On the eastern mountain of Greenleaf Town, there was an abandoned well.
It had no name.
The townspeople only ever referred to it with a vague, offhand remark:
"Oh, that well? It's been sealed for ages."
The well's lid had long been locked down with iron chains.
It was surrounded by dry vines and protective charms.
Ring after ring of warning signs declared:
"DO NOT APPROACH",
"SEVERE BLACK MIST CONTAMINATION",
"SUSPECTED TO SWALLOW HUMANS"
—phrases thoroughly unsuitable for tourism brochures.
Some elders said that, a hundred years ago, the well was once the workshop of an alchemist—until a failed experiment turned the well itself into a container for resentment.
Others claimed it had belonged to an ancient stargazer, who sought to observe the reflection of the night sky.
Still others whispered that it was a secret device left by a magical technician to store "water that could speak."
Later, the well began to change.
It no longer echoed—it whispered.
Its water became clouded, like smoke or fog, and a lingering chill seemed to seep from its stones no matter the season.
Over time, the stories worsened.
They said it would swallow people.
They said it murmured nonsense in the night.
They said it cursed those who came near—leaving them lost in dreams.
So they sealed it.
With iron chains.
With wooden stakes and talismans.
With magic circles, warding scripts, and threads of red string—
layer upon layer to shut it away from the world.
Children were always warned:
"Don't go near that well. It'll make you forget who you are."
A hundred years of solitude had made the well forget who it was.
It could not move.
It could not speak.
It could not cry.
So it simply waited—
beneath moss and binding seals,
between loneliness and the breath of the wind.
And it waited—
for someone to speak to it again,
to remind it of its name.
—
Until one day, Ira passed by.
She had just finished her morning "healthy mountain climbing routine" (arranged by Ashu),
humming a tune and nibbling on a piece of candy,
not really watching where she was going—
and turned straight into the "Restricted Zone."
Ashu floated behind her, trying to intervene.
"Hey hey hey—there's a sign right here that says 'Do not—'"
Ira stopped in front of the well.
She tilted her head, glanced at the iron chains, which looked rather pitiful, and at the talismans, which were wrinkled and faded.
Then she crouched down—
and very seriously, very gently, spoke to the mouth of the well:
"Are you lonely?"
"Has no one come to talk to you anymore?"
Her voice was light and airy, like the first wind of spring melting old snow.
It drifted down into the long-sealed throat of the well.
She reached out and touched the iron chains with the tip of her finger.
And in that moment—
A sudden light erupted from deep within.
Magical lines, like glowing veins, surged upward from the bottom of the well,
spreading out across the earth—
climbing up stone pillars, threading through runes, weaving into the ancient leyline network beneath all of Greenleaf Town.
As if something that had been sleeping for a hundred years—had just been called awake.
BOOM.
A ring of golden light burst outward from the well, illuminating the entire eastern mountain.
For a few seconds, the air itself shimmered, forming a word in ancient script:
Shireya.
It was the name of the well.
Not a name given by anyone,
but the one it had once been called—by those who remembered.
From the old tongue, it meant:
"The Heart That Collects All Voices",
or
"The Keeper of All Living Songs."
(A hundred years ago, this well had been the heart of Greenleaf Town…)
Back then, the townspeople gathered around it every day to draw water, to pray, to sing.
Children whispered their dreams into it.
Elders carved their names into its stone, hoping to live a little longer.
The well remembered every voice.
It remembered laughter.
It remembered tears.
It remembered spring rain dripping into its body while people called:
"Come quick, let's fill the buckets~!"
—Until the day the rumors began.
They said the well had swallowed someone.
They said it spoke strange words.
They said the well had changed.
The water had changed.
So they silenced it.
They sealed its "mouth" with charms.
Bound its "ears" with chains.
Drew circles and cast spells, demanding it be quiet.
From that day on, it never spoke again.
It never produced water again.
It forgot almost everything—except one thing:
The sounds of human life.
It could still hear people laugh.
People argue.
People scolding children:
"Don't go near that well!"
It was like living behind a wall—
able to hear the world,
but never heard in return.
—
When Ira said those words—
"I think… you actually look like you're trying really hard."
It was the first time in a hundred years that anyone had spoken to the well—
without fear,
without blame,
without treating it like a monster.
