— Freed’s POV —
The sun had long since dipped beneath the jagged horizon, bleeding its final gold into the coal-colored sky. Dusk pressed heavy on our backs as we stood in a crooked line, waiting. The earth beneath our feet was dry and cracked—like the bread we were about to receive.
“Co! Just take one piece of bread each! Quick! I want to go ho. Tsk.”
The overseer's voice grated like rusted iron. I didn’t know his na, nor did I care to. Not even a muttered reply ca from us; silence had long been beaten into our bones. We were forbidden to speak.
I hated him. I hated this place.
A sudden, grim thought flickered through . Could she, maybe, kill my master for ?
【Yes, Master. However, the slave collar currently prevents from taking hostile action.】
Frustrating… but hardly a surprise.
I stared at the misshapen lump of bread in my hand. It was hard, nearly stone. I chewed without tasting.
【It is. I don’t need mana or aura to access your status.】
As the dry bread crumbled between my teeth, a flickering screen materialized in my vision, suspended in the air like smoke.
⟦ Status Window ⟧
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Na:Freed
Age:9
Race:Great Human
Title:Otherworlder
State:Hungry
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⟬ Essence ⟭
Mana:0/320
Aura:300/300
Vitality:1215
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⟬ Attributes ⟭
Strength:1150
Magic Power:313
ntal Power:287
Agility:1325
Dexterity:1023
Magic Resistance:302
ntal Resistance: 300
Status Points:60
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⟬ Elent Affinity ⟭
Light, Fire, Wind
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⟬ Skills ⟭
— Active —
Immortal Bonds, Appraisal (3), Light Ball, Fire Manipulation, Fire Blade, Wind Blade, Silent Fury
— Passive —
Language Comprehension, Breeze Footwork (6)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⟬ Innate Talents ⟭
Immortal, Double Natural Growth Rate, Status Manipulation, Elentalist, Learning Acceleration
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A bitter smile crept across my lips. My basic attributes had climbed into four-digit territory—strong enough to rival low-tier adventurers. But everything else was lagging behind, barely scraping the three hundreds.
【No, Master. Your physical growth accelerated precisely because your training focused solely on basic attributes. Had you also trained mana or aura, your developnt would have slowed.】
Still… it made sense. My life here was a loop: wake up, train, mine for twelve straight hours, then sleep for three, maybe four hours, if I was lucky that the nightmare didn’t haunt . Moreover, my body was still that of a child, and I had the Double Natural Growth Rate talent.
【Indeed. Your regin is intensive. And consistent.】
A gust of dry wind blew over the pit as I leaned against a stone wall, eyes still fixed on the glowing screen.
【You’ve simply grown numb to it. Your body, however, is constantly in a state of deprivation.】
I didn’t know you could grow numb to hunger, even while your body still craved food. Well, my knowledge of human physiology is low. If Aza said so, then it must be true.
【You sleep 3–4 hours a day, train the mont you wake, mine until evening, and eat one al of hardened bread. it would be strange if your body wasn’t hungry at all!】
Azadia’s tone shifted, just slightly—sharper than usual. Almost scolding.
【I’m not!】
【I SAID I’M NOT! But I am hungry! You eat that god-awful bread every day and I feel it too! I didn’t want to complain because you were depressed every day but—ugh!】
I blinked, surprised. Then guilt crept into my chest like a cold draft.
I muttered the apology instinctively, though I was supposed to be the master in this relationship. But Azadia wasn’t just so tool in my head. She felt everything. Literally.
【So did I, at first. But I’m inside your body. What your body feels, I feel too. Even if your mind doesn’t register hunger, mine does.】
【…One aspect won can't escape is their connection to food.】
【Shut up. You should never talk about a woman’s weight. Ever.】
She had no coback. I smirked. She clearly hated talking about things that make most won squirm—probably because she was one. This could be valuable information to stash away for future teasing.
【R-Really?! I want at! And sweets! Lots of sweets!】
【No. But I rember the recipes! Chocolate, ice cream, pancakes… I’ll teach you how to make all of them!】
Her excitent made her voice lighter, warr. For a mont, she didn’t sound like an angel soul—just a girl who’d suffered too long without joy.
【Hmph.】
I chuckled. Our bond wasn’t sothing forced—it had grown, forged through endurance and the quiet comfort of shared pain.
【It's the outco of your battles. More precisely, it's thanks to your skill, Silent Fury. This skill enables you to accumulate more mana and aura than your body would normally allow. As a side effect, your body has adapted to this increase.】
I shut my eyes, recalling the mont that skill first awakened. Back then, my thoughts were consud by the desire to eliminate bandits. I was engulfed in a rage that seed to obliterate my rationality. However, it didn't imply I had no control over my body. On the contrary, every action during that ti reflected my deliberate intent.
⟬ Silent Fury ⟭
When the suppressed rage within the weak erupts into silence, a maddening force engulfs all enemies in view.
This skill can be activated when the following conditions are fulfilled:
The user's emotions must be fueled by anger.There must be a minimum of five enemies stronger than the user present.
During this skill is active, the user will receive the following effects:
The user's aura capacity, mana capacity, magic power, and ntal strength will surge to match the highest respective attributes among the enemies.Upon defeating an enemy, the user gains additional aura capacity, mana capacity, magic power, and ntal strength, proportional to the fallen enemy's corresponding status.
The skill deactivates automatically once the user's anger subsides.
User’s status will revert to normal once this skill is deactivated.
In the skill's inactive state, the user's aura may beco uncontrollable when experiencing anger.
It was a broken kind of power—born from desperation, bound to wrath. But it saved once. It might happen again.
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