Waking from darkness, Duncan stared blankly at the familiar ceiling.
This kind of scene was far too common—so his first thought was that he'd probably been beaten unconscious again. But he couldn't recall being knocked out. The last thing he remembered was discussing how to defend against Alfia's Gospel.
As his mind cleared, he tried to sit up—
—and a surge of pain shot through him, forcing him to abandon the attempt. Bandages had him wrapped like a mummy. Judging by the sharp, needling ache in his limbs, he'd suffered fractures. He'd been treated with recovery potions, but the fact that the wounds still hadn't knit shut told him exactly how bad it had been.
His chest burned the most. The last time training injuries had been this severe was when Alfia had first stepped in and misjudged her strength.
"Duncan?! You're awake?!"
Bell came in from outside carrying a basin of clean water and fresh bandages—apparently to change his dressing. When he saw Duncan's eyes open, Bell brightened immediately.
"Bell… how long was I out?" Duncan blurted.
"A full day," Bell answered.
"A whole day?!" Duncan jolted, then immediately regretted it. "How am I even here?!"
For someone with a Level 2 capped-out stat sheet to sleep an entire day… what the hell had he done yesterday?
"I remember training with Alfia, but… it feels like everything cut off midway."
Alfia's expression in his memory, the angle of the spear, the shockwave—pieces didn't connect.
Bell hesitated, then spoke with the earnest certainty of someone repeating what he'd been told.
"Alfia-mom said you took her Gospel head-on with zero guard up… and she didn't control the output. When she called me back to help, I saw you get blasted dozens of meters away. Everything was broken. Uncle Zald used a high-grade recovery potion and managed to stabilize you."
Bell looked at him like he was witnessing a legend.
Taking an Alfia Gospel—one she failed to rein in—and still being alive… that was, objectively, absurd.
"Is that… really what happened?" Duncan murmured.
His head was a mess.
He remembered failing to fully defend against Gospel, sure—but not something as suicidal as eating it unguarded like a hero in a tragedy. Had he been knocked senseless and his brain had "edited" the humiliating parts into something more palatable?
Bell nodded seriously. "At least, that's what I saw. The ground still has the marks from Gospel. When you're better, you can go look yourself."
He spoke with an almost casual acceptance. By now, both of them were numb to being hurt. The only difference was severity. If Duncan could talk, Bell's worry dropped by half.
"I… shouldn't be that stupid," Duncan muttered, sinking into self-doubt. "That doesn't sound like me."
"Awake?"
The voice came from the doorway. Zald and Zeus stepped inside.
Zald looked pale in the way only someone who'd just watched a near-fatal mistake could look.
"You little idiot… I don't know whether to call you fearless or just insane. Even Maxim wouldn't dare take Alfia's Gospel with no defense. You pulled off something even the great ones wouldn't attempt."
"There's got to be a misunderstanding," Duncan said weakly. "I can't remember it at all."
Then he remembered something else.
"Where's Alfia?"
"Outside," Zald said, pointing toward the window. "She feels bad about hitting you that hard."
Zeus already had a silver needle ready, as if he'd been waiting for this moment.
"You're not recovering anytime soon like this. Bell's about to change your bandages anyway, so we'll update your status and level you up. Once you're Level 3, your injuries will heal faster too."
Duncan didn't object.
He'd delayed leveling before because Endurance and Magic were comparatively low—but training only two parameters without leveling was inefficient. The higher your stats climbed, the flatter the growth curve became. Every point became harder to earn.
Normally, people stalled because their "feat" wasn't enough to level up. Someone like Duncan—who had more than enough achievement but refused to level because he wasn't satisfied with A-rank values—was rare. And calling A-rank "not good enough" was rarer still.
Bell carefully rolled him over. The bandages weren't soaked—thanks to the high-grade potion and proper treatment—but even the tug of cloth against healing flesh made Duncan suck in a sharp breath.
After snipping the wrappings away, Zeus pricked his finger and let divine blood fall.
Blue light flickered.
A moment later, Zeus placed the transcribed sheet beside Duncan's pillow.
Level: 3Strength: SS 1251 → I0Endurance: SSS 1311 → I0Dexterity: SSS 1387 → I0Agility: SSS 1347 → I0Magic: SS 1041 → I0
Development Abilities:
Agility G
Full Recovery I (slightly restores stamina, mana, and injuries)
Magic:
Metronome
Silence
Skills:
Outsider
Lucky One?
Sky-Step
Keen Swift Advance (Agility correction: converts Agility into attack "sharpness." Higher Agility increases the conversion.)
"Congratulations," Zeus said. "You've officially stepped into the second tier of adventurers. You gained a new development ability, a new spell, and a new skill. And the way they're turning out… they all seem linked to Alfia and Zald in one way or another. Living long-term with injuries and low mana probably pushed Full Recovery into existence. Even recovery abilities that restore stamina or mana alone are rare—getting a combined one like this is absurdly lucky."
Zald stroked his beard, eyes narrowed in thought.
"Silence is straightforward. No idea whether it'll do anything to Alfia, but that 'Keen Swift Advance'… what interests me is that it doesn't emphasize raw destructive power. It specifically says sharpness. That means it's leaning toward precision and cutting efficiency."
Duncan, oddly, looked more relieved than excited.
"That makes sense. After seeing the bears' wind blades—and feeling them up close—I realized my options against large monsters are still too limited. Without magic, or without your kind of sheer destructive output, Uncle Zald, it's hard to threaten something that's huge, thick-skinned, and built like a fortress."
He'd admired the bears' wind blades for exactly that reason. Not just power—edge. The way it sliced through massive trees cleanly.
Destruction and sharpness weren't the same.
Smashing something only demanded brute force. Cutting cleanly demanded technique.
Zald's voice dropped, stern and grounded.
"Your thinking is fine. And your luck is fine. You got what you needed—skills, even magic. But don't forget: the more a skill depends on precision, the more it demands from your mind and your mastery. Thrusting a spear at random and thrusting into the exact weak point—those can look identical from the outside. But the level of control inside them is completely different."
He held Duncan's gaze.
"Don't get complacent just because you awakened new abilities. Your road is still long."
"…Yes," Duncan answered quietly.
....
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