The atmosphere in the mansion was heavy with a thick, disorienting fog. One by one, the girls blinked their eyes open, shaking off a lingering daze as if they had just woken up from a dream they couldn't quite catch.
Bellona was the first to jump to her feet, her hand instinctively gripping the hilt of her sword. She spun around, her eyes darting to every corner of the room. "Where are they?! I was ready to—" She stopped, her brow furrowing in total confusion.
"Wait... ready to fight what? Why am I standing like I'm in the middle of a war zone?"
Lustra rubbed her temples, looking completely drained.
"My mana... it feels like I just ran a marathon through a desert, but I'm just sitting here. Haruto, did we... have we started the process yet?"
Ivory was staring at her sandglass, her face pale. The sand was completely at the bottom, but she couldn't remember a single grain falling. She quickly checked Toya's vitals.
"He's... he's stable," Ivory whispered, her voice trembling with uncertainty.
"The Mana Fever has completely vanished. His core is calm. But... I don't understand. We were just preparing to enter his Mind-World, weren't we? How is he already cured?"
Haruto leaned back against the wall, a strange, hollow ache in the back of his mind. He looked at his hand—there was a tiny, fresh prick on his finger, a single drop of dried blood.
"My head feels empty."
Asobi, who was leaning against the window sill, took a slow, deliberate puff of her cigarette. She watched the purple smoke drift toward the ceiling, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Something is wrong," Asobi said, her voice unusually sharp.
"Look at us. We're all exhausted, Bellona is in a combat stance, and Lustra is mana-depleted. We clearly did something. If none of us can remember the last few hours, it's not a coincidence."
She looked directly at Haruto.
"It feels like someone—or something—erased our memories on purpose."
"Erased them?" Haruto asked, a chill running down his spine.
"Who could even do that? We're talking about a War Goddess and a High-level team. Who has the authority to wipe our hard drives like that?"
He looked over at the sleeping Toya. The boy looked more peaceful than Haruto had ever seen him, but there was a mystery sitting right there in the bed that none of them could name.
"The only person who could have done it," Ivory added, looking at her flickering system screens,
"is someone with absolute control over that Mind-World. But that would mean..."
"Toya did it?" Bellona finished, her voice a mix of anger and respect.
"The kid we were trying to save kicked us out and wiped our brains? That's a hell of a thank-you."
Toya snapped his eyes open, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps. He clutched his head as if his skull was trying to rewrite itself. The room went dead silent.
"What... what did I do?" Toya managed to choke out, his voice sounding deeper, steadier than before.
Asobi didn't skip a beat. She snapped her fingers, materializing a glass of water in a swirl of purple mist. "Drink this first," she said, her voice calm but commanding.
"Then go back to sleep. Your body needs to process excessive mana."
Toya's mana, which had been a chaotic storm just an hour ago, was now perfectly still—like a frozen ocean. He reached out to take the glass, his fingers trembling slightly. But the moment his hand closed around the metal, the sound of screeching steel filled the room.
CRUNCH.
Everyone's jaw dropped. Toya wasn't even trying to flex. He had just gripped the glass to take a sip, but his Gripping Strength had spiked so high that the reinforced steel crumpled like a soda can in his palm. Water splashed across the floor, but Toya just stared at his hand in horror.
"My... my hand..." Toya whispered, looking at his palm as if it belonged to a stranger.
"Why does everything feel so light? It feels like I'm made of feathers."
Haruto stared at the crushed metal on the floor, then back at Toya, who was trembling with a power he didn't understand.
"Okay, maybe we 'fixed' him a little too much," Haruto muttered, his mind already calculating the risk.
"This is getting out of hand."
Asobi didn't look bothered. With a lazy snap of her fingers, the mangled steel and the spilled water vanished into thin air, leaving the floor spotless.
"He's just adjusting to the new 'power," she said, blowing a ring of purple smoke. "Give him a minute."
Ivory's eyes scan the invisible mana currents swirling around Toya.
"It's normal, Haruto. His core was under so much pressure for so long that now that it's stable, the energy is overflowing. He literally doesn't know his own strength yet."
Bellona let out a low whistle, her eyes gleaming with a warrior's respect.
"For a Level 60, that's some serious muscle. I've seen Level 70 tanks with less grip than that."
