That night, I did not go back into the capsule.
Truthfully, the temptation was there. The screen on the side of the capsule was still blinking softly, showing that the two-hour rest limit had already passed, and a part of me, the part too used to running across swamp ground and drawing a Legendary bowstring, whispered that the little temple on the shore of Silvergrass’s lake was still waiting for me. But another part of me, a far more honest and far more tired part, reminded me that I wasn’t just a Saintess with a budget problem. I was a leukemia patient who had just received a warning from the medical team.
So I chose to sleep.
Mira tucked in my blanket with a motion she had performed thousands of times, switched off the main room light until only a pale yellow night lamp remained in the corner, then said good night in a voice barely audible. The door closed slowly. The room was silent again, filled only with the soft sigh of the air conditioner and the faint sound of wind beyond the window.
I closed my eyes, and drowsiness came like on any ordinary night. No screen lit up behind my eyelids. No system windows, no notifications, no HP number blinking red. Only a calm, warm darkness, and my body sinking into the mattress like a stone dropped to the bottom of a pond.
The next morning, I woke to sunlight slipping softly through the gap in the curtains.
I blinked several times, letting the clean white ceiling slowly come into focus. Birds chirped faintly from the backyard. My body felt heavy, as if coated in a thin layer of lead beneath the skin, but that heaviness was not accompanied by piercing pain in my bones.
I drew a long breath and began stretching slowly. First my toes, then my ankles, then my calves, still thin and weak. My joints creaked softly like the hinges of an old door long unopened. My arms rose above my head, and my shoulder let out a short crack that made me wince and laugh at the same time.
"Stiff," I muttered to the ceiling. "Same as yesterday. And the day before. And three months ago."
But this time, something was slightly different. When I clenched my fist, my grip felt steadier than last week. When I bent my knee, my thigh muscles responded a little more obediently. The difference was small, very small, hardly deserving of the word improvement. But for a body that had only declined for months, even one percent of progress felt like a miracle.
At exactly 07:00, three knocks sounded at my door, with the same pause as every other day.
"Come in," I said, my voice still hoarse in the way of someone just awake.
The door opened, and Mira stepped in with a tray in both hands. She was already wearing her classic housemaid uniform, black and white with a clean, neatly ironed apron, her shoulder-length black hair tied with a small ribbon. The smile she carried was warmer than the cup of tea steaming on the tray.
"Good morning, Young Master," she greeted softly. "Did you sleep well?"
"Like a baby," I answered honestly, leaning back against the headboard. "And you’re always so punctual that I suspect you’ve installed an alarm in my head."
"Not an alarm, Young Master." Mira set the tray on the folding table placed over the bed. "Just habit. After years, I know exactly when you start to stir on the mattress."
"So I’m being watched."
"With great affection."
I laughed softly. Mira answered with a smile that curved the corners of her eyes.
Today’s breakfast was simple but looked very tempting. A bowl of soft chicken porridge with shredded breast meat and a sprinkle of fried shallots, two perfectly boiled eggs, slices of fresh papaya, and a glass of warm milk. A menu approved by Doctor Karin, free of any raw ingredients that could trouble my immune system, but still colorful enough to make my stomach growl.
"Chicken porridge again," I muttered as I picked up the spoon.
"You don’t like it?"
"I do. But yesterday I met a zombie named Chicken Meat." I took a spoonful, feeling its softness melt on my tongue. "And now I can’t eat this without picturing someone whose neck stitches wobble."
Mira covered her mouth with her palm, her shoulders shaking. "A zombie? Named Chicken Meat?"
"The name was given by his younger sister. He’s very serious about it."
"Then I must be very careful," said Mira, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "So that this breakfast doesn’t remind you of an impolite acquaintance."
"Too late. Now I’ll picture him every time I eat chicken porridge."
"Good. That means you’ll finish it faster out of guilt."
I laughed out loud and nearly choked on a spoonful. Mira hurriedly patted my back while offering a glass of water, but the smile on her face made it clear she wasn’t sorry at all.
Breakfast went on leisurely, without any rush. Now and then Mira shared news from the kitchen: that the gardener was complaining about moss in the fish pond, that the neighbor’s cat had sneaked into the backyard again, and that Miss Alya had logged out just before dawn and fallen into a deep sleep with her feet dangling off the bed. I listened while chewing, occasionally adding a joke, and felt something simple yet very precious: a morning that didn’t begin with fear.
After the last spoonful was gone, Mira took the compartment pill box from the drawer beneath the folding table. It was ivory white, with Doctor Karin’s neat handwriting labeling each lid. She opened the compartment marked Morning, and carefully poured its contents into my palm.
I stared at the small pile. Six pills of various sizes and colors, one oblong bluish-white capsule, and one orange vitamin tablet. The morning ration was always the largest. Doctor Karin had explained repeatedly that my body absorbed medicine best when my stomach was full and my metabolism active, and it seemed the morning ration couldn’t be reduced anytime soon.
