Chapter 27: Foolishness
"Urgh..."
I collapsed onto the ground, staring up at the glowing display above me.
[Noob Lv. 5: Level completed. Do you wish to move to the next stage?]
The words floated mockingly in my vision. The training targets had been set much farther away than they’d been at the start, yet every single one had a bolt lodged neatly in the bullseye or somewhere damn close to it. Proof that [Error Sense] worked, and worked well. Too well in fact. So well that I’d forgotten, in my arrogance, what the consequences of overusing it could be.
Hence my current predicament.
My vision swam, twisting in dizzy spirals as I tried to focus through the nausea pounding at my skull. The fever coursing through my body didn’t make things any easier. Sweat drenched my forehead, and my hands trembled violently no matter how hard I clenched them.
’Why the fuck are there no sweaters here,’
I muttered in my head, teeth chattering. The air wasn’t freezing but the fever had me shivering like a leaf.
Worse still was the hollowness gnawing inside me. Not hunger, though my stomach twisted too. No, this was deeper. It felt as if part of me had been scooped out, leaving me less complete... less whole.
I knew exactly what it was.
’Essence exhaustion.’
Essence: the fundamental lifeblood of hunters and monsters alike. The invisible fuel that made abilities function. It was also the energy concentrated inside heartblood, the one thing you could never afford to waste.
I hadn’t fully bottomed out my tank, but draining it past a certain threshold triggered this condition. Essence exhaustion was the body’s way of screaming at you to stop before you tore yourself apart.
I couldn’t say I appreciated the medium it chose to send that message though, forcing me into a state of aggravating lethargy that left even lifting my head an ordeal.
’I don’t know if I can take any more practice today.’
God knew how long I’d been lying there. Minutes? Hours? Either way, it was only now that I felt even slightly better. I didn’t need a clock to tell me the sun was setting.
With a frustrated sigh, I forced my arms beneath me and shoved myself upright. My body protested every inch of the way. As much as I wanted to collapse again, I couldn’t afford to. Weakness was unacceptable.
It was only when I stood fully upright, swaying like a drunk, that I noticed the faint blinking icon at the corner of my vision. Tapping it open, I saw the message was from Shin.
[Sorry, I’ve gotta go. Something important just popped up. I’ll still catch you in class though, so take it easy.]
So that’s where he’d disappeared to.
’Well, I guess that answers that,’ I thought, sighing again. I typed out a short affirmative reply before closing the interface.
I left the hefty crossbow lying on the training room floor and staggered toward the door, one hand scraping along the wall for balance. The hallways were empty now, the previous chatter of cadets gone. Only faint echoes of activity leaked through the slightly ajar main door at the far end of the hall.
’This early into the story, there’s only one person I know who would still be out here practicing this late.’
Sure enough, when I pushed open the door, there he was. A silver-haired boy stood in the corner of the larger chamber, hammering away at a metal dummy with a longsword.
’Rowan.’
His technique wasn’t pretty. Each swing was raw, unrefined, and borderline reckless. But I could see the purpose behind it. He was burning those motions into muscle memory, chiseling them into his bones through sheer repetition. With Rowan’s kind of obsessive drive, it was a method that worked.
Truth be told, I hadn’t come here just to train. My trip to the hall had carried two purposes. One, obviously, was practice. The second was finally acquainting myself with Rowan. And this was the perfect place to do it. The hall was the one spot you could always find him without fail, especially at evening. It was also the one place where I could avoid Racheal’s hawk-like gaze.
Still, barging in to break his focus would be disrespectful. So I staggered off toward another empty dummy.
Standing before it, I pulled a long dagger from its sheath.
While it was possible to dual wield daggers of this size, I wasn’t delusional. Not this early. Not when I’d never so much as touched one before.
I tested its weight first, swinging lazily a few times. The balance felt odd in my hand. After a few careless arcs, I settled into what I thought was the first stance described in the manual. Well, at least an approximation of it.
