The Anomaly's Path

Inside the main hall of the village elder’s house, the shivering villagers were gathered together in the back room.

We had picked this building because its solid stone walls and wooden roof beams were strong enough to withstand an impact if fighting broke out on the street outside. A small, controlled fire crackled in the stone hearth, lit by one of our support mages, just enough to warm the air without filling the room with smoke.

”So, to sum it all up...” I said, resting my elbows on my knees as I looked at the pale, trembling village elder sitting across from me. ”The cold came early, the crops failed, and the local soldiers left a month ago to help the northern fort.”

The old man let out a dry, hollow cough, pulling his thin woolen coat tighter around his neck. ”Yes, young master... When the cold turned bitter and the sickness killed off our last animals, the lord gathered his horses, took his personal men, and headed south to the lower fort. He told us to sit tight and wait for help that never came.”

”...”

”When the snowslide buried the south pass, we were trapped,” the elder continued, his voice shaking with age and exhaustion.

”A few days ago, the last of our stored grain ran out. The blizzard turned so fierce we couldn’t even leave the house to chop wood, and the wind began making this horrible, screaming howl through the valley. The last three guards we had left panicked and ran into the forest during the night. We had no food, no weapons, and nowhere left to run. So we hid in here, praying the cold would take us quickly.”

I sat on a wooden crate, silently taking in every word.

A crop disease, soldiers who left, a blocked pass, and a Gate about to open. Great. Just great, I noted mentally, putting it all together. The simulation had built a full chain of disasters just to explain why these villagers were trapped right in the path of a Grade 4 threat.

I let out a quiet breath and shook my head as the reality of our task settled in. Whatever scenario the academy’s system had cooked up, it didn’t change the job standing right in front of us.

I looked around the room. Not all of our teammates were in here.

Outside, Garret and Damon were leading the front line in clearing snow and stacking heavy wooden logs to block off the northern street. Sera was up on the ridge with her light scouts, and Malva had taken a group of five to search the outer houses and make sure no other survivors were left behind.

In here, only a small group — myself, Roan, Alice, Lena, and a couple of students, were handling the refugees.

My gaze landed on the small boy sitting near the elder’s knees, the same kid Roan had almost impaled earlier. He was staring up at us with wide, empty eyes, shaking uncontrollably as he held an empty wooden bowl against his chest.

Focusing on the anchor point inside my soul, I reached into my Void Pocket.

I wasn’t completely sure if real items from outside the simulation would pull through cleanly, or if the pod’s space logic would glitch out food. I had confirmed my Void Pocket worked, but I hadn’t tested whether real food stored inside would show up properly in a fake world.

My fingers brushed past some spare clothes, some candies, and then finally closed around three small packages wrapped tightly in plain paper. I pulled them out into the light. The paper felt normal in my hand, and as I unwrapped it, several neat bars of rich dark chocolate appeared.

It actually worked.

It was something I always kept stored away, partly out of habit for saving them for Mia and Seris, but mostly because I like sweet things and chocolate is one of them. I broke one of the bars into smaller pieces. The sharp snap sounded crisp in the quiet room.

”Here,” I said softly, leaning forward and holding out a piece toward the small boy.

The boy flinched a little, pulling his woolen rag tighter around his shoulders. He looked at my hand, his wide brown eyes moving from my white hair down to the dark piece sitting on my palm. He sniffed the air carefully, catching the rich, sweet smell.

”It’s safe,” I said, keeping my voice level and quiet. ”It’ll give you some energy.”

Slowly, his tiny, dirt-stained hand reached out, grabbed the piece, and shoved it straight into his mouth. His eyes went wide instantly as the sweet, rich taste hit his tongue. A tiny, uncontrolled sound of comfort escaped his throat.

Beside him, the old man bowed his head toward me, his hands shaking. ”Thank you, young master... Thank you.”

I handed the rest of the broken pieces to the old man to divide among the children and the weaker villagers sitting nearby. Across the room, Garret watched from the doorway, a rare, quiet look on his rough dwarven face before he turned back to watching the street.

My mind drifted as I watched a young girl resting her head against an older woman’s knee, greedily chewing her small piece of chocolate.

They aren’t real people, I reminded myself quietly, staring at the flicker of the flames. The academy system made them for a fake test.

Yet, looking at the cracks on their lips and the cold shivers running through their shoulders, the logic felt weak. My mind knew it was a simulation, but my gut didn’t care.

It reminded me too much of Wayford.

When I was thrown into the War of Faith during my Path Awakening Trial, I had known from the very beginning that I was in a realm of the past.

I knew the era of Roran, Mia, and the old kingdom had ended centuries ago. I knew that every person I talked to, every child who ran through the streets of Wayford, and every soldier who sat by the tavern fire was already dead, ghosts replayed by the trial’s terrifying depth.

I had told myself to stay distant. I had told myself not to get attached.

...And I had failed completely.

I had trained under Roran until his rough voice became my anchor. I had sat in the orphanage kitchen watching Mia stir the stew, growing used to the quiet warmth she brought into a brutal world.

I had learned their names, shared their food, and fought for their lives. And in the end, I had watched Wayford burn. I had held Mia as her soul shattered, forced to burn her with my own hands to save her from the dark.

