On the fifth day, Ravenna got poisoned.
It happened fast because one moment she was walking beside him through a relatively clear stretch of swamp, and the next she was stumbling with her skin going grey and her lungs making a wet rattling sound with every breath.
"Dante... something's wrong..."
He caught her before she hit the mud and checked her body for wounds, finding a set of puncture marks on her ankle still oozing dark blood. Something had bitten her, something small and fast that he had missed because he was too focused on the path ahead.
'Swamp viper, rare spawn that usually stays deeper in the mire, and the venom kills in about four hours if you don't have the antidote.'
"Can you walk?" He checked the puncture wounds again while calculating how much time he had.
"I don't... I can't feel my leg..."
'Shit shit shit.'
He lowered her to the ground and propped her against a gnarled root while pressing his hand against her forehead. She was already burning up and the fever meant the venom was working fast.
"Listen to me." He grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. "There's a flower that grows about two kilometers northwest of here, silver petals with a black center, and it's the antidote. I'm going to get it."
"Two kilometers..." Her voice was already slurring. "That's too far, you can't make it in time."
"Watch me." He pulled a knife from his belt and pressed it into her hand. "Anyone comes near you who isn't me, you stab them, understand?"
"Dante..."
"Promise me."
Her fingers closed around the handle with what strength she had left. "I promise."
He stood and took one more look at her face before turning and running into the swamp.
---
Dante had been holding back since the moment he regressed.
He had been pretending to be weaker, slower, less capable, hiding the skills that made him a High Ranker because attention was dangerous and questions were worse. None of that mattered now because Ravenna was dying and there was no time for caution.
He moved through the swamp at speeds his body shouldn't have been capable of, leaping over murky pools and dodging twisted roots with the precision of someone who had done this exact run before. His stats said he was still weak, still limited, still suppressed by a vessel that hadn't caught up with his knowledge, but his stats were wrong because muscle memory overrode physical limitations while combat instincts compensated for missing strength.
Eight years of experience pushed through whatever barriers the Tower had placed on his regressed form, turning him into something that moved without hesitation or doubt.
A swamp creature lunged from the water and he killed it without slowing down, his knife finding its brain before it could finish its attack. Another emerged from the shadows ahead and he went through it rather than around, leaving corpses in his wake.
[Enemy slain: Mire Stalker]
[Enemy slain: Swamp Leech]
[Enemy slain: Mire Stalker]
[System points accumulating...]
He didn't care about the notifications or points or attention or any of the careful calculations he had been making since Floor 1.
The flower field appeared exactly where he remembered it, a small island of solid ground covered in silver blooms that glowed faintly in the dim light. He grabbed a handful of them and stuffed them into his pack before turning back the way he came.
The return trip took less than five minutes.
---
She was barely conscious when he reached her, her skin grey and her breathing shallow. The knife was still clutched in her hand with dark blood on the blade, and three dead creatures surrounded her position.
'She fought even while dying, and that's more than most full humans would have done.'
"Ravenna." He dropped to his knees beside her while crushing the flowers in his palm to release their juice. "Open your mouth, now."
She tried to respond but only a moan came out, so he pried her jaw open and squeezed the silver liquid onto her tongue while forcing her to swallow.
Nothing happened for several seconds, and then she gasped as her body arched off the ground while the antidote went to war with the venom in her veins. Her temperature spiked and crashed while her muscles seized and released, and he held her through all of it to keep her from hurting herself until her body finally went limp against him with her breathing steady and her eyes closed.
"Dante?" Her voice was a whisper.
"I'm here." He shifted her to a more comfortable position against the root.
"You came back."
"I said I would."
She opened her eyes, those mismatched colors hazy from exhaustion. "How long was I..."
"Too long, and you need to rest." He pulled off his jacket and draped it over her. "We're not moving until you can walk on your own."
"But the swamp... the predators..."
"I'll handle them." He started to stand. "Just rest."
She reached up and caught his wrist before he could move away, her fingers weak but insistent. "You saved me again."
'I'll keep saving you as many times as it takes.'
"That's what I do."
"No." Her grip tightened fractionally. "That's what you do for me, you don't save other people like this because you watch and calculate and help when it's strategic, but for me you just go without thinking."
He didn't have an answer for that because she was right.
"I care," he said finally, forcing the words out. "I don't... it's been a long time since I cared about anyone and I forgot what it felt like."
She smiled, tired but real. "I care about you too, in case that wasn't obvious."
'It was, I've been trying not to notice.'
"Rest," he said again while pulling his hand away. "We'll talk when you're better."
She closed her eyes, still smiling, and drifted into sleep within minutes.
He stayed awake through the night, watching the swamp for threats while wondering when exactly he had started caring more about one half-demon girl than about his entire plan for revenge. It was a dangerous question and he didn't have a good answer, but the fact that he was asking it at all meant something had already changed.