When Lir opened her eyes again, she found herself staring at the same old, gnarled wooden ceiling. She felt neither surprise nor a flicker of fear. Her mind remained cold and detached. There was only one truth she knew: there was no way out.
"So," she thought, "even after passing out, I didn't wake up in my old world. The simulation continues, or this dream is too deep to wake from."
She noticed someone sitting on a creaking wooden chair right beside her. Lir frowned at the sight of this stranger; she slowly sat up, straightening her posture. Though her physical weakness irritated her, she refused to compromise her mental sharpness.
"Who are you?.." she asked, her tone icy and distant.
The old man gave a slight nod. Lir noticed a dark, syrup-like bottle in his hand. His appearance was a testament to how ominous this realm was.
He wore a stained, tattered off-white apron that was torn in places.
His face was etched with deep furrows like parched earth, and his skin was a sickly, pale hue. His eyes had lost their luster, clouded over by a grey mist. His fingers were thin, long, and trembling slightly; his fingernails were caked with an unidentifiable black dust.
The man studied Lir's face with a dull expression. "The rumors were true," he said, his voice raspy and weary. "You remember nothing."
He held the bottle out toward Iris. Lir looked at the dark, viscous liquid with suspicion. "What is this? Some kind of medicine?" she asked. To someone from a background of modern medicine, this looked no different from a bottle of poison.
The old man's brows furrowed, as if taken aback by the question. "Yes... in a way. It helps gather your thoughts."
Lir glanced around. Not seeing the woman who had hugged her earlier, her curiosity piqued. "Where is that woman?" she wondered, but kept it hidden. She took the bottle and placed it at the furthest corner of the bed. She had no intention of drinking it; putting an unknown chemical into her body went against everything she stood for.
She scanned the old man's strange attire again—the peculiar metal necklace and the sickly atmosphere that seemed to defy the laws of physics. The appearance of the people here, their hair colors, and even the texture of their skin did not align with the humanity she knew. Still, a part of her hoped this was all just a massive hallucination.
She raised an eyebrow slightly and asked:
"That woman... my mother. Where is she?"
Lir's voice was less interrogative this time. Calling that woman "mother" stirred a completely foreign sensation within her.
The old healer slowly closed his weary eyes at the question. Taking a deep breath, he replied in a flat, gruff tone:
"She said she had some minor business to attend to. Likely went to the kilns to earn a bit of copper."
Lir nodded silently, fixing her gaze on a damp corner of the room, lost in thought.
"I have no idea how this world works," she mused. "It must be an era trapped in the past. No hygiene, disease everywhere. These people... they look exhausted, like the walking dead. As if each one was dragged out of their grave by force and forgot why they were living."
Lir brought a hand to her chin; her fingers were so thin and delicate that this frailty infuriated her. Meanwhile, the old healer gathered his bag and stood up unsteadily. Every movement he made sounded like a painful creak.
At that moment, something caught Lir's eye. Just below the old man's knee, where his trouser leg had ridden up, were bruises and strange, spongy, fungus-like lesions. The skin was peeling and grey in patches.
Lir's eyes narrowed. She spoke immediately:
"Those marks below your knee... what caused them?"
Her voice was curious yet clinical. The old healer froze. His dull eyes widened as if he had been struck. He leaned down slightly to look at the hideous sores on his leg.
"You don't remember these either, young girl?" he asked, his voice trembling.
When Lir didn't answer, the healer continued: "These marks... they are from the sickness. The plague that the royalty ignores, the one that only haunts the 'Lower City'."
Lir's eyes widened.
The term "Lower City" acted as a warning in her mind. It signaled a clear class divide. This wasn't just an outbreak; it was a sentence.
"The Lower City?.." she murmured.
The healer looked at the blank expression on her face and added with a bitter smile:
–"Yes, the Lower City. A place where diseases roam, the city of the poor who have neither power nor 'mana'... They call this place Cairn."
He straightened up and looked out the window at the misty, foul-smelling street before adding:
–"The Upper City, Aurelion, is something else entirely. High-status people, massive libraries, and religious centers are there. Knights are trained there; researchers live there. Everyone wants to ascend. Because there, there is neither disease nor hunger. Only a selfish king blinded by his own glory and his slaves."
The old healer let out a heavy sigh, as if every word added weight to the slouch in his shoulders.
"That's enough from me, little girl. Ask the rest to that mother of yours you love so much," he said, and despite the pain in his joints, he headed for the door with heavy steps.
Lir paused for a moment as she watched him leave. "Knight?.." That word felt far too valuable for the dilapidated streets of Cairn. As the healer disappeared into the grey mist outside, Lir chose to remain silent rather than ask more.
