Kaelen's vision blurs.
Pain detonated through his body at once. He hadn't expected the maid to move that fast. Not just fast but also bypassing Temporal Lock. The skill's description had warned him plainly enough, anyone significantly stronger can resist it, but reading that and seeing it were two entirely different experiences.
[–342 H.P]
One hit. A single hit had stripped that much out of him. Worse, the bleeding wasn't stopping.
[Flow Regrowth Lv.1]
[Warning: Host is currently bleeding]
[–5 H.P]
[Warning: Host is currently bleeding]
[–5 H.P]
[HP: 104/455]
Bloodline Thread kicked in before he could do anything.
[Bloodline Thread: Active] (E-Rank)
[Type: Neck Cord]
[Effect: When HP drops below 25%, grants +8 Defense, +6 Vitality]
[Duration: Effect lasts until HP rises above 40%]
[Limitation: Triggers only once per combat encounter]
[Defense: 64 – 72]
[Vitality: 77 – 83]
[HP: 131/485]
The numbers climbed but they were still in free fall. Flow Regrowth at this level was a bandage on a bullet wound. He had to do something now.
[–48 A.E]
[Health Regeneration Lv.1]
[Active Overdrive Mode: Cost 48 A.E]
[Effect: 20 HP/sec for 5 seconds]
[Cooldown: 30 seconds]
[HP: 181/485]
[HP: 202/455]
The shift was immediate. Not just numbers adjusting in his vision. He felt his tissue pulling itself back together, the bleeding sealing from the inside out. The lightheadedness lifted. What stayed was the pain: his femur had torn through skin, his ribs had collapsed on the left side, and neither of those were going anywhere in the next five hours.
He could hear Lira and the maid still exchanging blows thirty meters out. Jay was half-buried in the earth, clawing at it, unable to use her ability with something hindering her.
He couldn't fight like this.
He made a decision he might regret.
[Does the host intend to upgrade this skill: Yes/No]
He chose yes.
[Rare Skill Upgrade Token Used]
[Flow Regrowth Lv.1 — Lv.4]
[Variant Option]
Option I — Adaptive Evolution Variant
[Flow Regrowth Lv.4 — Adaptive Renewal]
[Function: HP regen +20%. Body adapts to repeated trauma]
[Special: Bones that fracture and heal become denser. Muscle damage increases future resilience. Immunity to experienced toxins]
[Cost: None (Passive)]
[Note: Repeated exposure accelerates adaptation. Recklessness accelerates mutation risk.]
Option II — Temporal Surge Variant
[Flow Regrowth Lv.4 — Rewind Pulse]
[Function: HP Regen +18% baseline. Active Trigger: Upon activation, body rewinds 3 minutes before all damage, can be activated at any given time.
Auto: Upon dropping below 15% HP, body rewinds 3 minutes of all damage (Cooldown: 24 hours)]
[Special: When Temporal Surge activates, a faint afterimage of Kaelen from 5 seconds in the future manifests for 3 seconds. The echo mirrors his next action with reduced force and efficiency. Enemies struck by both real and echo attacks suffer destabilization, as if hit twice in overlapping time. The echo cannot speak. It cannot be harmed. It disappears once its mirrored action completes.]
[Cost: 40% of A.E Drain on activation]
[Note: Does not restore aether]
He absorbed both options in the span of a breath. First, he hadn't known a rare token could vault a skill three full levels, two was the ceiling he'd assumed. Second, skills could branch. They could evolve into something different entirely, not just stronger. He filed that away. He'd think about what it meant later.
[Flow Regrowth Lv.4 — Rewind Pulse has been chosen]
He didn't activate it.
[SHOP — LEVEL 1]
[SP: 5,875]
He called it mentally and the interface surfaced, a cold blue shimmer at the edge of his vision.
[Categories]
— Abilities
— Skills
— Skill Upgrades
— Weapons
— Accessories
— Consumables
— Information
— Combat Techniques
He went straight to skills. And stopped.
There it was. Listed like it had always been there, like he hadn't been looking for it since the first time it slipped through his fingers.
