"Three months?!" he repeated.
The words hung in the air like morning mist, heavy with disbelief. Leo's hands trembled as he grabbed Amanda's shoulders, feeling the warmth of her through the fabric. She looked at him, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears, and nodded.
"Amanda made sure to check on you every day," Ranna said as she shook her head. The old wooden chair creaked beneath her weight as she settled back, arms crossed.
"I couldn't imagine how she endured that daily _Manaburn."
"Manaburn?" he whispered.
His eyes widened.
He gently grabbed Amanda's face, his fingers trembling against her skin. His eyes bounced around her features, searching for signs of damage, of the toll such sacrifice must have taken.
"Why did you do that?"
"I can't let you go, Leo," Amanda said softly.
"I had to do everything I could to keep you here."
Ranna leaned back in her chair, wood scraping against wood, a sound that broke their spell. She understood the need to lighten heavy moments.
"Don't worry, I made sure she always gets a complete rest daily." She stretched, joints popping with the satisfaction of long-held tension released.
"And maybe we eat first before you two lovebirds have your moment."
Heat rushed to Leo's face. He immediately removed his hands from Amanda, the sudden absence of contact leaving him oddly bereft. But Amanda just smiled and went to prepare their meals. The familiar sounds of her moving through the kitchen filled the silence he couldn't.
"What happened here, Ranna?" The chair scraped the floor as he pulled it out, the harsh sound echoing in the quiet room. He needed answers, needed to understand what three months of absence meant.
"You don't remember?" She asked before grabbing an apple from the center of the table. The fruit was crisp and red, matching the scrutiny in her eyes. She bit into it with deliberate slowness, considering her words.
"An unfathomable, terrifying aura suddenly appeared here at the house."
She chewed thoughtfully, letting the memory resurface.
"It was so powerful that even the Dragon Lord thought that another system was bestowed."
She paused, a knowing smile playing at her lips.
"Not to mention that Luminas seemed interested, too."
Leo's head tilted in that way it did when puzzle pieces didn't quite fit. His fingers found his chin as he processed this information. The names meant something, carried weight in this world he was still learning to navigate.
"The Dragon Lord? Is it that guy, Seth?"
Amanda approached with a tray, the domestic scene a sharp contrast to talk of Dragon Lords and mysterious powers.
Steam rose from the bowls she carried, bringing with it the scent of herbs and home.
"How did you know him, Leo?"
She placed a bowl of soup and a piece of bread in front of each of them with practiced ease, then settled on his other side. The arrangement was comforting, as if they'd done this a thousand times in another life.
The first spoonful burned his tongue, but he welcomed the sensation. Real. Present. Alive. He blew on the next spoonful, watched the steam dissipate, then tried again.
He stirred the soup absently and glanced at Amanda.
"Ranna always mentions him lately," he started, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Memory surfaced of Ranna's colorful complaints.
"She said that snot Seth even received a system!" His face contorted into an exaggerated mimicry of Ranna's perpetual scowl.
Ranna crunched a big bite of the apple, juice running down her chin in a way that was utterly unselfconscious. She smiled around the mouthful, wiping the juice away with the back of her hand.
"Looks like you also grew some guts while you were in a coma, huh?"
The spoon froze halfway to his mouth. The casual observation hit differently than intended. Had he changed? Three months of darkness, of whatever had happened to him — had it left marks beyond the physical?
The pause stretched, becoming awkward in a way silences do when they carry too much weight. Then Ranna's laughter exploded through the room, rich and genuine. Her feet stomped against the floor in unrestrained mirth.
"I'm messing with you, kid! Hahaha!"
The tension broke like a soap bubble, leaving only warmth in its wake. But Amanda's chair scraped back, the sound sharp in the cozy atmosphere. She cleaned her side with the efficiency of someone who'd learned that time was precious.
"You're done already?" Leo asked, slowly placing down his bread. Crumbs scattered across the rough wooden table, and he found himself noting each one, as if these small details might anchor him to this moment.