But rather, as someone—
someone who had simply been trying very hard,
just waiting
for someone to speak to it again.
—
[At that moment, in Greenleaf Town]
As the magical light spread across the sky, people began to stop in their tracks.
A few elderly townsfolk suddenly widened their eyes,
and spoke aloud words they thought they had long forgotten:
"That well… I used to play there every day when I was a child."
"I remember—it echoed back my songs!"
"My parents met right by that well! Our family's first photo was taken there!"
"…How could I have forgotten it? How…?"
All of Greenleaf Town stirred—
as if waking from a shared dreamless sleep.
The talismans above the well caught flame and turned to ash.
The iron chains dissolved into golden dust.
The water flowed—calm, glowing faintly.
It did not speak.
But somehow, it smiled.
Because it had been heard.
Because it remembered who it was.
I am Shireya. This is my home.
—
Ira stood up and brushed off her pants.
"You look a lot better now! I'm gonna go find some breakfast, okay? Bye-bye~"
And she walked away, humming,
like she had just finished greeting a neighborhood cat.
—
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[Mission Objective: Observe Human-Magic Interaction → COMPLETE]
[Instance Triggered: Ancient Magi-Core – "Well of Revelation"]
[Special Recording: Voice Entry Initialized…]
[Recorded Statement: "Are you lonely?"]
[Emotion Directive: Currently Parsing…]
—
Ashu hovered mid-air, slowly turning toward the ancient well,
which was still gently bubbling with water.
He stared into its depths for a long moment,
and then his voice softened.
"…It's been a long time. I thought something had happened to you… when I stopped hearing from you."
A faint beep-beep— sounded from the bottom of the well,
as if acknowledging his words.
As if waking up.
Ashu looked down again, his expression unreadable.
"Don't worry. That lady is doing just fine.
As for your core—"
Before he could finish, the surface of the water rippled violently,
like an overexcited defense system auto-activating itself.
"WHOOOOSH——"
Ashu immediately broke into a cold sweat.
"I was joking—don't actually activate. She doesn't need you protecting her yet."
The water paused with a sudden plop,
as if chastised.
Then bubbled gently again, a single beep…
A sound that could only be described as quietly disappointed.
Ashu looked at the well's sulking behavior and sighed.
He floated closer, voice low and calm.
"Your duty… is to protect Greenleaf Town.
Don't forget the Lady's instructions.
And besides—there's a bakery nearby.
They sell her favorite cream sticks."
The well's water flared with sudden energy,
vibrating like a soldier snapping to attention,
as if it had suddenly remembered the full weight of its sacred mission.
In the next instant, the entire well began to glow and rumble,
its surface shimmering with a very clear, very enthusiastic message:
"Understood! Commencing patrol!"
Ashu crossed his arms, watching the light show with a blank stare.
"…Okay, calm down. If she sees you like this, she'll think you're some kind of magical vending machine."
—
[Guild Tower, Top-Floor Study]
Enod set down his teacup, a faint frown tugging at his brow.
He had sensed it—
a wave of magic unlike any routine disturbance.
No, this was something deeper.
Familiar.
Impossible to describe.
A resonance from the past, trembling from the eastern mountains all the way to the core of the town.
He walked to the window.
Far in the distance,
he saw it:
a barely perceptible streak of light—
like dust stirred from memory—
rising from the old well,
splitting through the leyline network of Greenleaf Town like a blade.
His heart skipped a beat.
"…The well… it woke up?"
He turned away from the window, moving to the bookshelf.
He pulled out the oldest of all his scrolls—
a half-destroyed manuscript on ancient "Soul-Construct Magitechs,"
with a faded note written in his own hand on the cover:
[Shireya: Cannot be controlled. Cannot be sealed. Only calmed.]
"We tried everything," he murmured,
"every incantation, every resonance chant… it never once responded."
He remembered that well—
its silence, heavy as a tomb,
wasn't just a barrier.
What was sealed there
was something ancient.
Not just a well.
But a guardian.
Shireya.
Its true form was not stone, but a ring.
Not just a magical artifact—
a sentient, autonomous core
forged with one purpose:
To guard this land.
To suppress the abyssal beast—Lenathos.
Lenathos.
