"Huh?" I muttered the moment I regained consciousness.
I was standing.
I looked down, and my legs were there, both of them, right where they should be.
HOW?
"What the hell?!" I screamed, genuinely unable to process it. I could feel my hands too, could feel everything, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness the room came into focus around me, or what was left of it, because the whole place was in shreds and it was a wonder it even held up at all.
I looked at my arm. No scars.
This didn't make any sense.
I touched my chest, then frowned, because something felt off in a way I couldn't immediately name. My emotions were all, disconnected somehow, like they were there but behind glass, and I couldn't explain it beyond that. I just felt bland, empty.
I pressed a hand to my forehead and sighed.
Then I remembered my face, and I touched my skin and it was soft, and I ran my fingers through my hair and it was all there. "Regeneration?" I muttered, though I didn't even fully believe my own guess. Only elves could perform regeneration-level magic, or mages with healing blessings, or someone with a high-grade healing spell, but healing spells couldn't actually regenerate limbs, at least not as far as I knew. And even if they could, this didn't feel like that. My body felt foreign to me, like I was wearing something that fit perfectly but still wasn't quite mine.
I stretched my hand forward and clenched my fist. Something wasn't right.
Oh well.
I looked around at the broken chains littering the floor, then raised my hand to run it over my face, and that's when something on my palm caught my eye.
A tattoo.
At the center of my right palm there was a circle, and inside it a symbol I didn't recognize. Five chains extended from it, veining out through each of my fingers and connecting at the back of my hand to another circle, and this one had a symbol too, a Roman numeral. I.
I stared at it for a long moment, then let my hand drop with a sigh, and that's when I saw her.
Anna.
My eyes widened and my fists clenched. She was injured, obviously, blood trailing from her forehead and soaking into clothes that were already drenched with it. I didn't even need to ask myself what happened, I had done this, somehow, and I still didn't know how or when.
Had I awakened?
I closed my eyes and tried to feel inward, and then, suddenly, ether surged through me, soothing and warm and alive in a way I'd never felt before, and I lost myself in it for a moment before snapping back.
"Haaah!" I gasped, opening my eyes.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO ME?
I thought I'd heard something before I passed out, some voice, and now I remembered it clearly enough to try. "System," I said, and something appeared in front of me immediately.
[Cannot access system in current level]
I frowned. I'd always had access to the system until it abandoned me, which meant this wasn't the same system the goddess had given me. So that static voice I'd heard before losing consciousness had been a different system entirely.
I looked back at Anna, bloodied and unconscious on the floor, then looked down at her hand and noticed a spatial ring on her finger. I reached down and slipped it off, then stood, and as I did I noticed something on her palm.
A tattoo, the same as mine.
I turned her hand over. There was a circle in her palm too, with a different symbol inside, and on the back of her hand another Roman numeral. I.
I stared at it for a moment. This felt like some kind of slave mark, or maybe I was overthinking it entirely.
Sigh.
I needed to eat first, I couldn't even remember the last time I had. I looked at the ring in my palm, then sat on the ground, closed my eyes, and channeled mana into it, and suddenly everything stored inside became visible to my mind. Clothes, healing potions, food.