He lost nearly an hour to indecision, scrolling, stopping, closing the window as if that would reset his brain, then reopening it because he couldn't leave it unresolved.
At some point he realised his hands had steadied a little, not because he was fine, but because his body was too exhausted to keep shaking at full intensity, and that realisation made him feel strangely hollow.
When he finally narrowed it down properly, the logic was almost embarrassingly simple.
He wasn't Alex, he wasn't supposed to have people around him, and even if he wanted a peaceful life, peace didn't exist for someone who could die to a single mistake.
He needed to be able to act alone, whether that meant combat, exploration, or simply not freezing when the world got loud.
And he was a magician, which made everything harder, because magic demanded stillness, demanded precision, demanded focus that didn't waver, while the world demanded movement and adaptation and survival.
For a brief, stubborn moment, he considered again the old thought of transferring to Martial Studies and abandoning magic entirely.
'I don't want to,' he admitted, the refusal quiet but solid.
Not because swinging a sword was beneath him, but because magic had already sunk its hooks into him, even in its clumsy beginner form, even when it betrayed him.
He could do both eventually, maybe, but he refused to let go of magic just because his first real fight had proved how cruel it could be.
Immediate strength, then, not in raw damage, but in the ability to actually use what he already had.
That was what [Concentration] offered.
Not a flashy spell.
Not a heroic skill.
A foundation.
Something that would let him hold a circle steady while his body hurt.
Something that would reduce the chance of panic snapping his focus like a thread.
Something that might let him move while casting so that he wouldn't be a stationary target waiting to be cut down.
Even the "cool" part, the childish spark that whispered it was exciting, felt thin and forced when he compared it to the real reason he wanted it, which was simply that he didn't ever want to be that helpless again.
He stared at the line one last time, then exhaled.
"Alright," he said softly, as if speaking it out loud would make it real, and also, absurdly, as if saying it might keep his stomach from turning again. "Let's do it."
He selected the skill.
.
[Concentration] → 10,000P
[Buy?]
[Yes] [No]
.
[Yes]
.
[Used [Store Ticket]]
[Success!]
▶ Acquired [Concentration]! ◀
.
For a second he just sat there, staring, waiting for the rush of satisfaction to hit, but what he felt instead was a muted, tired relief, the kind you felt after locking a door in a bad neighbourhood, not happiness, just the sense that you had added one more barrier between yourself and disaster.
His heart was still beating too fast, but it wasn't panic this time, it was something closer to nerves, because he had made a real choice, and now he had to live with it.
"「Status」," he said, voice still rough, then watched the window appear.
.
[Status Window]
Name: Soren Arden
Age: 18
Race: Human
◈ Titles
- Transmigrator (Year 1)
- Hunter of Secrets
◈ Unique Skills
- Library of Memories
- ???
◈ Stats
Stamina - 0.5 (F+) → 0.8 (F+)
Strength - 0.6 (F+)
Agility - 0.7 (F+)
Mana - 0.7 (F+) → 0.8 (F+)
Divine Power - 0.3 (F)
Charm - 8.7 (S-)
◈ Skills
- Life Magic
- Basic Magic
└ Gaia (F) → Gaia (E-)
└ Aqua (F+)
└ Ignition (F)
- Concentration (F)
.
He read it twice, slowly, because his eyes still felt puffy and hot, and because a part of him didn't quite trust anything that looked neat after what he had just crawled through.
A small warmth stirred in his chest anyway, faint and cautious, the way a candle looked in a storm, and he let himself hold onto it for a second because he needed something, anything, that wasn't fear.
'These stats aren't impressive,' he thought, honest, then forced the next part like he was pushing a stubborn door, 'but they're finally not completely… dogshit.'
Progress.
He had to call it that, he had to treat it like a fact, because if he didn't then the forest was just trauma with no meaning, and he wasn't ready to accept that.
A thin, almost bitter smile tugged at his mouth, then faded as quickly as it came.
He could feel the bin's sour smell lingering, he could feel the soreness in his throat, and the memory of that last minute was still sitting behind his eyes like a bruise.
Optimism didn't come naturally right now.
He had to assemble it.
'Mock duel,' he thought, and the idea tried to spark excitement the way it would have before, the childish part of him imagining reactions, imagining proving people wrong, but the image of crowded bleachers watching him blurred into the image of torches bobbing in the dark, and his stomach tightened again.
