Cold.
Heavy.
Pain.
I could barely feel any of it anymore.
The sounds of the village were gone. The cries, the gunfire, the laughter... I couldn’t hear any of it anymore.
There was only darkness and silence.
...
A dull ache spread through my chest.
Then another.
Air.
My lungs burned as they forced themselves to work again. A rough cough escaped me before I even opened my eyes, water stinging the back of my throat.
The first thing I felt was warmth.
I could tell I wasn’t lying in the river anymore.
My eyelids slowly parted.
A wooden ceiling.
Dark wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, old and worn from years of use. The room smelled of wet wood, smoke, and something herbal. Somewhere nearby, I could hear a fire quietly crackling.
I lay still.
A coarse blanket covered me. My clothes had been changed, replaced with loose linen that felt unfamiliar against my skin. My shoulder still throbbed where the infant had thrown me, but it had been tightly wrapped in clean bandages.
"...You’re awake."
The voice was old.
His voice was steady, though he sounded tired.
I turned my head.
’Where the hell am I?’ I groaned, pressing a hand against my forehead.
An elderly man sat beside the hearth, quietly adding another piece of wood to the fire. His gray hair was unevenly cut, and he had a short beard covering the lower part of his face. His coat appeared worn.
He didn’t glance my way, merely observing the fire.
"Ah! You can talk?" His eyes widened. "I thought you were a corpse."
Silence settled between us.
Then, after another quiet moment, he spoke again.
"How long has it been since the seventh bell rang"
I hesitated before answering.
"T-the seventh bell... you’re talking about what happened yesterday, right?"
The old man repeated the word under his breath, staring into the fire as though it meant more to him than it did to me. After a while, he reached for the kettle hanging above the hearth.
His hand stopped halfway.
A puzzled look crossed his face. He frowned at the air in front of him, quietly searching for something only he had lost. It took several seconds before his shoulders eased.
"The kettle."
He let out a soft breath, almost amused with himself, poured hot water into a clay cup, and carried it over.
He frowned at me. "Have we met already?" Before I could answer, he waved a hand. "Never mind."
For a brief moment, I wondered if the river had carried me into the cabin of a senile old man.
He studied my face for a moment before nodding.
"Looks like the kettle’s still warm..." he muttered, glancing toward the hearth.
I waited.
The old man said nothing. He just sat by the fire, his hands resting on his knees, staring into the flames with a distant look.
I searched his face for a moment before speaking. "What do I call you?"
His eyes shifted toward me. For a moment they sharpened, like he’d finally caught hold of the question. His lips parted.
Then the look slipped away.
His brow furrowed. One weathered hand rose to his temple, his fingers rubbing slow circles as though he could coax the answer back out.
"My name..."
He let the words hang there, quietly searching. Seconds passed. His shoulders sagged with a tired acceptance
"Hm."
A small, sheepish smile crept onto his face.
"Doesn’t seem keen on coming back today."
He gave a helpless little shrug.
"Old man’s good enough."
A small shrug.
"Memory’s a fickle thing."
He said it so casually that I couldn’t tell whether to laugh or feel sorry for him.
My eyes drifted around the cabin instead. Dried herbs hung from the rafters. Shelves sagged beneath old books and chipped jars, every corner worn smooth by years of use.
Willard’s voice echoed through my head.
’North of here, by the river... there’s an old man living alone. If anyone knows what’s happening, it’s him.’
So this was the man he’d entrusted everything to.
I glanced back at the old man.
Please... know something.
"You asked about the seventh bell."
He blinked.
"I did?"
Recognition slowly returned.
"Ah."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"Memory’s a fickle thing."
Something inside me sank.
I’d just watched an entire village turn into something out of a zombie movie, people tearing each other apart while smiling like nothing was wrong.
And now the only person who might know what the hell was going on couldn’t even remember what he’d asked me a few seconds ago.
Seriously?
I rubbed a hand over my face, forcing down the frustration before it could spill out. Getting angry wouldn’t fix his memory.
"I-I don’t understand any of this." I rubbed my face. "What caused all of this? The village, that bell... all of it. Why did everyone suddenly change? I just need to know what happened."
I paused, frustration getting the better of me.
"Why was I even sent to this worl—"
I stopped myself.
What would this old man even know about why I was sent to this world? Seriously, what am I expecting him to say?
Oh, by the way, some mysterious force dragged me here for a reason.
Yeah. Right.
I already knew I wasn’t getting that answer from him.
I knew what corruption was. I’d only speedran over it once in the wiki, but I remembered enough to recognize what those people had become.
’Horrors.’
If that’s what they were, then the corruption had already taken hold. And if I’d been exposed to the same thing...
I looked down at my hands.
How long before I started changing too?
The questions came one after another before I could stop them.
"I’ve been trying to figure this out since I got here." I looked at him. "If you know anything about this place, I’d like to hear it."
I gazed into the old man’s eyes.
"So please."
"Tell me what’s happening."
The old man looked at me for a while, his gaze lingering on my face.
"What’s your name, lad?"
"Aseren."
He nodded slowly.
"Aseren..."
He repeated it under his breath, as though committing it to memory.
"A good name."
Something in me eased.
Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.
The old man quietly fed another log into the fire. The cabin fell silent, filled only by the soft crackle of burning wood.
Then he glanced at me again.
"Forgive an old man."
He rubbed his forehead with a weary smile.
