'I'm fucked.'
That was the first thought Soren had when Amelia said it.
Not surprise, not denial, not even some frantic attempt to think of a clever way out first, just that blunt, ugly certainty dropping into his stomach like a stone.
"Fight? Why?"
His voice came out tighter than he meant it to, the sharpness of it carrying more fear than challenge.
He tried to make it sound reasonable, tried to make it sound like there was still a conversation to be had here, like this could still be solved by pointing out the obvious.
"My rank is ninety-six. I'm a magician. Isn't that a bit unfair?"
It felt pathetic the moment he said it, but pride had already become worthless.
Olivia was still behind him.
He could feel it without turning around, her presence small and rigid, the anxious stillness of someone who knew they were standing near something dangerous and didn't know where to put their hands or their eyes.
If his opponent had been almost anyone else, if there had been any room at all for appearances, he might have tried harder to look composed in front of her.
Right now, that instinct barely existed.
Pride was a luxury for people who weren't about to get crushed into the dirt.
If abandoning every scrap of it improved his odds of surviving, he would do it without hesitation.
Amelia tilted her head, not mockingly or with open cruelty, but with a strange sort of honest consideration, as though she were actually weighing what he had said.
Then she gave a small shrug.
"Your magic is interesting."
That was all.
No explanation, no sympathy, no acknowledgement that he had just pointed out an absurd mismatch, only that simple answer, calm and direct and completely uninterested in anything except the thing she had already decided she wanted.
'Damn it.'
Soren ground his teeth hard enough that his jaw ached.
'Why aren't you after Alex? Why me?'
The thought came hot and immediate, and with it came another one he hated even more.
This was not entirely unexpected.
Not really.
Back when he had bought [Concentration], there had been a tiny, stupid, arrogant part of him that had wondered whether she might notice eventually.
Not because he thought he was special or because he actually believed he could stand beside people like her, but because he knew what Amelia was like.
Strength drew her.
Unusual people drew her.
Anything that felt sharp enough, strange enough, alive enough in battle could catch her eye.
He had shut that thought down almost as soon as it appeared.
Don't be ridiculous, he told himself.
Why would she look at him when Alex had been revealed on the exact same day?
Compared to the Hero, Soren was nothing worth remembering.
No destiny, no brilliance, no terrifying natural talent that bent the story around him.
He was just a weak magician clawing his way upward with scraps and panic and whatever advantages he could steal from future knowledge without messing with the story.
And yet, here she was.
Looking at him.
Wanting him.
Not in any way that was good.
His stomach twisted.
Because it was not just fear, not just the immediate problem of Amelia Indras Einhardt standing there with that bright, intent gaze fixed on him.
There was something fouler underneath it, something he did not want to sit with for even a second, the sense that this was what happened when you stepped too close to people like this, when you let yourself get involved, when you forgot for even a moment that the heroines were not safe things to touch.
People around monsters like Amelia got dragged into their gravity.
And Soren had no business being anywhere near it.
He wanted to scream at her for choosing him, at himself for ever getting tangled up in this world enough to be noticed, at the sheer unfairness of everything lining up like this, but none of that would help.
Panic was only useful if it made him move faster.
There was no point wasting it on outrage.
'There's nothing I can do about it now…'
Amelia's stance had shifted.
Only slightly, but enough.
Her shoulders stayed loose, her posture relaxed, and if someone who did not know better had looked at her, they might have thought she was barely taking this seriously at all.
But the looseness did not mean carelessness.
It meant confidence.
Her balance had settled into something ready, her weight distributed so naturally it was almost invisible, and her eyes...
Her eyes were bright.
Sharp.
Excited.
She was already in it.
That horrible, unmistakable state he remembered too well from the game and now understood even better in person, the point where fighting stopped being an action and became something closer to joy for her.
Once Amelia slipped into that mood, there was no talking her down, no clever wording, no careful de-escalation.
The fight was no longer a possibility.
It was already happening.
"Sigh..."
The breath left him in a thin stream.
At least she had not moved yet.
She still stood in the shallow crater she had made when she landed, one boot half-sunk in cracked soil, the broken ground fanned around her in a rough circle, as though the forest itself had buckled to let her in.
She was not rushing him, not closing the distance, not pressing him while he was still trying to think.