He breathed out carefully.
The curtains shifted.
It wasn't dramatic, just the quiet rustle of fabric as someone approached, the kind of small sound that still made Soren's muscles tense on instinct, because his body hadn't yet settled from the events of Rena Forest.
He turned his head anyway, slow and careful.
Lilliana Roseblood stepped through.
She was framed by the brighter lights of the rest of the infirmary outside of his section, pink hair catching it, lime-green eyes scanning the area with quick, professional efficiency before landing on him.
"Mr Arden," she said, voice low, controlled, the same steady tone she used when she took attendance. "You're awake."
He nodded once, then realised how stiff that looked and forced his throat to work.
"Professor Roseblood," he replied, voice hoarse, rawer than he wanted, and he hated that it made him sound weak. "Yes. I'm… awake."
The pause before the last word was honest.
Lilliana's ears twitched subtly, almost imperceptibly, then she came to the side of the bed, not crowding him, just close enough to assess him properly without needing to lean in.
"You were unconscious for a day," she said, businesslike, then added, quieter, "You were suffering from severe mana exhaustion, internal injuries, and multiple lacerations. The healers stabilised you, but your body needed time."
Soren absorbed the words, and his mind supplied the reasons for each of them without asking, the kick, the tree, the mud, the way his lungs had refused to work.
He swallowed, throat tight.
"I see."
Lilliana's gaze dropped, briefly, to the bin beside the bed, then to the corner of his mouth.
There was still the faintest residue there, a small, humiliating trace he had stopped noticing because he had been too busy trying not to shake apart.
She noticed it immediately.
Soren's fingers curled against the blanket, a reflexive urge to wipe it away before she could say anything, but she didn't scold him, and she didn't make a face, she only reached to the bedside table, picked up a folded cloth, and held it out to him.
"Wipe your mouth," she said.
Her words weren't unkind or teasing, just… careful, like she didn't want to touch him without permission.
Soren blinked, then took it with a quiet, "Thank you," pressing it to the corner of his lips, the motion controlled, not because it hurt, but because he didn't want to feel like a child being cleaned up.
Lilliana watched him do it, then nodded once, as if satisfied he could still follow instructions.
That simple detail, that she was checking his functioning, made his chest tighten with something he hadn't expected.
It wasn't fear, but confusion.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
The question was deceptively simple.
Soren looked down at the cloth in his hand, then back at her, and he could have said "fine" because "fine" ended conversations, "fine" kept people from looking too closely, but the bin beside him existed for a reason, and lying felt ridiculous.
"My body aches a bit," he said, then added after a fraction of a second, voice flat with fatigue, "and my stomach, well..."
Soren directed his gaze towards the bin nearby and Lilliana understood immediately.
Her mouth twitched, almost a frown, then she smoothed it away, professionalism settling back into place.
"That is expected," she said. "Drink water slowly. If you feel nauseous again, don't force it down."
Soren nodded, then hesitated, because the question had been sitting under everything since he woke up, heavy and unavoidable.
"…I remember," he began, then stopped, the memory flashing too bright, sword descending, the certainty of death, then the clash of steel and that blur of pink.
His fingers tightened slightly around the cloth.
"Someone blocked the final strike."
Lilliana's gaze sharpened for a moment, then steadied, controlled.
"That was me," she said simply.
Soren held her eyes, trying to connect that calm statement to the half-delirious image in his mind, trying to reconcile the idea that his professor had been in the forest, in the dark, right as he was about to die.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, his gratitude raw and real.
If she hadn't been there, he would have died.
"You're welcome," Lilliana replied, as if her actions were simple common sense. "The guards alerted the staff that a student still hadn't returned even though the sun was set. Then, when I was searching I saw the light from the torches and found you."
Soren's mind supplied the rest without needing details.
Lilliana continued, tone professional, but with a quiet insistence that suggested she had rehearsed this speech on the walk here, the way people did when they were trying to stay composed.
"I'm going to ask you plainly," she said. "What were you thinking, going to Rena Forest alone?"
There it was.
The scolding, but not sharp for its own sake, not cruel, it carried something else underneath, something he recognised too well to mislabel, the sound of someone who had been scared and was angry about it after the fact.