The healer stopped at the door for a moment and spoke in a gruff voice:
"Tell your mother she has extra debt, girl. Do you hear me?"
Confused, Lir nodded and added:
"Fine..."
The healer stumbled out of the damp room. As he closed the heavy door behind him, a whisper escaped Lir's lips:
"Rude." She grimaced slightly.
When silence returned to the room, Lir turned toward the window next to the bed.
Outside was covered in a toxic mist that weighed down on the soul. The streets were filthy, the air heavy. As Iris watched this scene, neither fear nor disgust appeared on her face. She simply observed.
"In any world," she whispered, her voice echoing in the empty room, "life is always built upon death and horror." She added this in a calm, soft tone.
She pulled her gaze from the outside and looked at her own hands. Her palms were ivory white, her fingers far more delicate than they should be. Being trapped inside this child's body, feeling this frail and defenseless, triggered something deep within her. It only served to anger her.
"How did I end up like this?" she thought, her brow furrowing.
She shoved the blanket aside and sat on the edge of the bed. Her feet barely touched the floor. She scanned the cramped space where the kitchen and bedroom bled into one.
The house was surprisingly clean, but the gloom infused into the walls by the misty air outside made even the cleanest corner look faded.
She walked toward the kitchen with heavy steps. There was no separate room; everything was squeezed into a narrow area. She stopped as she passed the table and ran her finger across the wooden surface, pushing the dust aside
"No matter how much you clean, this toxic air turns everything back to what it was," she muttered to herself.
A box on the kitchen counter caught her attention. Lir stepped slowly toward that corner. As she reached into the box, her fingers touched cold metal. What she pulled out was an old hand mirror with a tarnished handle. Iris paused for a moment, feeling the cold surface of the mirror in her palm. Then, taking a deep breath, she turned the mirror toward herself.
The face she saw was foreign, yet somehow familiar. She neither flinched nor felt surprised as she looked at her reflection. She studied herself as if she were examining a portrait of someone else.
The face in the mirror was far too extraordinary for the muddy streets of Cairn. Lir placed a hand gently on her cheek, tracing her skin with her fingertips. Her complexion was smooth and ivory, as if it had never seen sunlight—pale as death. Her soft, rounded features made her small nose even more prominent.
The most striking part was her eyes. They were a brilliant blue, reminiscent of the deepest, coldest part of an ocean. Her jet-black hair fell toward her nape, framing her porcelain skin. Her appearance did not belong to the sun; she looked like a crow flying in the moonlight. Her distant, sharp gaze—reminiscent of a storm at sea—echoed the mystery of a raven.
"So it seems," she whispered, looking at her reflection. "An extraordinary face."
Lir said this in a soulless tone, as if describing a common object. To her, this beauty or aesthetic held no value. Her mind remained at the same point: In the end, we were all just a mass of flesh and bone. The color of the skin or the brightness of the eyes did not change the biological reality beneath. What was an outward appearance but a cloak used to deceive others?
She placed the mirror back where she found it, slowly and without emotion. At that moment, the creak of the wooden door was heard. Seeing Elara step inside, Lir stood up slowly, trying to maintain her balance.
That feeling of weakness in her legs was still there; no matter how complex her mind was, it remained snagged on the limitations of this small, fragile body. Meeting Elara's anxious and weary eyes, Iris paused for a moment.
Elara entered with a wooden box, clearly heavy and filled to the brim.
Her fingertips were white from the strain, her arms tense. She looked exhausted, as if she had walked a great distance. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she dropped the box. The sound of the wood hitting the floor shattered the silence of the house.
Despite the gloomy atmosphere of Cairn, Elara had a striking appearance. Her old shirt could not hide her thin waist and full chest as she moved. Her jet-black hair fell messily down her shoulders.
Unlike Iris's cold blue eyes, Elara's gaze held a weary redness; her pupils glowed with a faint crimson. Her white skin held a flush that spoke of her natural vitality.
Lir watched the woman's battered state, tilting her head slightly. Feeling her daughter's gaze, Elara forced a tender smile onto her lips.
"You're awake," she said, her voice raspy. "You shouldn't just run out like that. I was so afraid I wouldn't find you."
Lir weighed the suspicion and fatigue behind that trembling smile. Calling her 'Mother' was difficult, but she had to adapt to the situation. She replied without bothering to hide the flatness in her voice:
–"I'm sorry, mother."
She pulled her gaze from the woman and fixed it on the heavy box on the floor. Before Elara could respond, she moved toward the kitchen to start her chores. Curious about the contents of the box, Lir asked:
–"What's in this box? It looks as heavy as if you were carrying stones."
