Extra To Protagonist

He didn't say it gently. Didn't sugar the word. He just let it drop between them like something sharp.

Nathan's eyes didn't waver, but something in his shoulders shifted. Not shame. Not doubt. Just absence. Like he knew he'd reached for something and come back missing.

"I figured," he said.

Seraphina's jaw clenched. "You don't remember him."

Nathan turned to her. Blinked once. "No."

"You should," she said, and walked past him without waiting for an answer.

Mae stood back, arms crossed, face pale. "You don't even feel weird about that?"

"I feel weird about everything," Nathan said, and the way he said it wasn't angry, it was honest. "But what do you want me to do? Pretend I remember what I don't?"

"You could try acting like it matters," Dion muttered, quieter than usual.

Nathan looked at him. "It does."

Elara stepped forward. She didn't speak right away. Just looked at Nathan, then at Merlin, and back again. Like she was solving an equation no one else could see. Then she spoke, low, but clear.

"You two were close."

Merlin didn't move.

Nathan tilted his head, studying him. "We were?"

"You were," Elara confirmed. Her voice didn't accuse. It just stated. Like a scar.

Nathan nodded once. "Then I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry," Merlin said.

Nathan frowned. "Then what should I be?"

Merlin's gaze sharpened. "Useful."

They stared at each other for a beat too long. Then Nathan stepped back.

And that was that.

No more words.

No comfort.

Just motion, tight and bitter and necessary, as they moved toward the dark hallway ahead.

And behind them, the die sat still. Waiting for nothing.

—

No system chime. No door sliding open. Just stillness, one that stretched long enough for every eye in the room to feel misplaced.

Merlin didn't move.

He stared at Nathan's face and saw nothing.

Not hostility.

Not regret.

Just the quiet confusion of someone who'd lost a page and didn't know the book was missing a chapter.

Then his screen flickered.

Not a warning. Not a prompt.

Something else.

[Final Trial Concluded.]

[System Lock Released.]

[Observer Count: 42]

[The Messenger is impressed.]

[The Judge with No Mouth continues to observe.]

[The Broken Herald has wagered 2 votes.]

[The Devourer has spoken among themselves]

Merlin exhaled once through his nose.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

He knew this part.

They watched. After the first threshold. After the first collapse. After every choice they didn't expect someone to make.

Not that they said it outright.

But their votes appeared like marks on glass. Silent. Final. Curious.

[The Crownless Mother remains silent.]

[The Smiling Witness casts no judgment.]

[Status: Evaluation Deferred.]

The air felt thinner.

Not from pressure. From perspective.

Because they weren't looking at Nathan.

They were looking at him.

'So that's what they wanted,' Merlin thought. 'Not obedience. Not sacrifice. They wanted the decision.'

Another flicker.

[The Messenger shakes his head]

[The Nameless Clockmaker has moved time for you once.]

[Proceed.]

Ahead of them, the golden portal widened.

Not a blaze. Not glory.

A thin fold in space, one they'd earned, not been granted.

Behind him, the group started to stir.

Mae turned slightly. "Is that…?"

Merlin stepped forward.

Just one step.

He didn't look back.

Didn't explain.

Because none of them could see it the way he did.

Only Nathan caught the flicker in Merlin's eyes. But he didn't recognize it.

Because the memory of Merlin wasn't his anymore.

And the gods liked it that way.

—

The portal swallowed them without light. Just movement—sound stripped, breath stolen, balance warped.

When it spit them out, there was dirt.

Not clean stone. Not trial-forged marble. Just earth, packed, uneven, cold. And air, sharper than anything underground. Thin and wide like wind had never stopped cutting through it.

Merlin staggered once, catching his footing before anyone saw. His boots sunk half an inch into the soil. He didn't look up yet. Just listened.

The sounds came fast.

Crackling brush. Wind against metal. A low, distant hum like engines two hills away. Birds, but not soft ones. The kind that hunted.

Then he opened his eyes.

Titanos.

Not a ruin. Not a city.

Just land. Scarred, sprawling, military-marked.

Ahead stretched broken ridgelines, dense tree cover, and open wild. Barbed wire cut uneven paths through overgrown brush. Smoke trailed faint in the sky, human, not natural. Campfires, maybe. Patrol routes. Somewhere, someone was armed and watching.

They were out of the dungeon.

But not safe.

Behind him, the group emerged one by one. Mae hit the ground first, her legs buckling for half a second before she stood. Dion followed, eyes wide, mouth open like he wanted to say something, but didn't.

Seraphina turned a slow circle, taking in the terrain like it was an opponent. Elara blinked fast, adjusting to the shift. Nathan came last, and froze.

He didn't recognize the terrain. None of them did.

Only Merlin had seen the edge of this place before. Not with his body. With his interface.

His system blinked once, invisible to the rest.

[Location Confirmed: Titanos – Southern Fringe]

[Observers: Quiet]

[No immediate surveillance]

Then another line. Slower. Measured.

