The forest watched him.
It wasn't a metaphor. Riku could feel it—something in the way the leaves turned slightly as he moved, how the bioluminescent veins along tree trunks dimmed when he looked directly at them. The Lorian Dream-Seers were not alone in this place. Their roots had eyes. Their silence had weight.
And he was being tested.
Three days had passed since his fall into Elyssar. In that time, he had learned precisely nothing about the rules of his role, the true function of his system, or how not to starve to death. His so-called starter pack had included:
A vine-bound tablet with unreadable symbols
A bone knife
Dried red fruit that induced vivid hallucinations
And a sleeping mat woven from leaves that whispered to itself at night
He spent most of the first day lying still, listening to the quiet conversations of the Lorian that occurred not through words, but shifts of posture, light, and breath. He understood none of it. Occasionally they would glance at him with unreadable expressions—neither contempt nor interest. Just… observation.
They did not speak to him again. Not until the ritual.
It began without warning on the fourth morning.
Two Lorian warriors—tall, expressionless, their tattoos flickering slowly—approached him where he sat near the grove's edge. One gestured for him to stand. The other dropped a long strip of cloth at his feet.
"Blindfold," said the one on the left. "You will walk with no eyes."
Riku opened his mouth to ask a question, but the warriors only turned and began to walk away, assuming obedience. He hesitated, then tied the cloth around his head, plunging the world into warm blue darkness.
Hands took his arms. Not roughly—but firmly.
They led him. Over moss, through roots, into damp air that smelled of honey and wet ash. He lost all sense of direction. Eventually, they stopped.
The blindfold was removed.
He stood in a circle of stones. Tall ones, uneven, grown not placed—pale and ribbed like bones. In their center was a flat slab of barkstone, and on it lay a simple wooden bowl, filled with silver dust.
Thalya, the High Seer, stood on the far side of the circle.
Her eyes did not blink.
"You will answer one question," she said. "Only one."
Riku nodded slowly.
She stepped closer. The other Lorian formed a perimeter, their expressions as unreadable as the mist drifting through the clearing.
"If you lie," Thalya said, "we will know."
Riku swallowed.
She extended a hand toward the bowl. The silver dust began to rise, hovering between them in a shimmering coil.
Her voice was calm. "What is the one thing you believe matters more than truth?"
The dust glowed brighter.
Riku's mind raced. Was there a right answer? A moral one? A cultural trick?
He thought of survival.
He thought of Satoshi, lying in the moss with nothing but a name tag left behind.
He spoke before he knew he had decided.
"Control," he said.
The dust snapped into place—into a flat disc of spinning silver symbols—and then exploded into vapor.
The silence that followed was absolute.
No birds. No wind.
The Lorian stared at him.
Thalya said nothing for several breaths. Then, at last, she nodded.
"Provisional Sovereign," she said. "Still provisional."
The warriors escorted him away.
He wasn't sure whether he'd passed or failed.
That night, he sat alone on the edge of the clearing, trying to map his surroundings by starlight. The Lorian didn't light fires. They didn't need to—everything in their domain glowed faintly, rhythmically, like bioluminescent lungs.
Riku opened the vine-tablet.
Still unreadable.
Still useless.
Then, as he blinked tiredly at the glyphs, something flickered in the corner of his eye.
A familiar shimmer.
The system interface.
[Fold Anomaly Re-stabilized]
[Anchor Trait Detected: Perception of Power]
[Fold Activation Threshold: 3%]
[Trait Queue: "Cultural Sync / Sovereign Fear Index"]
The words made no sense.
Then the last line flashed:
[Fold Process Inhibited: Provisional Status Limiting Progression]
He groaned.
"Great," he muttered. "Even the system doesn't believe in me."
From somewhere beyond the trees, a soft sound echoed—half-sigh, half-chime.
He froze.
Then another.
Not animal. Not natural.
Voices.
Human voices.
He stood and moved toward the sound, staying low. Slipped between trees. Listened.
"—don't care what your tribe thinks. We're not asking again."
Another voice. Female. Shaken. "But they've already chosen a Sovereign. You can't just—"
A sharp crack. A scream.
Riku ducked behind a tree, peered through the glowing underbrush.
Three humans. Armed with spears, wrapped in crude armor made from animal chitin. Their faces were painted with streaks of red clay.
They stood over a collapsed native — a lithe, avian-looking figure with folded wings.
The tallest of the three spat. "Tell your feathered freaks. If they want protection, they kneel. Or burn."
He turned and walked away.
The others followed.
Riku stayed silent, motionless.
He had no allies.
No weapons.
And now he knew: not all the other summoned had come to rule. Some had come to conquer.
As he returned to camp, the Lorian watched him from the trees.
And he could feel it, even without looking:
They were waiting.
Still deciding.