Si Hon raised the katana and pointed it toward the bushes, blade steady, eyes locked on the rustling shadow.
Then something small pushed through the snow— white fur, long ears dusted pale, a trembling little nose testing the air.
A rabbit.
It hopped out from the bushes, paused, then froze the second it noticed him, round eyes locking onto the blade pointed vaguely in its direction.
For a long second nothing moved.
「New species detected: Rabbit.」
Si Hon's eye twitched. "I know what that is."
The window lingered, then, awkwardly: 「Ah. Yes. Apologies.」
"It's fine," Si Hon muttered, lowering the katana just a little, and the rabbit took that as permission to bolt, vanishing into the white like it had never existed at all.
Hana piped up immediately. "That's still food, right? Why did you let it go, Dad?"
"Shit…" he whispered to himself, staring at the empty spot where the rabbit had disappeared, nothing left behind but snow.
He exhaled slow through his nose and let his shoulders drop.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Still food." He slid the katana back into its sheath with a faint click.
She watched him closely, head tilted, clearly trying to piece together what had just happened.
"But you didn't take it," she said. "You're always saying food is important."
Si Hon picked up the backpack and swung it back over his shoulder, weight settling in familiar now.
"That thing?" he said, glancing down at her. "Don't worry, it was too small and too fast. And…" he paused, "…not worth it.
She squinted at him, unconvinced. "Okay,"
Si Hon muttered. "Okay… yes, I forgot that's food." He sighed and reached out anyway, and she slipped her hand into his like it had always belonged there.
"It's okay," she said simply.
They started walking.
The tower loomed larger now, its silhouette cutting into the pale sky like a scar that never quite healed— still far, but closer than before, at least.
Snow crunched under their boots, ice shifting somewhere beneath, the river murmuring behind them, patient as ever.
For a few steps neither of them spoke, until Si Hon finally sighed. "Hey."
She looked up immediately. "Yes, Dad?"
"Now that I think about it," he said, casual, "do you have a name?"
She blinked, then nodded once. "Yes. It's B2."
Si Hon stopped walking entirely. "B2…"
"Yes?"
He rubbed his face with one hand. "Yeah, no…"
She stiffened slightly. "Why?"
He looked down at her and sighed again, longer this time. "That's not a name," he said. "That's… a code or something."
She didn't argue, just watched him carefully.
Si Hon placed a hand on her head, fingers ruffling her hair gently. "Alright. We're fixing that."
She froze. "Fixed?"
"Yeah," he said. "I'm naming you."
Her breath caught audibly.
He thought about it for a second, then, quietly— "Ha-na," he said.
"Hana." Her eyes went wide. "My name…" she whispered, and then, without any warning at all, she threw herself at him. "Thank you, Papa!"
"Ay!" Her weight hit him at the worst possible angle, right on the ice, and both of them slipped at once.
"Ah!"
They went down hard, sliding a short distance before finally stopping in a spray of snow.
Silence.
"Are you okay?" she asked, lying half on top of him.
"I think so," he groaned. "You're surprisingly hyper."
She laughed, delighted despite the fall. "I will cherish it," she said, entirely serious. "My name."
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, pushing himself carefully upright. "Okay. Up. Before the mountain decides this is funny and starts tweaking out again."
They stood, brushing snow off clothes that would probably never really be clean again, and he took her hand once more— this time she held tighter than before.
They walked, step by step, toward the tower, the river continuing to flow beneath the ice behind them, unbothered by any of it.
***
Hours later.
The tower stood in front of them now, and up close it felt different entirely— the spine of a dead god piercing straight through the sky, dark and massive and impossibly ancient, carved from stone no world should naturally be able to produce, radiating presence the way a held breath radiates tension.
Bitch. Slurrrz.
The air around it shimmered faintly, bending light like heat over a desert sand despite the brutal cold, like reality itself was straining just to keep the thing standing.
Si Hon stopped walking.
For a moment he just stood there, taking it in. "Yeah," he muttered. "Still ugly and creepy."
He took one step forward, and the world reacted— a red circle spreading across the ground, perfect, clean, too clean, expanding outward from the tower's base and carving a sharp boundary into the ground.
The moment it finished forming, everything stopped. Snow froze mid-fall. The wind died instantly. Even the sound itself seemed to stope for a sec..
