A flame burst from his palm.
It wasn't elegant.
It wasn't a clean stream.
It exploded outward in a violent, greedy bloom, catching cloth around the hobgoblin's waist, devouring it in an instant, licking under rags, searching for skin.
The heat hit Soren's face and arms, hot enough that his eyebrows singed, and the smell, burnt fabric, burnt hair, burnt flesh, rolled into his nose so suddenly he gagged.
The hobgoblin screamed.
Not a goblin's high-pitched shriek, but a deep, furious roar that shook in its chest and ripped out through its mouth as it jerked violently, the sound full of agony and disbelief.
[KEEEERRAAAUEEEK—!!!!!!!!]
A chime rang in Soren's vision, bright and absurdly cheerful.
.
[Congratulations, [Basic Magic: Ignition] has been acquired!]
.
For half a second, the timing was so ridiculous it almost made him laugh.
He actually did, a small, breathless sound, because his brain was broken and the world was a joke.
"Haha…"
The flames died as quickly as they came, leaving scorched cloth and the stench of cooked meat, but the damage was done, and the hobgoblin's face contorted in rage so pure it felt like looking into a furnace.
It understood what had been touched.
It understood what had been ruined.
Soren's pride didn't surge like triumph.
It sat in his chest like a nasty, satisfied stone.
"How does it… feel…"
It might not have understood the words, but it understood the tone.
The hobgoblin's face contorted in rage, not the lazy amusement it had worn like a crown until now, but something uglier and far more honest, as though it had finally realised what had been done to it, and could not decide whether the pain or the humiliation was worse.
Its pride had been broken.
It had let the pathetic human it was playing with land a blow, and not just any blow either, a wound that would heal eventually, but a disfigurement, something precious to it, something it had assumed untouchable, now scorched and ruined because it had been too arrogant to swat the human away when it still had the chance.
The flames had long since vanished, leaving only smoke and the thick, nauseating smell of burnt cloth and cooked flesh clinging to the air, but the hobgoblin's scream still seemed to linger in the trees, vibrating in Soren's teeth.
"Haha…"
Soren's giggle slipped out before he could stop it, small and ugly, more hysteria than joy, because his brain was frayed and his body was beyond pain, and for half a second it felt almost funny that he had actually done it, that he had actually managed to make the towering demon flinch.
Then the laugh caught in his throat.
The grip he had on the dagger lodged in the hobgoblin's belly loosened, not because he chose to let go, but because his fingers simply stopped obeying him.
His arms went weak all at once, like someone had cut the strings inside his muscles, and his eyelids began to droop, heavy as wet cloth.
'Ah. I hit my limit.'
He had been pushing himself since the quest appeared, pushing past the burning in his lungs, past the shaking in his hands, past the raw stings where claws had opened him, and now that he had achieved his petty goal, his body seemed to take it as permission to collapse.
But…
.
▶ Survive ◀
[12:13/13:00]
.
'I can't pass out now.'
The timer was still there, still counting, still demanding he remain alive, and the thought of making it this far only to black out and be killed like a discarded animal made panic spike through him.
He tried to hold on.
He tried to force his eyes open wider, tried to tighten his grip, tried to drag air into his lungs through the blood and smoke, but it was like trying to keep water in his hands, everything slipping away no matter how hard he clenched.
His vision darkened at the edges.
His fingers fully lost the dagger.
And he finally fell.
For a heartbeat, he expected the ground, the mud, the cold slap of reality.
Instead, impact hit him from the side with a force that stole the world.
THUD!
Soren's body went flying.
Where he had been, the hobgoblin stood with its leg raised, the motion of the kick still carried in its stance, as if it had punted him the way a bored child kicked a stone down a path.
"KEUK!"
He slammed into a tree.
The bark tore at his back through his shredded uniform, and pain detonated through his ribs so violently that his breath vanished, not even a gasp left in him, only a strangled sound as his lungs refused to work for a second.
Something inside him shifted wrong.
He slid down the trunk and hit the mud hard, jaw clacking, vision sparking white, and then, cruelly, the shock dragged him back into wakefulness.
Warm blood trickled down his face, sliding into his eyebrow, his eyelashes, pooling at the corner of his mouth until it mixed with saliva and tasted like pennies.
He tried to lift his head.
"ACK…!"
