Chương 6: The Camp

The journey down the riverbed was quiet, save for the rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath Rakan's heavy boots and the steady rush of the water beside them while he carried the head of the creature he had slain. Stelle walked a half-step behind Vira, keeping her hand lightly wrapped around the older woman's fingers.

[QUANTUM OPTICS: ACTIVE] [Subject: Vira] [Weapon: Bow] [Unknown Energy Output: High, wind-attribute signature flowing around the body] [Subject: Rakan] [Weapon: Greatsword] [Unknown Energy Output: High, dense flame signatures concentrated in muscular structure]"So, Stelle girl," Rakan broke the silence, resting the massive head over his shoulder.

"You really don't remember anything? Not even how you got that toy toothpick you're holding?" He pointed with his chin toward the sharpened wooden branch Stelle still clutched in her left hand.

"Rakan, stop teasing her," Vira chided, though she looked down at the spear with mild curiosity.

"But... he does have a point, Stelle. Did you make that yourself to protect against the monsters?" Stelle paused, looking down at the poorly made spear. She allowed a small, hesitant nod to surface.

"I... found it beside the dead small green monster." Vira looked at Stelle in surprise.

"Green monster? It's probably a goblin. Now that I see it clearly... they indeed wield similar weapons to what you're holding." Rakan let out a low whistle.

"A kid not running away crying after seeing a goblin, eh? I like her. Most town kids would when their eyes landed on one. Haha, you've got steel in you, little snowflake." Vira sighed, but there was a flicker of profound respect in her eyes as well. To survive for days alone in this place, even on the tail end of winter, required an absurd amount of luck or an incredible survival instinct. As they rounded a massive bend in the river, the trees parted to reveal a wide, grassy basin.

Nestled near the tree line was a small, fortified encampment. A wooden palisade wall, hastily constructed but sturdy, ringed around five large canvas tents. Two armored guards stood at the perimeter, holding spears that looked significantly more lethal than what she was currently holding. Thin lines of smoke rose from the center of the camp, confirming the exact signals Stelle had observed earlier.

"Who goes there?!" one of the guards called out, lowering his spear as they approached.

"Relax, Boris, it's just us," Rakan boomed, waving a careless hand.

"Sir Rakan! And Lady Vira!" said the man named Boris.

"Brought back the head of that Razor-Fang beast that was tearing up the supply routes. Oh, and we found a stray." The guards blinked, their eyes dropping from the beast head to the tiny, silver-haired girl hiding behind Vira's hip.

"The wilderness has been crawling with blood-tribes lately. Is she a refugee?" Boris frowned.

"We're not sure yet. She said she has a problem with her memory," Vira explained, her voice firming up into an authoritative tone that suggested she held a decent rank among these scouts.

"She goes by Stelle. I'm taking her to the Vanguard tent to get her some real food and a warm blanket. Boris, let the Captain know the riverbed is clear. Rakan, take that thing away first, then meet me in the Captain's tent."

"On it, commander," Rakan grinned, giving Stelle a playful two-finger salute.

"See ya around, kiddo. Don't eat all the stew." With a heavy stride, the giant warrior split off toward the larger tents, leaving Stelle alone with the woman. Vira guided her forward. The camp was full of activity, filled with soldiers sharpening swords, skinning beasts, and packing crates onto large wooden wagons pulled by massive six-legged beasts. Every eye turned toward Stelle. Her pristine silver hair and flawless, doll-like features stood out sharply against the grime and mud of the military camp.

Vira led her to a medium-sized tent near the back, pulling open the canvas flap. Inside, a small iron stove radiated a brilliant, comforting warmth. A cot with thick fur blankets sat in the corner, and a small wooden table held a steaming pot of vegetable and meat stew.

"Sit down, Stelle," Vira said gently, pulling out a small stool for her.

"You must be exhausted. Eat as much as you want. I need to speak with the Captain about what to do next, but I'll be right outside. You're safe here, okay?" Stelle looked up, her bright blue eyes wide and trusting.