Haruto stood there, watching his friend, and a small, petty thought crossed his mind. Seriously? Every time I connect with someone's mind, they either turn out to be an ultra-high-level monster or they get a massive power spike. Why am I the only one stuck on the 'Tutorial Level' grind? I want that kind of strength too!
But he pushed the jealousy aside. Toya looked terrified. Haruto stepped forward, extending his hand to help Toya sit up properly. "Come on, man. Take it easy. Let's get you—"
"Haruto, wait! That's not a good idea!"Ivory shouted, her warning coming a split second late.
Toya, still dazed and reacting on pure instinct, reached out to grab Haruto's hand for support. The moment their skin touched, the world blurred. Toya didn't even mean to pull, but his new, raw physical stats acted like a hydraulic press.
With one effortless tug, Haruto was yanked off his feet like he weighed absolutely nothing. Before he could even shout, he was slammed onto the bed right next to Toya. The force was so sudden that the heavy wooden frame of the bed groaned and cracked under the impact.
"Whoa! Chill, bro! I'm not a punching bag!" Haruto gasped, pinned down by Toya's unintentional grip.
Bellona was by the bedside in a flash, her hand on her sword.
"Toya! Let go, or I'll have to pin you down myself!"
Toya let go immediately, his eyes wide with shock.
"Haruto! I... I didn't mean to! I just reached out and—"
"I know, I know," Haruto groaned, rubbing his shoulder.
Haruto groaned, rubbing his shoulder as he pushed himself up from the bed. This time, when Toya reached out to apologize or help, Haruto flinched back and stood up on his own. He wasn't taking any more chances with those "hydraulic press" hands.
"Don't touch me, bro," Haruto said, waving his hands dismissively.
"Seriously. Until we figure out how to calibrate your power, you're officially a lethal weapon. Just... stay there for a second."
Toya looked down at his own hands, his face pale.
"I... I think I should just go to my room. I need to lie down. Everything feels too sensitive."
Toya stood up slowly, trying to be as gentle as a cat, but even the way his feet hit the floor made a dull thud that vibrated through the room. He walked toward the door, his movements stiff and awkward. He reached for the ornate brass handle, intending to just turn it and slide out quietly.
BANG!
The moment his fingers tightened around the handle, the metal didn't just turn—it sheared off. The entire heavy oak door was ripped clean off its hinges and sent flying across the hallway like a piece of cardboard, smashing into the opposite wall with a deafening crash.
Everyone froze. Toya stood there holding nothing but a broken piece of the latch, his arm still extended in a "push" motion.
"I... I barely touched it," Toya whispered, his voice trembling.
"Barely touched it?!" Bellona barked, looking at the empty doorframe.
"You just launched a hundred-pound slab of wood like a frisbee! Haruto, if he stays in the main mansion, there won't be a mansion left by morning!"
Asobi let out an annoyed sigh, the purple smoke from her cigarette swirling around her head like a storm cloud. "That's it."
She snapped her fingers with a sharp crack, and the shattered door instantly flew back into place, the hinges re-attaching themselves and the wood mending as if time had flowed backward.
"Go to the Training Sector," Asobi commanded, her eyes flashing with a dangerous violet light. "The walls there are reinforced with Level 80 Mana-Nullification alloys. You can't break those just by sneezing. Move, before you accidentally destroy the hallway."
Toya didn't argue. He kept his hands tucked tightly into his pockets, walking as if he were stepping on eggshells, and headed toward the Training Sector with Haruto and the girls following at a safe distance.
The Training Sector was a massive, cold hall lined with obsidian-colored plates. The air smelled like ozone and old enchantments. As they walked in, the heavy silence of the room only made the gap in their heads feel wider.
Ivory was staring at the digital readout on her wrist terminal, her face pale.
"I've cross-referenced our internal clocks," she said, her voice echoing in the vast space.
"There is a three-hour void in our collective memory. It's not just a blur—it's a clean surgical cut. One minute we were preparing for the dive, the next, we were back in the mansion and Toya was stable."
Lustra hugged her arms, looking shifty.
"I feel like I've been crying for hours, but my eyes aren't red. It's the weirdest sensation."
Bellona walked with her hand hovering near her sword, her eyes sharp as she guarded the perimeter.
"I don't care who or what did it. If Toya did something to us in there, he's lucky I don't remember it, or we'd be having a very different conversation right now."
