Chapter 100: Chapter 99: A New Morning
Morning came quietly to Velaris.
The pale light of dawn spread across the settlement, touching the darkstone walls and the roofs of the Garden Villas. The two moons that had watched over the territory during the night were already fading from sight, leaving behind a sky washed in soft shades of blue and gold.
The air was cold, but no longer carried the same oppressive feeling Iris had become accustomed to.
Perhaps it was because she was no longer standing outside a settlement that belonged to someone else.
This place was hers.
Not because she owned every stone within its walls, but because she had built it.
Piece by piece.
Iris stood beneath the old tree for a moment longer.
She had spent most of the night there.
Thinking.
Remembering.
Trying to separate the story she had once known from the world she was living in now.
But for the first time, she did not feel the same desperate need to compare the two.
The original story had ended one way.
Her life had not.
Caleb was alive.
Her family was together.
Velaris existed.
And there were people sleeping safely behind the walls who had never appeared in the story she remembered.
Maybe that was enough.
Iris turned away from the tree and started walking back.
As she walked, she noticed the small signs of life appearing around her.
A door opened.
Someone stepped outside carrying an empty bucket.
Another resident was already sweeping the area in front of their room, while two others stood nearby talking quietly.
It was nothing extraordinary.
There were no grand buildings.
No bustling marketplace.
No crowds filling the roads.
Velaris was still small.
Still new.
But it was alive.
That alone made Iris smile.
She had spent so much time thinking about survival that she had almost forgotten what came after surviving.
People needed somewhere to wake up.
Somewhere to belong.
Somewhere they could begin again.
She had given them the first part.
Maybe the rest would come with time.
Iris had barely reached the edge of the settlement when she heard familiar voices.
"Where did you put it?"
"I didn’t put it anywhere."
"You were the last person holding it."
"That doesn’t mean I put it somewhere."
Iris slowed.
A moment later, she saw Caleb standing outside one of the villas with his hands on his hips while Dog sat several steps away, looking completely innocent.
Caleb narrowed his eyes at the dog.
"You know exactly what you did."
Dog wagged his tail.
Iris pressed her lips together.
She had no idea how the dog managed to look guilty and smug at the same time.
"What happened?" she asked.
Caleb immediately turned toward her.
"Ask him."
Iris looked at Dog.
Dog looked back.
"Dog stole my shirt again."
Iris blinked.
"Again?"
"Again."
"I thought you learned."
"I thought he learned."
Dog barked.
Caleb pointed at him. "See? He’s not even sorry."
Iris laughed before she could stop herself.
It was a small sound, but it felt strangely good.
Yesterday, she had been sitting beneath a tree thinking about death.
This morning, she was standing in the middle of Velaris listening to Caleb argue with a dog over a shirt.
The contrast was almost ridiculous.
And yet, it was proof.
This was the kind of ordinary moment that the original story had taken away from them.
Iris looked at Caleb for another second.
Alive.
Annoyed.
Arguing with a dog.
She smiled.
"I’m glad you’re still here."
Caleb frowned. "What?"
"Nothing."
She turned away before he could ask again.
She did not need to explain it.
Not now.
She had spent too much time fearing moments that had already passed in another version of the world.
This one belonged to her.
Iris had just taken a few steps when the familiar notification appeared.
[System 003 has connected.]
She stopped.
Her expression changed immediately.
The System had been quiet.
Not completely absent, perhaps, but it had not appeared like this since the reward it gave her after Velaris was established.
Iris stared at the notification.
"What happened?"
[Connection established.]
That was it.
No explanation.
No congratulations.
No mission.
Iris frowned.
"Why are you connecting now?"
There was a pause.
Then another notification appeared.
[No immediate mission has been issued.]
"That’s not what I asked."
Silence.
Iris crossed her arms.
003 had always been strange.
When it first awakened, it had detected an anomaly.
After that, Iris had received storage space far beyond the normal amount.
Then 003 had disappeared.
After the global transmigration, it returned and gave her the mission that had led to Velaris.
When she completed it, 003 had appeared again and rewarded her with the beacon.
And then it had gone quiet once more.
Every time it appeared, something important happened.
So why now?
Iris looked toward the settlement.
People were beginning to emerge from their homes. Someone was carrying water. A few residents were already heading toward the roads. Somewhere nearby, she heard laughter.
Nothing seemed wrong.
That was what made its appearance even stranger.
If something had happened, she would have expected an alert.
A mission.
A warning.
Anything.
Instead, 003 had simply connected.
"003."
