Elias learned very quickly that distance could kill you.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
It happened when he thought he was safe.
They were walking the perimeter of the area around his house—farther out than before, but not by much. The grass was waist-high here, the terrain gently sloping downward toward a shallow ravine.
Nothing moved. Nothing sounded wrong.
Elias relaxed.
That was the mistake.
"Stop."
Lyrien's voice was sharp enough to cut.
Elias froze mid-step.
"What—"
"Do not move," she said quietly.
Her hand hovered near her blade, but she hadn't drawn it. Her eyes weren't on the grass ahead of them.
They were on the space around them.
The air.
The gaps.
"The ground dips," she continued. "The wind changes direction. And the birds went silent."
Elias swallowed.
Slowly, he followed her gaze.
At first, he saw nothing.
Then something shifted.
The grass to his right trembled—not from wind, but from weight. Too controlled. Too deliberate.
[Monster Detected: Plains Stalker]
Level: 2
It lunged.
Lyrien moved instantly, shoving Elias backward just as a blurred shape tore through the space where his chest had been. Claws raked air instead of flesh.
Elias hit the ground hard, rolling instinctively this time.
I didn't freeze, he realized distantly.
The monster was lean and low, its body built for bursts of speed. Yellow eyes locked onto him immediately.
"Get up," Lyrien commanded. "Do not run straight."
"I—what?"
"Angles," she snapped. "Movement is geometry."
The creature sprang again.
Elias moved sideways—awkwardly, badly—but not predictably. The monster overshot, skidding slightly as its claws dug into dirt.
That fraction of a second was enough.
Lyrien struck.
The blade cut deep along the creature's flank. It howled and retreated several steps, reassessing.
Elias scrambled to his feet, heart hammering.
"I didn't even see it," he said.
"That is the point," Lyrien replied. "Predators do not attack strength. They attack blind spots."
They didn't chase it.
"That feels wrong," Elias said, watching the grass settle where the monster had vanished.
"Survival is not about victory," Lyrien said. "It is about control of space."
She gestured around them.
"You assumed this land was empty because you could see far. That is a human mistake. Distance here is deceptive."
Elias frowned.
"The world's bigger," he said slowly. "Which means threats have more room to exist unnoticed."
"Yes."
"And because everyone's spread out," he continued, "help is always farther away than it feels."
Lyrien nodded once.
"You are learning."
They returned closer to the house after that.
Not because Elias insisted.
Because Lyrien judged it appropriate.
That alone told him how much he still didn't know.
They spent the rest of the day walking—not hunting, not fighting—just observing.
Lyrien pointed out things Elias would never have noticed on his own:
Grass bent against the wind instead of with it
Insects clustering where mana pooled
Rocks positioned too evenly to be natural
"Space tells stories," she said. "You must learn to read them."
Elias tried.
He really did.
But his brain kept wanting rules. Systems. Measurements.
Finally, he said it out loud.
"I'm used to environments where space is controlled," he admitted. "Buildings. Circuits. Safety margins."
"This world has none of those," Lyrien replied. "Which means you must create them."
That… clicked.
That night, Elias sat just outside his house, using stones to mark distances in the dirt.
"How far can I see clearly?"
"How long does it take something fast to cross that distance?"
"How many blind angles does this terrain have?"
He opened his status screen.
Level: 1
EXP: 30 / 100
Not much progress.
But something else had changed.
He opened regional chat briefly.
[Regional Chat – Sector 418]
[User_77120]: Lost someone today. Didn't see it coming.
[SunChild]: Same. Everything looks empty until it isn't.
Elias typed slowly.
[Elias]: Don't trust open ground. Distance isn't safety here—awareness is.
No one mocked him.
That felt new.
Before sleeping, Lyrien spoke again.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we will expand your safe zone."
Elias hesitated. "By fighting?"
"By mapping," she replied. "And by learning when not to fight."
He nodded, tension settling in his chest.
Survival wasn't about being strong.
It was about understanding space, time, and limits.
And in a world hundreds of times larger than Earth—
Those limits mattered more than anything.