I had been walking through the forest for about an hour,
And yes, I was definitely lost.
Everything looked the same. The trees were the same height, the undergrowth equally dense, and the paths were either animal trails or pure imagination. Sunlight filtering through the leaves was no longer as clear as before; orange-tinged shadows were beginning to stretch. There wasn't much time left before sunset.
This forest wasn't supposed to be large. At least, not in theory. Because it lay close to the city, the Adventurers' Guild regularly cleared it out. High-level monsters weren't meant to settle here. Logically, there was nothing to fear.
But logic was not always enough to calm a person who was lost.
I stopped and steadied my breathing. Panicking was pointless. What I needed instead was structured thinking.
One: If the forest isn't large, then walking in a straight line long enough should eventually lead to an edge.
Two: But the concept of a "straight line" is meaningless to someone with no sense of direction.
Three: The sun… unreliable, given the canopy.
Four: Wind direction? No, it's too inconsistent
Five: Animal movement… possible, but risky.
The chain of thought stalled.
As someone from the modern world, my ability to navigate nature without tools was almost entirely theoretical. I had read about it, yes but practice was another matter. The gap between knowledge and instinct was often the line between survival and death.
And then...
Something in the back of my mind tightened.
Predator's Awareness.
The sensation was no longer unfamiliar. It wasn't a sharp alarm; it was more like a sudden shift in atmospheric pressure. Invisible, yet impossible to deny.
I froze.
This wasn't a mundane sense of danger.
Whatever was approaching wasn't fast. It wasn't trying to hide. But it was powerful. Erratic. And… wounded.
My brow furrowed slightly.
A wounded presence shouldn't radiate this much power. Either its base level was extremely high or the power had been forcibly awakened.
My hand moved instinctively to the hilt of my sword. I didn't activate Sanctum Barrier. Not yet. There was no need. I wanted to see first.
The bushes rustled.
Uneven footsteps. The sound of one foot dragging… followed by a brief pause. Long enough for someone to stop just to breathe.
Then a silhouette emerged between the trees.
The first thing I saw was blood.
Her clothes were torn apart, the fabric riddled with slashes and scorch marks. Most of her skin was stained red, some of it dried and some of it still fresh. One arm hung at an unnatural angle from her shoulder. Broken, or dislocated.
But she was standing.
My gaze shifted to her face.
Luciene.
For a moment, there was silence.
My mind dragged the past before me with brutal clarity. As only a few hours had passed, it was easy to remember every detail of the incident.
Goblins.
Hobgoblins.
The system quest.
And leaving her behind.
Knowing she would be killed.
It had been a logical decision. Unlike the original Aurelius, Luciene meant nothing to me. If anything, she was a mildly irritating woman. Choosing twenty thousand coins had been the obvious choice. But logic did not erase consequences.
"Is this fate's backlash for stepping onto the dark path?" I wondered.
The System responded instantly.
[No. Luciene is already a Fate-Relevant Character.]
[She is one of the most important characters in the story. Therefore, being killed by mere goblins was never a viable outcome.]
[She is a character who grows stronger at the brink of death.]
"That makes sense…"
Luciene really was important. Maybe not among the strongest, but undeniably significant. Her dying so easily would have been absurd. So, what now?
Was she planning to fight me in that condition?
She had clearly undergone a breakthrough and grown far stronger than before. There was even a chance she had received a blessing from a god. Under normal circumstances, her current self might have pushed me. But in her present state, she was no match.
Luciene took a few more steps forward. Her knees trembled, but she didn't fall. Her eyes locked onto me.
I searched them for anger.
Found none.
Revenge?
Hatred?
Fear?
Nothing.
Instead… there was a strange radiance. Like admiration shining in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Her lips parted. She tried to speak, but no sound came out. She swallowed, took another step, and almost collapsed. I moved forward reflexively, then stopped myself. I kept my distance.
Luciene noticed.
And… she smiled.
A weak, cracked smile.
"I knew it," she said hoarsely. "I knew you left me… on purpose."
That sentence fit nowhere I had expected.
"Whaa?"
My frown deepened.
"If you hadn't gone," she continued, her voice trembling but her eyes alight, "I would have died. There… in that fear… something happened."
She pressed a hand to her chest.
"I had to run. I crossed my limit. For the first time… I had to truly fight."
Luciene tilted her head slightly.
