Liam listened to everything without interrupting, but the more Charlotte explained, the heavier his thoughts beca. Being unconscious for a day and a half was not a small thing. In a hostile realm like Nalim, it was practically a death sentence.
If Charlotte had not found him, if she had decided to run like she had originally planned, if she had valued only her own safety in that mont and left him behind, Liam had no real guarantee he would have survived. Even with the academy watching, he could not place faith in Forced Extraction anymore, not after Charlotte had nearly been killed by the Berserker and no extraction had occurred. That ant his survival had depended on sothing outside his own control, and the thought irritated him deeply.
His irritation was not directed at Charlotte. If anything, her actions had been more than useful. They had been necessary. No, the irritation was entirely toward himself. He had let frustration decide too much. He had wanted a fight, wanted sothing strong enough to force him to stop holding back, and he had allowed that desire to carry him into a situation where victory still left him helpless on the ground afterward.
Killing the Berserker ant very little if he had been too broken to survive the aftermath by himself.
Liam’s gaze lowered toward the fire.
If this had not been an assessnt, if there had been no academy watching from afar, if there had been no Charlotte to return for him, what would have happened? Would he have died unconscious in the forest after winning the fight? Would so lesser demon have found him and torn him apart? Would the victory have beco aningless because he had failed to consider what ca after the enemy fell?
That thought bothered him more than the pain in his ribs.
It forced him to rember other tis when things had ended similarly. Mystica finding him after the Blood Demon incident in Grandeur City. The aftermath of the Advanced Horror during the Vlardia assessnt.
The pattern was clearer now than he liked.
Liam had always focused on eliminating the threat in front of him, pushing through damage and exhaustion without much concern for the condition he would be left in afterward. He had relied too much on the idea that surviving the fight ant surviving the situation.
But those were not the sa thing.
That realization settled heavily in him.
And then ca the other part.
The academy had seen it.
They had seen more than they should have. Not everything, but enough. More of his output, more of his fused techniques, more of his destructive capacity, more of how far he could push himself when he stopped caring about restraint. Even though he had still hidden a significant portion of his dark magic arsenal, he had revealed far more than he had intended at this stage.
Worse than that, he had given Headmaster Thion exactly what the man wanted.
The thought made Liam’s jaw tighten faintly.
He had allowed himself to be baited, not by direct manipulation, but by circumstance and his own desire to vent. He had made future matters more complicated for himself, and all because he had wanted to break sothing strong enough to survive his frustration for a while.
Charlotte watched him silently for a long mont, her playful expression fading as she noticed how deep into his thoughts he had gone.
Eventually, she clicked her tongue softly and leaned forward.
"You know," she said, dragging him back to the present, "it’s incredibly rude not to thank the person who risked her beautiful life to save you."
Liam lifted his eyes toward her.
For a mont, he simply stared at her. Then his grip around the dagger loosened, and the blade dissolved quietly back into shadow. His voice, when he spoke, was calm, but there was nothing dismissive about it.
"Thank you," he said genuinely. "I’m actually glad it was you."
Charlotte blinked.
For once, she seed briefly caught off guard. The reaction lasted only a second, but it was there. Her golden eyes widened slightly, her lips parting as though she had not expected him to say it that plainly. Then, just as quickly, she recovered, leaning back with a pleased smile slowly spreading across her face.
"Well, well," she said, her tone returning to its usual teasing warmth. "Look at you being sincere. Careful, bae, I might start thinking you actually like ."
Liam did not respond to that.
Charlotte’s smile sharpened. "But since you’re truly grateful, then it’s best you understand sothing clearly. You now owe double. I used my last healing potion on you, and I carried you all the way back here. That is two separate heroic services."
Liam held her gaze for a mont, then nodded once. "Fair."
Charlotte’s expression brightened imdiately, satisfaction blooming across her face. "Good. Then I’m using my first reward right now."
Liam looked at her, waiting.
Charlotte pointed toward the deer corpse in the corner. "I need you to cook that."
Liam stared at her.
She pointed again, as if he sohow had not understood the first ti. "The deer, Liam. I want you to prepare it the sa way you did the other at before."
For the first ti since waking, Liam looked genuinely confused. Not much, but enough that Charlotte noticed and seed deeply amused by it.
"That’s your reward?" he asked.
"Yes," Charlotte answered imdiately. "And don’t look at like that. This is serious."
Liam glanced toward the deer, then back at her.
Charlotte sighed and waved a hand.
"I finished the rest of what you had already prepared. The smoked deer at, the fish, all of it. And before you judge , I was hungry, tired, stressed, and taking care of your half-dead self. I needed food." She paused, then looked away with the faintest hint of embarrassnt, though she tried to bury it under her usual confidence.
"Also, apparently, I suck at cooking. All I managed to do was burn pieces of at over the fire, and compared to whatever you did before, it was terrible. So I caught another deer. Now I need you to make it edible."
Liam stared at her for a long mont.
Charlotte stared right back, completely unapologetic.
Then Liam exhaled quietly and shrugged. "No problem. I can do that."
Charlotte’s smile returned in full. "Good. See? This is why saving you was worth it."
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