2025-07-03 10:27:46Chapter 3: Recovery Center
The voice of Elira was as sharp as a scalpel cutting through the silence. Tell Drennov about it. Every detail. Leave nothing.” Maren made no movement. Her face was marble, her soul more cold. “Yes, Elira.” She disappeared into the shadow like smoke into a well with the breath of a whisper and the ghost of a sound. Back in her chair, Elira flicked her fingers. Papers that had been scattered like a storm's aftermath levitated with elegant precision, each sheet snapping back into place as though obeying their goddess. She looked at nothing, and saw too much. Why now, Kael… Why now?” The orphanage stood like a castle of purity in a city of half-truths. The sole of its kind, large enough to accommodate hundreds of lost souls and yet have empty hallways. But the eyes that looked down upon it? They were not gods. They were not angels. They were vultures in velvet. It had been a cage, made by unseen hands, once in the mind of Elira herself. She had scratched her way out not with anger but with patience. The fog within her had been broken by her awakening. The puppet strings were broken, but the scars were still burning. Drennov. The cunt behind the curtain. She had never found out his name except the name, which was whispered like rot beneath the silk of memory. And now she must tell him about Kael. Owing to the fact that Maren served him. Since the only way to survive long enough to kill him was to pretend to serve him. She reclined, with closed eyes, and listened to the silence as to a hymn. I am not sure I can save you, Kael...” She didn’t love the children. Not in the traditional sense. It was more abstract than maternal. They were her proof of autonomy. The rebellion of her existence. But Kael—Kael had always been different. She hadn’t saved him six years ago. He had saved her. Now fate, that insufferable cunt, was testing them both. --- Kael moved through the streets of the orphanage compound, his steps steady, his thoughts sharpening. Kids darted around, laughter echoing like war drums of childhood. A few adults passed by, nodding in the way strangers do when pretending to care. His question was a quiet murmur. “Is it really going to be this easy to level up? One bruise and boom, EXP?” The System clicked into his skull like a smug librarian. You can only earn experience from the same individual once per day. But with the volume of bodies in this building, you'll be bathing in EXP before sundown. One point of lost HP is enough for the Healer class. Simple math, glorious grind. Kael hummed. “What happens at level ten?” You will be granted a new skill. Random. Tied to your class. A roll of divine dice, rigged slightly in your favor. “And my class rarity? Always going to be this basic bitch tier?” Your class evolves at level fifty. From there, every fifty levels comes with an evaluation and a task. Complete it, and the class ascends. Fail, and you stagnate. Kael whispered thanks. The kind of thanks you give a vending machine that finally accepts your crumpled bill. He walked faster, the outline of the Recovery Center rising before him like a temple built for quiet miracles. He stepped inside. Sterile scent, white walls, mana-charged air. It was cleaner than any hospital he remembered from his old world, both physically and spiritually. Magic made things sing here. At the front desk, a receptionist greeted him with corporate warmth. He passed over the stamped paper Elira had given him. Recognition sparked in the receptionist’s eyes like someone who just realized the soup of the day was made of prophecy. The woman made a call and gestured for Kael to sit. He did. Preparing himself for a long wait because, hospital. Five minutes later, a man in a crisp healer's coat approached, hand outstretched. “Hello, Kael. I’m Salus. Head Healer. Come with me.” Kael shook his hand. No pressure. No tremble. Just cool curiosity wrapped in a child’s skin. They rode the elevator up, past mundanity, until the doors opened on the fourth floor. Salus’s office was pristine, almost surgical. Beakers and scrolls, ancient sigils suspended in glowing stasis, and not a speck of dust in sight. The man’s desk was a mirror of discipline, unlike Elira’s charming chaos. “Sit,” Salus instructed. Kael obeyed. The man’s gaze was diagnostic, like he was already dissecting Kael’s soul. “Why do you want to join the Recovery Center?” Not the question Kael expected. It wasn’t a trap. It was worse: