Chapter 115: THE BODY LOAD SPIKE, A PROMISE AT THE DINNER TABLE, AND A THEORY ABOUT A LOCKED DOOR

The capsule lid lifted with a long hiss that had begun to sound like the voice of home.

I lay still for a few seconds, staring at the dim ceiling, letting my body relearn its own weight and shape. This was the part of logging out I liked least. Inside SWO, my legs could run, my arms could draw a bow to full, and my body was light as a feather. Here, in the real world, my muscles still held the memory of months of illness, and every time I came out of the capsule, they seemed to file an official protest.

The screen on the side of the capsule lit up automatically.

[Session Ended at 20:15 (duration 03:57:12).]

[Body Summary: Temperature 36.6 degrees. Hydration 82%. Average heart rate 94 bpm. Average Body Load Index 41/100.]

And beneath it, a yellow line that made me hold my breath.

[Anomaly Detected: Body Load spikes up to 88/100 for 3 minutes 12 seconds (19:39, which is the 3rd hour and 21st minute of the session). Heart rate briefly reached 171 bpm. No automatic action was taken.]

[Message from Doctor Karin’s Medical Team: Please confirm your condition after the session. During the remission phase, sudden stress spikes can suppress immunity and slow blood cell recovery. If a similar anomaly recurs more than twice within 24 hours, the session limit will be reviewed.]

I stared at that last sentence for quite a while.

19:39. I didn’t need to open my notes to know what had happened at that minute. Nine HP. The shockwave from the canceled Silk Nova, my body thrown into the mangrove roots, and a single number at the edge of my vision that had nearly made me laugh hysterically. Apparently, this capsule didn’t care that all of it was just pixels. My real body, still learning to recover from leukemia, had reacted just as clearly to hearing the word "death."

I typed a reply with slightly trembling fingers. I’m fine. I fought a big boss. No symptoms. I’ll be more careful.

I deleted that last sentence, retyped it, then sent it. A sentence more honest than mere pleasantries.

I sat up, lowered my feet to the floor, and waited until my head stopped spinning. Through the bedroom window, the backyard looked dark, with a single garden lamp glowing warmly in the corner. I drew a deep breath, and from beyond the wall came the faint sound of the guest room door opening and closing.

Mira had logged out.

The knock at my door came less than three minutes later. Three knocks, with the same pause.

"Come in," I said.

The door opened, and Mira entered carrying a small tray with a white porcelain teapot and two cups. The aroma of jasmine spread through the room even before she set the tray on the table beside the sofa. Her wavy black hair was loosely tied, and her face looked a little paler than usual, not from the Vampire race’s effect, but the kind of pallor that appears only on someone holding something back.

"Young Master," she said, bowing briefly. "Tea first, then dinner. I’ve prepared rice, steamed fish, and ginger soup. Everything is warm."

"When did you have time to cook?"

"Before logging in this evening," she answered as she poured the tea. "I only reheated it. That’s not cooking."

"By your standards, that’s not cooking," I murmured, accepting the cup from her hand. "By normal people’s standards, it’s a miracle."

Mira didn’t respond. She simply sat on the edge of the sofa, looking at her own cup, and I understood that the real conversation hadn’t started yet.

I sipped the tea slowly. Its warmth sank into my chest and loosened the knot there bit by bit. Outside, the night wind stirred the thin curtain at the window.

"Let’s eat first," I said at last. "Then talk."

"Are you sure?"

"I’m sure ginger soup is much easier to talk over on a full stomach."

Mira smiled a little, thin and almost invisible, but enough to make me feel my choice was right.

The small dining table in the corner of my room had been neatly set. Two plates, two pairs of spoons, and ceramic bowls still steaming. Steamed fish with slices of ginger and spring onion, soft steamed rice with shreds of chicken, and a ginger soup whose aroma immediately dragged my memory back to the soups I’d drunk in this very room, when my body was still too weak to hold a spoon by itself.

"Enjoy your meal," Mira said softly.

"Enjoy your meal."

We ate in comfortable silence for the first few minutes. The soup was the same as ever, warm, slightly spicy, and soothing in a way hard to explain. I finished half a bowl before realizing my hands had stopped shaking.

"You don’t have to tell me everything now," Mira said at last. "I only want to know one thing."

"Just ask."

"Is the Young Master all right? Not Syl. The Young Master."

I put down my spoon.

"Doctor Karin sent a warning," I said honestly. "My body load spiked to 88 out of 100 during that Silk Nova. More than three minutes. My heart rate reached 171."

