He shivered like a reed in winter; with Nana Toki’s hand on his shoulder, her gentle smile looked like silk hiding knives, and he nearly fainted.

In his eyes, Nana Toki was a horned demon from a western myth, a shadow crowned with thorns.

System: "..."

"Alright, Host, stop enlarging people’s psychological shadow like ink bleeding through paper."

Soft-hearted like a bodhisattva, the System couldn’t help speaking up for the unlucky few, a bell tolling in the fog.

Then.

"Tch. Boring." She curled her lip like a cat baring a fang, let go of the shoulder, and headed for the rooftop, steps light as smoke.

The Corpse Devourers in this fog-bound city were all slain; the mist was a tired tide about to ebb.

She had to leave before the fog thinned, or trouble would swarm like flies on ripe fruit.

She didn’t want her quiet days pestered by buzzing pests, a courtyard meant for tea turned into a hive.

"Since that’s the case, Host, just silence the leftovers," the System murmured like a snake in grass. "The fog lasts long; no one will know."

"Spare me. I’m not addicted to killing," she said, eyes half-lidded like screens under moonlight. "Don’t smear my name, you trash System."

System: "..."

Is the Host not that kind? The System froze like a clock in frost.

If she’s not, why toy with minds like a dom, twisting hearts like willow branches in wind?

It looked scary, like a smile carved on a mask.

"Different," she snapped, tossing the System a cold glance like a pebble into a pond. "They had holes in their heads and poked me."

She wasn’t a saint, but her debts and favors were clear, lines of ink on rice paper.

If you didn’t provoke her, she wouldn’t hunt you for sport, not a feral dog chasing shadows.

She wasn’t a lunatic killing out of boredom, not a blade swinging just to hear wind.

Those six she cut down were fish slipping from a heap of Corpse Devourers, scales slick with sin; dying was what they owed.

The other six she’d seen stayed inside the building, sparrows under eaves; she spared them a storm.

These Corpse Devourers gave too much experience, a flood pouring into a dry field.

Even without focusing, she felt thick power coursing through her body, a river of force under her skin.

"Think my ability can evolve?" She watched her right hand smoking black like a smoldering censer and asked the System, curiosity a cat with raised tail.

System: "Beats me..."

These numbers should be uploaded to the Owner, offerings sent upriver.

And the Host’s hidden space needed reporting, a secret room behind a painted screen.

"Xixi~"

Barely two flights up, Luo Shanshan came down with Misty Tide from the rooftop, swallows descending a beam.

Seeing Nana Toki walk toward them, Luo Shanshan’s eyes lit with tiny stars, a night sky poured into her gaze.

Her whole face flipped into fangirl mode, a paper fan opening with blossoms.

"Xixi is so strong. So many Corpse Devourers, all solved alone. You’ll get even stronger, right?"

"Mm." A light nod, dew tipping from a leaf.

She shifted her gaze to Misty Tide, a lake turning toward the moon.

The fog was about to end, but the task wasn’t complete, a ledger with one blank line.

Especially that unknown (0/1), still no clue, a sealed envelope on the table.

However.

The side quest’s unknown (0/1) likely tied to Misty Tide, a thread looped to her sleeve.

Knowing the System’s weird taste, maybe it wanted her killed, dark humor under a lantern.

System: "Hey! Host, don’t accuse a good person. When did I ever have bad taste?"

"Then tell me what this (0/1) task is," Nana Toki said, voice cool as well water.

"Fine, it’s… uh… Host, are you baiting me?" The System started like a sparrow, then caught the snare.

"Tch. Got caught?" She clicked her tongue, irritation a spark on flint.

System: "..." "Host, you’ll get hit. And I heard that, I really heard that!"

Anyway, do your own tasks; this plane has helped you a lot, a bridge over rapids.

"Help my ass. More like tripping me," she shot back, words sharp as chopsticks.

System: "..."

"Rustle, rustle…"

"Stare—"

Standing beside Luo Shanshan, Misty Tide watched Nana Toki’s hand, eyes fixed like a cat on a moth.

"What, hungry?" Feeling her gaze, Nana Toki lifted her hand like offering a pear, ready to feed a bit of power.

Her ability was abundant, a granary full; sharing a ladle’s worth was nothing.

"..." Misty Tide shook her small head, standing by Luo Shanshan like a bellflower saying no.

"Not hungry, then why stare at my hand? Got a flower there?" Nana Toki peered at her palm like reading tea leaves.

No hint, no pattern; what was this little fool looking at?

"Aba-aba-aba…" Misty Tide babbled, a brook speaking its own language.

Nana Toki glanced at Luo Shanshan; the latter shrugged like a kite losing wind, meaning she didn’t get it either.

Misty Tide grew anxious, a chick pecking at glass.

She rushed to Nana Toki, lifted Nana’s right hand, and showed it to both, movements earnest as a priest.

Nana Toki: "?"

"What are you doing, a rebellion?" Her brows lifted like blades.

"Hoo… hoo…" Misty Tide chanted like a mantra, holding Nana’s right hand up.

Under their puzzled stares, a crystalline gray-white blossom popped into being in Nana’s palm, a biu like a spark from flint.