[Chrono-Step Lv.1]
[Type: Active]
[Function: User accelerates time perception by four times the average. Experiences 2 seconds subjectively while only 0.5 seconds pass in reality]
[Cost: 45 A.E.]
[Duration: 10 seconds]
He bought it without hesitating, then grabbed one more.
[Spatial Compression Lv.1]
[Type: Active]
[Function: Compresses space inward at a specific point for 5 seconds, generating a pulling and crushing force like a black hole.]
[Cost: 65 A.E. Range: 5 meters. Cooldown: 5 minutes]
[SP: 5,295]
Good enough. He pulled himself upright. It hurt more than it should have. He opened his Oblivion Pouch and started pulling things out.
[–9 A.E]
[–9 A.E]
[–9 A.E]
[–9 A.E]
[–9 A.E]
[–9 A.E]
[A.E: 428/630]
The Guardian's Band went on first, then the Gravepulse Mandate. He felt the stat corrections settle into his body. The Aether Chain he wrapped around his waist. Then he reached for the two things he'd been sitting on for weeks now.
The Black Vein Draught and the Silent Emotion.
[Black Vein Draught] (E-Rank)
[Type: Elixir / One-time consumable]
[Effect: Instantly restores stamina to full, removes fatigue and minor physical debuffs]
[Silent Emotion] (E-Rank, CURSED)
[Type: One-time consumable (ingestible)]
[Effect: For 6 seconds, user's mind enters enforced stillness. No fear, doubt, or pain. No emotional interference. Thoughts become cold, efficient, mechanical. Every action taken is precise and optimal.]
[Curse: After effect ends, user loses access to emotions for 6 minutes. Complete emotional absence. Can speak, act, and think, but everything feels distant. When emotions return, they surge back all at once. Aftereffect: Tremors, nausea, mental disorientation. Repeated use increases risk of permanent emotional shutdown.]
When he'd first read Silent Emotion's description, he had thought he'd be able to manage the aftermath. Control it, at least partially. He'd been wrong.
He drank both.
[Flow Regrowth Lv.4 — Rewind Pulse: Active]
He turned and started walking toward the woman who had just taken hold of Lira's wrist.
"Let her go."
Both of them turned.
He stood fifteen meters back. His hair was lifting at the edges, aether seeping out of him and dragging the air with it in slow, visible currents. His ribs were knitting, if you listened for it, you could hear bone finding bone again, a faint grinding that didn't quite sound real. His shoulder had already reset, reversed by slow pulses of gold light eating through the damage in reverse.
He looked at the maid with eyes that had gone entirely flat.
"Quite the vitality —"
She never finished it.
BAM.
The impact caught her mid-word and ripped her off the ground. She crossed the gap to the boulder field in less than a second and hit the first rock hard enough to carve a trench through three of them before she stopped. Dust rolled up around her in a thick grey cloud.
Nobody moved.
"Get Jay out of the mud," Kaelen said. "And leave. Don't argue."
Lira opened her mouth. Then she looked at him, and closed it again. Whatever was standing there wasn't quite Kaelen. She moved toward Jay without another word, and the earth loosened just enough as the maid's attention shifted. Jay clawed herself free.
The maid rose from the rubble.
Not stumbling or bracing. She smoothed the front of her uniform, straightened the hem at her waist, and scanned the distance Kaelen had put between them.
"That was quite the burst," she said.
Before she could continue, Kaelen was already at her face. His fist was already moving.
[–19 A.E]
[A.E.: 409/630]
"You seem to be mistaken," she said, just before the hit connected.
BOOM.
It was a thunderous echo.
The impact should have sent her tumbling again, but it didn't. Kaelen's fist was on her face and the force had gone nowhere. It hadn't moved her chin a centimeter. It hadn't even shifted the set of her expression.
"I merely allowed your previous hit to connect," she finished.
Kaelen was already moving backward. Not out of choice but instincts. Even with Silent Emotion hollowing out everything above the instinct line, her presence still reached down and pressed against that older part of him that knew danger.
"Is that all?" she asked.
She was in front of him before the question finished.
