What had once been an empty, windswept plain had vanished so completely that anyone returning after only a few months would have doubted their own memory.

  The Human Heartland—formerly little more than a vast stretch of barren ground, a single massive warehouse, and a towering blue portal—had transformed into something resembling a city pulled straight from an optimistic blueprint.

  Steel-framed apartment complexes rose in neat rows, their surfaces gleaming faintly beneath artificial lighting. Power lines crisscrossed the skyline, humming with electricity that still functioned reliably this deep within human territory. Governments, desperate to stabilize civilian morale, had acted with astonishing speed. Fusion reactors were installed almost overnight, their output feeding not only the portal infrastructure but the growing urban sprawl surrounding it.

  Even more impressive—or alarming, depending on who was asked—were the 3D printers.

  Gigantic machines, each the size of a stadium, worked day and night. Layer by layer, they produced entire apartment blocks: walls, floors, plumbing, insulation—all assembled with mechanical precision and no human hands involved. The goal was simple. House the common population as quickly as possible.

  At first, wealth still spoke the loudest.

  Those with money rented standalone homes at outrageous prices. But money, as it turned out, was no longer the most stable currency in a world where survival itself was quantified. Within weeks, payment systems shifted to points—merit-based allocations tied to contribution, combat potential, or logistical value.

  Soon, a plot of land measuring 100 by 100 meters could be rented for 10 points per year.

  Just the land.

  No house included.

  That decision, more than any other, disappointed the public.

  The reason was brutally practical.

  The 3D-printed buildings worked perfectly—too perfectly. Their materials, optimized for efficiency, durability, and speed of construction, shared one fatal flaw: no human hands had shaped them. No human presence had been involved in their creation.

  And that mattered.

  Mana saturated the air now, invisible but pervasive. Humans cultivated it within their bodies, unconsciously altering their surroundings. Over time, scientists discovered, the very walls of the printed apartments absorbed mana at an alarming rate.

  Predictions were grim.

  Three years.

  That was how long a 3D-printed apartment could safely be inhabited before the mana saturation reached dangerous levels. The irony was bitter: stone walls, once symbols of safety, would eventually injure those who lived within them.

  Whether these mana-saturated materials would prove useful for something else remained an open question.

  For now, the governments did not care.

  It worked today.

  And for politicians, that was enough. If a solution held until the next election cycle—or the next emergency decree—then the consequences could always be someone else’s problem.

  At the edge of the city, where orderly streets gave way to farmland, stood a wooden villa.

  Unlike the printed steel apartments, it had been built the old way—by human hands, with wood that breathed and aged naturally. And inside it paced Simone.

  She had been stressed for days.

  No—weeks.

  It had started two months earlier, when she finally realized her niece, Tilly, was gone.

  At first, it hadn’t seemed unusual. All the children in the extended family underwent camouflage and evasion training. to be able to hide from anyone. The problem was that she was married into the family, so she did not have the same training since childhood, and she also was not able to search for them because she did not know where to look.

  Two days passed without seeing the girl.

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  Two days of questioning every nephew and niece under her care, pressing them until their eyes darted away and their silence became suspicious. That was when the truth came out.

  Tilly had gone to visit her grandfather.

  She had been bored.

  She had thought they were “doing fun stuff” at the front.

  And so she left.

  Simone nearly collapsed when she learned that.

  She had been entrusted with the children—her and several other in-laws—all women, of course. The men never admitted they were unsuited for childcare; they simply claimed the battlefield needed them more.

  Simone clenched her fists every time she thought about it.

  She was the head of the pediatric department at a major hospital. That had allowed her to be the chief caregiver for the children of their family. But now she had messed up by failing to account for a child in her care.

  She feared blame.

  Feared judgment.

  Feared that she had failed.

  In truth, no one blamed her.

  They should have known better. These children had been raised in secrecy, trained to vanish when they wished. Even the adults struggled to track them when they did not want to be found.

  Ironically, Simone’s visible anxiety had improved discipline among the rest of the children. Tilly was not the only one tempted to sneak off to see parents at the front—but watching their aunt pace the halls like a trapped wolf had cooled those urges quickly.

  Simone crossed the house for the fifteenth time that day.

  Then—

  The gate opened.

  Voices flooded the courtyard.

  Before she could fully process what was happening, she was nearly knocked over by a stampede of children. They raced past her, laughter echoing as they hurled themselves at their returning parents.

  “Did you fight goblins?!”

  “Were they really scary?!”

  “Did you sleep in tents?!”

  Their school curriculum had changed dramatically in recent months. Physical education was no longer about health—it was about readiness. Biology classes had expanded, focusing on anatomy, stamina, and mana circulation. Mathematics had been trimmed slightly, though not eliminated.

  School days were longer now.

  Much longer.

  At first, there had been proposals to overhaul the entire education system. Those plans were abandoned when scientists pointed out—correctly—that dismantling academic foundations would doom humanity in the long run.

  The compromise had pleased no one.

  Especially not the children.

  Simone stepped outside, suddenly feeling small.

  Her husband stood among the returning soldiers, smiling as he hugged their children. They clung to him, bombarding him with questions about goblins and battles and what it was like to sleep beneath open skies.

  “Hello, Denis,” Simone said quietly.

  Her voice betrayed her discomfort.

  Denis noticed immediately.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, hurrying toward her. “Are you hurt?”

  He reached for her forehead instinctively, checking for fever.

  Their son answered before she could.

  “It’s nothing, Dad. Mom’s just worried she’ll get blamed because Tilly went to the front with you.”

  Denis froze.

  Then—

  “Oh. That.”

  A familiar voice joined them.

  Karl had approached quietly, hands clasped behind his back.

  “That’s on us,” Karl said gently. “We didn’t consider that you weren’t trained the same way we were. You couldn’t have stopped her.”

  He smiled reassuringly.

  “So stop worrying.”

  He gestured around at the changed landscape.

  “Tell us what happened here while we were gone. It looks like the world didn’t wait for us.”

  For the first time in weeks, Simone felt her chest loosen. as she began to talk about the changes in the hearland.