Bersotthof
Bersotthof
[Main Quest Completed]
[Priest Assault on the Baramunz Mountain Kingdom — Repelled]
[LEVEL UP]
[Aslan]
[Strength 2] [Agility ■] [Health ■]
[Magic Power 7] [Fighting Spirit 7] [Luck 10]
[Angela Tail]
[Strength 7] [Agility 7] [Health 10]
[Magic Power ■] [Fighting Spirit ■] [Luck ■]
The system messages still hung in the air as Aslan watched the blow hurtling toward his head.
That punch carried monstrous strength. The kind of force that would pulp a man's skull, that would draw blood even from a priest. The kind of strike his fragile body could never withstand. Aslan slipped aside and dropped onto his back. The fist shredded empty air.
He evaded, then from that low position flipped his body over. Hands planted on the ground, he kicked upward in a handstand-like motion — an attack that the old Angie could never have reacted to.
The old Angie.
With her Agility raised and perception sharply accelerated, she could react now. Her golden eyes tracked him with frantic speed and wrenched her thrown punch downward. Her grotesquely rigid spine absorbed the redirected force, bending the trajectory low. A hurtling death. His skull would crush under her fist.
There should have been a wet crack. He heard nothing.
Not because he was dead. Not because his head had burst and stolen his hearing.
Aslan watched his own death like a detached bystander.
Angie herself froze, mouth gaping, terror flooding her eyes. Her Agility had spiked too fast. She hadn't adjusted to her own strength, and without that adjustment, her control had failed. A catastrophe in the making.
A very Angie sort of mistake. Aslan let out a low breath and spoke a single word.
'Recall.'
Time rewound.
His shattered skull reassembled. Angie's thrown punch retracted. Like a video scrubbed backward, Aslan rose from his prone position and stepped away. Angie withdrew as well. He watched it all from that same detached vantage.
The rewind ended. They clashed again. Aslan burned the movements into his mind, adjusting his actions with each iteration. When an exchange went badly, he rewound again. And again.
In the game — in Eternal Dominion — every stat threshold granted a special ability. Some activated passively. Others had to be triggered manually. Whether active or passive, those abilities were devastatingly powerful.
This was the power gained at Luck 10: Precognition.
The extreme of Luck — the ability to observe events while injecting variables into what would occur. A power that, in the game, had merely applied a modifier to every action. Here in Geladrion, it had transformed into something else entirely.
Different from the game. But not unusual. Aslan had expected this degree of change.
'Much more useful this way.'
He tested his newfound Precognition with quiet satisfaction.
Everything unfolded in the span of an instant inside his mind. There was virtually no risk of being ambushed while he observed the possibilities.
The only drawback was mental fatigue — manageable for someone with Aslan's high Fighting Spirit.
The rewinding halted. Aslan opened his eyes.
In real time, less than a second had passed. Angie, loosening up for their sparring match, looked exactly as she had before he closed his eyes. In the space of a blink, Aslan had sifted life from death.
"Let's begin."
"...You're really okay with this? Honestly, I'm not sure I can control my strength..."
"It's fine. Come at me full strength."
Angie's unease was plain, but Aslan's low voice pushed her forward. Prodded, she raised her fist. He raised his own.
Her ankle shifted. Aslan read the movement.
Crack!
Angie struck first. Aslan was no longer at a level where he could match her Agility. Her speed, her power — both were leagues beyond him now. What he had was skill. Luck. And Precognition.
He knew the future. He slipped past the death-gate he had already witnessed.
A heavy whoosh as her fist grazed past. Aslan twisted his body aside. That extended arm carried hideous force behind it — one touch meant lethal damage.
And that was the key. Angie had no technique. She was a novice. If he avoided the punch, he could manage the danger.
Seeing her fist skim past his shoulder, Aslan leaned further into the dodge and drove his elbow upward.
Thud!
Angie's head snapped back. Jehaengmusang doubled his attack power, and his martial arts, honed to their absolute limit, made even a simple elbow strike something she could not ignore.
The precise blow caught her chin. Even with her high Health, her vision blurred for an instant. Her gaze locked back onto him — even as a novice, her heightened Agility made that possible.
Aslan seized the opening. He leaped diagonally to open distance, then pivoted. A spinning back kick. His heel buried itself into her jaw.
Crack!
Angie's head rocked sideways. Her golden eyes widened with shock.