That told him enough.
She was giving him the first move.
Not mercy.
Certainly not kindness.
Just acknowledgement.
A predator waiting to see what the thing in front of it would do.
Soren noticed it, and instead of letting the thought make his pulse spike worse, he forced himself to grab hold of it.
'If she's letting me prepare, I'd be an idiot not to use it.'
"Olivia."
"Y-Yes?"
Her voice cracked.
He kept his eyes on Amelia.
"Can you use your blessings on me?"
The words landed, and Olivia went still.
Not ordinary hesitation or fear, but the full weight of what he was asking finally reaching her.
He could picture her expression without looking, the widening eyes, the brief frozen disbelief, because the request itself admitted too much.
That he intended to fight.
That he thought there was no other choice.
"S-Soren, you can't be serious," she said quickly. "You're not actually going to fight her, are you?"
He did not answer.
Instead, he raised one hand and pointed at Amelia, not even turning around.
"I don't want to," he said, because there was no point pretending otherwise. "But... do you think she'll let us go?"
Olivia opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Nothing came out.
That was answer enough.
The silence sat there for a second, fragile and awful, before Olivia drew in a shaking breath, clasped her hands together, and bowed her head.
"I call to you, goddess," she whispered, voice trembling at first, "hear my name and help thy champion. 「Minor Blessing of Mana」."
Warm light gathered faintly around her fingers.
Then she did it again.
And again.
By the second prayer, there was still fear in her voice, but there was something else too, something firmer under it.
By the third, she sounded steadier.
By the fourth, conviction had begun to push through the panic, not because she was unafraid, but because she was doing what she could anyway.
One after another, the blessings settled over him.
.
[Minor Blessing of Agility has been applied!]
[Minor Blessing of Strength has been applied!]
[Minor Blessing of Mana has been applied!]
[Minor Blessing of Divine Power has been applied!]
.
[Unique Skill [Blessing of Aryn] has increased [Minor Blessing]'s effectiveness!]
.
[Status Window]
Name: Soren Arden
◈ Stats
Strength - 2.0 (0.7)
Agility - 2.6 (1.3)
Mana - 2.6 (1.3)
Divine Power - 1.6 (0.3)
.
Blessings.
This was why Olivia mattered for so absurdly long in the game.
From the earliest dungeons to content that had no business still relying on a supposedly early-game support-focused heroine, she remained one of the most valuable party members in the game for one simple reason: blessings did not just add numbers; they changed the shape of a build.
Stats in TKS were multiplicative.
The higher the base became, the more obscene external amplification turned into, which was why even a seemingly modest increase could push a character over a threshold and turn them from viable to monstrous.
And Olivia's unique skill made that worse in the best possible way.
Every divine incantation she cast landed harder.
Thirty percent stronger.
On paper, that was ridiculous.
In practice, on him...
Soren looked at the numbers and nearly laughed.
'What a joke.'
Even stacked with all four blessings and boosted further by [Blessing of Aryn], his status had only just climbed to the edge of acceptable.
He had gone from absolute bottom-tier trash to something that might pass for a decent first-year on a generous day.
Useful.
Hopelessly insufficient.
"Sigh... Well, whatever. It's better than nothing."
The words came out flatter than he intended, more tired than dismissive, but Olivia still flinched behind him.
"D-Did I do something wrong, Soren?" she asked quickly.
"No," he said at once, sharper than before only because he needed to correct it immediately. "No, you didn't. You did it perfectly. It's just..."
He kept staring at Amelia.
"The person we're dealing with is Amelia."
"Ah..."
Olivia swallowed audibly.
"U-Um, good luck. I'll support you."
"Thanks..."
He meant that too.
He just wished it mattered more.
'I really don't want to do this,' he thought, eyes fixed on Amelia's still-unmoving figure. 'But she isn't letting this end any other way.'
"「Inventory」."
The handaxe appeared in his grip.
And his stomach lurched.
He had known, obviously, that it would still be dirty.
He had shoved it away after that night without cleaning it, had passed out, recovered, moved on, and then very deliberately avoided thinking too much about the state it must still be in.
But knowing something in the abstract and seeing it again were different things.
Dark, dried blood still coated the blade.