"By sacrificing me… you forced me," she said softly. "You did it knowingly, didn't you? So I would grow stronger… so I could reach your level and stay with you forever…"
What the hell?
Did she think I actually planned that?
I didn't speak for a moment. Speaking would legitimize this interpretation. Silence bought time for analysis.
Predator's Awareness was still active, but it was signaling something different now. This wasn't an "attack" sensation. It was something adhesive. A presence not moving toward me but binding itself to me.
Dangerous.
Luciene's gaze wasn't unfocused. If anything, it was too clear. Her pupils were slightly dilated, her breathing irregular. This went beyond physical exhaustion. These were signs of a mental fracture, of becoming fixated on a new anchor.
Trauma.
And the need to assign meaning.
The human mind couldn't endure meaningless suffering for long. It would create a culprit, a cause, and an explanation. Luciene had found hers in me.
"So this is what they call Stockholm syndrome. Or something close to it."
She took another step. The distance between us shrank to something unsafe.
"You were strong," she said. "I could feel it. But you were hiding it. When you left me… at first, I hated you. I screamed. I cried."
Her tone was still gentle. Her words were not.
"Then I understood," she continued. "If you had saved me, I would have stayed weak. Always behind you. But you… you pushed me off the cliff."
Her eyes shone.
"And I learned how to fly."
At that point, my assessment was complete.
Luciene was no longer acting on logic, but on constructed meaning. Telling her the truth (that I had abandoned her for coins) would lead to only two outcomes:
One: the narrative collapses, and her mind shatters completely.
Two: the narrative collapses and is replaced by pure hatred.
Neither was acceptable.
I didn't particularly like this woman, but I had no reason to kill her and creating a needless enemy was foolish. Still… what was I supposed to do with her now?
And then, buried deep within me, a certain fetish seemed to surface.
A fixation on turning radiant, admired heroes into my own obedient possessions.
The moment the thought passed through my mind, I didn't suppress it.
No moral reflex rose up. No protesting voice of conscience. Only cold, lucid awareness.
This was an opportunity.
Luciene was experiencing a survival narrative, one created by trauma to preserve mental integrity. And like any narrative, it could be guided. By the one with power. By the one at its center.
By me.
I deliberately relaxed my expression. I furrowed my brow, not in a threatening way, but as if I were accepting a heavy responsibility. I maintained eye contact. I neither retreated nor advanced.
The silence stretched.
Luciene didn't move. She waited.
People want the stories they tell themselves to be validated, especially when those stories are the only thing keeping them afloat.
"Why," I said at last, slowly, "do you think everyone falls when they're pushed off a cliff?"
My voice was calm. Certain. As though I already knew the answer.
Luciene's breath caught.
"Because…" she began hesitantly.
"Because most people deny their wings," I continued. "I didn't save you because you wanted to be saved. You wanted a prince on a white horse. But I wanted you to stand without needing one."
It was a lie.
But it was a good lie. It aligned perfectly with the story she had already written.
"If I had pulled you out of there," I said, stepping closer and brushing her blood-stained cheek, "you wouldn't be the Luciene standing before me now. You'd be fragile. Dependent on someone else."
Her eyes trembled. Emotional intensity was feeding it. One wrong word and it would explode. The right one… and it would bind.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. The light in her eyes no longer resembled admiration. It hovered on the edge of surrender. This was how people looked when the story keeping them alive was affirmed.
In her mind, I was no longer a person.I was her keystone, the fixed point against which she measured her strength and existence. Left unchecked, such bonds became something far more twisted than loyalty.
I slowly withdrew my hand.
The touch had delivered the message. Anything more was unnecessary.
"Look at yourself," I said, hardening my voice just slightly. "You're standing but you're not stable. You have power, but no direction."
She wasn't hurt by the words. Instead, she bowed her head a little further. As if accepting them.
"Come with me. Let me empower you. So you'll never be afraid again." I added.
Luciene flinched. Her eyes briefly swept over her surroundings: the forest, the blood, and her loneliness. Then they returned to me. The comparison had already been made in her mind.
And then she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around me, ignoring the pain in her broken, dislocated arm. Tears streamed down her face as she clung to me tightly, crying out like a newborn.
It was a reminder.
Her mind had collapsed completely.
And she was now, entirely, at my mercy.
Her psyche was searching for something to cling to.
And without realizing it-
I had become that place.