There was a time when this amount would have made me want to cry. Now, I just drew a breath, put everything in my mouth at once, and drank water in one long gulp. Too much experience had taught my body that resisting was completely pointless. My throat was too well trained to swallow those bitter grains without much protest.
"Done," I said, opening my mouth and showing it to Mira like a child proving he had finished his vegetables.
Mira inspected carefully, then nodded in satisfaction. "Very good, Young Master."
"I feel like a child."
"A very impressive child." She stroked my head with an amused smile, then lowered her voice until it was almost a whisper. "Rian."
That name always warmed my chest a little. In this house, in front of everyone, she was the polite and orderly Mira who always called me Young Master. But when it was just the two of us, and especially in the morning when the world was still too calm to pretend, she would call my name in her own way.
"Hmm?"
"You look so healthy this morning," she said, touching my cheek with the back of her hand, checking my temperature in a way that no longer felt like a medical exam. "Your face has more color."
"That’s because I slept well."
"That’s because you followed the rules." Mira raised an eyebrow. "You didn’t go into the game last night. I’m proud."
"I was just afraid of Doctor Karin."
"Me too," she admitted honestly, and we both laughed again.
After moving the tray to the side table, Mira sat at the edge of the bed and let me lean on her shoulder. The morning light coming through the curtains fell on the marble floor in golden ribbons, and between them, fine dust danced slowly like tiny stardust. The scent of lavender soap from her clothes mingled with the jasmine tea still lingering in the air.
Our hands intertwined on their own. Mira’s fingers were warm and slightly rough at the tips from the kitchen work that never stopped, and I loved that roughness more than any smooth skin. I pressed my forehead to her shoulder, drew a deep breath, and let the silence become a conversation.
"Mira," I whispered.
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For everything. For last night. For waking me up." I lifted my face and looked into her eyes. "You were right about that yellow line. I almost forgot that this body isn’t just a container."
Mira didn’t answer with words. She only leaned in and kissed my forehead gently, then my temple, then the tip of my nose, a pampering habit she showed only when no one else was around. I laughed softly and returned a single kiss on her lips, brief and warm, like a morning greeting that had become part of our little ritual.
"Smells like porridge," Mira commented after pulling her face away.
"The smell of my nagging girlfriend."
"My, now you’re bold."
"I’m always bold. Only sometimes my body can’t keep up."
"And today?"
I fell silent for a moment, trying to assess honestly. The ache in my back was still there, but not bothersome. No dizziness. A full and warm stomach. And something in my chest, something that for months had consisted only of fear and exhaustion, felt lighter than usual.
"Today," I said quietly, "I feel much better."
Mira blinked, and I could see the joy she was trying to hide behind her professional expression. "Better in what way?"
"Like... I want to go out." I turned to the window. The sky outside was a clean pale blue with thin streaks of cloud. "Not to the city park like yesterday. Further. I want to go out and see the world. A world that isn’t virtual."
Mira stared at me without blinking for two full seconds, and I worried she would refuse like the doctors who had rejected similar requests for months. But then, slowly, a wide smile bloomed on her face.
"All right," she said firmly. "I’ll prepare everything."
"Really?"
"Of course it’s real. Don’t you remember? I told you myself yesterday that I’d accompany you wherever you wanted to go." She stood and straightened her apron with deft motions. "But there are conditions."
"There are always conditions."
"You have to wear thicker clothes. Much thicker." She pointed at the window with her chin. "It’s the changing season. Mornings and evenings, the wind blows colder than it looks from behind the glass. And your immune system isn’t strong enough to play around with catching a cold."
"Two layers?"
"Three." Mira crossed her arms. "An undershirt, a knitted sweater, and a thick jacket. Plus a scarf and a mask."
"I’ll look like a ball."
"A healthy ball," she replied without hesitation. "And that matters far more than looking handsome."
I nodded in resignation, and Mira immediately moved like a general receiving orders for an offensive. In the next ten minutes, my room turned into a logistics headquarters. The wardrobe was opened, sweaters were chosen and rejected, and a thick dark gray jacket was pulled out and patted to remove the dust. A small bag was prepared on the table: a water bottle, tissues, hand sanitizer, a thermos of warm tea, and a spare pill box that she tucked into the deepest pocket with a motion showing how important that item was.
"Mira," I said, holding back laughter, "I’m just going around the city, not climbing a mountain."
"Climbing a mountain requires less equipment," she answered without turning. "Mountains don’t have virus threats on every corner."