[–19 A.E]
[A.E.: 390/630]
He activated Flash Step and threw himself backward, still keeping her in his line of sight. She followed. He felt the gap between their speeds like a physical thing. While he was at full throttle, she was strolling and djusting without effort.
He engaged her directly, activating Chrono-Step.
[–43 A.E]
[A.E.: 347/630]
It synced with Chrono-Perception and for a moment the world stretched, every microsecond acquiring texture and depth. He aimed a kick at her knee. She shifted her weight backward by a fraction and the kick found nothing.
They kept at it. She was playing. He knew she was playing. Under the cold enforced stillness of the Silent Emotion, he could read it cleanly without the noise of frustration or fear to distort it.
He was the one being evaluated.
...
From behind a cluster of boulders, Lira and Jay watched.
"We need to get help, Lira," Jay said quietly.
"I'm not leaving him."
"If we don't, she's going to kill him."
"That's why I have to stay." Lira's voice climbed without her meaning it to.
"You can't beat her. Neither can Kaelen. That's just the truth."
Lira didn't answer right away. She watched Kaelen redirect another exchange, watched him bend space and extend distance and still come out half a step behind every time. She thought about every moment since he'd awakened. How she'd intended to protect him, but she had only been a liability.
"You're not a liability," Jay said, reading the shape of her silence. "That's not what I'm saying."
Lira looked at her.
"If you want to actually help him, the help isn't here. Let's find the entrance and get someone who can do something."
A long moment. Then Lira turned away from the fight.
...
The six seconds of Silent Emotion had already passed. He was deep into the six-minute aftermath now, everything operating from a distance, his own thoughts arriving to him like sound through water.
The maid changed her approach. She aimed for his left ribs.
Kaelen caught it and activated Aether Harden on overdrive.
[–23 A.E]
[A.E.: 324/630]
The defense boost registered. The hit came in anyway and the defense might as well have been painted on.
[–52 H.P]
[HP: 403/455]
He felt the sting radiate across his side. She had deliberately reduced the force. She was capable of significantly more than what she was doing.
"Why?" He activated Spatial Warp and pushed space outward between them, buying five meters.
[–24 A.E]
[A.E.: 300/630]
She stopped.
"Why do you intend to kill us?" he asked again.
"You are mistaken," she said, calmly. "If that had been my intention, all three of you would already be dead." Her eyes moved briefly to where Lira and Jay had been, then returned. They're gone.
"Your killing intent was everywhere when you arrived," Kaelen said.
She tilted her head slightly, studying him the way someone studies an object they weren't expecting to find interesting. "Now that I consider it, you were the first to go defensive. Before I'd done anything." She paused. "I hadn't expressed the intent outward. And yet you knew."
Kaelen said nothing.
"Are you a trained soldier?"
"I'm an adventurer."
Something shifted in her expression. Not warmth. "Your instincts are exceptional," she said. "Regrettable, then, that this is where your story ends."
She closed the distance without warning.
...
For a moment, Kaelen thought that was it.
Then the system notification fired and a voice cut through the air between them, landing exactly one beat before the impact could connect.
"Mel."
The maid's fist stopped. Suspended in the space just in front of Kaelen's face, perfectly still, like it had always been there.
"I asked you not to engage them when they arrive, didn't I?"
Mel straightened slowly, pulling her arm back. "I was testing their efficiency."
She sighed. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Kaelen."
He turned.
She was standing at the edge of the boulder field with Lira and Jay behind her, a cluster of guards spread out at her flanks. She was roughly his height. Her hair was a deep, lush green, falling past her waist without effort. The gown she wore was doing most of the work of hiding the rest of her figure, and failing pleasantly at it. Kaelen registered all of this in about half a second.
Then his legs gave out.
He didn't fall so much as fold. He hit one knee and Lira was already moving toward him. He shoved her aside, not roughly but with intention, turned his head, and threw up.
Nobody had been expecting that. The guards stood there. Mel stood there. Even the new lady looked briefly unsure what expression to wear.
He stayed where he was until it passed, then pushed himself upright.
"And you are?" he asked, directing it at the girl.
"I am Penelope Divian," she said, there was a small, genuine smile in it.
Kaelen looked past her to the maid. "Judging by her obedience, that psycho is your maid."
