The Rhythm of Two Fears.

The scream died in Asimil's throat before it could be born. He woke up with a start, his heart pounding forcefully against his ribs, drenched in a cold sweat that chilled his virtual skin. The dim light from the windows of his room in the Harmonia Clan brought him back to reality, but the horror of the dream still clung to him like a second skin.

It had felt so real. The alley. The cruel laughter of a bully. The sharp pain of a punch to the stomach that suddenly transformed into the cold, penetrating sensation of a blade between his ribs, followed by the humiliation of being kicked on the ground. And then, even worse, the hardened face of a phantom father, his voice ringing with heart-wrenching contempt: "On top of being weak... are you an idiot? How pathetic."

He brought a hand to his cheek, expecting to feel the sting of a bruise, but his skin was intact. Yet, the phantom pain remained. An invisible scar on his mind, the shame of a failure that felt as much his own as if he had lived it yesterday. 'If you lose, you lose twice,' he thought, a phrase he didn't know the origin of, but one that resonated with a terrible truth.

He needed air. He dressed and left his room, seeking the bustle of the great hall to drown out the echoes of the nightmare. But in his vulnerable state, the noise and the crowd only intensified his feeling of isolation. He felt fragile, exposed.

However, Sacres had other plans for the novices.

Sacres had noticed that the novices who had decided to join the clan were very detached; they didn't act like a team, like a family.

Noelia had been at the clan very early as usual, waiting for orders in a corner, sitting on a table, but she hadn't received anything, which felt strange to her but she let it pass.

Nevertheless, a loud thud snapped both Noelia and Sacres out of their concentration. It was Asimil.

The thud they had heard was because a couple of higher-ranked adventurers were harassing him. Both adventurers were laughing at him while Asimil tried to get up. However, both adventurers felt a murderous gaze that chilled their blood—the person staring at them was Noelia. She had a killer expression that starkly contrasted with the beauty that characterized her. Upon seeing Noelia's face, both boys fled the place in terror.

Sacres tried to help Asimil up by extending his hand, and Asimil looked at him. Asimil reached out, but mere centimeters from touching it, he remembered the words Noelia had said to him days before when they had gone on a group mission: "Are you useless?" Those words echoed in Asimil's head, so he refused the help Sacres was offering and got up on his own while thanking him.

"You should defend yourself from those guys. I won't always be there to defend you," said Sacres while looking at Asimil with his arms crossed.

However, Asimil said nothing, merely thinking, 'I tried... but they're too strong for me.'

As if Noelia had read his mind, she said: "It's a shame to be partnered with such a weakling. I'm almost sure you thought, 'I tried... but they're too strong for me,' right?" said Noelia while pointing at Asimil with furious eyes.

Asimil said nothing. Sacres only sighed, bringing his hand to his face in a gesture of denial.

"Fine, if there's nothing to do here, I'll go to the citadel center. I'm sure I'll find something better there," said Noelia, getting up from her seat and heading towards the clan exit.

"Wait, Noelia. Actually, we have a mission for today," said Sacres, waving a scroll.

Noelia stopped dead in her tracks, her hand already on the doorknob. The scroll Sacres was waving wasn't simple paper; it emitted a soft cerulean pulse of light, indicating a Rank: Investigation mission.

"A mission?" Noelia turned, eyes narrowed. "Sacres, you know my time is important to me. I'm not here to babysit novices."

"It's not a walk in the park," replied Sacres, regaining his authoritative tone. "It's about a Two-Tailed Fox. It escaped from the luxury sector and has been sighted in the Ochre Ruins. The tracking system indicates the animal is frightened and emitting a mana signature. I need someone with your precision to locate it, and someone with the…" Sacres looked at Asimil, who was still rubbing his arm after being pushed by the other adventurers, "...patience of Asimil to not scare it further."

Asimil felt a shiver. Me? With her? Alone in abandoned ruins? It was a recipe for disaster, but the look in Sacres's eyes brooked no argument. It was a clan order.

The journey to the ruins was an exercise in absolute silence. Noelia walked three steps ahead, while Asimil followed, trying not to make noise with his boots. But every time he stepped on a dry branch, he felt the back of his neck burn under the girl's invisible judgment.

"If you're going to keep making so much noise, you'd better stay here and let the wolves eat you," said Noelia without stopping.

"S-sorry," whispered Asimil, clenching his fists.

They arrived at the Ochre Ruins. It was a place where reality seemed worn out. Stone pillars floated a few centimeters off the ground, and the sky above them had a sepia tint, like an old photograph time hadn't bothered to restore.

"Listen, novice," Noelia stopped before a stone arch covered in vines. "These ruins are a zone rarely explored by adventurers. If you get lost, there will be no one to rescue you. Stay close to me and don't touch anything that glows."

They ventured into the heart of the ruins. The silence was dense, interrupted only by the electric hum of floating stones. Suddenly, a blue flash crossed the end of a corridor.
"There it is!" Asimil shouted on instinct.