It was beautiful, more enchanting than any flower Nana Toki had grown before, a moonlit lily.

It was a spider lily; petals like inverted dragon claws; stem and veins clear and rising; leaves and petals not touching, a riddle in glass.

Compared to the first spider lily Misty Tide planted with Nana’s hand, this one looked more alive, breath trapped in crystal.

"?"

While Nana Toki wondered what this operation aimed for, the transparent spider lily in her hand stirred like a bird.

It lifted from Misty Tide’s hold, floated into the air, and flashed a piercing light, a flare across fog.

The shine pricked their eyes; they squinted, lashes like dark fans.

Luckily, it didn’t last long; soon the light thinned like mist at dawn.

When it faded, the gray-white spider lily was gone; in its place floated a bright white halo, a ring of moonlight.

What the hell was that? Her mind jumped like a fish.

She looked at her hand, still tinged with fresh power, then at the hovering glow, a lantern without a frame.

Is this my ability?

System: "In a certain sense, yes."

Nana Toki: "..."

"You… what are you?" The voice fell like a pebble in a pond.

Nana Toki: "..."

Heavens, an ability that talks. Her heart jolted like thunder behind silk.

"What are you, exactly?" She shifted, shielding Misty Tide and Luo Shanshan behind her like wings, eyes narrowed to cut the glare.

But.

The glow was too sharp, a blade of sun; she couldn’t see a thing.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo…" Misty Tide was thrilled, calling toward the halo in words like birdsong the others couldn’t follow.

"What’s she saying?" Nana Toki tilted her head, pointing at Misty Tide.

"I don’t know," Luo Shanshan said, voice small as rain. "But they’re probably communicating."

Nana Toki: "..."

Thanks, captain obvious; anyone with eyes could tell.

"I see. So the body I parasitized is you." The white halo seemed to look at Nana Toki, a gaze like frost.

"Thank you for caring for Misty Tide these days."

"You’re welcome." Before Nana answered, Luo Shanshan spoke, courage trembling like a reed.

She eyed the halo, slipped past Nana Toki a step, and asked softly, careful as lifting porcelain, "May I ask… what are you?"

Nana Toki: "..." Did she know how to talk? Sounded like an insult wrapped in lace.

"..." Unexpectedly, the halo didn’t get angry; it answered serious as a temple bell, "I’m not a thing."

Nana Toki: "..." Great. Another genius hatched from fog.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo…" Protected behind them, Misty Tide wriggled through their gap like mist, rushed to the glowing sphere, eyes gold as wheat, speaking on.

"I understand." The halo bobbed up and down a few times, nodding like a lantern in wind.

After a bit of exchange between girl and light, the halo turned to Nana Toki and offered thanks, solemn as an oath.

"Thank you so much for helping me and Misty Tide fuse."

Standing in the stairwell, Nana Toki got thanked out of nowhere, confusion spinning like leaves.

Nana Toki: "?"

"Mind making that clearer?" She pinched her chin with one hand, pointed at Misty Tide and the glowing ability with the other, measuring distance like a tailor.

"I can’t understand what you two are saying."

Halo: "..."

After a few more questions, the threads unraveled like silk.

Nana Toki finally understood the cause and effect, a map drawn in fog.

The great fog wasn’t an accident, not a cloud lost on the road.

As the era advanced and humans built relentlessly, Earth bred strange magnetic fields in certain places, knots in a loom.

These fields warped nearby normal magnetism, birthing disasters like tsunamis, volcanoes, thunder-rain, a menagerie of storms.

Their range was small, a seed on soil, but they accumulated year by year like snow layering roofs.

After enough time, the field’s strength turned terrifying, a dragon under the mountain.

Any strong creature couldn’t last minutes inside; it killed them like frost kills flowers.

Corpses slain by the field mutated through the magnetism and gained a second life, becoming Corpse Devourers, hunger wrapped in skin.

And this magnetic field was the light ball here, a core like a star.

Misty Tide was an intelligent being, born from dead organisms inside the field married to the field itself, not human, a daughter of fog.

Misty Tide and the light ball coexisted, two reeds in one pond.

At first, Misty Tide had no fixed form, only a haze; searching, the light ball deemed humans the most perfect shape on Earth.

So Misty Tide’s first outline became human, a silhouette carved from moonlight.

With a form, she didn’t linger in the magnetic field, and with an immature mind, she wandered out by accident, stepping into human streets.

Because she was born of the field, magnetism was oxygen to Misty Tide, air for a lung.

Long separation sapped her strength, like a candle starving for oil.

When her vitality fell to the limit, the great fog generated automatically, refilling her magnetism, a tide returning to shore.

"So that’s the reason for the fog?" Arms crossed like a gate, Nana Toki raised a brow, a bird lifting wing.

Did she just pry open the hidden worldbuilding of this plane?

"Yes." The halo bobbed up and down like a nodding lantern.

"Then why are you in my body?" She asked the key question, a needle finding the seam.

"I remember you’re a magnetic field. How did you end up inside me?"

"..." The halo fell into rare silence, a lake without wind.

After a long moment, it spoke slowly, words dropping like snow.

"Actually…"