"You should be careful with that word, Mr. Kaelen." Penelope's tone stayed pleasant. "I've restricted her. That doesn't mean you're untouchable."
Jay inhaled like she was about to say something. Kaelen got there first.
"We're dropping the quest." He looked at Lira and Jay. "Let's go."
Neither of them argued. They'd both felt exactly what he was feeling, they'd done nothing, and they'd been attacked for it, and now they were being threatened again. Lira fell in beside him. Jay followed.
"Wait. Please don't leave," Penelope called.
They kept walking.
"Should we stop them, ma'am?" one of the guards asked.
"No."
Then, louder and deliberate: "I'll raise the pay to a million if you take it."
Kaelen stopped mid-step.
The girls kept moving for a moment before they registered the absence of his footsteps and looked back.
From somewhere behind him, one of the guards muttered something low. Another one answered. A third added something with a quiet laugh. He didn't need to hear the exact words.
He turned.
"This is the problem with people like you." His voice was leveled. There was no shaking in it. "Money fixes everything. That's the whole worldview, isn't it? Someone gets hurt, someone gets offended, someone almost gets killed by your maid, doesn't matter. Throw numbers at it. Why bother developing the basic decency to treat people like people? Why try? You've got resources. Go buy some playthings with your stinking money."
He wasn't done.
"Un-empathizing. Evil. Uncaring bastards."
The silence that followed had a texture to it.
The guards weren't muttering anymore. Mel stood perfectly still, hands at her sides. Lira had her hand pressed against her own arm and wasn't looking at anyone. Jay had gone very quiet, her eyes moving between Kaelen and Penelope.
Penelope burst out laughing.
She gripped her own stomach, doubled forward slightly, and genuinely lost her composure for several seconds. When she came back up, there were tears at the corners of her eyes and she was still fighting it.
"Stop," she managed. "I genuinely cannot—" Another wave hit her. She pressed her lips together and rode it out.
When she finally settled, she walked toward him. Unhurried. The laughter had left something different in her expression, not amusement exactly, more like actual interest.
"Most people either grovel or flatter. I haven't had someone speak to me that way in a very long time."
"I'm not interested in your money or your approval."
She closed the remaining distance and stopped just short of arm's length. Then she lowered her head slightly, a small, sincere bow.
"I owe you an apology. A real one." The playful edge in her voice was still there, but something heavier was sitting underneath it now. "Mel answers to me. What she did when you arrived was my responsibility to prevent, and I didn't. However she frames it, that's not how you should have been treated on this property. I'm sorry."
Kaelen's head was still throbbing from the aftereffects of Silent Emotion. He didn't respond.
Penelope didn't wait. She stepped beside him, looped both arms around his left one without asking, and leaned into his shoulder with the easy familiarity of someone who'd decided they were already comfortable.
"On the bright side," she said pleasantly, "you'd make a wonderful groom."
Dead silence.
"Brave. Direct. No visible concern for consequences." She tilted her head, appearing to genuinely consider it. "I think you'd do."
Kaelen looked down at his arm. At her hands. Back up.
He pulled his arm free. Firmly with no anger in it.
"Don't do that," he said.
Penelope stepped back without a word, her composure intact, as if she'd expected it and wasn't the least bit put out.
Mel's eyes tracked Kaelen for a moment before returning forward. Whatever was running through her head stayed there.
Lira said nothing. Jay, uncharacteristically, had her mouth shut.
"I want you to reconsider," Penelope said. "Not because of the money. I genuinely need help."
Lira stepped forward. "If that were true, you could have simply asked. Instead of making your maid—"
"That wasn't my instruction," Penelope said, and looked at Mel with something almost sharp in it.
Mel offered nothing. Her face gave back nothing.
Jay moved closer to Lira. "We came all this way. We should at least hear her out."
Kaelen exhaled. The exhaustion was catching up fast now that the adrenaline had drained.
"Fine." He met Penelope's eyes. "But if she moves on us again, we're gone. No conversation or negotiation."
Penelope smiled and it reached her eyes this time. "Deal. Mel will behave." She glanced back. "Won't you, Mel."
