My eyes snapped open as an intense pain shocked me awake.
I was expecting to see the same crimson sky like before but what greeted me was a white ceiling staring back at me.
It took me a moment to realise I was looking up at the ceiling of the stairwell and I had been lying on the floor.
So… I'm back at the place where the girl was getting assaulted… How?
I tried to push myself up and I froze when I realised something else.
Looking down, I found my left arm staring back at me with no traces of it having been torn off.
I then lifted up the shirt I was wearing to check my chest and there were no traces of claw marks or even a scar left behind.
I mean… In that glowing state, I already had both my arms but I thought it was just temporary or something since I 'returned' to my body in the end.
I didn't dream of the entire thing did I?
Heck, even my bag is here and completely intact as well.
But when I looked around me, I realised that neither the girl nor the three guys were here anymore and I was completely alone.
I reached into my pocket and found my phone was still there and quickly checked the time.
It seems like an hour had passed and I had more than twenty missed calls from mom with several text messages as well.
Even though I wasn't dead because of those Anomalies, I'm going to die in another sense…
And right then, my phone rang once more showing it was my mom calling me once more.
I slid my finger across the screen to answer it and the screen changed to a video call of my mom once again.
"Aiyah!! You finally answer your phone?! What you doing?! Where are you? Food cold already you know?!" She berated me immediately.
I grimaced, "Sorry mom… I had to… Err… Help someone earlier… So I couldn't answer my phone."
"Where are you now?"
"At the lift… I'm coming up now."
"Faster lah! Food so cold already! You made me so worried you know?!"
"Yes, yes. Sorry mom."
I ended the call before I used the railing on the stairs to pull myself up, only for the railing to snap off and send me falling back down onto the floor again.
What the heck?
I looked at the metal railing that had been broken off wondering what caused that to break like that.
A groan escaped from my lips as I tried to push myself back on my feet again but then I felt something squishy in my hand.
I looked down and opened up my fist, realising that the squishy thing was the part of the railing that I had snapped off, now literally squeezed into a flat piece of metal in my fist.
Ok… I know that I have enhanced strength, but even this would have required some effort from me… Like I would really have to put in the effort to squeeze the metal if I wanted to squish it like that…
I tried to bend the metal between my fingers again and the entire piece just bent like it was made of plastic.
This is… Strange? Did I suddenly become stronger?
I tried waving the metal piece around just to see if it was really flimsy but it was definitely a solid piece of metal.
This is definitely weird… It's like my strength doubled all of a sudden.
Wait… This definitely has something to do with what happened to me earlier… This means that wasn't a dream right?
The girl earlier… I couldn't get a good look of her face since the hoodie was covering it so I don't even know what she looked like.
I tossed the bent metal piece into a nearby trash bin and pressed the button on the lift panel to call for the lift.
As I waited for the lift to descend to the ground floor, I looked down at my hands, clenching and unclenching them to try and feel if there was anything different.
Maybe if I…
I tried to do a hop, nothing too drastic, just a little small hop.
I remember that I would normally just be able to hop a little higher than normal before but… That small hop I tried to do almost made me hit my head on the ceiling.
If I had jumped with full force, I might have smashed my head through the ceiling.
Ok… So this confirms it… I somehow got a boost of strength… But how?
Was it because of that girl? Or because I killed those Anomalies? But this isn't the first time I killed Anomalies either… Although I would admit it was one of the closest I've been to dying inside a rift at least…
The lift arrived and I stepped inside it to press the button on my floor absentmindedly, still distracted in my thoughts.
I had to do everything more carefully now in case my enhanced strength broke the stuff I was using so I got to keep that in mind.
I wonder if this might be that trope? You know… The one where you can level up?
"System!" I shouted out.
…
Nothing.
"Status?" I tried.
Still nothing.
Guess that wasn't it…
But if those aren't, then what is it? Don't tell me I have some kind of hidden power where I can grow stronger if I solo a rift or something?
Wait… Solo a rift.
Oh shit… I'm going to need to report to the Ministry of Anomaly Management about this… Because I might be affected by the miasma and mutate into an Anomaly…
But I didn't go through a portal either so was I really in a rift? Did all that actually happen or did I just mysteriously get a power up through a dream?
Arggghh… This is just way too much for me to consider and too little information for me to arrive at any conclusion.
Let's just first focus on what I know first.
I'll first spend the rest of the day with my family, then make some excuse to go out and head to the ministry to get myself checked tomorrow or something.
I don't really have any assets that I need to worry about aside from my bank account which would just go to my parents anyway, so I don't need to worry about that.
The ding from the elevator chime indicating I have reached my floor brought me out of my thoughts and I stepped out onto the corridor.
I quickly went to my apartment unit, finding the door already open and my mother standing there with her hands on her hips.
"Why so late? Food cold already you know?!"
"Yes Mom… You already told me that just now. Sorry."
She clucked her tongue at me before stepping aside, "Hurry up. Whole family waiting for you to eat."
"Yes Mom…"
I took off my shoes before entering through the door, my dad and my sister already seated at the dining table with the food spread out in front of them.
Contrary to her words, I could see steam wafting off the food so they were still warm.
I was going to sit down at the table when my mother smacked me on the arm.
"Wash your hands first! Wash with soap hor!"
I grumbled but did as she told, only sitting down at the table after my hands were clean.
Mother started scooping vegetables and meat on top of the bowl of rice that was set in front of me before I could even pick up my chopsticks.
"So… Why so late today?" My father asked.
I turned to the middle aged man with close cropped black hair and an aged look in his eyes.
"I just met someone who was in trouble and I went to help them."
"Let me guess… A girl?"
I sighed, deciding I might as well be honest here, "Yes."
My sister turned to grin at me, "Wah! Gor[1], did you at least get her number or not? She pretty or not?"
"No. And she was wearing a hoodie so I didn't see her face."
"Aiyah, wasted."
Mother finally finished piling my bowl high with food to start scooping more onto my sister's bowl of rice, "When you going to get girlfriend also? Already so big still single. When you going to let me see my grandchildren?"
I decided to deflect that question away by stuffing my mouth with food, hoping the topic will change by the time I was done chewing.
Thankfully my sister, the ever helpful one, understood the task and spoke up, "Oh yah! Gor Gor! Later can help me choose my Uni? I don't know which one I should go yet."
I swallowed the food in my mouth, "Sorry sis. I already have plans with my friends in a bit and I'm already late…"
Mother scoffed, "You and your friends… Why not ask if one of them has a nice girl to introduce to you? You always just stay in your room everyday."
"Yes Mom…" I sighed.
The rest of the meal went by uneventfully as we started talking about random gossip.
My mind was elsewhere since I was still wondering what had happened to me in the last hour.
It can't be I'm actually dead and this is a dream, right?
[1] Gor Gor = Onii-chan, Gor = Onii.