"Okay... thank you, Miss Vira." Vira smiled before stepping out of the tent and closing the flap behind her. The moment the canvas fell shut, the warmth in Stelle's eyes vanished. Her expression flattened into a cold, calculating stoicism. She stood up, her bare feet making zero sound on the rugs covering the dirt floor. Now, it was time to find some helpful information around this place.

Stelle's eyes swept across the interior of the tent, her visual processors instantly cataloging the items scattered throughout the space. To a normal child, the room would look like the cluttered quarters of an experienced commander, but to Stelle, it was a goldmine of unrefined data. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. She glided silently across the woven rugs, her bare feet making no sound as she approached a heavy oak desk near the back.

Spread across the center of the table was a large, hand-drawn map etched onto thick, weathered parchment. Stelle leaned over it, her clear blue eyes widening as her internal sub-routines began recording the geography. The moment her eyes settled on the sharp, looping cursive on the map, there was no decoding to do. The words arrived in her mind whole and immediate, as familiar as if she had written them herself.

The map detailed the jagged, snow-capped mountain range she had just escaped, labeling them as the Frost-Veil Peaks. The river she had followed cut a jagged line straight through a massive, dense forest, leading directly to a thick, heavily inked barrier labeled The Great Border Wall. Beyond that demarcation lay a vast expanse of land dotted with towns and feudal crests, bearing the name The Kingdom of Valeria. [SYSTEM: Data Logged] [Regional Cartography uploaded to memory banks.] Stacked neatly beside the map were several leather-bound journals. She carefully flipped open the top logbook with a single finger, ensuring she didn't disturb the dust or the placement of the quill resting beside it.... The surge of monsters at this end of winter remains unexplained. Goblins are migrating north much earlier than usual. If the Grand Wall falls, the outer villages of Valeria will be defenseless against the monsters.

But it is also a good time to gather a good amount of Mana cores from high-tier monsters and mana beasts. Stelle paused, her mind locking onto the phrase Mana Core. She recalled the strange, glowing core she had taken from the Hobgoblin's remains. It seemed the people in this world routinely gathered these biological organs from beasts and monsters. But that wasn't what she actually found most interesting. What caught her attention was how effortlessly she had just read the text.

Something had finally pieced a puzzle together inside her mind. She hadn't translated a single word of that journal; she had simply understood it, the exact same way she had understood Vira and Rakan's spoken words from the very first moment they had found her. This confirmation solidified a theory she had been harboring for days now.

Her system's Knowledge Archive had mapped it instantly because it already possessed a perfect match within its database, categorized under the records of Earth's fictional literature and language data. She hadn't been decoding a foreign script at all. She had simply been reading her own language data that her archive had imported. The scripts, the grammar, the syntax were a flawless replication of a language from fictional books in her archive.

As she scanned the text in the logbook, her system finalized the correlation. [SYSTEM: Cross-Reference Complete] [Alignment Confirmed: 100%] [Hypothesis: This world's languages are identical to the fictional constructs inside the Knowledge Archive.] The discovery was as chilling as it was fascinating. How could a reality existing light-years away, or perhaps in an entirely different dimension, perfectly mirror the fantasy stories written by human authors?

Were those authors somehow tapping into glimpses of this alternate reality, or had her creators engineered her system with specific preparation for this exact destination? Whatever the truth, it gave Stelle an immense tactical advantage. She just needed to continue gathering references to properly understand this world and anything else that might help her adapt further.

"Then it's safe to assume," she deduced quietly,"that the unknown energy signature is called... Mana." It matched the descriptions in the books called The Elite Regressor and Heart of the Ancient Dragon inside her knowledge archive, as well as the notes left on the table. The two books were part of a collection of fictional literature inside her knowledge archive.