"Just wood," Elara replied as she took a few pieces from the box. "We need to light the fireplace. Winter is coming, and..." She paused for a moment, her smile fading further. "Danger is on the way."
At the mention of danger, Lir fixed her blue eyes on the woman. "What kind of danger?"
Elara let out a deep sigh and threw the logs into the fireplace with force.
The sound of wood hitting the stone echoed in the room. She turned to her daughter while brushing the dust off her hands.
"It seems you really don't remember anything," she said, her voice more serious this time. "It's a long story, Iris."
Lir continued to study the woman's face.
"The fact that it is long means it is important."
Elara paused for a moment at her daughter's distant and overly logical way of speaking. She looked at her with surprise, as if the person in front of her wasn't her own daughter but a stranger inhabiting her body. However, the expression didn't last, replaced once again by that mournful smile.
"Yes," she said in a whisper. "Quite important."
As the light faded, the fire finally roared to life. The orange glow of the flames hit Elara's face as she knelt before the fire, her eyes fixed on the alevs. Her face held a deep, thoughtful expression, burdened by the weight of the past—one that Iris could not yet decipher.
"Years ago," she began, "Cairn wasn't like this. There were no insurmountable borders between us and Aurelion, nor this deep hatred. People passed through freely; life flowed like an ordinary day. Until those hunting monsters woke from their hibernation and attacked our homes."
Her lips trembled; she closed her eyes for a moment. It was as if the noise of that moment still rang in her ears.
"After the attack, everything became blurred. Far from Cairn, a massive stone fell from the sky. Night turned into day."
She swallowed. There was a sharp pain in her eyes left by the past. She involuntarily tapped her hand against the edge of the table.
"On the night the moon was at its brightest, it appeared. Neither a man nor a woman... a demon that looked like an angel but carried pure evil within. The Kingdom called it 'Chyrsaor'; the Fallen Angel bearing the Decree of the Golden Sword."
Elara's hands clenched into fists, her knuckles turning white. Her voice now trembled with rage:
"Without showing a single flicker of emotion, it swept through everything, controlling the monsters like puppets. It didn't just kill people; it left some with a curse so vile that their flesh and bone melted while they were still alive. Long, golden hair that reached past its waist. Its head was covered in those strange things that looked like eyes, making it feel like it was watching you from everywhere!.."
She paused to look into Iris's eyes. The faint redness in her own eyes darkened as it caught the firelight.
"It had white eyes like a snake, Iris... it looked like death. After that night, a curse settled over Cairn. People began to fall ill, and the kingdom... well, they did what they could. Two knights lost their lives that night. Do you know what that means? Knight is such a high rank that there are only six in all the kingdoms. Even so, that demon seemed to crush them all."
She paused briefly and then added:
"Some thought that creature was an angel because of its light. But it was like the devil incarnate. It took its resentment out on humanity with that false holiness glowing in the moonlight."
She bit her lip in pain and remained silent for a while.
"Aurelion drew that thick line between us, using security as an excuse. They became the 'City of Ascension' near the sky, while they abandoned us to death in Cairn, amidst sickness and misery. Now everyone says that demon is trapped underground, imprisoned by our very earth. They say our Saint, with power granted by God, sealed it away forever."
Elara shook her head with a cynical smile.
"But no one really believes that. It's likely nothing more than a child's story made up to calm the people and suppress rebellions."
Lir watched the flames and Elara's face with wide eyes. No matter how rational she tried to remain, she couldn't help but shiver at the weight of this story. Could this really be real? Her mind struggled to process the information.
This wasn't a place where an ordinary human could survive; this world was outside every system she knew. Adapting seemed nearly impossible.
For a moment, she thought all of this might just be a collection of clichés. The disturbing part was how these truths felt like they were sinking into her very veins. She wasn't sure if this was derealization or reality. Or perhaps, the problem was that she didn't want to believe it.
She bit her lip and sank into deep thought, her gaze fixed on a single point.
"So that's it..." she thought. "Demons exist in this world. Poor humanity, still waiting for a being called God, like a flock of sheep merely waiting for death. How tragic."
As this thought crossed her mind, a cynical and distant smirk appeared on her face. In contrast to Elara's pain-filled narration, this expression on Iris's face carried an icy coldness.
She looked away from her mother and frowned slightly; it was one of the rare times she showed her true feelings. The anger and confusion inside her were leaking into her
outward appearance.
"I see..." she said, her voice raspy and forced due to the dryness in her throat. "So that's how it is. A kingdom divided in two."
As the words left her mouth, the image of that "Golden-Sworded Demon" Elara had described tried to take shape in her mind. But Lir filtered even this mystic tale through her own lens, weighing how she could live within this unjust order. Lir still wondered if these
were all just figments of an imagination...
To be continued.