I Just Wanted a Peaceful Life… So Why Do Heroes Worship Me?

Rain danced lightly across the moss rooftops, the kind of rain that didn't rush, didn't bite—just lingered. Rei liked this kind. It gave everything a gentle rhythm, like the world exhaling after too long holding its breath.

Inside the sanctuary, however, not everyone was breathing calmly.

Lynna had taken to early-morning "training," which involved aggressively correcting her own technique, grumbling about tea blends, and pretending she hadn't just been reading Rei's warding notes while standing upside down.

Ellyn had stopped commenting on it, though Rei noticed she started leaving extra ink on the table.

Zephyr had bonded deeply with Auron. The two were nearly inseparable now, often seen curled up beneath the plum tree or testing harmonics in the old spell rings Rei had forgotten even existed.

It was peaceful. Stable.

Until Lynna touched the wrong stone.

It happened just before noon.

Rei had been trimming a few flowering hedges near the west wall, and Kreg was baking flatbread over a wood fire. Lynna, determined to prove she wasn't "just observing," had followed a flickering rune path toward a humming pillar near the sanctuary edge.

It pulsed. It glowed.

She touched it.

The sanctuary shuddered.

Only slightly—but Rei felt it in his bones.

He dropped the shears and moved instantly, reaching the pillar just as the light fractured into spectral shards.

A pulse of magic shot out—soft but wide—and the air grew very, very still.

"What did you do?" Auron called out, shielding his eyes.

"I—I thought it was an old power sink," Lynna stammered.

Rei held up a hand. "No sudden movements."

The pillar had activated something—not an alarm, not a ward—but a protocol. Something ancient and reflexive.

All around the sanctuary, trees rustled in unison.

The breeze stopped.

The boundary lines, usually subtle, shimmered like heat rising off stone.

Rei placed both palms on the pillar.

The glow dimmed.

But the air didn't relax.

"Ellyn," he called. "Check the archive room. Look for anything marked 'Skyroot Protocol.'"

"Already on it!" she shouted back.

Zephyr whined softly, tails low, then suddenly bolted toward the southeast wall—toward a spot that had never pulsed before.

Rei followed.

Behind a hedge, partially buried in dirt, something flickered. A rune stone. It hadn't been active in years—not since Rei deactivated the sanctuary's old defense net.

It was lit now.

Fluff appeared beside it.

No footsteps.

Just… there.

He stared at Rei. Then the stone.

Then back at Rei.

"You knew?" Rei asked.

Fluff blinked. Tail twitching.

Then, without warning, he tapped the stone once.

The shimmer stopped.

The air returned to normal.

And Fluff disappeared into the underbrush.

Rei exhaled.

Lynna, panting and pale, approached from behind.

"I—I didn't know it would react like that."

Rei turned to her, not unkindly. "Some things in the sanctuary are sensitive to intent. That stone doesn't care about power levels. It listens for dissonance."

"I wasn't trying to harm anything," she said quickly.

"I know."

"But I... I did disrupt it."

Rei nodded.

Lynna looked down. "You're not going to throw me out?"

"No," Rei said. "You stayed. That matters more than not making mistakes."

Auron arrived with Zephyr close behind. "That pulse—what was it?"

"A reset trigger," Rei said. "This sanctuary remembers everything. When it feels chaos inside its walls, it flinches."

Lynna sighed. "So I made the house flinch. That's comforting."

Kreg arrived late, holding a loaf of burnt flatbread. "Did I miss a minor disaster?"

"Only a medium one," Ellyn said, returning from the archive room with a tattered scroll. "Skyroot Protocol was a layered defense mode designed to reroute magical pressure when the sanctuary feels threatened."

"Good news is," she added, "it reset without releasing the fallback wards."

"Fallback?" Lynna asked.

"The kind that turn intruders into mushrooms," Kreg whispered helpfully.

Lynna paled again.

By evening, the sanctuary had returned to its gentle rhythm. The rain persisted, but softer now, more forgiving.

Rei sat by the fire pit, tea in hand, with Fluff nestled beside him as if nothing had happened.

Lynna approached hesitantly, holding a bowl of still-warm stew.

"For peace offering," she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

"Thank you," Rei said, accepting it.

"I didn't mean to cause trouble."

"I know."

She hesitated. Then added: "You could've yelled at me."

"I don't yell."

"Maybe you should."

Rei looked at her, steady and calm. "If you listen to quiet correction, why would I need to shout?"

That silenced her more effectively than any scolding.

She sat beside him. Not close. Not far.

Like always.

And somewhere deep in the trees, a watchful pair of eyes blinked once.

Unseen.

Uninvited.

But noticed.