Hana smiled up at it. "It looks so cool, now that I'm actually seeing it and focusing on it."
Si Hon exhaled. "Yeah," he said. "I know."
A familiar presence settled into the air around them.
「Safe Zone detected.」
「Welcome back, Player.」
「This area has been designated as your Safe Zone.」
Si Hon closed his eyes for a second. "Welcome back my ass." He opened them again and found the tent still standing there, still okay, and stared at it a moment before snorting.
"Man," he said quietly. "I actually missed this stupid thing. Like, actually."
Hana glanced between the tower and the tent, staring at the tent a few seconds longer before finally speaking. "Can I go inside the tent?"
Si Hon glanced over his shoulder.
"Yeah," he said. "Sure."
She giggled and scrambled over, ducking inside, the fabric rustling as it swallowed her whole.
The interior was dark but not cold, the ground rough even with the tent floating slightly, though none of that mattered to her.
It smelled faintly like new shoes and something else, something almost familiar. She curled up, and the world slowed down for her— the tower didn't move, the fire outside didn't scare her, the mountain didn't feel close anymore.
Her eyes closed, just for a bit.
***
Si Hon checked on her a few minutes later, lifting the tent flap slightly to peek inside, and found her already out cold, breathing slowly, body curled around the blanket he'd given her earlier, hands tucked close like she was afraid the world might take them the second she let go.
He paused there for a moment.
"Tired, I see," he muttered quietly, lowering the flap again carefully so it wouldn't make noise.
He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders and set it down near the tower's base. "Alright," he said. "Let's fix things up."
He moved without rushing, picking up dry branches scattered near the circle's edge, snapping a few of the longer ones in half, gathering flat stones and stacking them into a rough ring.
He pulled more branches out of the backpack along with a few rocks, arranged them inside the ring, then dug out one of the lighters.
(Haha, luckily I'm not gonna be a caveman, I got this lighter with me.)
He crouched, struck it, fed the flame slowly and carefully until it caught— small at first, then steady, warmth finally creeping back into the air around him.
He leaned back on his hands. "There we go."
Then he noticed the tent shifting, Hana's head popping back out through the flap.
He glanced over.
"Rule update," he said. "Fire stays inside the rocks. Don't touch it."
"I won't," she said immediately, already ducking back inside.
"Good."
The System stayed quiet.
Snow remained frozen at the edge of the Safe Zone, like the mountain itself was waiting patiently for permission to move again.
Si Hon looked around— tower behind him, a tent nearby, fire crackling in front, food secured in the bag, water bottled and safe.
"Yeah," he muttered. "This'll do for now." He sat down near the fire, the tower looming silent and unmoving above him, and for now, at least, they were safe.
***
He sat there a long while after that, just watching the fire eat through the dry branches, letting the warmth work its way back into fingers that had gone numb somewhere between the river and the fall on the ice.
And probably the naming part too.
It was the first real quiet he'd had since waking up in that cave, and he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it.
He pulled the swollen notebook out from where he'd tucked it earlier and turned it over in his hands, testing the fused pages gently with a thumbnail, deciding against forcing them apart just yet— not with the fire this close, not with the ink probably long gone anyway.
He set it aside instead, propped near the fire to dry slowly.
From inside the tent, muffled through the fabric, came a small, sleepy voice. "Dad?" He glanced over. "Yeah?"
"Is Hana a good name?"
He paused for a second, actually thinking about it instead of throwing back something quick.
"Yeah," he said finally. "It's a good name."
A pause, then, quieter. "Why'd you pick it?"
He looked at the fire instead of the tent, like it might help him find the answer faster. "Dunno. Just felt right when I said it."
Another pause, longer this time, before her voice came again, smaller.
"I like it. I like that you picked it. Not anyone else. You."
Si Hon didn't answer right away, just watched the flames for a bit, something settling quietly and heavy in his chest that he didn't really have a name for either.
"Go back to sleep, Hana," he said eventually, voice a little rougher than he meant it to be. "Tomorrow's probably gonna suck too."
"Okay, Dad," she mumbled, already drifting again, and the tent went still.
Si Hon stayed by the fire a while longer, alone with the tower and the frozen snow and the quiet, and for once, he didn't mind it at all.