The departure of the adventurers left a lingering chill in the air that the humid Forest of Jura couldn't quite burn away. Laina's words—the Aura of the Anchored—echoed in the hollow spaces of my core. I was a scientist by nature, a man who believed in causality and observable data. But the idea that my "Reset" was a known, feared phenomenon changed the nature of the game.
I wasn't just building a village; I was building a target.
"Archivist," I thought, as I watched the Goblins begin their morning rounds. "If my presence attracts attention, we need a deterrent. Something more substantial than water lenses and wooden spikes."
< Answer: Host's current offensive capacity is 42% dependent on ambient environmental conditions. To achieve 'Sovereign-Class' defense, a stable source of high-density mana-conductive material is required. >
< Location Identified: The Veins of the Iron-Crag. Distance: 4 miles North-East. >
The Iron-Crag was a jagged scar on the landscape, a mountain that looked like it had been bitten by a god. It was where the "Black Miasma" mentioned by the Goblins was rumored to originate. If there was a resource there, it was likely guarded by something that didn't care about diplomacy.
I turned to my shadow. "Fenris, stay here. Coordinate with the Chief. If any more 'guests' arrive, hide the children in the storehouse. Do not engage unless the walls are breached."
"Master," Fenris rumbled, his head bowing low. "Your safety is the pulse of this pack. Take the Fang-Pack's second-in-command. He needs to learn the weight of your shadow."
He signaled a large, scarred Direwolf named Varg. Varg didn't have Fenris's moon-blessed fur; he was a creature of grey ash and jagged teeth. He looked at me not with the devotion of Fenris, but with a wary, predatory respect.
"Let's go, Varg," I said. "Let's see what the mountain is hiding."
The hike to the Iron-Crag was a descent into a different kind of ecology. As the elevation rose, the vibrant greens of Jura faded into sickly purples and greys. The trees here were skeletal, their bark weeping a thick, black sap that smelled like burnt sulfur.
This was the Miasma. It wasn't just a gas; it was a magical pollutant.
< Alert: Atmospheric Toxicity rising. Initiating [Filter Membrane]. >
I adjusted my exterior. I became a darker, denser silver, sealing my pores to prevent the Miasma from curdling my internal mana. Varg, however, began to stagger. His eyes, normally a dull orange, began to flicker with a manic, blood-red light.
"Varg, steady," I commanded, projecting a calming frequency through our link.
He snapped his jaws at the air, a low, guttural snarl escaping his throat. "Too much... hunger... the blood calls..."
I realized then the "Internal Betrayal" the Archivist had warned about wasn't a plot—it was biological. The Miasma was an accelerant for the "Monster" instinct. It stripped away the logic I had instilled through Naming and replaced it with primal rage.
Varg lunged.
He didn't aim for my core; he aimed to tear me apart, his instinct seeing me as a rival for dominance. I didn't want to kill him—he was a named citizen of my village—but I couldn't let him compromise the mission.
"Archivist. Calculate [Kinetic Dampening]."
As Varg's massive jaws closed on my silver form, I didn't resist. I became non-Newtonian. I turned my body into a fluid that hardened instantly upon impact, turning the "soft" target of a slime into the equivalent of a concrete block.
Crack.
Varg let out a yelp of pain as his teeth met the indestructible surface. Before he could recover, I flowed over him. I didn't suffocate him; I acted as a living straitjacket. I wrapped my silver limbs around his torso and neck, applying steady, rhythmic pressure to his carotid artery.
"Sleep," I vibrated.
As Varg slumped into unconsciousness, I felt a presence. Not a wolf. Not a monster.
"Impressive," a voice rasped from the shadows of a weeping tree. "Most slimes are content to dissolve their prey. You... you treat yours like a patient."
Out of the black fog stepped a figure that defied the logic of the forest.
He was a dwarf, but not like the ones from the stories. He was tall for his kind, covered in leather aprons stained with chemicals and metal shavings. He carried a heavy hammer on his back, but his eyes were covered by a pair of brass-rimmed goggles that glowed with a faint, internal light.
"I am Baron," the dwarf said, spitting a glob of tobacco onto a scorched root. "And you're trespassing on a very expensive funeral."
"I am Aris," I replied, releasing the sleeping Varg. "And I don't plan on dying today. You're an Alchemist?"
Baron laughed, a sound like grinding stones. "An Alchemist without a lab. A smith without a forge. I came here for the Starmetal—the only thing that can cut through the rot of this world. But the mountain has a guardian, 'Sovereign.' A beast that feeds on the Miasma."
"Starmetal," I thought. The Archivist confirmed: it was a mana-superconductor.
"Help me get the metal," I said to the dwarf. "And I'll give you a forge. I'll give you a village that doesn't care about your past."
Baron looked at me, then at the unconscious wolf, then at the black peaks above us. "You've got a silver tongue for a puddle. Fine. But the guardian... it's a Calamity-Class Chimera. It doesn't die. It just resets."
My core skipped a beat. Resets?
"Then we're well-matched," I said. "Because I don't know how to stay dead either."
The battle at the heart of the Iron-Crag was a test of everything I had learned.
The Chimera was a nightmare of biological engineering—three heads (lion, goat, snake), each wreathed in the black Miasma. It moved with a twitchy, unnatural speed, as if it were existing in two moments at once.
Baron provided the distractions, throwing vials of "Flash-Freeze" salts that slowed the beast's regeneration. But the final blow had to be mine.
I realized the Chimera's "reset" wasn't a temporal loop like mine; it was a high-speed cellular reconstruction fueled by the Starmetal veins in the cave floor. It was a closed-loop system.
"Archivist. We need to break the circuit."
I didn't attack the Chimera. I attacked the floor.
I poured my entire mana reserve into the stone, using [Thermal Manipulation] to melt the rock into a liquid state, then instantly cooling it to create a layer of non-conductive glass between the Chimera and the Starmetal.
The beast let out a discordant shriek as its "power source" was cut off. Its heads began to wither, the Miasma dissipating like smoke in a gale.
"Now, Varg!" I yelled, the wolf having woken and regained his senses as the Miasma cleared.
Varg didn't hesitate. He lunged, his jaws finding the Chimera's throat, tearing with a ferocity that was no longer madness, but channeled intent.
We returned to the village three days later.
We brought with us carts of raw Starmetal and one grumpy, brilliant Alchemist. Baron looked at the stone storehouse and the Goblins with a critical eye, then nodded.
"It's a start," he grunted. "But if you want to survive the 'Holy Purge' that's coming, we need to turn this Starmetal into a barrier that can block the eyes of the gods."
I looked at my people. We were stronger, yes. We had metal, magic, and a scientist's mind. But as I looked at the sky, I saw a single, white crow circling the village.
A messenger from the Holy Kingdom.
The "Peace" was over. The Volume was nearing its end, and the first true tragedy was beginning to take shape.
[Volume 1: Chapter 4 End]