"Ah-hmm," she nodded, already gathering her things. Her movements had a quality of barely restrained energy.
"I promised Ranna that I'll get back to work when you wake up."
There was something in the way she moved, quick and bright like captured sunlight. Everything about her seemed to sparkle with relief and purpose renewed. Leo found himself transfixed, unable to form words before she was ready to leave.
"Please accompany Ranna for me," she said, and her happiness was a tangible thing that filled the room.
"Leave her be."
Ranna stood too, her movements unhurried but no less purposeful. Her apple core arced through the air, hitting the waste bin. She moved to the door with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where they belonged in the world.
"You don't need to work today." The door opened, and cool air rushed in, carrying the scents of earth and growing things.
"Welcome back, Leo."
Gone.
Both of them, leaving him with cooling soup and swirling thoughts.
"Ah," the word escaped before he could stop it, hanging in the empty air.
"I forgot to ask about the Luminas."
He looked at his half-eaten meal. Steam still rose from the soup in lazy spirals, and he found himself following their path upward. The bread was good, solid and real beneath his fingers. These simple things grounded him even as larger questions loomed.
"Luminas, huh?" Another bite of bread, another moment to think. The texture was rough, hearty, exactly what his body needed.
"Maybe they're here for Amanda."
He nodded to himself, the gesture helping organize scattered thoughts.
"And since I don't need to work today..." A smile crept across his face, small but genuine. The expression felt foreign after so long, but welcome.
"I guess now's the time to check those stat rewards!"
Leo walked toward the tree line, his gaze locked on something only he could see. The system interface floated before him. Each step took him further from the familiar, closer to understanding what he'd become.
Behind him, the farm continued its daily rhythm. Life moved on, as it always did, indifferent to individual dramas.
"Hey, who's that guy?" Markus frowned from his position near the fields. His pike wobbled dangerously in his grip as he pointed at the retreating figure. Sweat from the day's training still glistened on his brow.
"That's Leo," Amanda replied, and her voice carried joy like a banner raised in victory.
The name didn't compute in Markus's mind. The figure walking away bore little resemblance to the friend who'd collapsed three months ago. Something fundamental had changed, though he couldn't put his finger on what.
The pike fell. His jaw followed.
But Leo heard none of this drama unfolding behind him. The forest swallowed him whole, and with it, the sounds of civilization. Ancient trees rose around him like cathedral pillars, their canopy filtering sunlight into a green-tinted twilight. His attention remained fixed on the numbers floating before him, each digit a promise of power he didn't yet understand.
"Hmm, it seems like I received them."
Leo Level 1 Class: None Race: Human
The stats glowed with their own inner light, impossible numbers for an impossible situation.
"Aren't these stats ridiculous for level 1?"
Status Strength: 1015 Agility: 1015 Intelligence: 1015 Stamina: 1015
The forest grew denser with each step, as if responding to his presence. Shadows lengthened between the trees, creating pools of darkness that seemed almost liquid. The open sky disappeared piece by piece, replaced by a canopy so thick it might have been solid.
Twigs crunched beneath his feet in a steady rhythm. Somewhere distant, wolves howled their territorial claims. Branches swayed in winds that couldn't penetrate the forest floor.
He noticed none of it. The numbers consumed his attention, each digit a question without an answer.
"Ah, are you the reason that guy didn't realize I'm a system user too?"
The question hung in the air, addressed to the interface that couldn't respond. But the system provided clarity anyway, text appearing as if it had been waiting for him to ask.
VIP protection: Your systems and any VIP-related benefits cannot be scouted.
Understanding dawned slowly. Whatever had happened to him, whatever power had chosen him, it came with built-in secrecy. A hidden player in a game where everyone else showed their cards.
The temperature dropped.
The change was sudden, unnatural. One moment he walked through a normal forest, the next through something else entirely. His breath began to mist, each exhalation visible in the suddenly frigid air like tiny ghosts escaping his lungs.