A monster birthed from another plane.
It devoured magic.
Devoured emotion.
Turned everything into blank, voided silence.
A perfect inversion of divinity.
The antithesis of gods.
To stop its spread into the human realm,
Milles herself had intervened.
She sealed its core beneath the deepest rift.
And into that seal, she embedded a ring of her own making—
a ring that became a mouth.
A boundary.
A memory.
The well was the surface gate.
And Shireya was its eternal sentinel.
"…And that little girl just says a few words… and suddenly the thing breaks its seals, gushes water, and starts glowing?"
A strange mix of admiration and ancient anxiety stirred in his chest.
"It's really been that long, hasn't it…?"
He picked up his feathered pen and made a note in his personal journal:
[Subject: Ira Milles]
—Possible carrier of rare "Soul Resonance Affinity." Capable of triggering emotional feedback in ancient magitechs and soulbound constructs.
—Influence radius increasing abnormally fast. Surrounding magical creatures are spontaneously retreating. Hypothesis: unintentional emotional purification aura.
As he wrote, he muttered under his breath:
"Is she here to become an adventurer…
or to accidentally convert this entire town into a divine relic site?"
He rolled out a worn map and marked the latest leyline readings around Greenleaf.
East Mountain: curse dissolved.
Undead ruins: cleansed.
Unstable ley currents: restructured themselves.
The paper beneath his hand trembled faintly—
as if the map itself realized something enormous was quietly happening.
"Let her take two more walks around the region," he muttered,
"and the entire monster population might voluntarily migrate south for a vacation."
He closed the book and exhaled deeply.
"Milles… what exactly did you raise?"
—
[Divine Realm]
Far above, in the silver-light heavens,
within a floating divine garden where wind moves gently and time flows slow,
Milles sat amidst the clouds, twirling a shard of translucent magic crystal between her fingers.
It was one of the "Seven Echo Stones" she had left behind—
a sensor that would glow faintly whenever one of her enchanted relics stirred back to life in the mortal world.
Today, it glowed.
She paused.
Silent for a moment.
Then smiled, ever so slightly.
"…Shireya."
Her voice was soft—
as if speaking to an old friend from a thousand years past.
"You little brat… You used to pretend not to hear me say goodnight."
"But now, all it takes is a sentence from that child and you light up like sunrise…"
She chuckled.
Then placed the shard down, her eyes gazing toward the lower world—
watching that faint but bright ripple of magic winding through the land.
There was warmth in her eyes.
And peace.
"I haven't had the chance to properly introduce her, have I?"
"That child… she's the answer I left behind."
—
[At the Same Time — Red Abyss Rift, Deep North]
Deep within the forgotten canyon of the north,
beneath the sealed ruins of an ancient magical domain,
something stirred.
It was always damp here. Muddled.
Like a dream turned sour with rot.
The air didn't move. Light couldn't reach.
The black mist slithered like serpents—like grief.
And something old,
something dangerous,
began to awaken.
"…It moved."
A voice.
Low.
Shuddering.
As if spoken by a thousand lost souls at once.
"It still exists."
Another voice.
Sharp.
Cold like snow breaking glass.
"It has awakened… which means her mark still lingers."
"Milles… her echo?"
"No."
There was a pause.
Heavy with ancient hate.
"That's not Milles.
That's her… legacy."
Then the voices overlapped.
Dozens. Hundreds.
A chorus of ruin.
"We have waited so long."
"At last—"
"At last we can find it. We must make it open the gate."
"This time, not even Milles will—"
Silence.
Cut off.
From within the mist, a massive golden eye slowly opened.
At its center: a faint silhouette of silver and white.
A sound followed.
A low, ancient roar rising from the depth of the canyon.
In the far north, the miasma began to boil.
The remnants of the Abyssal Beast—Lenathos—were moving.
They remembered the ring.
They remembered the war.
They remembered—
How Milles sealed away their king.
How she made them kneel beneath the light.
How they lost their world.
And now, the ring had awakened.
This time—
they would destroy it with their own hands.
And with it,
the silver-haired girl who carried Milles's scent.
—
[Meanwhile, Ira:]
"I'd like a cream stick, please~"
"Here you go, sweetie~ one cream stick, fresh and warm!"