and start getting stronger. Even if it meant going against some of her previous principles, she would build here and make a name for herself. After all, in this world, you can't survive without getting your hands dirty.