Chapter 7- A World That Shouldn't Exist
Kaito stood at the boundary where the forest ended and the open world began. Behind him, the dense canopy loomed, its shadows receding as the morning light broke through. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of dew-laden grass and distant blossoms-a stark contrast to the oppressive atmosphere he'd known for what felt like an eternity.
He took a tentative step forward, the ground beneath his feet firm and unyielding. Each movement felt surreal, as if the world might shatter at any moment, revealing familiar torment of the loop. But the forest remained behind him, silent and still.
The landscape ahead was unfamiliar-rolling hills dotted with wildflowers, a meandering stream reflecting the pale light of the morning sun, and, in the distance, the silhouette of a solitary structure. It was a world untouched by the horrors he'd endured, yet the scars he bore made it feel alien.
He paused, memories of countless deaths and rebirths flooding his mind. The weight of survival, of sacrifices made, pressed heavily on his shoulders. Trust had been a weapon turned against him, and now, even in freedom, he felt its sting.
Drawing a deep breath, Kaito whispered to himself, "This isn't over." The words hung in the air, a solemn vow and a reminder. He had escaped the forest, but the journey ahead was uncharted, and the demons of his past were not so easily left behind.
Kaito stepped cautiously into the open expanse, the soft grass beneath his feet a stark contrast to the forest's unforgiving terrain. The sky above was a pale blue, dotted with wisps of clouds that drifted lazily, unhurried by the passage of time. The sun's warmth touched his skin, a sensation he hadn't felt in what seemed like an eternity.
Each step forward was a battle against the instinct to retreat, to question the reality of his surroundings. The forest's grip on his psyche was strong, its memories etched into his very being.But the world ahead beckoned, unfamiliar yet inviting.
As he ventured further, Kaito's eyes caught sight of a narrow path, overgrown but discernible, leading towards a cluster of structures in the distance. The rev of civilization stood silent, their wis weathered by time and nature's reclaiming touch. Windows were shattered, doors ajar, and vines crept along the stone facades, weaving a tapestry of abandonment. He approached cautiously, senses alert for any signs of life or danger. The silence was profound, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves or the distant call of a bird. Inside one of the buildings, he found remnants of a life once lived-a broken chair, a faded tapestry, and a hearth filled with cold ash.
The discovery stirred a mix of emotions within him. Hope, that he was not alone in this world; fear, that whatever had happened here could happen again; and a deep-seated loneliness, a yearning for connection in a world that felt both new and ancient.
Kaito lingered for a moment, absorbing the atmosphere, before stepping back into the open. The path continued beyond the ruins, winding through the hills and disappearing into the horizon. With a deep breath, he resumed his journey, each step a testament to his resilience and determination to uncover the truths that lay ahed.
The hills stretched like breathing giants under a sky too gentle to be real. Kaito walked with no destination, only direction—forward. Each step was quiet, but the silence around him grew heavier, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
And maybe it was.
He thought the stillness would be a relief, a mercy after the screaming, snarling chaos of the forest. But this—this silence—was lonelier than any death he'd ever felt. There were no monsters here, no shadows reaching for his throat. Only wind. Only sky. Only space too wide for someone who no longer knew how to exist without pain.
He slowed as the memories began creeping in.
At first, they were gentle. Harmless.
The smell of freshly cooked rice.
A woman's laughter echoing down a hallway.
The squeak of sneakers on school tiles.
He closed his eyes, letting the breeze carry him back. The warmth of his mother's arms as she wrapped a scarf around his neck too tight. "You'll thank me when you don't catch a cold," she'd said, with a smile full of light.
Then the image faded.
Gone.
He frowned, tried to bring it back—but it slipped through his thoughts like smoke.
"Wait," he whispered. "I was just there…"
A new one came.
Sitting beside someone—maybe his sister?—in a sunlit room. A schoolbag between them. They were laughing. She pushed his head sideways, teasing him, eyes crinkling at the corners.
But the punchline was gone.
Her name was gone.
The room, the sunlight, the voice—they flickered, like a glitch in a broken screen.
"No," Kaito muttered, his legs buckling beneath him.
He dropped to his knees in the grass. His fingers dug into the earth, trying to find something solid, something real, but there was only dirt. Only emptiness.
"I don't want to forget," he whispered, but it came out hollow. Automatic.
And worse—he realized he had already said it before.
Hundreds of times.
And it had never mattered.
The forest didn't take pieces of him all at once. It wasn't merciful like that. It shaved him down—day by day, death by death, memory by memory—until he was nothing but a hollow name echoing inside a body that didn't know what it was fighting for anymore.
He punched the ground. Once. Twice. The pain reminded him he was still here.
But he didn't cry.
He didn't have the memory of how to cry anymore.
He stood, shaking, and kept moving.
Not because he wanted to.
