Lyrien woke Elias before sunrise.
Not with words—with a stone tossed gently at his chest.
"Ow—what?" he groaned, blinking blearily at the pale sky.
"Up," she said. "Before the land wakes."
"That's ominous."
"It should be."
They didn't go far.
That was the first thing Elias noticed.
Instead of pushing outward, Lyrien led him in a slow circle around the house, stopping every few dozen steps. She knelt, pressed her fingers to the dirt, then stood and moved again.
Finally, Elias couldn't take it anymore.
"What are we doing?" he asked.
"Defining where you can live," she replied.
"…Isn't that just here?" He gestured at the house.
She shook her head.
"This," she said, tapping the ground, "is shelter. What surrounds it determines whether it remains one."
She stopped and drew a line in the dirt with the tip of her boot.
"This is your threat radius."
Elias frowned. "Threat radius."
"The distance at which danger can reach you before you can react," she explained. "Anything beyond it does not matter. Anything within it must be accounted for."
That felt… familiar.
He crouched, eyes narrowing, and looked around with new intent.
"How fast do the monsters move?" he asked.
"How much warning do we get?"
"What terrain slows them down?"
Lyrien watched him closely.
"You ask the correct questions," she said.
They tested it.
A lot.
Lyrien paced out distances while Elias timed her with the system clock. They marked rocks. Tall grass. Clear ground. Slopes.
"From there," Elias said, pointing, "something fast could reach us in… maybe six seconds."
"Yes."
"And if I'm inside the house?"
"Then five."
He grimaced. "So the house isn't a bunker. It's a delay."
She nodded approvingly.
They continued outward until Lyrien stopped abruptly.
"Here," she said. "This is your limit. For now."
Elias looked back at the house. It seemed closer than it should have been.
"That's not far at all," he said quietly.
"No," Lyrien agreed. "Which is why you are alive."
Later, Elias sat on a low rock and pulled up his status screen.
He hadn't really looked at it before—not beyond level and EXP.
Now, he forced himself to.
Name: Elias
Level: 1
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Vitality: 5
Intelligence: 7
Mana: 5
Leadership: 5
At the bottom, a small line of text flickered.
Note:
Average adult baseline = 5
Peak normal human = 10
Elias stared.
"So… I'm normal," he said.
"Mostly," Lyrien replied.
He tapped the intelligence stat.
"Seven," he murmured. "Above average, but not genius-level."
"You think too much," she said. "That inflates it."
He snorted. "Fair."
The realization settled in slowly.
He wasn't strong.
He wasn't fast.
He wasn't durable.
If a trained soldier from Earth had been summoned instead—
"I would already be dead," he said.
"Yes," Lyrien replied calmly.
That should have hurt.
Instead, it grounded him.
They spent the afternoon establishing patrol logic.
Not guards. Not walls.
Patterns.
"If you walk randomly, predators learn nothing," Lyrien explained. "If you walk predictably, they learn everything."
"So… semi-randomized loops," Elias said slowly.
She tilted her head. "Explain."
He used stones.
"Three paths," he said, placing them in the dirt. "Different lengths. Different times. Same coverage. No pattern longer than two repetitions."
Silence followed.
Then Lyrien smiled.
Just a little.
"You are not a warrior," she said. "You are something else."
"A problem," Elias muttered.
"Yes," she agreed. "To your enemies."
They walked the paths together. Elias stumbled less now. He watched more. Listened harder.
Twice, they spotted monsters at the edge of the threat radius.
Neither time did they engage.
"That feels wrong," Elias admitted.
"That feeling will get you killed," Lyrien replied. "Survival is choosing not to fight."
That evening, Elias updated the chat.
[Regional Chat – Sector 418]
[Elias]: Figure out how far danger can reach you before you react. That's your threat radius. Don't go past it unless you're ready.
There were fewer messages now.
But the ones that came… listened.
As night fell, Elias stood near the house, looking at the faint markers they'd placed—stones, broken branches, disturbed earth.
Invisible lines.
Control without walls.
"I'm not strong enough to protect people," he said quietly.
Lyrien stood beside him.
"Not yet," she said. "But strength is not the first requirement of leadership."
"What is?"
"Understanding limits."
Elias nodded slowly.
He was level one.
Average in almost everything.
But for the first time, he knew exactly how far his world extended.
And that was enough—for now.