Waking up felt like being painstakingly reassembled from shards of broken glass.
I didn't open my eyes at first; I just let the world return to me in waves of dull, throbbing discomfort. Every muscle in my back felt as though it had been pulled tight like a bowstring and left to rot. My shoulders were stiff, my ribs burned with every shallow breath, and my legs felt like heavy columns of leaden weight. Through the thin skin of my eyelids, I could sense the shifting of light—the harsh, midday glare had long since passed, replaced by the long, amber streaks of an evening sun casting shadows across the ceiling of the inn. I'd been out for nearly an entire day.
I tried to shift my weight, just a fraction of an inch, and a sharp, pathetic groan escaped my parched throat. That was when I saw it.
Floating in the dim light of the room, visible only to my eyes and existing nowhere else in the physical world, was the semi-transparent system screen. It was flickering slightly, the edges blurred and unstable, as if the connection between my soul and the interface was still frayed from the sheer physical toll of the battle. It didn't speak—the familiar, calm voice that usually accompanied it was silent—likely because my body was too drained to sustain the audio output. There was only one notification pulsing in the center of my vision, bold and unyielding.
[LEVEL UP!][CURRENT LEVEL: 2]
I stared at the text until my eyes watered. Level two. After everything—the orcs at the ridge, the bandits on the road, and a literal King whose presence had nearly crushed the life out of an entire village—I had only moved up a single notch. It was a sobering, almost frightening reminder of the sheer scale of the 100-0 ratio. My soul was an ocean, and all the "experience" I had gathered was merely a bucket of water tossed into the depths.
As I watched, the screen shimmered, the blue light rippling as it updated my internal standing. This was the truth that only I would ever know.
[RANK: D+]
My heart gave a small, painfull thud against my bruised ribs. Rank D+. It was a massive leap from where I started, but it was a secret I would have to carry like a stone. To the world, I had to remain a child. To the Guild, I was just a lucky rookie. But the system didn't lie. I was becoming something else.
Before I could process the disparity between my true power and my public face, the door to the room didn't just open—it slammed against the inner wall with a bang that made my head throb.
"Rio!"
Tess burst in, her golden hair a chaotic mess of tangles and her emerald eyes rimmed with a raw, vivid red. She was still wearing her travel clothes from the battle, now caked in dried mud and stained with the dark purple ichor of the goblins. She looked like she hadn't slept a single minute since I collapsed in the dirt.
Seeing her like that—seeing the sheer, unbridled worry etched into every line of her face—sent a weird, fluttering heat through my chest that had nothing to do with mana. I felt a strange mixture of being flattered and feeling terribly guilty. She was a noble-born mage, someone who should have been in a library or a ballroom, yet here she was, looking like a wreck because of a boy who was barely holding himself together.
"Hey," I rasped, my voice sounding like I'd been swallowing hot gravel. "You look... like you've seen a ghost."
"I look like...?" She rushed to the side of the bed, her hands hovering over me, trembling as if she were afraid I'd shatter if she actually made contact. "You've been unconscious for nearly twenty hours, Rio! Your pulse was so slow I thought... I thought the King had poisoned your core. Don't you ever do that again. Do you hear me? Never!"
"I'm fine, Tess. Just... sour. Everywhere." I tried to push myself up to a sitting position to prove I was okay, but a white-hot spike of pain shot through my lower back, forcing me back onto the pillow. "Gah! Okay, maybe not 'fine' fine."
["MASTER! MASTER IS ALIVE! MASTER IS NOT A COLD, SMINKY ROCK!"]
A blur of indigo launched itself from the shadows of the bedside table. Sui landed squarely on my chest with a wet splat, bouncing with such frantic intensity that I nearly lost my breath again. Her surface was rippling with erratic waves, her little body vibrating so hard it tickled my bruises.
["Sui was so worried! I almost turned into a very big, very sharp spike to poke the blonde one because she wouldn't stop making the eye-water! It was very loud in here, Master!"]
'I'm okay, Sui. Easy on the ribs,' I whispered, patting her squishy, cool head. I could feel her relief through our link—a bubbly, sweet sensation that helped dull the physical pain.
I looked back at Tess. She couldn't hear Sui, and she couldn't see the Level Up screen still hovering in my peripheral vision. To her, I was just a thirteen-year-old boy who had pushed himself too far. She watched me with a tired, watery smile, finally slumping into the chair beside the bed as the adrenaline left her.
"Tess, go sleep," I said, my voice softening. "Seriously. You're going to collapse, and I'm definitely too sore to catch you right now. I'm awake. I'm not going anywhere."
She wanted to argue—I could see the stubborn glint in her eyes—but her exhaustion was a heavy veil. She leaned forward, her hand resting on the edge of the mattress, just inches from mine. "Fine. But if you pass out again, I'm calling the Guildmaster and telling him you're retired."
"Deal," I murmured.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the room darkened, and the status screen finally faded into the shadows of my mind. Tess eventually drifted off in the chair, her breathing evening out into a soft rhythm. In the quiet, I felt Sui settle into a comfortable, warm weight against my side.
I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Level 2. Rank D+. It sounded like progress, but as I thought about the way the Goblin King had looked at me—the way he had seemed wrong—I realized the world was changing faster then I was. I was only thirteen, and my body was screaming in pain, but for the first time since leaving home, I didn't feel like I was just running away.
I was standing my ground.
That night, for the first time in weeks, the "warm-cold" sensation in my chest didn't pulse with warning. It was quiet, satisfied. I closed my eyes and let a dreamless, peaceful sleep take me, the silence of Oakhaven finally feeling like a reward instead of a threat.