Mira didn’t look surprised. She only closed her eyes briefly, and the hand in her lap clenched slowly.

"I saw it," she said. "My capsule screen shows your summary too. It’s a setting Doctor Karin requested from the beginning."

"So you’ve known all along."

"Since the second it happened." Her voice was very quiet. "I was standing three meters behind you with a knife in my hand, and that number appeared at the edge of my vision. Eighty-eight out of one hundred. Then nine HP."

I wanted to say something reassuring. To say it was only the system, only numbers, only pixels that could be restored with one prayer at an altar. But the words felt hollow before they even left my throat.

"Mira."

"I’m not angry," she cut in quickly. "I know you saved all of us. I know there was nothing else to be done. I just..." She stopped, biting her lower lip. "I’ve looked after you since before you could walk to the bathroom on your own. I don’t want to see your body forced past its limits like that again, Young Master, after everything you’ve been through fighting leukemia. Not even for a game."

Silence fell between us. The steam from the soup slowly thinned.

"It’s not just a game," I said quietly. "I know. I only truly understood tonight, when I saw that yellow line."

Mira lifted her face.

"That world felt like an escape," I continued. "There, I can run, shoot, and win. But this body is still mine, and it doesn’t care about anything on a screen. It only knows whether I’m being pushed past my limits, and this blood, only just recovered from leukemia, isn’t strong enough for that yet."

"So you understand."

"I understand." I took a breath. "And because I understand, I want to propose something. Not a one-sided promise. An agreement."

Mira blinked. "An agreement?"

"I have three conditions for you," I said, and an amused tone that slipped out unintentionally made Mira widen her eyes slightly. "Monitor your Bloodlust, drink soup before fifty percent, always activate Blood Sense. You’ve kept them. Now it’s my turn."

"Your turn?"

"One: I’m no longer going to be bait. I’ll keep shooting from the back, but no more tactics that require my HP to be the stake." I raised two fingers. "Two: if the Body Load Index on the screen goes past seventy, I’ll stop fighting and retreat. No bargaining."

"And three?" Mira asked, her eyes beginning to glisten.

"Three," I smiled faintly, "you have the right to pull the safety at any time. If you see something wrong, you may halt a raid, force us to retreat, or message Doctor Karin without asking permission."

Mira looked at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, her stiff shoulders loosened, and a small laugh broke from her lips between held-back sobs.

"You," she whispered, "made counter-conditions."

"I learned from the best."

"Those were my conditions, Young Master. You took them."

"And I’m returning them with interest."

Mira wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, then smiled, and this time the smile truly reached her eyes.

"All right. Agreed."

"Agreed," I repeated, and held out my hand across the table. Mira took it in both her palms, warm and slightly damp, and we shook hands like two people who had just signed the most important treaty of their lives.

"Now eat," she said, pulling her hand back. "Or the soup will go cold, and Doctor Karin will scold me."

"Doctor Karin doesn’t scold you."

"Doctor Karin scolded me twice this week," she answered, in the tone of someone keeping a long record. "About salt intake and about tea. I’ve noted everything."

I laughed freely, and for the first time since leaving the capsule, my chest felt truly light.

The empty plates were stacked at the side of the table when Mira took the compartmented pill box from her pocket. It was ivory white, with Doctor Karin’s neat handwriting on each lid: morning, noon, night, and one small compartment in the corner marked "optional, if nauseous."

"Tonight only two," Mira said as she opened the lid labeled with today’s date. "One main medicine and one vitamin. The blue pill from yesterday was replaced with a vitamin as of this morning."

I stared at the two small tablets in her palm. There had been a time when those compartments were full. There was a day when I had to swallow eleven pills at once, with Mira sitting at the edge of the bed holding a glass and patting my back.

"Two," I murmured.

"Two," Mira nodded. "And Doctor Karin says if next week’s lab results are still good, maybe one."

"One," I repeated, almost unable to believe it.

"One." Mira smiled. "But ’remission’ isn’t ’finished,’ Young Master. Do you remember that?"

"I remember."

I swallowed both pills with water, and Mira made sure nothing was left in my hand, as she always did. An old habit that no longer felt like supervision, but like care.

"Now," she said as she closed the pill box, "the story. You said there was something about the temple."

I leaned back and picked up the tablet from the table beside the sofa. "Before that, I want to show you something. I only saw it myself earlier, while waiting for you to knock."

I opened the official SWO forum and scrolled to the top discussion board, and Mira immediately leaned in.