an open invitation to self-sabotage. He exhaled. “I want to improve my healing to save people better.” Salus’s eyebrow rose. It was the kind of answer that didn’t belong in an eight-year-old’s mouth. The kind of truth you usually had to beat out of someone twice his age. “You planning to attend the academy?” “Yes.” Salus looked satisfied. He pulled a marble from his coat pocket and handed it to Kael. Kael held it in his hands and was not impressed. Until Salus spoke. Press on your clothes. He-did. The marble melted as sugar in mana, and blended with his clothing, which glowed and changed. A white coat blossomed over him, embroidered at the wrist with a single pin of obsidian. Kael pulled the pin. The coat disappeared. His normal attire came back. He gazed at the pin in his hand. That was what was called fashion. Fancy getting started today? Salus asked. Kael blinked. Am I being paid? The boldness broke something in Salus. But he smiled. We offer food, shelter, and needs. The compensation is through tips. Incentivizes effort.” Kael did not want to shout out stingy cunt. He nodded, rather, with the patience of a saint, and the smile of a gambler. Salus gestured. Wear the coat. Kael complied. They all went down to the first floor. People stared. Curious glances. Judging glances. One or two of the children even whispered. Kael did not flinch. They were to go to Emergency Room 3. Inside: the suffering and the waiting. Broken bones. Muted screams. A desperate hum. Look, Salus, said. He walked to a man whose leg was broken and made a healing spell. This one was a scalpel, clean, precise, unlike the full-body burst Kael had had earlier. The injury was the only part of the body that was illuminated by the light. Bone realigned. Skin knitted. Pain vanished. “Questions?” Salus asked. Kael nodded. Why not cure the entire body? “Mana conservation. You are not a waterfall. You are a reservoir. It is all about every drop.” Salus pointed. Another patient. A broken leg. Kael came forward. Concentrate, the System breathed. This spell can be shaped. Form its intent. Welcome to the art of healing. That is what Kael did. He pictured the fracture, strung his purpose like a bow, and spoke, Heal. The magic ran. It covered the body initially. Then it narrowed, distilled by his attention. The break was aglow. Mended. [DING] [Focus Heal +15 EXP] [New Skill Generated] [Bonus: +1 INT] Focus Heal [Level 0 - 15/100 EXP] Heal the target’s injuries in the focused area. Restores 50 HP. Cost: 15 MP Kael blinked. He hadn’t just cast a spell. He had birthed one. The System chuckled, unbidden. Congratulations. You now have a smarter, cheaper version of your base Heal. Same power. Lower cost. Welcome to the grind. Salus clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a prodigy, Kael.” The room rotated patients like cards in a game. One by one, Kael healed them: bones, cysts, tears both external and deep inside tissue. The magic danced from his fingers like music no one else could hear. Salus eventually nodded. “Emergency Room 3 is yours. Most patients here are treatable with basic healing. You’ll work four hours a day. One to five. Graduate to Room Two when you earn it. Maybe Room One.” Kael bowed slightly. Not from humility. From strategy. He was already counting levels in his mind. The patients kept coming. Five more bodies. Five more bursts of mana. Five silent thanks and not one fucking tip. Kael growled under his breath. “Tch. A big shot better drop me a platinum soon.” Try to avoid sounding like a shameless cunt in public, the System grumbled. Kael smiled and ignored it. He finished his shift, now alone in the room. Then, whispering like he was casting a forbidden rite, he said, “Status.” The hologram exploded to life. Name: Kael Age: 8 Race: Human Class: Healer [Common] Level: 0 [120/100 EXP] (+) Titles: Born Anew [Unique] [Temporary] +50% Experience gain until Level 10 Stats: HP: 110/110 – Regen: 2/hr MP: 0/155 – Regen: 11/hr STR: 4 END: 2 AGI: 2 INT: 10 → 11 CHA: 5 Skills: Hand-to-Hand Combat [Lv. 5 – 0/2500] Discipline [Lv. 4 – 0/2000] Shooting Mastery [Lv. 6 – 0/3000] Heal [Lv. 0 – 15/100] Focus Heal [Lv. 0 – 105/100] (+) Kael’s finger hovered over the [+] and pressed. [DING] Level Up! 0 → 1 | EXP: 20/1000 HP and MP fully restored +5 Unassigned Stat Points Then another press. [DING] Skill: Focus Heal Level Up! 0 → 1 | EXP: 5/500 Restore: 50 → 60 HP +1 INT Kael grinned. The dungeon hadn’t started yet. But the game had.