Visualizing the diagram from the book, I activated [Error Sense].
The familiar buzz filled my skull. Immediately I identified the deviations between my sloppy stance and the proper one. I shut the ability off before it could drain me further, then adjusted my posture.
Buzz again. Adjust.
Buzz again. Adjust.
I repeated the cycle until the deviations shrank to a tolerable margin.
Then I moved on.
Slash. Parry. Thrust.
I repeated the motions on the dummy. Each movement was accompanied by another activation of [Error Sense], followed by another correction, then another attempt. The more I corrected, the more my body protested.
But I didn’t stop.
’I’m far too weak. If I can’t handle even this much, I might as well give up now.’
Slash. Parry. Thrust.
Over and over. Again and again. Until my arms felt like lead and my stomach twisted violently.
Finally my body had enough. It gave out without warning, folding beneath me and hurling me to the floor.
As if triggered by the fall, my condition worsened instantly. Nausea surged through me like a tidal wave, annihilating any sense of balance I’d clung to.
Up became down. Left became right. My entire world spun out of control.
The disorientation forced a wretch from my throat. But I hadn’t eaten since the last time I’d thrown up, so nothing came out but dry, violent heaves that felt like I was trying to cough up my organs.
Groaning, I clawed myself into a sitting position, resting my head wearily against the cold torso of the training dummy.
I sucked in a ragged breath, trying to clear the chaos in my head.
That’s when I heard it—footsteps, fast and direct, coming straight toward me.
There was only one other person in the room, so I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
A grim smile tugged at my lips.
’Well, that’s one way of getting his attention.’
The steps halted in front of me. Slowly, with all the grace of a corpse, I lifted my head to meet him.
Rowan.
The main character.
The lamb of this wretched world.
I’d imagined our first meeting going differently—something more dignified, more deliberate. But life had a habit of spitting on your plans.
He broke the silence first.
"Are you doing alright?"
I let out a tired sigh.
"Do I look alright?"
"Not really. Being honest, you look like shit."
I couldn’t even argue with him. I felt like shit too.
After a pause, he extended his hand toward me.
"Need some help?"
I gave the hand a weary glance, then accepted it.
"Thanks."
Using his weight, I dragged myself up. My legs trembled violently, so I slung one arm over his shoulder to steady myself.
Rowan’s gaze flicked down at the dagger I’d dropped when I collapsed. Then he looked back at me.
"Do you want to continue training?"
I gave him a look so incredulous it practically answered for me.
"Do I look like a mad man to you?"
Rowan chuckled, brushing it off.
"I thought you might, seeing how focused you were back there."
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious.
Regardless, one collapse was enough of a warning. The next would probably end with me waking up in a hospital bed.
"What about you, are you done training?" I asked.
His eyes drifted to another dummy. On the floor beside it lay the longsword he’d abandoned, as if dropped in a hurry.
He sighed. "I guess I am."
Rowan started walking toward the exit at a measured pace, giving me time to limp along with my arm on his shoulder.
"We’re heading straight to the hospital, right?" he asked.
I shook my head quickly.
"No need. This whole fiasco was just due to... uh, a thing I have."
"A thing?"
"Yeah, exactly. Just a thing. So no need to worry."
He looked at me like I’d grown two heads.
"Ok. Now we’re definitely going to the hospital."
I almost let go of his shoulder right then, ready to collapse face-first just to spite him, but the thought of actually kissing the ground kept me clinging to him.
Helpless, I resorted to words again.
"You’re overthinking this. Seriously. It’s just a thing that happens, you know?"
"Is that so?"
Even though he replied, Rowan didn’t slow his steps.
Every attempt I made at further explanation was shut down with:
"Interesting."
"Is that so?"
"Really?"
Each duller than the last.
By the time we reached the door, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The bastard was dragging me straight to the hospital, whether I liked it or not.