But because standing still meant accepting that the past would never come back.
The wind shifted, and ahead—beyond a crumbled stone wall—he saw it.
A single oak tree, its trunk twisted, its branches skeletal and bare. Beneath it, something glinted.
He approached cautiously, every breath feeling like borrowed time. He knelt and brushed the dirt away, revealing a half-buried, cracked metal badge. Its surface was worn, symbols scrawled across it in a language he didn't recognize.
But the feeling…
His gut twisted. His head throbbed.
This meant something. He knew it did.
He gripped the badge, trying to force a memory—any memory—to return. A voice. A name. A place.
But nothing came.
He clutched it to his chest, as if holding it tightly enough might stitch a piece of himself back into place.
"I had a life," he whispered. "I had people. I was someone."
But who?
Who was he before Oblivian's Gate?
Before death became a routine?
Before the forest turned his identity into currency?
He felt the tears prick at his eyes—but they didn't fall.
Instead, he stood, the badge still in his hand.
He didn't know what it was.
But he wasn't going to lose it too.
So he slipped it into his bag, wiped the dirt from his hands, and walked on, into the wind that never stopped whispering what he had lost.
The sun dipped low in the sky, casting the hills in gold and deep amber. The wind rustled the tall grass, brushing against Kaito's face like the faintest reminder of warmth. He walked the worn path that wound through the open plain, eyes trained on the horizon. That's when he heard it—
Wooden wheels creaking.
Hooves.
The clink of metal buckles and shifting supplies.
He crouched immediately, slipping into the taller grass with the reflex of someone who'd died too many times to take sound lightly.
But then—humming.
Not growling. Not snarling. Not static or whispers or screams.
Just a man's voice, low and off-key, carrying some old tune on the breeze.
Kaito slowly rose and stepped out.
The cart came into view. Wooden and sturdy, pulled by a tired gray horse whose flanks rose and fell with the slow rhythm of age. Sitting atop the front bench was a broad-shouldered man wrapped in a patched leather coat, wide-brimmed hat tilted against the light. His beard was full, streaked with gray, and his face worn like sun-bleached parchment—creased around the eyes, but not unfriendly.
He looked like someone who belonged to this world.
And for the first time, Kaito wasn't sure if *he* did.
The man tugged the reins lightly and brought the cart to a stop. His dark eyes squinted in Kaito's direction. "Ho there," he said. "Didn't see you 'til the wind turned."
Kaito kept one hand near the strap of his pack. "Wasn't trying to be seen."
The man chuckled, voice gravelly but warm. "Well, you don't look like bandit. Not armed enough."
Kaito didn't respond. He didn't know how to joke anymore.
"Name's Thalen," the man said, offering a slow nod. "Merchant. Wanderer. Or whatever folk need me to be. You look like you could use a lift."
Kaito looked at the cart. Supplies tied down with rope. A few crates. A worn bow. "Where are you heading?"
Thalen leaned back. "Headed toward a place called Virestead. Tiny outpost near the edge of the Graylands. Should be two days out. You?"
Kaito hesitated. That question. The one he used to answer without thinking.
But now, trust could kill. A name could be a death sentence.
He thought for a moment, voice catching in his throat.
"…Kairen," he said finally. The lie slid from his lips smoother than expected.
Thalen didn't blink. "Well met, Kairen."
Kaito climbed up beside him. The wood groaned under his weight. The horse let out a soft snort and resumed its slow trot.
They rode in silence for a time, the wheels creaking steadily over dirt and stone. Kaito scanned the horizon, the land stretched wide in every direction, rolling hills dotted with the distant shapes of crumbled ruins and sparse trees.
Thalen shifted in his seat. "So where you from, Kairen?"
Kaito paused. "Nowhere I'd go back to."
Thalen nodded like he understood. "Lots of that going around. I meet plenty running from something."
"Not running," Kaito murmured. "Just... moving."
The merchant didn't push. Instead, he reached into a pouch and pulled out a piece of dried fruit, offered it over. Kaito hesitated before accepting it. The taste was bitter and sweet—his first real food in... he couldn't remember how long.
"You said Virestead is near the Graylands?" Kaito asked after a moment.
"Mm. Harsh place. The people there don't speak much, but they're sturdy. Honest, mostly. It's quiet. Not a lot of travelers go that far."
"What about the rest of the world?" Kaito asked. "The other cities?"
Thalen let out a low chuckle. "You really don't know much, huh?"
"I'm trying to learn."
"Well," Thalen said, "nobody's mapped this world completely. Not even close. You got your big city hubs—Veldenholm in the west, Aethyr Gate in the skylands, Vol Krell down in the shattered coast—but even the kings of those places can't tell you where the edges are."
Kaito frowned. "You mean no one knows how big this world is?"