[The Smiling Witness watches without commentary.]

Merlin exhaled once. A long breath. Grounded.

'So it wasn't the trials they were measuring.'

He didn't turn to the others. Not yet.

Because the next phase had begun, and none of them knew it.

Nathan stepped beside him, eyes on the jagged skyline. "Where are we?"

Merlin didn't answer.

Because names didn't matter here.

Only movement.

And who lasted.

—

Merlin didn't speak at first. He waited until all of them were standing, their eyes scanning the broken terrain, their lungs still adjusting to air that smelled like metal and moss and gunpowder.

Then he said it.

"Titanos."

The word dropped like a weapon, simple, unpolished, heavier than it sounded.

Seraph glanced at him, squinting. "That's not the academy."

"No," he said. "It's a continent. Far side of the strait. Off-grid. Marked red on half the maps."

Dion turned, his voice low. "Military territory?"

"Mostly," Merlin said. "Some wild zones. Mining corridors. What's left of old forward bases. But no cities. No civilians. And no safe zones."

Seraphina's hand hovered near her blade. "How far from the capital?"

"Far enough that no one's looking for us," Merlin replied. "Far enough that no one's coming."

Nathan didn't speak. He knelt once, dragging his fingers through the dirt like it might give him answers. Then he stood again, slower.

"You knew this was coming?" Mae asked.

Merlin shook his head. "I knew something was. Not this."

Behind his eyes, the system blinked again.

[Path Deviation Confirmed]

[The Messenger is pleased.]

[The Hollow Bride shakes her head in displeasure.]

He didn't let it show on his face.

Because the others didn't know the gods were watching.

Didn't know they'd been rerouted.

Didn't know that this, this stretch of wilderness and old combat trenches and perimeter mines, wasn't failure.

It was the real start.

Elara pulled her coat tighter. "What's the play?"

Merlin looked out over the ridge.

Then pointed.

"We move. That way."

"Why?"

"Because that's where the smoke's coming from."

"And what if it's a hostile camp?" Dion asked.

"Then we'll know," Merlin said. "And if it's not, maybe we eat."

That was the end of the discussion.

They followed him because they had no choice.

And because something in his voice made it sound like the only choice that mattered.

—

They crested the ridge in a line. No words. Just boots pressing into uneven earth, eyes narrowed, breath tight from cold air and thinner pressure.

The land sloped jagged beyond them, gray rock cut by trenches long since overgrown, wires half-buried like the bones of something mechanical. Then: movement.

Three figures. Uniforms. Military-cut. Not academy. Not local.

They stood near a half-collapsed watchpoint. One had a rifle slung across his back. Another wore a headset that blinked once, red. The third, shortest, broad-shouldered finally stepped forward, hand raised.

Mae started to wave. Merlin stopped her with a sharp motion.

The lead soldier said something.

Fast. Clipped.

The language hit hard consonants, built from a base none of them recognized.

Dion muttered, "That's not dialect. That's alien."

"They're not aliens," Elara said, barely above a whisper. "We're the ones out of place."

Merlin stepped forward, slow. Careful.

The lead soldier repeated the phrase, slower now, less edge, but no warmth.

Merlin lifted both hands, palms open. "We're not here to fight. Do you understand?"

Nothing in their faces changed.

The second soldier adjusted his grip on his weapon.

The third one, silent until now, spoke into a comm.

The headset blinked again.

Merlin frowned. Then something slid in front of his vision.

[Foreign Vocal Stream Detected.]

[Decryption Request: Approved.]

[Translation Mapping: Incomplete.]

[Auto-Adaptive Feed: Calibrating.]

'Finally,' Merlin thought. 'Useful silence.'

The words reshaped in his ear, not a clean feed, but enough.

"Identify yourselves. This is restricted terrain. You're not marked as tagged personnel."

Merlin didn't flinch. "We're survivors. We came out of an old structure."

The soldier's reply cracked through the feed.

"There's nothing active in this sector. You're lying."

"We're not," Merlin said. "We came out of the ground."

The lead soldier stiffened. "Vault-born?"

Merlin didn't answer that.

He just held the man's eyes.

Behind him, Nathan shifted.

The soldier looked at each of them now, uniforms torn, weapons scavenged, eyes sharp with the kind of tension you didn't fake.

He lowered his weapon half an inch.

Then muttered something over comms. The translator didn't catch it.

When he looked back, his face was unreadable.

"You'll come with us."

Merlin nodded once.

He turned to the others.

"Stay close. Don't speak unless I do."

Nathan's eyes narrowed. "They understood you?"

"Doesn't matter," Merlin said. "We're being watched again."

And not just by soldiers.

The sky pulsed once in his vision.

[The Cartographer adjusts the map.]

[The Glass Librarian begins a new page.]

[You are now off-record. Temporarily.]

He didn't tell them that.

He just moved.

And the rest followed, into the unknown.