In total, there were ten fictional books stored away within her database: [The Elite Regressor] [Heart of the Ancient Dragon] [The Lost Sage] [Rolling Coin] [A World under the Four Moons] [The 12 Saint Scripture] [The Blank Canvas of a Woven Maiden] [Tower of Gods] [Timeless Dimension] [The Wise Goldfish] Some of them hinted at a connection to this world, while the others had not yet given her a clear reference. They were entirely different stories, but their worlds seemed fundamentally connected.

There were distinct terms that only changed in their specific wordings but still signified the exact same underlying concepts. She had first thought these books were entirely useless and just some sort of simple entertainment added by her creator... but they held far more weight now than they ever had before. Something was telling her that this was no mere coincidence, but rather a guide planned entirely on purpose. [Reclassifying: "Unknown Energy" => "Mana"] [Terminology updated successfully.] The heavy canvas flap of the tent finally pulled back, casting a long silhouette across the rug. Vira stepped inside, accompanied by an older man whose silver-streaked hair was tied back tightly. He wore heavy chainmail beneath a dark blue tunic, his stern face bearing the weathered scars of a lifetime on the frontier. His sharp eyes immediately locked onto Stelle, assessing the small girl sitting quietly by the stove.

"Stelle," Vira said softly, breaking the silence with that same comforting warmth.

"This is Captain Alden. He runs the Ember-Watch garrison. We've told him about how we found you." Stelle lowered her wooden spoon slightly, letting her bright blue eyes blink with a delicate, fragile curiosity, waiting to see how the leader of this outpost would receive her.

[QUANTUM OPTICS: ACTIVE] [Subject: Captain Alden] [Mana Output: Very High, concentrations of localized kinetic reinforcement] By cross-referencing the mana signatures she had already catalogued, she concluded that this man carried a far higher output than either of the two scouts who had brought her here.

"Vira says you don't remember anything, child," Alden said, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone that had commanded hundreds of soldiers.

"Says you woke up in the snow, without a memory." Stelle shrank back slightly, letting her shoulders tense as if intimidated by his imposing presence. She clutched the wooden bowl a little tighter in her lap.

"Yes..." Alden's eyes narrowed slightly, tracking her facial muscles for any sign of a lie. But Stelle's synthetic-biological tissues were flawless; her heart rate remained perfectly modulated to mimic a frightened child, maintaining the exact expression of a scared girl. After a tense moment, the Captain's strict posture softened, just a fraction. He let out a heavy sigh, running a hand over his silver-streaked hair.

"The Frost-Veil peaks have been a hellhole this season," Alden muttered, turning his gaze toward Vira.

"But a child surviving out there for days? Alone? It's unnatural. If the blood-tribes or monsters had caught wind of her, she'd be gone."

"Which is exactly why we can't leave her here, Captain," Vira argued gently, stepping forward to place a protective hand near Stelle's shoulder.

"She needs a proper place, and she needs to be inside the Border Wall. Look at her, she's a little confused and scared." Alden grunted, pacing toward the oak desk where Stelle had just been analyzing the maps only moments prior. He looked down at the parchment, then back at Stelle.

"The supply wagons leave for Oakhaven at dawn tomorrow. She can ride in the back of the third carriage with the wounded. Once we get her past the Grand Wall, the church authorities or the local Ministry can handle her." Alden paused, then added, almost as an afterthought,"Oakhaven holds more people and more steel than this mere camp."

"Thank you, Captain," Vira said, a visible wave of relief washing over her. Stelle kept her eyes downcast, nodding meekly.

"Thank you, Captain..."

"Get some rest, Stelle," Vira said, kneeling down to gently take the empty wooden bowl from her hands.

"Tomorrow is going to be a long journey." As Vira and the Captain stepped out of the tent to finalize the transport details, the flap snapped shut once more. Alone in the warmth of the iron stove, the fragile, trembling child vanished. Stelle stood up, her bright blue eyes glowing with a cold, absolute clarity as she stared at the tent ceiling, ready for the dawn.