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Chapter 82: Blood That ScreamsThe frenzied Vampire continued its assault with the kind of obsessive cruelty that suggested either remarkable discipline or a deeply personal hatred for Kael’s continued breathing, as bolts of condensed force tore through the air toward him at speeds that made perception itself feel like a delayed luxury, forcing him to rely on instinct and precognition rather than sight as he twisted, stepped, and slid through the storm like a man dancing inside a guillotine factory that had just discovered rhythm.It took far too long for clarity to claw its way into the chaos, but repetition has a way of educating even the most distracted mind, and Kael finally caught the pattern hidden inside the madness, noticing that each projectile shimmered with a dark red sheen that refracted light like wet glass and pulsed with a viscosity that made his skin crawl, the color unmistakable and obscene in its familiarity.“They are using blood,” he mu
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Chapter 81: Coffin Beneath the DirtKael moved through the uneven hills with the careful irritation of a man who knew exactly where the problem was and deeply resented that it existed at all, his awareness stretched across the terrain as clusters of hostile red marks burned patiently on his mental map, all of them gathered together like idiots waiting to be scolded, and he made absolutely certain that no curious soul or well meaning hero was tailing him because this was personal, messy, and very much a one man inconvenience that he intended to finish without witnesses.The land itself seemed wrong the closer he drew, the ground rising and falling in shallow waves as if the earth had once tried to escape and failed, and when the first shapes revealed themselves, crawling out of shadow and rot, Kael felt that familiar, tired click of recognition settle into place because these things were not shadows, not truly, but imitations stitched together from death and bad dec
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Chapter 80: SimilarKael lay beside the crackling fire, his body trembling under the lingering ache of exhaustion. The System had forced him to “train” for four relentless hours, and he now looked like someone who’d wrestled with death and barely crawled back. His hair clung damply to his forehead, and his breaths came shallow, smoky in the cold air.To make matters worse, he could feel the weight of two gazes fixed on him. The longer it went on, the more uncomfortable it became.Bored and sore, Kael finally turned his attention toward Astraea. Talking seemed better than sinking further into the silence. He didn’t know much about this world, about its customs or its strange truths, but she fascinated him—too quiet, too composed, too otherworldly.He wanted to ask her something simple, something that wouldn’t sound foolish. Yet before he could, she moved first.Astraea approached the firelight and sat beside him. Her silver eyes shimm
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Chapter 79: Cold ---Kael sat in front of the fire, staring into it as if the flames could explain why the silver-haired woman across from him wouldn’t stop staring at him like a particularly interesting ghost.‘She’s still staring at me,’ he thought, trying not to meet her eyes again.The cave was quiet except for the occasional crackle of burning wood. Night had fully claimed the forest outside, leaving only the trembling halo of the campfire. Orin seemed calmer now, the madness in his eyes cooled into something that almost resembled rest.But Astraea... she was something else entirely. A presence that shouldn’t exist. A fragment of his past wearing human shape.Kael could feel the connection between them — not imagined, not metaphorical, but stitched through the soul like a needle through scar tissue. The memory she awakened in him was too vivid to dismiss, yet too incomplete to understand.When he finally looked back, sh
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Chapter 78: The Odd Woman[Kael’s POV]“How does it taste?”Kael didn’t even have the luxury of answering before his body decided to violently betray him. He bent forward and vomited everything onto the stone floor of the cave, the sound echoing wetly in the cold air. That made it the fourth monster he’d ruined today. Four steaming piles of culinary failure, each more inedible than the last.They looked edible enough—beast-like, muscular things that probably considered him a snack in another life—but once he cooked them, every bite tasted like rotten mana condensed into despair.Orin had already fallen asleep deeper in the cave, curled against the wall like an overgrown cat. The cave itself was safe, wrapped in a natural mana flow that repelled beasts. Kael should’ve been at peace. Should’ve been, if not for the yellow dot blinking on his Halo’s minimap, a few dozen meters away.The dot hadn’t moved. It just watched.“Wh
Chapter 77: Safe
Chapter 77: Safe---Kael had been walking for what felt like forever, the weight of the small, unconscious child slung across his shoulder pressing into his bones like a punishment he didn’t remember earning. Two hours. Maybe more. His map promised a stretch of grassy serenity up ahead, but right now it all felt like the same dry, corpse-colored earth, sighing under the heat of a sun that refused to die.The kid hadn’t stirred once, not even a grunt of awareness—just the occasional twitch or mumble, like he was wrestling ghosts in his dreams.Kael exhaled. “Should I just leave this kid here? My shoulder’s starting to ache.”He said it with his usual sarcasm, the kind that made it hard to tell whether he meant it or not. But the boy must have heard the words somewhere deep inside that sleeping shell, because he jerked awake so violently he almost crashed face-first into the dirt.Kael caught him mid-fall by the foot. “You c
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