A few hours before the cold stone of the castle was painted with the scarlet of betrayal, the sun still hung high and indifferent over Border Town. But for William, the world had taken on a new, terrifying density. Every step he took across the muddy training grounds echoed with a different weight; his muscles, now supercharged by the seven attribute points he had "purchased," felt like tensioned steel cables vibrating under a heavy load. When he closed his hand into a fist, he could feel the resistance of the air itself, as if he were a titan walking through a world made of thin glass.
However, this newfound physical godhood did not fill the gaps in his memory. He stopped in front of the stables, the smell of damp hay and horse sweat filling his nostrils, and scratched the back of his neck in a fit of mounting frustration.
— "Shit... I know people are supposed to die today. I know it happens the same day Tyre took her dive," William whispered to himself, his eyes scanning the chaotic labyrinth of stone, timber, and mud that made up the castle's foundations. — "But where the hell is that underground passage? Reading about a 'hidden tunnel' is one thing; finding it in a pile of poorly planned medieval architecture is another."
He knew he couldn't go to Arthur. His friend's wounded pride and cold, clinical logic were a wall he didn't have the patience to scale right now. Arthur would want a three-step plan and a risk-assessment report. Brian and the other guards would simply think the "noble scholar" had finally lost his mind if he started raving about treason without a single shred of physical evidence. He needed someone who didn't care about the 'how' or the 'why.' He needed someone who lived in the spaces between the lines.
William walked toward a secluded alleyway—a narrow, sunless corridor wedged between two massive stone warehouses where the wind whistled with a mournful, hollow sound. He stopped in the center of the gloom, stared fixedly into the empty air ahead, and spoke with a voice that brooked no argument.
— "Vero—Nightingale... I know you're there. I can feel the air getting colder. I need your help, and I need it right now."
The silence that followed was absolute for several long seconds, broken only by the distant, rhythmic clink-clink of a blacksmith's hammer. Then, the reality in front of him began to ripple and tear like wet silk. The witch's slender, hooded figure materialized from the grey mist, her eyes glowing with a mixture of profound shock and razor-sharp caution.
— "How did you know I was here?" she questioned, her voice a low, melodic rasp. — "Even with the 'system' you claim to possess, it should be fundamentally impossible for a mundane human to detect my presence in the Mist."
William let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, his shoulders finally relaxing. A smirk played on his lips, but it lacked his usual arrogance; it was the look of a man who had just bet his life on a single card and won.
— "To be honest? I didn't know for sure," William admitted with a shrug. — "But I gambled. You're a professional, Nightingale. After the bombshells Art and I dropped in the office, there was no way you'd let us wander around this mud pit without an invisible leash. I just stepped into the most suspicious spot I could find and sowed a seed to see if you'd harvest it."
Nightingale narrowed her eyes, genuinely impressed by the sheer audacity of the man. — "You are a dangerous anomaly, William. You tell me my life's mission is a lie, you trick me into revealing myself, and then you say you need me. What is so urgent that you would risk my blade again?"
William took a step forward, his new physical presence making him seem almost unshakable, though his gaze held a desperate sincerity.
— "I want to stop people from dying. Nightingale, listen to me: there is a rot in the guard. Men bought and paid for by Duke Ryan. They plan to assassinate Captain Greyhound and torch the central barn tonight. If that barn burns, the town starves before the first snow melts. If the town starves, Roland loses his grip. And if Roland falls... you lose the only sanctuary your sisters have left."
Nightingale's hand dropped instinctively to the hilt of her dagger. — "Traitors? Here? Are you certain, or is this more of your 'prophecy'?"
— "Does it matter which one it is if the blood is real?" William countered, stepping even closer. — "The ambush starts in an underground passage that leads straight to the rear of the barn. I can't find the entrance in this maze, but you can see through the walls. I have the strength to break them, Nightingale, but I need you to lead the way."
A long silence stretched between them. Nightingale searched his face, her unique ability to "smell a lie" working at full capacity. She found no scent of deceit—only the jagged, raw urgency of a man who truly wanted to save a world he wasn't born in.
— "If you are telling the truth, we will find these rats and drag them into the light," she said, her voice turning cold. — "Step into the mist with me. Hold your breath."
At Nightingale's touch, the world around William shattered and reformed. The vibrant colors of the afternoon bled away, replaced by a monochrome landscape of shifting greys and glowing, iridescent outlines. Inside the Mist World, the solid stone of the castle became translucent, revealing the hidden "vibrations" of the structures. Nightingale led him through walls as if they were smoke, descending deep into the cold foundations of the fortress.
It took only minutes. In the mist plane, Nightingale pointed a gloved finger at a jagged irregularity in the floor of a decommissioned tool shed. — "There. A camouflaged hatch. I can see the heat signatures of several men who passed through recently. They are moving fast."