She had been preparing a counterattack the instant the elbow landed. Aslan had denied it by creating distance as though he had known it was coming. And layered on top of it, the spinning kick. Grabbing his leg was impossible — the elbow had scrambled her vision too thoroughly.
Angie's body tilted dangerously, then steadied. Low to the ground, she lunged.
A dull thump — and she vanished from Aslan's sight. Her move was a body charge, a full-weight tackle meant to bowl him over.
One of the futures his Precognition had shown him.
The moment she disappeared from view, Aslan leaped — timing he had already rehearsed.
"Huh?"
He flipped his body mid-air. With a leopard's fluidity, he evaded her rush and hooked her neck, hurling her down. Her whole bodyweight slammed into the ground, and Aslan mounted her before she could recover. He seized her arm and pressed his forearm against her throat.
This was the advantage of Precognition.
Combined with his skill, it let him prepare for movements that would normally be beyond his ability to answer.
Angie's eyes flew wide. She replayed what had just happened to her.
Disoriented, she had resorted to the body charge. Low stance, fast approach. But Aslan had sidestepped it like he had seen it coming — and thrown her.
Even with her limited experience, she knew there was no way out of this position. She opened her clenched fist.
"Done."
Aslan's voice was low. Only then did Angie surface from her daze of defeat enough to look at him.
He was straddling her.
A controlling position. But the composition sparked entirely unwanted thoughts.
Angie's face flushed before she could stop it.
"G-get off! Now!"
"Hm?"
She shoved at him with a hiss of breath through clenched teeth. Aslan blinked at her suddenly crimson face but offered no resistance as she pushed him away. He rose.
Angie scrambled up before he could even extend a hand to help her. Her face was blazing red.
Being pinned like that, body to body — it had sent her imagination spiraling.
Aslan, who could not possibly know what she was picturing, looked mildly bewildered. Fay, who had been watching the sparring match, seemed to have a decent guess.
"Angie, you pervert!"
Fay's laugh rang out bright and teasing. Angie covered her red face with both hands.
"I-I am not! I wasn't thinking anything!"
"Thinking about what?"
Aslan had not parsed the situation at all. The outburst had come out of nowhere. He blinked, genuinely confused, and Angie let out a strangled groan and squeezed her eyes shut.
Her ragged breathing filled the borrowed clearing. Aslan glanced between Fay and Angie before stepping closer to Angie.
"You okay?"
Worried about her harsh breathing. Angie looked at him approaching, and her mind flicked to a few days ago. Before they had recruited Fay. When Aslan had wiped the bloodworm fluids from her face and body.
His scent from that day drifted toward her now, mixed with sweat, strangely sweet.
Her heart hammered. Her face burned. The heat spread to her ears — they were definitely red too.
Angie trembled, then backed away.
"Angie...?"
"You..."
You?
Aslan tilted his head at her retreat. Angie shouted.
"You just wait!"
And fled. Aslan stared blankly at her retreating back.
He turned to Fay. She was wearing a faint, knowing smile — aimed past him, not at him.
He noticed too late and turned. Angie, who had bolted, was walking back, face still flaming. Lips pressed tight, fists trembling. She was mortified.
"...I really don't want to be doing this either... I could die of embarrassment... but there's a guest."
Behind Angie — who was shooting a glare at the giggling Fay — a man emerged.
A warrior. Aslan didn't know his name, but he was one of Frida's personal guards. The one who had hurled his spear during the priest subjugation.
The man met Aslan's eyes and jerked his chin.
"Master of Combat. Follow me."
*
The warrior led Aslan toward the Grand Assembly Hall — the same hall where he had first met and spoken with Frida not long ago.
Aslan walked, with no idea what had prompted the summons.
Sudden betrayal didn't seem likely. Frida had nothing to gain from it.
Still, there was no harm in being prepared. Aslan adjusted the Wings of Stymphalos draped over his shoulders and followed the warrior inside.
The massive doors groaned open, and the scene that met his eyes was not what he had expected.
Frida and Ereta stood there.
A curved sword had stopped just short of Ereta's throat. Ereta, hands lowered, simply looked at Frida.
A clear standoff. Frida's voice was strained with suppressed irritation.
"Did you put her up to this?"
The question came without preamble. Aslan couldn't parse the intent behind it. He stopped, frowning.
"I don't know what you mean."
