The morning sun didn't rise so much as melt into the fog of Iskandaria. The air was cool, the alley still, and the scent of damp stone seeped into everything.
Selene Mira opened her eyes to the sound of a rat chewing something nearby. Again.
"Seriously?" she muttered, brushing dust from her hoodie and rolling off the makeshift bed she'd fashioned from a stack of burlap sacks.
The rat stared at her from atop her half-eaten heel of bread. Cheeky little thing.
Ding! [New Threat Detected: Resource Drain – Rodent]
"Is that really necessary?" she grumbled at the air, waving the notification away. The rat darted off, bread in tow.
There went breakfast.
The shed wasn't awful.
Just… sad.
A broken shelf leaned against one wall like it had given up halfway through living. Crates stacked haphazardly. Tools with no handles. An old curtain, stiff with grime, still clinging to a bent nail.
Selene sat on one of the crates and sighed. This world may have magic, but it still doesn't clean itself.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a stub of charcoal she'd found yesterday. Then, wordlessly, she began.
She didn't try to make it beautiful.
Not yet.
She started small.
Sweeping one corner.
Stacking crates by height.
Using the broken shelf to build a new one by flipping it horizontally and bracing it with rocks.
Ripping the stiff curtain in half and retying it as a partial door flap for privacy.
Bit by bit, the room changed.
Not into something elegant—but into something hers.
Ding! [Micro-Upgrade Detected: Comfort +1]
She didn't smile. Not exactly. But her shoulders relaxed.
Later that day, Lio arrived with a tiny loaf of bread and two copper coins.
"From the old woman who sells candles," he said, scratching the back of his head. "You helped her move some crates the other day, remember?"
Selene blinked. "That was… two minutes of work."
"She said no one's offered her help in years. So."
He looked around.
"…You've really cleaned this place up."
Selene shrugged, brushing her charcoal-smudged fingers against her sleeve. "It's still a glorified storage shed."
Lio stepped inside, brows raised. "Yeah, but now it feels like one you'd want to get trapped in during a thunderstorm."
Selene paused. That… might've been the nicest thing anyone had said in either of her lives.
Just before sunset, she sat outside the shed, eating her bread slowly while watching a few townsfolk walk past the alley.
Most didn't notice her.
But one young woman did glance in.
She stopped for just a second, peeking into the door flap. Her eyes flicked toward the curtain-turned-wall, the stacked wooden crates, and the small glowstone Selene had balanced in a glass jar to create soft lighting.
She didn't speak.
But she smiled.
And then walked on.
Selene sat there for a long time, holding her half-eaten bread in one hand.
"...Okay. That felt good."
Ding! [Emotional Milestone Reached: Sense of Belonging – +1 Resilience]
[New Passive Bonus Unlocked: Low-Level Aura of Warmth – nearby villagers feel subtly calmer in your presence.]
She looked up at the sky, now lavender-pink with streaks of orange.
Slow.
Quiet.
No grand battles.
No magic.
Just her. And a rat she was mentally naming Clarence.
It wasn't what she expected.
But maybe… this was where her new life actually began.