It wasn't a question.
Mel gave a single nod. Her gaze was still on Kaelen with an attention that sat just past professional and didn't have a comfortable name.
...
They moved toward the right side of the dome.
"How did you two even find her?" Kaelen asked, glancing back at Lira.
"After we left you with Mel, we ran toward the right side looking for an entrance. Luck was with us, we found it. Penelope was already there with her guards." Lira paused. "She listened when we explained."
"She said she'd been expecting adventurers," Jay added, "but hadn't anticipated Mel going at us that hard."
Penelope walked beside them, hands clasped at the small of her back. "This farmland is part of my family's estate. We grow crops that require specific Aether conditions to develop properly. The dome maintains those conditions as well as acting as a barrier. Lately, my beasts have been... unsettled."
"The Lantern Rams," Kaelen said.
"Yes." Her tone shifted slightly. "They're such gentle things ordinarily. They just seem to want out of their harness lately."
"Have you considered letting them go?"
"It's not about their freedom," she said. Then, throwing her arms out in a small dramatic gesture: "It's like they don't like me anymore."
Kaelen was quiet for a moment, rubbing his aching side.
"Why hire F-ranks?" he asked. "Why isn't your family dealing with it themselves."
"If I'm right about your family," Lira added, "the Divians have produced multiple AA ranks and at least a handful of SS."
"Mel can handle it," Penelope said simply.
"No jokes there," Kaelen said, still feeling the ache on his side.
"Mel can handle every beast in this dome with one hand."
"Then why hire anyone at all?" Lira pressed.
Penelope looked at her evenly. "Because I needed company."
Silence.
"Why do you think the pay was a hundred thousand?"
"We assumed the Divians were just stingy billionaires," Jay said.
"Jay," Lira said.
Penelope laughed again, shorter this time. "While that's not entirely inaccurate—"
"The pay was low enough to filter out most experienced parties," Kaelen said, cutting her off. "Any group worth their rating would have looked at a hundred thousand against a hundred beasts and said no. But F-ranks are mostly new. Enthusiastic. Still doing the math wrong. And the quest was structured for a party without spelling it out, so whoever accepted would need to be the type looking to stack points and prove something."
"A party like us," Jay said.
Lira caught the rest of it. "Anyone else who noticed the quest would've done the same calculation. A hundred beasts, low pay, party requirement. Too much work for too little. The only ones who'd actually show up were someone hungry enough not to care."
Penelope looked between the three of them. "You're all much sharper than you appear to be."
"Company shouldn't be hard to find for someone like you," Jay said.
"Real company is," Penelope replied. There was something flat in it now. "Everyone I interact with knows exactly who my family is before they say the first word to me. I needed people my age."
"You could have written a quest for friendship," Jay said. "Set an age range."
"And let everyone know that the daughter of one of the most prominent families in the enclave is lonely enough to advertise for it?" The smile came back but thinner. "No."
"I'm sorry," Jay said. "I didn't mean it to come out like that."
"I know. You didn't offend me."
"That's why your obsessive maid attacked us," Kaelen said, glancing toward Mel.
"She is not obsessive."
"She sensed a potential threat to you, identified us the moment she knew we were the adventurers who'd accepted, and engaged without hesitation," Kaelen said. "How is that not obsessive."
"I tested the competence of those who would be in proximity to my lady," Mel said.
Nobody had a response to that.
The rest of the walk was quiet. Kaelen let it be quiet. He pulled up the interface in his head and went through what he hadn't had a chance to check since the fight started.
[Quest: End of a Solo Life]
[Status: Ongoing]
[Classification: Side Quest / Type: Mandatory]
[Difficulty: ???]
[Objectives:]
— Form a registered party (Completed)
— Defeat 50 beasts while in formed party (0/50)
— Defeat at least 10 E-rank beasts (0/10)
[Rewards: +2500 XP | +5 Stat Points | +1500 SP]
[Time Limit: None]
He looked at the second notification. The one he'd had sitting there since the middle of the fight.
[Quest: Survivor]
[Status: Complete]
[Reward: Pending]
He stared at it for a moment.
Then he closed the interface and kept walking.