It had gone almost black in places, crusted thick along the edge and into the join near the head, with tacky-looking stains caught against the wood of the handle where his grip had once been slick with panic and someone else's life.
It did not look like a weapon that had been used in battle.
It looked like evidence.
For one horrible second, the forest in front of him blurred with another scene entirely, blood on his hands, choking breaths, the wet resistance of flesh that had not wanted to part, the sickening awareness that he had not just fought someone, he had hacked at them until they died.
His fingers almost loosened.
Revulsion crawled up his arm so sharply that it felt physical, like he had reached into rot and pulled it out dripping.
He wanted to throw it away.
Wanted to wipe his palm against the grass, against his cloak, against anything.
Wanted it clean.
Wanted it gone.
Instead, he tightened his grip until the rough handle bit into his skin and forced himself to look properly.
The blade had not chipped.
The haft was still solid.
There was no crack lines, no looseness, no damage that would make it fail when he needed it.
It was functional.
That was all that mattered.
The smell, faint but still there when the air shifted, copper and old grime and something his mind insisted on making fresher than it was, turned his stomach again.
He swallowed hard against it, jaw tight, and lowered the axe slightly.
'Don't think about it.'
'Don't think about what it is.'
'It's just a weapon.'
That was a lie, but a useful one.
"Haah..."
He let the breath out slowly.
His heartbeat was too fast, too loud, but he forced some control back into his hands anyway.
His left hand slipped into his cloak pocket, fingers moving against the hidden space there as he began forming a magic circle.
It was not subtle, not really.
Amelia would notice.
Someone like Amelia noticed everything once a fight interested her.
Still, the motion helped.
The small act of preparing something out of sight helped, even if the secrecy was fake.
The moment the circle stabilised, Amelia's eyes brightened further.
"Finally."
She smiled.
Not a polite smile, not even a teasing one, but something sharper, wider, eager in a way that sent another pulse of dread through him.
She shifted her footing slightly in the mud and broken earth, testing it, almost bouncing on the edge of movement, and there was an unmistakable excitement to her now, the kind a starving person might show when food was finally set in front of them.
Her tail flicked once behind her.
"I'm ready," Soren whispered.
It was barely audible.
A lie spoken for the sake of hearing anything other than the pounding of his own pulse.
He was not ready.
He would never be ready for Amelia.
But waiting longer would only make it worse.
He kicked off the ground and sprinted.
The sudden speed startled him for half a beat.
With Olivia's blessings layered over his body, the world shifted, his footing lighter, his reactions cleaner, his limbs answering him with an ease that felt almost wrong compared to what he was used to.
If he had fought nearly anyone else under these conditions, he might have felt a flicker of confidence.
Against Amelia, the improvement only made the gap clearer.
'Still not enough.'
His highest stat had barely clawed its way into D-rank territory.
Amelia's lowest stat at the start of the game, leaving divine power aside, had been mana at C-rank.
The difference between them was grotesque.
As soon as he entered range, his left hand snapped out.
"「Bloom」."
The ground answered.
Roots and thick vines tore upward from the soil in a violent twist, wrapping around Amelia's legs, snaring at her calves and pinning her stance as they dug into the churned earth.
Dirt sprayed.
Broken roots cracked.
The spell landed cleanly.
Amelia did not so much as blink.
If anything, her smile lifted further.
Soren did not pause.
The next circle was already forming before the first spell had fully finished taking hold.
"「Gaia!」"
The ground beneath her softened at once, dirt and shattered stone sinking into a dense, clinging mire that swallowed at her boots and turned the crater into a trap.
It was not elegant, but that was the point.
He did not need elegance; he needed hindrance, friction, anything that made her body answer the terrain for even half a second.
She stood in the middle of it as though he had done nothing more than splash water at her.
Still smiling.
Still waiting.
Now only a few metres away, Soren forced down the part of himself that wanted to hesitate and cast again.
"「Shockwave」."
The spell punched through the air, invisible except for the distortion it dragged in its wake, a blunt blast meant to slam into her centre mass and break whatever rhythm she had.
Amelia lifted one gauntleted fist and met it head-on.
The impact did not move her.
Not properly.
It pushed some of the loose hair near her face back, rattled the vines, sent a pulse through the mud around her boots, and stopped there, as if the force had hit a wall already rooted into the mountain behind her.