I surrendered and let her help me change clothes. A soft undershirt, a cream-colored knitted sweater that felt warm and smelled of soap, and a thick jacket that made my shoulders look twice as wide as reality. Mira wound a gray scarf around my neck with care, adjusted it twice, then fitted a medical mask with gentle motions that made me almost forget we were standing in the middle of a room and not in a movie scene.
"Done," she declared, stepping back to assess her handiwork. "Perfect. Like a polar bear."
"A reasonably handsome polar bear?"
"A polar bear I love very much," she corrected, and I hid my smile behind the mask.
After that, Mira changed out of her uniform into casual clothes: a knee-length pastel blue dress with a white knitted cardigan, her hair left loose with a small clip on the left side. She looked like an ordinary girl about to take a weekend stroll, and for some reason, that made my chest tighten with gratitude.
The wheelchair was waiting beside the bed. I transferred with the help of Mira’s arm, and she pushed me through the quiet hallways of the house, past walls filled with Hortensia family portraits, toward the elevator that took us down to the underground garage.
The elevator door opened with a soft ding, and once again I was greeted by a row of sports cars sleeping under a thin layer of dust. The matte black Lamborghini, the orange Porsche, and the elegant Aston Martin still stood in the same places, silent as mechanical statues waiting for their owner to return.
Today, I looked at them with a feeling slightly different from yesterday. No longer bitterness, but something closer to a promise.
"One day," I whispered, barely audible.
Mira, pushing my chair from behind, said nothing. But I felt her grip on the chair handles tighten slightly, and that was answer enough.
We walked past the row of sports cars toward the end of the garage, where a large metallic black SUV was parked with a gleaming body. The family car that Mira used more often for buying groceries and such. Its cabin was spacious, the back seats could be folded, and its trunk was large enough to hold a folding wheelchair without problems.
Mira opened the front passenger door and helped me move from the wheelchair to the car seat. I gripped her arm tightly as my body lowered, feeling every muscle in my thighs tremble softly under the load. Mira held my waist with one hand, and with the other adjusted the seat so my back received full support.
"Slowly," she reminded me. "One... two... three."
I landed in the seat with slightly labored breath, and Mira immediately fastened my seat belt with care. She folded the wheelchair with deft motions, put it in the trunk, then sat behind the wheel and started the engine.
The SUV’s engine came on with a soft hum, almost silent. The air conditioner blew warm air that drove away the morning chill, and the scent of leather seats mixed with Mira’s lavender perfume filled the cabin. I leaned back against the seat and looked straight ahead, at the garage wall that began to slide open as the automatic door rose.
"Where shall we go, Young Master?" asked Mira as she adjusted the rearview mirror.
"I don’t know," I answered honestly. "Anywhere. Just around the city."
"Without a destination?"
"Without a destination."
Mira smiled and shifted the gear. "All right. Without a destination."
The SUV glided out of the garage, passed through the slowly opening house gate, and joined the flow of morning traffic.
The city greeted us with light.
Morning sunlight bounced off the glass surfaces of tall buildings, creating a golden shimmer that shifted as our car moved. On the right side of the road, a row of neatly trimmed rain trees flanked a wide sidewalk filled with pedestrians. Some people jogged lightly in sports clothes, some carried coffee in paper cups, others simply strolled while staring at their phone screens.
I pressed my forehead against the window glass and noticed something that made my chest feel strange.
"Mira," I called softly. "Since when has that building been there?"
Mira glanced in the direction I pointed. At the end of the road, a forty-story glass tower stood magnificently, its walls adorned with vertical gardens that hung from floor to floor like a green waterfall. The morning light pierced the glass and reflected an emerald color on its surface.
"That’s Verdant Tower," Mira answered. "An eco-friendly office building. Completed about four months ago."
"Four months?" I repeated in a small voice. "I didn’t even know it was being built."
"You were going through the final stage of chemotherapy then, Young Master. You barely left your room."
I fell silent. True. Four months ago was a time when the world consisted only of the four walls of my room, an IV drip, and the hum of monitors that never stopped. All that time, this city had kept moving, kept building, kept changing, without waiting even a little.
Mira turned the SUV onto another road, and we passed a new flyover that curved gracefully above the river. Its pedestrian path was decorated with small leaf-shaped lights, and below it, colorful tourist boats glided slowly on the water’s surface. I remembered that bridge once being only a project fenced with zinc sheets above a dirty river. Now the place was full of people taking photos.
"Is that new too?" I asked.
"The Rinji Flyover. Inaugurated in March." Mira smiled a little. "Madam Elena’s project."
"Mother?"
"The riverbank revitalization program. She worked day and night on it." Mira glanced at a large billboard at the roadside, where the elegant face of Mayor Elena Hortensia smiled amid the slogan A Growing City, Prosperous Citizens. "You didn’t know?"
"I knew Mother was busy," I murmured, staring at my mother’s face on the billboard. Her sharp eyes and controlled smile clearly hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen her in person. "But I didn’t know it was this much."