Why was Frida threatening Ereta? Why was Ereta accepting it so quietly?
He couldn't make sense of it. The situation was too abrupt. He had nothing to go on.
Frida read his expression and turned her growl back toward Ereta.
"This filth asked for a mana tattoo. You're telling me you didn't order it?"
Mana tattoos were reserved for a chosen few warriors within the tribe. Outsiders almost never received them. When they did, it was typically in exchange for vast sums of gold and silver, and only for proven heroes.
'Ereta would know that... why would she do something like this?'
Ereta knew the customs. That she had made the request anyway meant something was off. Aslan shifted his gaze to her. Her pink eyes were lowered. She opened her mouth several times, then closed it again.
That silence confirmed it. She really had asked for a mana tattoo.
But why?
Even without understanding, Aslan stepped between them. His feathered cloak pushed the blade aside with a metallic scrape. Sparks flared in Frida's eyes.
"You're shielding that bitch?"
Frida knew who Ereta was. Saintess of Slaughter. A high priest of infamous cruelty. A vile woman whose atrocities had spread across the entire northern continent.
Neither Ereta nor Aslan disputed the word "bitch."
Aslan didn't answer. He glanced sidelong at Ereta instead.
Ereta saw his gaze. She read the emotion pooled in his eyes and bit her lip. That clear concern — it pained her.
"What happened?"
She had no choice but to answer.
"...I wanted to be useful."
The words came haltingly. She pressed on anyway.
"Right now, I... I'm not as useful as Fay or Angie."
She looked at him with anxious eyes. Aslan held her gaze in silence.
"I've heard about mana tattoos many times. I've even seen them. So I thought... if I could raise my strength that way, I could contribute more reliably."
Her hand rubbed her arm in an uneasy motion. Her gaze dropped to the dirt floor, dulled as though clouded by dust.
A compulsive pursuit of usefulness. Aslan could guess the shape of it now.
Ereta was thinking about what had happened with the Forest Keeper. The burial of the Lesser Deity. Reliving those events, she had convinced herself that she would be cast aside the moment she ceased to be useful.
Aslan recognized that grim train of thought and his expression grew complicated.
Once someone became a companion, he didn't discard them so easily. It wasn't a simple thing.
And Aslan was not the kind of man who judged and acted purely on utility.
But Ereta didn't know him well. There was too much she didn't understand. Her mind, unaccustomed to genuine goodwill, seemed to assume Aslan would act with malice.
Seeing all of this, Aslan looked at her with something close to pity.
Ereta lifted her head without thinking, caught his expression, and clutched at his collar with desperate urgency. Her lips parted. She closed them, released his clothes, and squeezed her eyes shut. Her hands fell away like she was letting go of something precious.
Like she hated herself for this, face twisted near tears, Ereta murmured.
"I've shown you something ugly. I'm sorry, Aslan."
Her face, as she braced for his reproach, held nothing of the Saintess of Slaughter she had once been.
Abandoned by her god, terrified of being abandoned by the man who had stirred something deeper in her. That was all she was now.
Seeing her like this — unable to manage on her own, yet considering even asking for help too shameful to voice — Aslan's expression shifted.
He looked at her the way one might look at a whimpering puppy clinging to its owner.
'...But she's not wrong. If Ereta got a mana tattoo, it would help.'
The question was whether Aslan could control her.
'Could I keep Ereta in check with a mana tattoo inscribed on her?'
Control didn't hold without a meaningful power differential. If her strength matched his, could he still manage her? He wasn't sure.
Aslan looked at Ereta. Ereta looked back, pink eyes filled with deep desperation. Their gazes met, and Aslan considered the matter seriously.
A former high priest whom the gods would never contact again. A woman who could never again become a priest. A Master of Blunt Weapons with unquestionable skill, willing to wield that strength for him and unleash her techniques without restraint.
And yet — a vile woman with a wicked nature, who might cause chaos if he lost control.
Even so... a companion who had taken a deep interest in his acts of goodness. Who was watching him, trying to understand him.
The deliberation was brief. The reasoning was short, but clear.
Aslan decided the burden was one he could bear.
He nodded. Then turned his head toward Frida. The woman's face was thick with displeasure. She jerked her chin as if demanding he speak.
"Is there a reason I should bestow my tribe's secret arts on garbage like her — the kind you wring out and throw away?"
"There is."
Aslan answered at once. Frida's brow furrowed sharply.