Time passed slowly.
Too slowly.
Only half an hour had passed since he had been wrapped like a mummy, but for Kael it felt much longer. He stared at the ceiling, counting cracks he had never noticed before. The bandages itched constantly, and the wooden supports dug into his sides. He couldn't move at all.
This is torture, he thought. Worse than interrogation.
But there were other things to do.
Only now did Kael remember something important.
This was the first time he had used his skills in a real battle.
He activated the status panel again.
How much mana do I have left?
Mana Capacity:17,310 + 170,000 / 18,000 + 170,000
"…17,310 mana."
So I spent 690 mana.
But where?
Kael started thinking calmly.
First, the spar with Seraphina.
About five minutes.
In that fight, I only used Sword Master.
Nothing else.
At the beginning of that fight, my mana was full.
Then the assassins.
Another five minutes.
During that fight, I used Black Sun one time.
Corrupting Gaze was active from the beginning to the end of the fight, but I already learned something about that skill.
It does not consume mana.
Instead, it gives mana by stealing it from enemies.
Even though it was only about 100 mana in total, it still counted as gain.
Then there was the elf.
I used Grand Mirror of Total Reflection once, to reflect his dagger.
That was everything.
Now, the calculation.
Sword Master consumes mana only when I use its body enhancement.
One mana per second.
I used it for ten minutes without stopping.
10 × 60 = 600 mana.
Black Sun…
That skill felt heavy.
About 90 mana.
600 + 90 = 690 mana.
Kael nodded slightly.
18,000 − 690 = 17,310.
"…So it matches."
Which means—
Grand Mirror only consumed around 100 mana to block that dagger.
so now about skills
Slot 1: SWORD MASTER (A-Rank / Offensive / Sword) (1.5%)
Slot 2: RIPPLE SLASH (B-Rank / Offensive) (1.0%)
Slot 3: CORRUPTING GAZE (S-Rank / Offensive / Eye) (1.3%)
Slot 4: The Grand Mirror of Total Reflection (S+ Rank / Defensive) (1.1%)
Slot 5: Black Sun (A-Rank / Active / Offensive) (1.11%)
None of them hit two percent. What did I expect? It was only ten minutes. But with killing, I thought it might hit two percent. If you kill living creatures using your skills, skill mastery increases faster. But most of them were weak and human, not monsters you could raise mastery on like collecting experience.
Now I understood why they say if you have two or more great skills at the same time, it is bad. They divide your experience.
As Kael was monologuing his experience in his mind, he heard noises from the bed on his right side.
The bed was white from bottom to top. Only its wooden legs were a different color. On that bed, Seraphina was covered with only a thin white blanket, not bandages like Kael.
Seraphina stirred.
Kael turned his head slightly, watching her eyelashes flutter before her eyes opened. She looked confused for a second—then her gaze snapped to him.
"…Kael?"
"I'm alive," he said flatly. "Fortunately."
She blinked, then noticed the bandages.
Her lips trembled, like she was about to cry.
Kael was ready to comfort her if she cried. It would be understandable. The experience had been too much for a ten-year-old girl.
But instead of crying, as Kael expected, she laughed.
Not a small laugh. Not a polite one. She laughed until tears formed in
Seraphina laughed for a long time.
Kael watched her in silence, his face stiff, his eyes became cold.
"…You look ridiculous," she finally said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
"I will remember this," Kael replied. "Every single second of it."
"Sure, sure. Don't forget this. I don't care. I'm just happy you're alive."
She stopped laughing.
"I'm alive too," she said softly.
Then she started crying.
Tears ran down her cheeks, but they were not tears of laughter like before. These were different—heavier, filled with something deeper. Relief, fear, and sadness all mixed together.
"I thought I was going to die. If you weren't here, I don't know what might have happened to me."
Her sobs were quiet but real. Kael didn't know what to say. He just stayed there, letting her cry, knowing she needed this.
Footsteps echoed outside the room.
Kael recognized them immediately.
The door opened.
Selara entered.
The air in the room changed the moment she stepped inside. The guards outside straightened without being told. No one spoke.
Her eyes went first to Seraphina.
She was crying quietly, shoulders trembling.
Selara paused for a moment.
Then she looked at Kael.
Her gaze swept over the bandages, the wooden supports, the way he was completely immobilized. Her expression softened, the tension in her shoulders easing. Relief washed over her face—both of them were alright.
"…You're alright?," she said.
"Yes," Kael replied. "Thanks to overdoing it."
Selara ignored the comment.
She walked closer to Seraphina's bed and spoke gently. "You're safe now. No one will hurt you here."
Seraphina looked up at her with red eyes and nodded weakly.
Selara placed a hand on her head for a brief moment, then turned back to Kael.
"You did well, Kael. I'm proud of you. You stayed alive through an assassination attempt, and on top of that, you protected someone. That is a huge feat."
Kael was about to tell her to remove the bandages, that he was alright, but after hearing his mother's words, all he could manage was, "Thank you, Mom."
"But you left your fiancée crying and didn't comfort her. That is a minus point."
Kael just shrugged it off. "Yes, yes. Manners. Sorry. I thought she needed some time."
Then he asked immediately, "Where is the elf?"
"He is locked up in the dungeon. Still alive. We need to interrogate him, since he is the only one left from them. But I don't understand why an elf was with humans in this assassination attempt."
"He was separate," Kael said. "He just watched them die without doing anything and only attacked at the end. So I concluded that he used them to tire me down, and they didn't even know they were being followed."
"That is most likely true," Selara answered. "But this means two different forces managed to enter our castle and try to assassinate you both without alerting anybody. This is bad."
"I ask you not to kill him accidentally while interrogating him. I want to meet him myself."
"Alright. I will do as you say," Selara replied. "But you will stay like this for a couple of days. I need my heart to calm down before I stop worrying about you."
"Okay, okay," Kael said quickly. "But please remove these sticks from my limbs. They didn't break."
Seraphina started laughing again, from the familiar atmosphere in the room.
Far from the castle, deep within the dense forest, the surviving assassins gathered. Their breaths were heavy, their limbs shaking from exhaustion and fear. One by one, they counted their losses, finally realizing just how close they had come to death. Fear spread among them faster than the pain of their wounds.
"We… we failed," one of them muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I don't know what we will say to the first princess," another said, rubbing his trembling hands together.
"She will surely kill us," a third added, his face pale.
"What do we do… what do we do?" one panicked, pacing back and forth, his thoughts spiraling out of control.
After a long silence, one of them finally spoke. His voice was calm but empty."Let's just go back and confess our failure. We can't run anyway. We are marked with slave tattoos. If she wants us dead, we will die no matter where we hide."
No one argued.
They all knew it was true.
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