"Is it just me, or is it getting cold here?"
The forest answered with silence. But not the peaceful quiet of nature at rest. This was the silence of held breath, of predators waiting, of spaces between heartbeats where terrible things lived.
The trees changed.
Where before they'd been merely dense, now they showed signs of sickness. Bark peeled away in long strips like flayed skin. Branches reached toward a sky they could no longer see, skeletal fingers grasping at nothing. Dark mist seeped from the ground itself, rolling across dead leaves.
The normal forest noise stopped.
Completely.
Even his footsteps seemed muffled now, as if the very air had thickened. Then, between one tree and the next, the forest opened up to reveal something that shouldn't exist.
The entrance yawned before him.
A cave mouth so perfectly dark it seemed to eat the light around it, a wound in the world that led to places maps didn't show. The opening was rough, natural, yet somehow deliberate. Like the maw of some colossal beast frozen in an eternal roar.
"Woah!"
The word escaped involuntarily, his mind's attempt to process what his eyes reported.
This place radiated wrongness. Every instinct inherited from ancestors who'd survived by fearing the dark should have been screaming. Yet he felt only curiosity, perhaps even anticipation. Was it the stats making him brave? Some hidden perk of his mysterious system? His mind raced through possibilities, but the cave had other plans.
The aura hit him like a physical force.
Menacing.
Ancient.
It spilled from the depths like black water, invisible but undeniable. His perception blurred at the edges, reality becoming negotiable near this threshold. But deeper than sight, deeper than thought, his body knew. His soul knew.
This was an invitation. Dreadful in its promise. Mocking in its certainty.
Come, it seemed to say. Come and learn what waits in the dark.
Cold sweat broke across his neck despite the chill air. Every instinct finally woke up, screaming warnings in languages older than words.
What good were such numbers if he never tested them?
His feet moved without permission.
One step.
Then another.
The darkness swallowed him whole, but his enhanced senses compensated in ways that felt alien. The passage revealed itself through sound and air pressure, through scents of ancient stone and stagnant water.
The tunnel narrowed with each step forward. Stone walls pressed closer, their surface slick with moisture that had never known sunlight. His footsteps echoed strangely, sometimes returning too quickly, sometimes not at all.
Things skittered in the shadows, creatures adapted to permanent night disturbed by his passage.
Then, without warning, space opened up.
The passage widened into vastness his senses painted in impossible detail. A chamber stretched before him, enormous beyond reason. His mind supplied comparisons. Nearly the size of the farm he'd left behind.
Silence reigned here.
Perfect.
Absolute.
Then fire erupted in answering challenge.
Torches ignited in sequence, racing along both walls in perfect synchronization. Light chased away darkness in a dramatic reveal that spoke of theater, of intention. Orange flames painted dancing shadows on surfaces that hadn't seen illumination in ages uncounted. At the far end, revealed in flickering glory, stood a throne.
The seat was carved from single stone, black as midnight and shot through with veins of something that might have been ore or might have been something far worse. It rose from the floor like an accusation, every angle designed to intimidate. Massive. Ancient.
Occupied.
The figure defied proportion and reason equally. Scarred green skin caught the torchlight, mottled and sick like an infected wound. Muscles bunched beneath hide thick as armor, each movement promising violence barely restrained. One massive hand, fingers thick as Leo's body, reached for a weapon that made mockery of the term.
The spiked club was grotesque in its simplicity. No art here, only purpose.
To crush and maim.
It made Leo feel like an ant contemplating a mountain, insignificant in ways that numbers couldn't capture.
Red eyes flared. They found him across the vast space, pinned him like an insect to cork.
Another challenger.
Another fool.
And the monster stood.
Reality protested the movement. The ground beneath its feet cracked in spiderweb patterns. The throne, which had endured untold ages, groaned and split. Stone dust fell like snow in the torchlight.
This is it, Leo thought with clarity that surprised him.
A battle was about to begin.