Elara gathered the empty bowls, stacking them with practiced efficiency. She hesitated before reaching for Notch's half-finished portion, her eyes flicking between him and the remaining porridge.

  "Notch," she said softly, "you know you'll be starting work with your father soon. Now that you're twelve..." She trailed off, searching his face for the complaint she expected. "Are you upset about it? I know you always talked about wanting to do something else."

  The old Notch—the real Notch whose memories now swirled in Viktor's head—had dreams. Vague, childish visions of adventure and magic, of being something more than a farmer's son. He'd complained endlessly about the unfairness of it all, about being born poor in a village that offered nothing.

  But Viktor understood something the old Notch hadn't yet learned: work was work, whether in a factory or a field. And at least here, the air wouldn't fill his lungs with metal dust.

  "I don't mind," Notch said, meeting his mother's surprised gaze. "Actually, I want to start as soon as possible. To help raise money for the family."

  Elara froze mid-reach, her hand hovering over his bowl. Garen looked up from his cup, eyebrows raised. Even Mira stopped fidgeting, her wide eyes locked on her brother.

  The silence stretched for a heartbeat too long.

  "Well," Elara finally managed, her voice catching slightly. "That's... very mature of you, dear."

  She didn't know what else to say. This wasn't her son—or rather, it was, but something had changed. Something in his eyes looked older now, tired in a way that no twelve-year-old should be.

  Notch pushed his bowl toward Mira, who had been eyeing the leftovers for quite a while. Her hungry stares hadn't been subtle, and Viktor's memories of rationed meals on the island made the choice automatic.

  "Here," he said simply. "I'm full."

  Mira's face lit up like he'd handed her a treasure chest. She glanced at their mother for permission, and at Elara's small nod, she pulled the bowl close and dug in with enthusiasm that made Notch's chest tighten. When was the last time he'd seen someone so genuinely happy over so little?

  Garen cleared his throat, drawing Notch's attention. "If you're serious about working, we start at dawn tomorrow. The Harver estate doesn't tolerate lateness." His tone was gruff, but something softer lurked beneath it—perhaps pride, perhaps concern. "It's hard work, boy. Harder than you think."

  "I know," Notch replied, though he didn't. Not really. He knew factory work, keyboard work, the exhaustion of staring at a screen for sixteen hours straight. But farming? That was different.

  Still, how hard could it be compared to dying?

  ---

  The evening meal concluded with the scraping of bowls and quiet murmurs. As Elara began clearing the table, Notch leaned back in his chair, flexing his small fingers experimentally.

  "I just want to build up my physical prowess," he said, almost to himself. "Not 'cause I'm a virtuoso or nothing. Just... need to be stronger."

  The words came out awkwardly, the vocabulary not quite matching the body it came from. Garen gave him an odd look but said nothing. In a village like Draymoor, wanting to be strong was practical, not philosophical.

  After helping clean up—another behavior that earned him surprised glances—Notch approached his mother as she scrubbed the bowls in a wooden basin.

  "Mom, can I go out? Alone?"

  Elara's hands stilled in the water. She turned slowly, studying him with that same concerned expression from earlier. The old Notch had never been allowed to wander unsupervised. His childish behavior, his tendency to get into trouble, his complete lack of awareness—it had all meant constant supervision.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "Notch, I don't think—"

  "Please," he interrupted gently. "I'm old enough now, right? You said so yourself. If I'm old enough to work, I'm old enough to walk around the village."

  She hesitated, her lips pressing into a thin line. Her wet hands twisted the cleaning rag nervously.

  "Just around the village," Notch pressed. "I want to see it properly. Get familiar with everything before I start working tomorrow."

  It was a reasonable argument, and they both knew it. After a long moment and a glance toward Garen—who gave a slight shrug—Elara sighed in surrender.

  "Fine. But you stay within the village boundaries, understand? And absolutely do not go near the forest." Her voice hardened. "There's a predator out there, Notch. The hunters are serious about the sighting. If something happened to you—"

  "I understand," Notch said quickly. "I'll be careful. I promise."

  She studied him for another moment, then nodded reluctantly. "Be back before dark."

  ---

  The air outside hit him differently than he expected.

  Notch stepped out of the small house and onto the dirt pathways of Draymoor, his eyes scanning the familiar-yet-foreign landscape. The village was exactly as he remembered from the game—small, poor, unremarkable. A starting zone that players rushed through on their way to better things.

  But now he could smell the livestock from the communal pens, feel the uneven ground beneath his worn boots, hear the distant chatter of neighbors and the creak of wagon wheels.

  It was real.

  He walked slowly at first, taking in details the game had never bothered rendering: the patches on nearly every building, the tired faces of people going about their routines, the children playing with sticks in the mud because they had nothing else.