"Not a clue. New places keep showing up. Some vanish. Dungeons get discovered, cleared, and then swallowed again by the land. It's alive, this world. Not just *in* it. *Itself.*"
He went on, voice low and rich with stories. "There's cities that shift on their own. Dungeons that appear only when the moon splits. Rivers that run backward. Storms that speak. Beasts that build towers in the desert. Entire regions are uncharted. Even the oldest maps are filled with blanks."
Kaito felt his throat tighten. "And no one's tried to conquer it?"
Thalen laughed. "Plenty have tried. They burn fast. This place doesn't reward kings. It chews them up. Spits them into the dirt."
"And the monsters?"
"Oh, they're everywhere," Thalen said. "Some big. Some smart. Some so old we stopped giving them names. Best you can do is learn how to avoid them—or die trying."
Kaito looked forward again, the sun setting before them in a sea of gold and blood-red clouds.
This world was vast. Far bigger than the loop he had known.
And somewhere in it... the Gate still waited.
He didn't speak again.
But for the first time in a long time, the silence wasn't suffocating.
It was full of possibility.
They traveled in silence long after the sun had dipped below the hills, painting the sky in deep purples and fractured stars. The cart moved slowly, wheels groaning with each bump, the horse snorting now and then like even it was skeptical of what lay ahead.
Kaito sat beside Thalen, hands resting on his lap, gaze fixed on the horizon. His thoughts wandered like smoke—touching on the Gate, on the girl who betrayed him, on the faces he could no longer remember. And through it all… the fear of forgetting more.
"What do you do, Thalen?" he asked quietly, voice breaking the quiet like a pebble tossed in a still lake.
Thalen looked over. "Trade mostly. Tools, books, seeds. Sometimes I ferry messages between places most people don't want to go."
"Why?"
Thalen shrugged. "I like roads. I like not staying put. And I've found something strange in every direction I've ever gone."
Kaito nodded slowly. "Do people ever… find answers? In this world?"
"Sometimes," Thalen said. "But they're not always the answers they wanted."
That stuck with him.
They passed another stretch of ruins—low stone foundations, overgrown, forgotten. Somewhere, someone had once lived there. Built a life. Lost it. Kaito wondered what kind of memory they had left behind… or if they'd been erased like him.
A thought stirred.
"Thalen," he said, "have you ever heard of something called… the Gate?"
Thalen frowned. "Can't say I have. Why? You looking for it?"
Kaito hesitated. Then: "It's the only thing that's been real since I got here."
Thalen was quiet for a moment. "Well… if it exists, someone's written about it. Somewhere."
He pointed ahead, toward a ridge lit faintly by torchlight in the far distance.
"Virestead has a temple," he said. "Old priest keeps records—books, maps, weird legends no one else cares about. Could be a start."
Kaito felt something shift in his chest. A thread pulled taut. Something he hadn't felt in a long time.
Direction.
Not survival.
Not repetition.
Purpose.
He looked ahead, eyes narrowing.
"I want to know what this world really is," he said. "Not just its shape. Its rules. Its lies."
Thalen smiled, just a little. "Careful, Kairen. You start asking the right questions, you might not like the answers."
"I already don't."
Thalen chuckled, then paused. "You talk like a man who's seen more than his share of pain."
Kaito was quiet. Then: "I was a coward once. I still am, in ways. I freeze. I panic. I want to run. I want to hide."
Thalen looked at him with a mix of curiosity and respect. "But you didn't."
"No," Kaito said. "Not anymore. I still want to run. But now… I run toward something. Even if it scares me."
Thalen nodded slowly, tapping the reins. "Fear's not weakness. It's just the voice that asks if you're sure. Doesn't mean you have to listen."
"I'm tired of listening to it," Kaito said. His voice was low, his eyes fixed ahead. "Tired of being the one everyone underestimates. Tired of dying just to start over. I want to understand. I want to remember. I want to survive without losing myself piece by piece."
They rode on in silence, but it was no longer uncomfortable.
The forest had taken much from him—his trust, his memories, his old name.
But it hadn't taken his will.
Not all of it.
Kaito gripped the edge of the cart, fingers curling around splinters in the wood. His heart thudded once in his chest, quiet but heavy.
"I won't lose myself again," he whispered.
Even if he had to lie. Even if he had to kill. Even if he had to forget.
He would reach the Gate.
And this time, he wouldn't walk through it blindly.
He looked up at the stars. They blinked slowly in the sky, some unfamiliar, others eerily similar to ones he thought he had forgotten. Was this world another layer of fiction, another illusion? Or was it something far deeper, far older, that he had simply stumbled into?
A question surfaced in his mind and lingered: What if the Gate wasn't a passage... but a key?
A key to something far worse—or far more important—than he had ever imagined.
The cart rolled forward toward the faint light of Virestead.
Kaito didn't smile.
But he didn't look away.
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