The pain was so intense it pinned him in place, as if his body had turned into one screaming bruise, every tiny movement sending bright, unbearable agony through his torso.
His stomach convulsed.
He coughed.
Blood sprayed into the mud, dark and thick, and the sight of it made his mind seize, because blood from the mouth meant something deeper than scratches, deeper than claw marks, and he didn't have the time to process that kind of fear.
The hobgoblin was closing the distance, slowly, deliberately, each heavy step making the earth answer back.
It didn't rush anymore, not because it was calm, but because it didn't need to, because it wanted him to see it coming, wanted him to understand exactly what was about to happen.
Its smug expression had vanished.
In its place was pure, unadulterated rage, a face twisted by the insult he had carved into it.
It was precisely what Soren had been aiming for, except now, with the greatsword dragging closer and his body refusing to move, it didn't feel like victory, it felt like he had tugged on a lion's tail and finally earned the bite.
He tried to push himself up again, palms slipping in mud and blood.
Pain flared so hard his eyes watered.
He collapsed back down, chest heaving in shallow, broken breaths.
'I'm going to die.'
The thought landed with a horrible clarity, not dramatic, not exaggerated, just a quiet conclusion formed by a body that knew it could not run, could not fight, could barely breathe.
The moment he accepted how close death was, fear flooded him.
Not the abstract fear he had carried through the whole quest, but sharp, immediate terror that tightened his throat and made his limbs shake.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he hated them, hated the weakness of it, hated that his body trembled while the hobgoblin walked toward him like an executioner.
Then he remembered the quest.
The timer.
He snapped his gaze sideways, blinking through blood and tears until the numbers came into focus.
.
▶ Survive ◀
[12:48/13:00]
.
'Twelve more seconds…'
If he could just survive twelve, no, eleven, no, ten seconds, he would live, he would be done, he would be able to collapse properly, he would…
He grit his teeth so hard his jaw hurt, and began to crawl.
"Ugh…"
Every movement dragged pain through him like barbed wire.
His ribs screamed with each shift of his weight, his shoulder throbbed, his burned palm stung as it scraped the ground, and the mud beneath him felt cold and slick, swallowing his fingers when he tried to pull himself forward.
He didn't move far.
He didn't need far.
He needed time.
.
▶ Survive ◀
[12:52/13:00]
.
He shoved himself forward again, an inch, maybe two, his breath coming out in wet, shuddering bursts, the taste of blood thick on his tongue.
His vision pulsed, black creeping in and out at the edges, and his mind kept trying to slip away from his body, as if it couldn't bear to stay inside something this broken.
He forced himself back with sheer panic.
'Not yet…!'
.
▶ Survive ◀
[12:55/13:00]
.
The hobgoblin loomed over him, its shadow swallowing the torchlight, and Soren could smell it, sweat and smoke and the sharp, burnt stink of what he had done, the air around it hot with fury.
[KERUUK!]
It roared, a sound that shook in Soren's bones, then raised its greatsword into the air.
The rusted blade caught torchlight as it lifted, and for a moment it looked enormous, a slab of metal meant for chopping wood, not for ending a person.
The hobgoblin had decided to kill him properly now, not as a joke, but as punishment, because he had dared to trample on the pride of something that thought itself extraordinary.
Soren's hands spasmed in the mud.
He couldn't crawl anymore.
He couldn't even lift his head properly.
He closed his eyes.
He prayed, not to a god, not to anything noble, but to the timer, to the system, to the stupid little window that had dragged him into this, because he had bought seconds with blood and he needed it to count.
WHOOSH!
The greatsword cut through the air.
Then a familiar sound rang out.
Ting-♪
CLANG!!
Soren's eyes opened, slow and disbelieving, because he was still alive, because the blade had not reached him, because something had stopped it.
His vision was blurry, smeared by tears and blood, and he couldn't make out who had arrived, couldn't see a face or a weapon or anything that made sense, only the colour pink filling the space between him and the hobgoblin, a bright smear that meant someone was there, someone had stepped in front of him.
Realisation hit him, soft and crushing.
He was safe.
The tension drained from his body in an instant, like a cord snapping, adrenaline vanishing so quickly it left him hollow, and the moment he understood he had lived, his strength disappeared with it.
His eyes closed.
His consciousness faded.
————「❤︎」————