[THEORY] The Starless Black Sky This Morning: World Event or Bug?(2,481 replies)

Who Exactly Is the "Saintess of the Moon Goddess"? The World Announcement Doesn’t Include a Name(1,914 replies)

Silvergrass Temple Rumored to Reduce Sun Penalty for Dark Races, Hoax or Real?(367 replies)

"A world announcement," Mira whispered.

"Apparently during the Baptism, a notification went out to all players," I nodded. "That’s why they’ve been in an uproar all day. And it’s also why Lumina kept mentioning ’that Saintess.’"

"And they still don’t know who it is?"

I scrolled into one of the threads and read several replies aloud in a low voice.

"Must be the White Elf the three big guilds are hunting. Who else could be that strong?"

"Idiot. White Elf is a regular Elf race. The Saintess must be a Moon Elf or something similar. No Moon Elf player has been recorded yet."

"I was in Silvergrass yesterday. There’s a new temple by the lake, and the NPCs say the Saintess built it. But I didn’t see her."

"I prayed there, and my skeleton’s sun penalty went down. It’s not a hoax."

I turned off the tablet screen.

"They’re getting close," Mira whispered.

"They don’t know," I answered softly. "But close enough that I don’t dare show up in StoneBrook Plaza without a hood for a few days."

"You’ll hide?"

"Not hide." I smiled crookedly. "Just... manage the tempo."

Mira laughed softly. "That sounds like you’re drawing up a complicated plan."

"Very complicated."

We talked for nearly an hour after that. I told her about Arachne’s words, which hadn’t stopped haunting my head since she’d spoken them. The scent of the moon. The woman who locked the door of my house. Mira listened as she poured a second round of tea, her eyes narrowing as when she tried to recall something forgotten.

"That ancient manuscript," she said quietly. "You read it aloud to me once. It said the High Priest of the Moon Temple protected the main temple with dimensional magic, and sealed it after the inquisition."

"Erasing it from the map’s coordinates," I nodded. "And my guess is that the ’woman who locked the door’ might be one of them. A priestess or guardian who sealed the temple."

"And Arachne?"

"She claimed to have a ’house’ with a ’door.’" I tapped my chin. "Maybe she was once a resident or protector of the temple, locked outside of it. Or a victim of the Inquisition. Or one of those who sacrificed themselves. I don’t know."

"And the ’sister’?"

"The Venomtooth Matriarch, maybe. Or an older Arachne from the previous Chapter." I shook my head. "Too many possibilities, too little data."

Mira nodded slowly. "Then we gather data."

"We gather data."

"And the temple in Silvergrass?" asked Mira. "What’s the plan?"

I groaned aloud and buried my face in both palms. "I still don’t know. A thousand gold, six options, and none fits perfectly."

Mira said nothing. She reached for a small bag beside the sofa, took out a brown leather-covered notebook I recognized from her kitchen routine, and handed me a pen.

"Let’s make a table," she said gently.

"A table?"

"Two columns. Left column: what the temple needs most. Right column: what gives results fastest."

I looked at the notebook, then at her, and laughed softly.

"You really are the best housekeeper in the world."

"And you are a Saintess with a money problem," Mira shot back without hesitation. "We balance each other."

That night I drew the first table with the pen, struggling to hold back my laughter. The left column filled with scribbles, the right column just as full, and at the bottom, Mira added one small line in neat handwriting: Set aside 200 for maintenance. Don’t buy anything when hungry.

"That second rule," I asked, "where’s it from?"

"From experience," she answered innocently.

We laughed until Mira had to cover her mouth with her palm so as not to disturb the other residents of the house. Outside the window, the garden lamp swayed gently, and for the first time since the fight with Arachne, I felt something long lost return to my chest: not relief, not victory, but simple comfort.

At 22:30, Mira tidied the tray and knocked on the door from outside with the same three-beat pause, a habit she still kept even though we hadn’t pretended to be master and maid in front of each other for a long time.

"Good night, Young Master," she whispered.

"Good night, Mira."

The door closed slowly. The room was quiet again.

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and let my thoughts wander to a lake that reflected the moon and to a weaver whose whisper still rang in my ears.

Moonlight. I miss it.

I didn’t know who Arachne truly was. I didn’t know what she had been waiting for all this time, or who had last locked her door. But one thing I knew for certain: the small temple on the shore of Silvergrass’s lake wasn’t just a building to be developed. It was the key to something far bigger, and somehow, I was now holding one of those keys.

At the foot of the bed, the capsule screen blinked softly, displaying one last line before dimming.

[Recommended rest: 2 hours. Next session may begin at 22:15.]

I closed my eyes.

And I slept without dreaming.