They phased through the floor and landed in a damp, lightless tunnel. Almost immediately, the metallic ring of clashing steel and the guttural screams of men in pain began to echo off the wet stone walls.
— "It's already started," William hissed, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. In the distance, the flickering orange glow of torches revealed a desperate struggle. — "That's Brian... he's fighting four of them. And that mercenary in the back—that's the leader."
Nightingale drew her daggers in a fluid, silent motion, her eyes gleaming with a lethal intent that always left William breathless.
— "Let's go down," she ordered, her tone cutting. — "Show me if that 'Strength' you and Arthur were shouting about is good for anything other than winning an argument in a hallway."
The provocation hit William like a lightning strike. For a fleeting, terrifying second, a thought raced through his mind: She heard us. She was there when we were arguing about 'extras' and 'characters.' But the thought was instantly obliterated by the sound of a blade slicing through leather and Brian's muffled cry of agony. There was no time for existential crises; the lives in this tunnel were made of blood, and that blood was being spilled.
William lunged.
With his Strength now at 16, he didn't move like a man; he moved like a falling mountain. He didn't bother drawing a sword. He didn't need one. The first rebel who tried to intercept him didn't even have time to raise his shield before William's fist connected with his chest. The sound of the man's sternum shattering was a sickening crack that echoed through the tunnel like a gunshot. The traitor was launched backward, his body hitting the stone wall with enough force to crack the masonry before he slumped into a lifeless heap.
Beside him, Nightingale was a phantom of surgical lethality. She flickered in and out of the Mist World, appearing behind mercenaries and opening their throats before they could even register a shadow. It was a terrifying, beautiful dance of violence. To them, the fight was an execution. To the guards being rescued, it was a nightmare made manifest.
Brian, Captain Greyhound, and two other guards—Erik and Trevor—were backed against the wall, bleeding and exhausted. They watched in absolute, paralyzed shock. Greyhound, a man who had already accepted his death, saw the Prince's "scholar" dismantle an elite squad of mercenaries with his bare hands, moving with a speed that defied the laws of physics. Brian could only stare, unable to reconcile the friendly, eccentric William with the engine of destruction tearing through the rebels.
Nightingale, even in the heat of the slaughter, never took her eyes off William. As she wiped a spray of dark blood from her cheek, her mind hummed with questions. She had indeed heard the entire argument in the corridor. She had heard Arthur call her sisters "extras." She had heard them talk about "demons" as if they were a predictable game mechanic. But as she watched William shatter a man's collarbone with a casual backhand to save a guard's life, she saw something that wasn't in the "script." She saw a man fighting for the "extras" with a fury that felt entirely too real.
The fight ended as abruptly as a heart stopping. The traitors were either dead or incapacitated, and the torches destined for the barn lay extinguished in the mud. The immediate threat to Border Town's survival had been crushed.
The scene shifted to Roland's office, the atmosphere thick with the smell of ozone, sweat, and the iron tang of blood that still clung to William's clothes. Roland, Carter Lannis, Arthur, and William stood in a tense semi-circle, while Nightingale remained a brooding shadow in the corner, only partially visible.
William, leaning against the mahogany desk, was methodically cleaning his blood-stained knuckles with a rag. He looked at Roland, then at Arthur's analytical, deeply irritated gaze. Arthur looked like he wanted to scream about "operational security," but the results were undeniable.
— "Well, that's the long and short of it, Roland," William said, his voice gravelly from the adrenaline. — "Duke Ryan's rats were in the walls. They were minutes away from turning our winter food into a bonfire. Nightingale took the 'express route' to find them, and I handled the heavy lifting."
Nightingale stepped forward, her arms crossed beneath her cloak, her gaze lingering on William for a second too long.
— "What he says is the truth, Your Highness," the witch confirmed, her voice a solemn cadence. — "If it weren't for his... insistence and his terrifying physical capability, Captain Greyhound would be a corpse, and this village would be a graveyard of frozen bodies before the first snow ever fell."
Roland nodded, his expression softening as the sheer weight of the avoided catastrophe sank in. The engineer's pragmatism was replaced by a profound, heavy gratitude.
— "Thank you, William. And you as well, Nightingale. Without those supplies, Border Town would have been a footnote in history," the Prince said, finally standing up and gesturing for the tension to break. — "You've done enough. You look like you've been through a meat grinder, William. Go clean up. Get some rest. Tomorrow, we deal with the survivors and we reinforce the security. Arthur... go with him. Ensure he actually makes it to his bed without starting another war."
Arthur gave a stiff, silent nod and turned to leave. William followed, but as he passed the shadowed corner where Nightingale stood, he felt her gaze piercing through him. The rebellion was over, but the secret of the "System" and the meaning of the "extras" was a storm that was only just beginning to brew.