Her eyes gleamed.
"Weak."
The word was not cruel.
She sounded pleased, amused even.
As if she had tasted something interesting and immediately wanted to see more.
Soren did not waste energy being insulted.
'I know.'
That lesson had been carved into him thoroughly enough by now.
He closed the distance.
His right hand finished another circle, mana sparking across his skin as he stepped in.
The moment he reached her…
"「Shock」!"
Lightning burst from his palm and slammed into Amelia's torso in a violent crackle of pale-yellow light.
The current snapped across the metal of her gauntlets, skittered along her clothing, and flashed over skin.
At the exact same instant, Soren brought the handaxe down with everything he had.
It was not a clean technique.
Not elegant or trained.
Just force.
Panic, momentum, both hands committed, trying to turn the opening the spell created into something real.
Amelia caught the axe barehanded.
Her left hand snapped up and closed around the head of it before the blade could fall another inch, fingers gripping metal and dried blood alike as though neither the edge nor the impact meant anything.
Her right arm still twitched faintly with the aftershock of the spell, tiny residual movements running through the muscles.
Soren did not stop.
He hadn't expected that to be enough.
Another circle was already complete.
"「Ignition」!"
Fire exploded from his free hand.
Not a small burst or the rough, unreliable flame he had first learned to produce, but a surge, hot and violent and immediate, flaring over Amelia at point-blank range in a rush that forced heat back across his own face.
.
[Congratulations, [Ignition] has risen from (D+) to (C-).]
.
For half a second, the notification cut through his panic simply because of how absurd the timing was.
Then the flames cleared.
Amelia was still there.
She had not let go of the axe.
Her body remained exactly where it had been, one hand locked around the weapon, the other lowered now, her expression bright and animated in the orange afterglow of the fire.
The cloth around her sleeves had darkened slightly, singed at the edges in places.
Her skin was untouched.
Not burnt.
Not blistered.
Not even reddened.
Soren's mouth went dry.
"Crazy..."
The word slipped out under his breath before he could stop it.
Because what else was there to call this?
He had layered crowd control, terrain manipulation, ranged pressure, lightning, a close-range strike, then a stronger-than-usual flame burst practically into her face, and the result was... this.
Nothing.
Not nothing, technically.
Less than nothing, maybe, because Amelia looked happier now than she had at the start.
She rolled her shoulders once.
Her grip on the axe shifted.
There was delight in her eyes.
Not hidden, not restrained, but openly there now, something almost feverishly bright, as if everything he had thrown at her had only confirmed that she had made the right choice.
'It's impossible to win.'
He had known that already.
Of course he had.
He wasn't stupid.
But knowing something from logic and feeling it settle into your bones were different things, and now that difference was hitting him all at once.
Then Amelia took a step.
That single movement snapped him back into himself more effectively than any shouted warning could have.
His pulse lurched, sweat broke colder across the back of his neck, and mana surged into his palm almost on reflex as he forced another magic circle into existence.
Grey light gathered.
She kept walking.
The vines were still wrapped around her legs, the mud still clinging around her boots, but neither seemed to matter.
She moved through the warped ground without strain, each step easy, steady, and terrifyingly casual, as though the battlefield he had spent every spell he had making was little more than uneven scenery.
Soren's breathing shortened despite himself.
He hated not knowing when she would strike.
If she had rushed him immediately, if she had simply crushed him with overwhelming speed, there would have been something cleaner about it.
This was worse.
This measured advance, this calm refusal to hurry, made every second stretch until it felt thin enough to snap.
He let out a slow breath and tried to steady his hands.
Then she vanished from where she had been.
Instinct moved faster than thought.
"「Shield!」"
The barrier formed in front of him just in time to shatter.
Amelia had not even hit it properly.
The structure broke apart under the force of her approach, splintering into fragments of light before her body ever fully crashed through, and the sight of it drove one ugly, immediate thought through him.
He should have trained it more.
He had spent too long trying to build ways to hurt people stronger than him, and not nearly enough time building ways to survive them.
Realising that now was useless.
The regret arrived a second too late to matter, and with Amelia already in front of him, Soren's body reacted before his mind could catch up.
His eyes squeezed shut on instinct, shoulders tightening as he braced for the hit that should have followed.
But it never came.
————「❤︎」————