"Wait, idiot!" Noelia tried to grab him, but Asimil had already run towards the turn in the corridor.
Upon crossing the arch, the air vibrated. A sharp sound, like a monitor losing its signal, pierced their ears. The ground beneath their feet disappeared for a millisecond into a pattern of black and purple squares, and when Asimil's vision cleared, he no longer saw Sacres or the path they had come from.

They were in a circular room, surrounded by waterfalls cascading from a nonexistent ceiling. Noelia was beside him, her hand on her short sword, breathing heavily.
"You did it," she said, and her voice dripped venom. "You got us into a Silent Layer. We're off the clan's radar."

"I... I just saw the fox," Asimil tried to explain, retreating from the emerald fury in her eyes.

"I don't care what you saw!" She moved closer, cornering him against a wall that felt cold and vibrant. "You have no idea what this world is, do you? You think it's a game, that you can run around and be the hero. But if you die here, people forget you, you cease to exist. There's no heaven, no reincarnation. Just... nothing."

Noelia released him abruptly, turning her back. Her shoulders trembled slightly, a detail Asimil noticed with a pang in his chest.

"I'm not wasting any more of my time on you," she said. "Let's find the exit, deliver that animal, and then I'll ask Sacres to never, ever, pair me with a system error like you again."

Asimil couldn't understand why this girl hated him so much, what he had done to deserve such contempt.

They walked for what seemed like an eternity in that dead zone until they reached a chasm. On the other side, on a crystal platform, the two-tailed fox watched them with frightened eyes. The animal was injured; one of its tails emitted black sparks, a sign of a corrupted wound.

Between them and the fox was only an unusual bridge: two parallel lines of light pulsing rhythmically.

"Seems this is a Binary Bridge," murmured Noelia, frustrated. "It only materializes if two energy signatures walk in exact sync. If one gets ahead or lags, the bridge fades."

She looked at Asimil with a mix of disgust and desperation. Noelia hated depending on anyone, especially on someone who represented everything she despised: weakness.

"Do exactly what I do," she ordered, extending a hand toward him, though without touching him. "If I die because of you, I swear my ghost will haunt you across all of Altverse."

Asimil nodded, swallowing hard. They positioned themselves at the start of the lines of light.
"Follow me," said Noelia.

They advanced. Left. Right. Left. The bridge vibrated under their feet. Noelia kept her rhythm perfect, but Asimil felt his legs falter. At one point, a flash from his nightmare crossed his mind, and his foot slipped.

"Watch it, Asimil!" Noelia reacted with superhuman speed. Instead of letting him fall, she grabbed his arm tightly.

For a second, their eyes met. There was no hatred, only the shared fear of falling into the chasm's void. Noelia's skin was cold, but her grip was as firm as steel. They managed to regain their balance and, with one last coordinated effort, jumped onto the fox's platform.

Noelia lunged for the animal, but the fox, scared by the girl's intense and furious energy, bit with an electric snap and cowered in a corner, whimpering in pain from its wound.

"Dammit!" Noelia pulled back, looking at her sparking hand. "It won't let me get close. I'll have to use an immobilization spell, even if it hurts it a little."

"Wait…" Asimil stepped forward, slowly kneeling.

"What are you doing? It's going to attack you," she warned.

Asimil didn't respond. He closed his eyes and remembered the pain from his dream. The pain of the punch, the humiliation, the loneliness.

"It's okay... I also know what it's like to be afraid," whispered Asimil.

He reached out and touched the fox's injured tail. Noelia watched, dumbfounded, as the black sparks transferred from the animal to Asimil's fingers. The boy grimaced in agony, his veins glowing with an emerald green hue for an instant, then fading.

The fox, feeling freed from the pain, stopped whimpering. It sniffed Asimil's hand and, to Noelia's surprise, rubbed against his blue tunic, seeking refuge.

At that moment, a door of light opened behind them. Sacres appeared, his face marked with concern, but he sighed with relief upon seeing them safe.

"You two! The zone had an unexpected recalibration. I thought I'd lost you," Sacres approached, seeing the fox in Asimil's arms. "Well, it seems you succeeded without my help."

Noelia dusted off her skirt, regaining her mask of coldness, though she avoided looking Asimil in the eye.

"No, actually, it was thanks to Noelia," said Asimil, still somewhat weak from absorbing the pain. "She... she saved me on the bridge. Without her, we wouldn't have made it."

Sacres looked at Noelia, expecting one of her typical sharp retorts. However, she only averted her gaze towards the ruins.

"I was just completing the mission," she murmured, starting to walk towards the exit. "Get moving, Asimil. We still have to return the animal."

Sacres smiled to himself, his fingers stroking the edge of the mission scroll where some minor runes specified: 'Environment: Silent Layer (sector 7). Secondary Objective: Interpersonal Synchronization.'

Asimil, carrying the small blue fox curled up against his chest, felt that, for the first time, the weight of the ghost inside him was a little lighter. Noelia was still a dangerous mystery, but now he knew that beneath that ice, there was someone who wouldn't let him fall.