[Yes, Host.]
Iris hesitated.
There was something she had wondered about for a long time.
She had simply never asked.
"What are you?"
The notification remained in front of her.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then a response appeared.
[I am System 003.]
Iris’s eyebrow twitched.
"I know your name."
[System 003 is my designation.]
"I didn’t ask for your designation."
Silence.
Iris sighed.
"You know what I mean."
Another pause.
[Your question cannot be answered at this time.]
Her expression became serious.
"Cannot?"
[Correct.]
"Or won’t?"
There was no immediate response.
Iris stared at the screen.
That tiny hesitation bothered her more than the answer.
She remembered the first time 003 had awakened.
The anomaly.
The strange storage space.
The mission after the transmigration.
The beacon.
None of it felt random anymore.
But she still had no idea what connected those events.
"Then answer something else."
[Query.]
"The first time you appeared, you detected an anomaly."
[Confirmed.]
"Was the anomaly me?"
The response did not come immediately.
Iris waited.
Finally, the words appeared.
[The host is classified as anomalous.]
Her eyes narrowed.
"You didn’t say yes."
[The statement provided is accurate.]
"That’s a very System answer."
No response.
Iris almost laughed.
Almost.
She had expected that.
Still, hearing it confirmed made something settle in her chest.
She was an anomaly.
She had suspected it for a long time.
Now she had something closer to confirmation.
"Then why did you choose me?"
[The host was assigned to System 003.]
"By whom?"
Silence.
Iris waited.
Nothing.
She rubbed her forehead.
"Of course."
003 remained silent.
For some reason, she imagined it sitting somewhere in an enormous empty space, refusing to answer her questions while pretending it had no idea what she was talking about.
The thought was almost funny.
Almost.
"One last question."
[Query.]
"Why did you disappear after you first awakened?"
This time, the response came quickly.
[Energy conservation.]
Iris froze.
"What?"
[System 003 entered low-energy operation.]
Her eyes widened slightly.
That explained the silence.
Not everything.
But enough.
"You didn’t have enough energy?"
[Correct.]
Iris looked at the notification again.
For the first time, she wondered how much effort it actually took for 003 to connect with her.
If it was conserving energy, then every appearance probably had a cost.
That made its silence feel different.
It was not simply refusing to speak.
Perhaps there were limits she could not see.
She glanced toward the sky.
The last traces of the fading moons were disappearing behind the morning light.
"You really are strange," she murmured.
003 gave no response.
Iris looked at the notification again.
Then she remembered how long 003 had been running before she ever knew it existed.
Or at least, she felt there had to be more to it.
There was something about this System that she did not understand.
Something far bigger than the territory panel, missions, rewards, and notifications she had grown accustomed to.
But 003 had already told her what it could.
For now.
Iris exhaled.
"Fine."
[Host.]
"What?"
[Your current territory has developed beyond its initial establishment phase.]
Iris blinked.
"Okay."
[Additional management functions are becoming relevant.]
That caught her attention.
"What functions?"
[Refer to the Lord’s Panel.]
Then the notification disappeared.
Iris stared at the empty space.
"003?"
Nothing.
She sighed.
"Of course you disappear after saying something important."
A bark came from behind her.
Iris turned.
Dog was standing there with Caleb’s missing shirt hanging from his mouth.
Caleb stared at him.
"I knew it."
Iris laughed.
"Go get your shirt."
Caleb pointed at Dog. "You deal with him."
"Why me?"
"Because he likes you."
Dog dropped the shirt at Iris’s feet.
She looked down at it.
Then at Caleb.
"I think he likes you too."
"He clearly doesn’t."
Iris shook her head and started walking.
For once, she did not look back at the forest.
She did not think about Rose.
She did not think about the settlement where her family had died.
She did not try to predict the next Chapter of a story that no longer existed.
Instead, she opened her Lord’s Panel.
The familiar interface appeared before her.
She had used it to manage Velaris before, but this time she looked at it differently.
003 had said the territory had developed beyond its initial establishment phase.
That meant something had changed.
Not necessarily in the settlement itself.
Perhaps in what Velaris could become.
Her eyes moved across the available options.
There was still so much she did not understand about the territory system.
But she was beginning to realize that building walls and providing shelter had only been the first step.
People would need food.
Work.
Resources.
Rules.
Protection.
A reason to stay.
A reason to believe that tomorrow could be better than today.
Velaris waited.
And whatever came next, she would face it here.
Not as a character following someone else’s story.
As Iris Hale.
The person writing her own.
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