"What did you say your name was?"
I froze.
He caught the look on my face and gave an almost apologetic shrug.
The old man stared into the flames for a long time.
At first, I thought he’d forgotten the conversation again. Then I noticed his eyes. He didn’t look absent. He looked like a man searching for something buried too deep to reach quickly.
His tired eyes remained fixed on the fire, watching the flames shift and twist as if they were showing him something beyond the walls of the cabin.
I was about to speak when his lips parted.
"Do you know the story of the dog?"
I opened my eyes briefly, then furrowed my brow.
"No... I don’t know what the first dog is."
The old man carried on as though I’d never opened my mouth.
I thought about repeating myself, but then I recalled who I was speaking to and chose not to bother.
He nodded slowly.
"Yes. The first dog."
I waited for him to continue, already expecting the story to take a darker turn.
"The dog was created to serve."
His voice was quiet. Almost gentle.
"That was the reason it was given life. The leash around its neck was not placed there as punishment. It was simply what the dog had always known. It guarded. It obeyed. It followed."
The old man poked the fire, watching sparks rise into the air.
"And for a long time... it was content."
I stayed silent.
The story was straightforward.
A dog, a master, and a leash. I didn’t think much of it at first, but the story felt strangely familiar. I just couldn’t figure out why.
Perhaps because I grasped its deeper meaning. A purpose assigned before any choice was made. A path decided before taking the first step.
"The dog never hated its master," the old man continued. "Why would it? It had never known anything else. A creature born in darkness does not curse the absence of sunlight. It simply believes the darkness is the world."
The fire shifted.
"But then... the dog looked upward."
His fingers moved slightly, tracing something invisible.
"It saw its master above the heavens. It saw a being that could shape things with a thought. Create. Destroy. Rewrite. It saw power that felt limitless."
His voice lowered.
"And for the first time... the dog wanted something."
I looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
For a brief moment, the old man’s cloudy eyes became clear.
"To be more."
The answer was simple. Yet somehow, it carried more weight than anything else he had said.
I understood that feeling. Maybe not the desire itself, but what gave birth to it. I’d never met anyone who wanted more for no reason. There was always something. Something they couldn’t do. Something they couldn’t become. Something about themselves they simply couldn’t live with anymore. Maybe that was where ambition came from.
"The dog did not hate its creator. It did not dream of revenge. It only wanted what was beyond its reach. A voice that belonged to itself. A will that could not be commanded. A place where it could stand without needing permission."
The old man leaned closer to the flames.
"So it climbed."
His voice became quieter.
"Through pain. Through failure. Through years where every step forward meant losing something it could never reclaim. It abandoned the body it was given. The instincts it was born with. The purpose carved into its existence."
He stared into the fire.
"It changed. It learned. It became something else."
The cabin grew silent.
"And eventually..."
Against my better judgment, I found myself hoping the dog would make it.
I shouldn’t have.
Every miracle demanded a sacrifice. Experience had taught me that much. The only question was who would pay the price... and how steep it would be.
The old man’s voice dropped.
"The dog became human."
I watched him carefully.
"Human?"
I repeated the word, more out of instinct than curiosity. Funny. A word I had known my entire life suddenly felt like something I had never truly understood.
He nodded.
"Yes."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"Funny, isn’t it? Something that spent its entire existence wishing it could become more... finally became something capable of wanting more."
I waited for him to continue.
Because that should have been the ending.
The impossible had been achieved.
The dog had escaped.
The dog had become free.
But the old man’s smile slowly disappeared.
"Only..." he murmured, looking back into the fire, "the dog had misunderstood something."
My brow furrowed.
"What?"
The old man remained quiet for a moment.
Then he answered.
"Being human was never as beautiful as it imagined."
The flames reflected in his eyes.
"Humans wanted things. They feared losing them. They held onto what they loved until their hands bled. They destroyed things they cherished because they were afraid they would disappear."
His voice softened.
"The dog spent countless years dreaming of having a heart."
A pause.
"Then, when it finally received one..."
The old man looked down at his hands.
"It learned hearts could hurt."
The room felt colder.
There was a quiet sadness in his voice, not the kind that came from telling a tragedy, but the kind that belonged to someone carrying the memory of one. It was the expression of a person who had seen something unfold and had been unable to stop it.
"The dog became human. It gained emotions. Ambition. Followers. It built kingdoms and created servants of its own."
His fingers tightened slightly around the fabric of his sleeve.
"And slowly... without realizing it... it began walking the same path as the one it once followed."
The fire cracked.
"The dog wanted freedom from its master."
The old man whispered.
"But after gaining power... it began wondering why anyone else deserved the freedom it fought for."
I stared at him.
Something about those words bothered me.
Because they weren’t really about a dog.
They were about anything that climbed high enough to forget what the world looked like from below.
"The cruelest part..." the old man said softly, "is that the dog did not become something terrible all at once."
His gaze remained fixed on the flames.
"It happened slowly. One choice. One excuse. One necessary sacrifice after another."
The old man fell silent.
"Until one day..."
His voice faded.
"The dog looked back and realized it had spent its entire life trying to escape the leash..."
A long pause.
"...only to place one around its own neck."
The cabin became quiet again.
He fell silent, and I stopped expecting another word. My thoughts lingered on the story instead. It hadn’t been told by accident. I just couldn’t see why yet.