The feeling flowing through my chest was hard to explain. Pride, certainly. But also a little guilt that all this time we had only exchanged brief news over the phone, while she was building this city with her own hands.
I sighed and leaned back again, letting the scenery outside the window continue to roll by.
We passed an elevated train station I didn’t recognize at all, its building slender and curved like a seagull’s wing, with a glass roof reflecting the clouds. The monorail track floated above the road, and a silver-white train glided slowly without a sound, carrying dozens of passengers standing in rows behind the windows. Uniformed schoolchildren waited on the platform with large backpacks. A man in a suit read a digital newspaper on an iron bench.
"When did that train start running?" I asked, half whispering.
"Early this year. At first only one line, now there are two."
"Two lines." I laughed softly, torn between awe and surprise. "This city changed while I was asleep."
"This city is always changing, Young Master," Mira said gently. "You just didn’t get to watch it."
I didn’t answer. That sentence was too accurate to argue with.
Our car kept moving, passing an open shopping center with a wave-shaped roof and an interactive fountain in its plaza, passing a new twelve-story hospital with a clean white facade and a rooftop garden visible from the road, passing rows of small cafes with wooden chairs lined up on the sidewalk. Every corner held something I’d never seen, and each time I pointed, Mira patiently explained its name and year of construction, like a private tour guide who had memorized the city map.
At a large intersection near the city center, a red light held us for nearly a minute. I studied the giant screen mounted on a building wall, displaying advertisements in rotation with dazzling colors. Sports shoes, energy drinks, electric cars, then suddenly, a black display with a silver circle glowing softly in the middle.
I straightened my back without realizing it.
The logo looked very familiar. A crescent moon surrounded by ripples of water, with the words SECOND WORLD ONLINE beneath it in futuristic letters. Beneath the logo, smaller text appeared in rotation:
Game Capsule Third Batch: Coming Soon.
Ten Thousand New Players. A World Awaits You.
"That..." I swallowed. "They’re advertising that big?"
"Since last week," Mira answered, also looking at the screen. "Some say it’s the biggest campaign Chronos Tech has ever run. Retail stock is sold out across the city, and people are scrambling to sign up for the waiting list."
I stared at the crescent moon logo in silence. The same crescent moon carved on the little altar by the lake. The same moon that had shrouded a weaver in silk darkness and reflected its light in the eyes of a skull in a shabby robe named Soft Bone. A world I had only been able to meet inside a capsule, now displayed gigantic in the middle of the city, watched by thousands of people passing by, knowing nothing.
"It feels strange," I murmured.
"What’s strange?"
"Two worlds," I said quietly. "One here, one there. And sometimes I forget that both are equally real."
Mira didn’t answer right away. The light turned green, and she gently pressed the accelerator. After a few seconds, she said in a soft voice, "That’s what makes you different, Young Master. Many people live in only one world and are too busy to notice. You’ve been given the chance to witness both."
I smiled behind the mask. "You sound like a poet."
"I’m just a housekeeper who happens to be good at listening."
"That’s the same thing."
We continued along the city streets, turning right, then left, without plan and without direction. Now and then Mira slowed so I could gaze longer at a building that caught my attention. Once, we stopped at the roadside because I wanted to watch a street painter drawing a portrait of a little child on the sidewalk. Another time, we slowed in front of a new city park built on the site of an old warehouse, full of bike lanes and white benches lined up neatly.
Once, as we passed a signpost toward the northern toll road, Mira pulled the turn signal lever in the opposite direction without saying a word. I turned and saw her expression become a little more tense than before.
"We’re not taking the toll road, Young Master," she said quietly. "Just regular roads."
I understood without needing to ask. There was a name that to this day still made every hospital in this city work harder than usual, and the SUV we rode in, a car of almost the same shape and size as the one involved there, was not something that could be driven calmly on that road.
"All right," I answered gently, and touched Mira’s hand gripping the gearshift. "Regular roads."
Mira nodded, and her shoulders slowly relaxed.
Noon began to approach as we entered the riverside district. The sun, now higher, made the water’s surface glitter like shards of glass, and at its edge, rows of modern white and cream buildings stood neatly with balconies full of plants. Small cafes opened their umbrellas on the sidewalk, and the aroma of coffee and toasted bread slipped in through the car’s ventilation gaps.
"Mira," I called, gazing at the scenery with eyes still riveted, "I’ve hardly left the house for such a long time. So long that I didn’t know this city had so many beautiful places."
"There’s still much you haven’t seen," Mira answered, and the smile on her face was clearly audible in her voice. "So let’s see them one by one."
I nodded slowly and rested my head against the window. Outside, the city twinkled under the noon light, full of life turning without waiting for anyone. But today, I felt I wasn’t being left behind. I felt that, at least today, I was part of that world.