Asobi floated lazily behind them, taking a long, slow drag from her cigarette pipe. A thick cloud of purple smoke trailed behind her. "It's a classic security protocol," she muttered, her voice muffled by the smoke.
"Something happened in that mind-scape that we weren't supposed to witness. Maybe we saw something 'Forbidden' by the System. Or maybe..." she glanced at the back of Toya's head, "...the kid just didn't want us knowing his secrets."
Haruto walked in silence, his hands in his pockets.
"Whatever it was, it was important enough to delete. Maybe some things are better off forgotten if it means he's alive. But Asobi's right—the only person who has the answer is sitting right there."
He looked at Toya, who had walked to the dead center of the reinforced arena and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The boy looked small in the middle of the massive room, but the air around him was vibrating with invisible pressure.
The atmosphere in the Training Sector shifted from clinical curiosity to a heavy, suffocating weight. Toya sat there, his shoulders hunched, looking less like a hero and more like a prisoner of his own skin.
"I hate this," Toya muttered, his voice echoing off the obsidian plates.
"I feel like an alien. Every breath I take feels like it's too much for this room. If being powerful feels like being a monster that can't even touch his friends... then I don't want it."
Haruto stepped past the safety line, ignoring Ivory's frantic hand signals to stay back. He walked right up to Toya and looked him in the eye.
"You aren't satisfied with this? Most people in this world would kill for a Level 60 spike like this, Toya. What are you actually looking for?"
Toya looked up, and for a split second, that faint white glow flickered in his pupils again.
"I need more. I need to be so strong that no one—absolutely no one—can ever get close enough to hurt the people I care about again. I need to be unreachable."
"Why?" Haruto asked, his voice dropping low. "What happened in the past that made you this desperate?"
Toya shook his head, his knuckles whitening. "That's an answer only time will give you, Haruto. For now... I just need this energy out of me."
Bellona stepped forward, her heavy boots clanking against the metal floor. She had a predatory grin on her face. "I know exactly what to do. You've got too much 'steam' in the engine, kid. If we don't bleed it off, you'll explode. So, here's the deal: I'm going to train you. And by train, I mean I'm going to beat that excessive energy out of your system."
Toya looked panicked. "But... What about school? Even if we bleed the energy off, I'm still Level 60. Ivory's scans say I'll accidentally punch through a classroom wall just by stretching!"
Haruto patted his shoulder, feeling the literal vibration of mana under Toya's skin.
"Don't worry about school yet. Bellona is a War Goddess. She can spar with you until you're too exhausted to even lift a finger. Once your body hits its limit, your 'muscle memory' will start to learn how to throttle this power back. You'll learn control through total fatigue."
Bellona cracked her knuckles, a golden aura beginning to flare around her. .
"We fight until you drop. Every time your power spikes, I'll hit you harder. By the time we're done, you'll be so tired you won't even be able to crush a grape."
Haruto, Ivory, and the others began to back away toward the exit. Asobi gave a mock salute with her pipe. "Enjoy the 'massage,' Toya. Just don't die."
[TWO HOURS LATER]
When the heavy blast doors of the Training Sector finally hissed open again, the scene inside was devastating. The reinforced obsidian floor was covered in craters and skid marks.
Bellona was standing in the center of the room, not a single hair out of place, her hand casually resting on the back of Toya's neck. Toya, on the other hand, looked like he had been through a literal meat grinder. His clothes were shredded into rags, his face was covered in dust and bruises, and he was panting so hard he couldn't even speak.
"He's much better now," Bellona said, looking down at him with a smug smirk.
"He can finally hold a glass without breaking it. Mostly because his arms are too sore to lift one."
Ivory rushed over, worried.
"Bellona! You went too far! Look at him, he's barely conscious!"
Lustra giggled, watching Toya struggle to stay upright.
"That looked like fun! I want to fight him next time. We should definitely do this again tomorrow."
Haruto looked at Toya, who was trying to nod but ended up just face-planting into the floor. "Hey, you okay there, buddy? You want to do this again?"
Toya let out a muffled groan from the floor.
"I… have to become strong so yeah and also I can't... say no... to a Goddess..."
Haruto chuckled, feeling the tension finally break.
"Sorry to say this Toya but It only gets harder from here."