Now, sitting in this room in a fake test, the same ghost weight pressed against my chest. The academy’s pods were brilliant at mimicking reality, but for me, that realism felt like a sick joke. It forced up memories I spent every waking hour keeping buried.

I took a quiet breath, clearing the cold fog from my thoughts, as the front door of the house creaked open and boots stamped snow off on the threshold.

Malva stepped into the room, wiping sweat from her forehead despite the freezing cold outside. Behind her, two students were carefully helping three more villagers inside — an injured woman with a wrapped leg and two shaking young girls.

”That’s the last of them,” Malva reported, her voice carrying across the room. ”We checked every building in the eastern district. That brings our total to twenty-seven survivors. All of them are safe in here now.”

”Good work,” I said, standing up and adjusting the strap of Tempest at my hip.

Before anyone could say another word, a heavy pressure rippled through the air. It wasn’t a sound. It was a sudden, violent shift in mana.

Alice’s head snapped toward the ceiling. ”Leo... did you feel that?”

”Yeah,” Roan grunted, his hand tightening around his spear as his eyes narrowed. ”Something just changed in the air.”

I closed my eyes for half a second, extending my mana sense outward. The atmospheric pressure wasn’t coming from the sky or the village center; it was anchored up on the northern ridge line, roughly eight hundred meters out from where we stood.

”It’s up on the ridge,” I said flatly. ”The Gate is opening.”

I turned and walked straight out of the building. Stepping into the open street, the howling mountain blizzard bit into my skin. High up on the northern ridge, spatial mana was twisting together into a dense, unstable vortex, distorting the air like heat rising off asphalt.

Behind me, the front door clicked open as Roan, Alice, and Malva stepped out into the freezing wind, joining Garret and Damon on the street. Down the road, the rest of Class Ascendant began forming up, their faces pale as they looked toward the ridge.

”So...” Roan asked, resting his spear across his shoulder as he stared up at the twisting air. ”What do we do, Leo? Do we just march up there, hit the rift, and clear whatever comes out? Something like that, or do you have a plan?”

”If this was just a straight breach, we’d take the front line and push up the hill. But that’s not how this test is set up,” I said, my voice low.

I turned back to face the street, looking over the thirty-seven students gathered in front of me. Including myself, Roan, Alice, Malva, and Garret, that was our whole unit. Thirty-eight ready fighters against a Grade 4 Gate.

The Gate boss itself won’t be the main problem, I thought, studying the layout. A Grade 4 rift boss is manageable for a full squad of students. The real threat is the monster wave. Once that Gate opens, beasts aren’t going to line up to fight us. They’ll scatter down the slopes.

The distance between the ridge and this house was less than a kilometer. If even three or four beasts broke past our front line in the chaos, they would tear through this wooden building and kill all twenty-seven civilians inside before anyone could react.

”Our objective isn’t just closing the Gate,” I said loudly, making sure every student heard me clearly. ”We have to protect the civilians and ensure zero casualties among ourselves. That means we don’t gamble.”

I turned to the crowd of students standing near the blockade. ”Who here has an Earth affinity?”

A tall boy with short brown hair stepped forward and raised his hand. ”I have earth affinity.”

I looked at him, searching my memory for his name. ”What’s your name?”

The boy blinked, looking slightly caught off guard. ”It’s Jarek. We’ve been in the same class for five months, bastard. At least remember my name.”

”Right, right. Jarek,” I nodded without missing a beat. ”How thick of a wall can you raise around this house with your current mana?”

Jarek looked over his shoulder at the village elder’s house, studying the stone foundation and wooden frame. ”...If I focus only on making it strong instead of tall, I can cover the ground floor in a two-foot-thick layer of packed stone and earth. It’ll take about a minute to cast.”

”Do it,” I ordered. ”Make the foundation stronger and wall up every window on the lower level, leaving only the main entrance open. We’re turning this whole house into a fortress.”

”Got it,” Jarek said, immediately moving toward the side of the house and sinking his hands into the snow-covered soil, his mana flaring.

”Malva,” I called out, turning toward her. ”Take six fighters and four mages. You’re on guard duty around the house. Your only job is to stand in front of this building and kill anything that slips past the main line. Nothing touches these walls.”

Malva nodded firmly. ”Understood. I’ll pick the group now.”

That left twenty-six of us for the main attack team up near the ridge.

We can’t just fight them on open ground when the wave spills out, I thought, looking at the narrow mountain trail connecting the ridge to the village entrance. When we push up there, we’ll need to force the beasts into a single tight spot. In the next phase, we’ll have Jarek build stone walls directly around the Gate’s spawn point to push the whole wave straight into our front line.

”Roan, Alice, Garret,” I said, stepping toward the center of the street as Tempest gave a soft hum in its sheath. ”Gather the front-line fighters and our strongest attackers. We’re taking the fight up to the ridge before the first wave can organize.”

Roan grinned and rolled his shoulders as his spear tip gleamed under the sky. ”Hehehe. Now you’re talking.”

”Stop that, bastard. You’re creeping me out,” I said. ”Let’s move out.”