Soren looked down at the cloth, then back up.
"It was necessary…" he started, then shook his head with a sigh and spoke again. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking properly."
Now that he was looking back at everything he noticed many mistakes with the way he had acted throughout his journey.
That he could have prepared more.
That he could have used [Ignition] sooner.
That he could have stayed in the cave where he found the Starfruit overnight.
That he could have stalled without letting his emotions take over when fighting.
There were too many problems with the way he had acted.
Lilliana's ears twitched again, quicker this time, and she let out a slow breath, shoulders rising and falling in a controlled way.
"When I found you," she said, voice lower, "I thought you were dead."
The words sat between them, heavy as stone.
Soren's stomach turned, not from nausea this time, but from the way [Library of Memories] immediately offered him the exact sensation of that last second, the certainty of dying, and how close that had been to becoming true.
His fingers tightened around the cloth until it creased.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Lilliana held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked away, as if giving herself permission to step fully back into her role.
"I will require a written statement," she said, clipped but not cruel. "You'll include where you went, what you encountered, and any details that might be relevant to future patrols."
He nodded.
"Also," she added, eyes returning to him, "you will not leave academy grounds alone again without permission, not until you can demonstrate you have the capacity to do so safely. If you want to train, train here, where there are rules and supervision."
Soren almost laughed, not because it was funny, but because it was so reasonable in comparison to himself, to the actions he had taken yesterday.
"I understand."
Lilliana studied him again, and he could tell she was comparing his words to his state, the puffy eyes, the too-still posture, the lingering tremor he hadn't fully mastered.
It made him uncomfortable, not because she was close, but because being seen like this felt exposed in a way he wasn't used to.
Then her voice softened.
Only slightly, still professional, still restrained, but softer in a way that didn't feel like the her that he knew.
"Rest. You should be fully healed by Monday, but only if you don't push yourself. If you feel dizzy, if you feel pain that worsens, you report it. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Soren replied.
She hesitated for a moment.
Then she said, almost as if she didn't want to make it a big thing:
"Thank you for surviving."
The sentence was simple.
Yet it still hit like a foreign object.
Soren's throat tightened, and for a second he couldn't speak, because gratitude like that, offered genuinely, without a hook hidden in it, wasn't something his memories gave him easily, and it didn't fit the tidy, game-shaped version of Lilliana he had looking at until now.
That was the moment the overlay stopped sitting cleanly.
Not because she looked different, not because she appeared, but because the care underneath the professionalism felt different, too different, and it made his knowledge feel suddenly less like a guarantee and more like something that could be changed at any moment.
His game knowledge had always been a lifeline.
If it could be wrong here, in something as small as a side character's personality, then it could be wrong in the places that mattered.
That realisation prickled at him, small but sharp, and he forced himself not to show it.
He settled for a small nod.
"Thank you for saving me," he managed, voice quiet.
Lilliana inclined her head once, the mask smoothing back into place, then stepped toward the curtains, her presence already shifting toward departure, as if lingering would cross a boundary she was deliberately maintaining.
Before she left, she paused, looking back at him.
"And Soren, next time you think you can handle something alone, remember that you don't have to prove it by almost dying," she said, eyes steady.
His breath caught, and he gave another nod, slower this time, because he couldn't think of any other response.
Lilliana disappeared through the curtains, soft fabric closing behind her, and the room returned to quiet.
Soren stared at the empty space she had left behind, then looked toward the window where moonlight spilled in a cold, silver wash.
He felt hollow.
He felt lucky.
He felt sick.
All at once.
The forest replayed behind his eyes in perfect, vivid sequence, and his stomach threatened to twist again, fear crawling up his spine with uncomfortable familiarity.
'I'm not okay,' he admitted to himself, flat and honest. 'But I'm alive, and I'm stronger.'
It wasn't triumph or arrogance.
It was simply a fact.
He let his eyes close, not because he had moved on, not because the fear was gone, but because his body had reached the end of what it could carry today, and he needed sleep the way he needed water, as survival, not comfort.
'Be more careful,' he told himself, and it didn't feel like a heroic vow, it felt like quiet instructions whispered to a shaking kid in a sickbed.
His breathing slowly evened out, and exhaustion finally pulled him under.
————「❤︎」————