  This was poverty. Real poverty. Not the industrial kind he'd known on Volkov's Reach, but the agricultural kind—where wealth was measured in livestock and harvests, and a bad season meant starvation.

  His path took him toward the edge of the village, past the last scattered houses. He told himself he was just exploring, just getting familiar with the layout. But his feet carried him toward the tree line almost automatically.

  The forest loomed ahead, dark and dense even in the afternoon light. According to the game lore, these woods were home to low-level creatures—wolves, boars, the occasional goblin scout. Easy encounters for a level-five player.

  But what level was he now? What were his stats? Did game mechanics even apply to him? The questions made his head spin.

  Halfway to the forest edge, in a small clearing by a solitary oak, Notch suddenly felt wrong.

  Cold sweat broke out across his forehead. His stomach churned. The world tilted slightly, and he stumbled toward the tree, pressing his small hand against the rough bark for support.

  "What the hell?" he muttered, sliding down to sit at the tree's base.

  His heart raced. His breathing came shallow and quick. The edges of his vision blurred.

  Was this a panic attack? Was this his body rejecting Viktor's consciousness? Or was this something else entirely—something to do with the "blessing" that damned voice had mentioned?

  Notch closed his eyes, trying to steady himself, trying to understand what was happening in this strange new existence.

  As he sat, the nausea faded and something else arrived—a thread linking him to that place or entity that had spoken in the void. It felt like something settling in the back of his eyes with uncomfortable permanence.

  Then his perception sharpened.

  Notch's eyes snapped open, and the world exploded into detail.

  Deep in the forest, where shadows thickened, he could make out creatures moving. A pack of wolves circled something, their forms clear despite being hundreds of meters away. That kind of visual range should only be possible with high-level gear—Hawkeye Lenses or a Farsight Circlet—items that didn't appear until players reached the capital.

  But it wasn't just distance. His sight had become impossibly sharp.

  He could see the tiny movements of mice, the patter of legs through grass, and feel their rhythms—the nervous tempo of their heartbeats. Beneath all that, faint mana signatures pulsed. Everything had mana. Everything was alive with it.

  Notch stood slowly, mind racing. He remembered how the game's combat system worked: visualize the attack, and the system handled chants and mechanics. But he had no training, no strength. This twelve-year-old body was unprepared.

  Still—he raised his hand experimentally, picturing a bow. A simple longbow, the kind starting archers used. He drew an imaginary string.

  An enormous black, flame-like bow materialized in his hands in less than a second.

  The weight felt negligible—he didn't flinch. The bow pulsed with dark energy, alive and crackling with power.

  Manifest Armament should have drained any caster of their reserves, but Notch felt only a mild fatigue. He released.

  The arrow was monstrous.

  A shaft of black flame tore forward, roaring through the trees with a thunderous boom. It carved a fifty-meter corridor through the forest, everything in its path consumed instantly. The black fire clung to the cut and spread, forming a tunnel of scorched wood and smoke.

  Notch's hands shook. Panic spiked at the thought of villagers or hunters in the woods. He stretched out his hands, pleading with the flames as if they would obey.

  "Stop! Please, stop!"

  They did.

  The black flames froze, then flowed backward like water being sucked down a drain—pulled into his palms and reabsorbed. His hands glowed faintly, then fell still.

  The damage remained. The scorched corridor, ash, and the charred skeletons of trees marked the path. Notch swallowed hard.

  Curiosity overtook fear. He stepped into the devastation and gathered up the casualties—three Hoppers here, three there. Their meat would mean a good meal for his family.

  Deeper in, two deep blue eyes watched him from shadow.

  Notch froze. He'd seen them with his new perception but had been too distracted by the meat to process the sight fully.

  A low growl rolled through the air. The sound said one thing: This is my territory.

  "A predator?" Notch whispered, gripping the Hoppers.

  The creature lunged so fast a normal person wouldn't see it move. Massive. Scales like midnight, wings ten meters wide, a serpentine body and a head full of razor teeth. A Lesser Wyvern—mid-tier, rare, and deadly—was facing him.

  Its blue eyes fixed on the Hoppers hanging from his hands. Hunger and territorial anger writhed in its stance.

  Notch's panic pushed mana from his palm in a blind attempt at defense. A dark, liquid-like substance pooled between them, pulsing with the same black flame aesthetic as his bow.

  The Wyvern stuttered, skidded to a halt, then sniffed. Curiosity replaced aggression. It licked the dark mana, then lapped it up enthusiastically, wagging away its tension like a satisfied beast.

  Notch stood, breath ragged, as the impossible creature settled, sated by his strange magic.

  He looked down at his glowing hands, then at the dead Hoppers, then at the wyvern.

  This new life was far more complicated than he'd imagined—and somehow, he suspected, it was only the beginning.