Some time passed with the merchant, and it became clear she was better at everything housekeeping-related than I was. She repaired the roof and walls, reset my broken traps with expert precision, cooked actual meals instead of scorched meat and melted snow, and even fixed my gear. My left boot—once ripped wide open—was reinforced and stitched with sinew, and my bent brass shoulder guard, crushed from the Wendigo's blow, was reshaped and buffed to a soft gleam. Honestly, there were probably a dozen more things she mended that I hadn't even noticed.
Whenever I tried to stop her—saying things like, "You don't have to do that," or *"Thank you, but really, you don't need to"—*she always replied the same way:
"If you're not in tip-top shape when you recover, all of my effort will be wasted. So just relax."
It was hard to argue with her logic. And harder still to argue with someone who wore a blank porcelain mask that never moved. No smile. No frown. Just two eye holes and a soft curve where a mouth should be.
I never saw her face.
Never heard her breathing.
But she was always moving. Always working.
Once I could move without grinding pain in every limb, I suggested we leave—find shelter somewhere safer. But the merchant shook her head.
"The Third of the Five Great Storms is almost here. We'll be cooped up for days. Better warm than buried."
So we stayed in the cabin.
The blizzards came and went like wolves circling a fire. Inside, we began talking. About my memories. About the letters I had received.
Then she said something that stuck with me.
"You're from Earth—the world Albatross sends its criminals to. And Earth does the same in return. The rift's been open for years now. You? You slipped through... and the world couldn't decide what to make of you."
I frowned. "Then why did I get a letter? Why do I have choices… and level up?"
She tilted her head. The mask stared back at me.
"Because you're a foreign soul. The system doesn't bind you like it binds us. It adapts. That letter? It's the world's way of letting you grow the only way it knows how—through change."
I asked more questions, and she answered them as she cleaned a blade by the fire.
"In Albatross, anything with a soul can grow. Plants level by surviving. A weed that weathers ten winters might bloom with teeth. Animals evolve through behavior. A rat that steals enough becomes ratfolk. Given time and action, even a ratfolk can become something more—rat demihuman, then noble-beast."
She tapped the side of her mask gently.
"Humans? We level through pain. Through loss. Through will. Our minds change, our bodies follow. That's how your kind—our kind—gets stronger."
I thought of the cold. The Wendigo. The knife. The way my body moved now.
Maybe I'd already begun to change.