A Year's Time

In the end, I got help from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠church — and with it, a place to stay.

It was just an ordinary church. Hardly anyone came around these days, so they figured they could take in one more person. That was how I barely managed to get through the door.

Most of the others were young children. The parents who had abandoned them had probably thought along the same lines I had — that a church would take them in. So whenever I had time, I played with those kids.

I had wondered if maybe that person would be at a church, but they were probably at a bigger one.

Now I had a year to train, and I needed to at least learn how to handle Spiritual Power. I only had ten percent so far, but I should still be able to draw on it. My body would get completely wrecked, though. There was no exercise equipment to speak of, so I had no choice but to train ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with my own body weight.

"Hah... hah... I can't do this anymore, I really can't..."

Was it supposed to be this hard? I could feel the pain stacking up in my body in real time — doubled over on itself. But I couldn't give up. I started again.

If I stopped here, I would be right back where I started. To take even a single step forward, I had to be ready for this much.

Just training the body for a year wasn't going to produce extreme results. That much was obvious. But this wasn't Earth. Potions existed here. With the scraps of money I earned from cleaning and praying at the church, I bought them little by little.

They weren't particularly good potions, so they didn't permanently increase my strength or anything like that. They did, however, temporarily boost my stamina and muscle power — and in that window of increase, I kept training. Maximum efficiency. That was the whole point.

I repeated the cycle for two months. Every day I cleaned, prayed at the church, and went straight back to training. I drank a potion and trained again. The growth was fast. Very fast.

But a better body alone wasn't going to be enough. I needed to learn how to use Spiritual Power.

The way to raise your Soul ratio was to absorb the souls of other living things, which inevitably meant killing them. Even so, I was still human. Killing people never even crossed my mind. So I found my answer in hunting animals. It was faint, but I could feel my soul growing stronger.

Because my soul was fused with my Body, anything that strengthened one strengthened the other. I used that. I used it to grow even faster. I slaughtered livestock, absorbed their souls, and fell back into the same routine — and time began to slip by faster and faster.

Six months.

I had adapted to life in this world. For the past month I had been working as a mercenary, hunting monsters. Technically I just landed finishing blows or absorbed the souls from corpses, but still. It was an absolute jackpot. Thanks to that, my Soul had climbed to twenty percent.

Mercenary work brought in more money, too, which meant I could buy better potions. Those advantages stacked into a butterfly effect, pushing my efficiency even higher. If I kept this up, I could definitely survive the entrance test. I just had to stay hidden, right? Maybe I would even grow enormously in the half year I had left.

Anyway, I just needed to get into the academy. From that point on, I would at least be able to eat like a human being and live like one.

I still didn't really know how to use Spiritual Power. When I watched the other mercenaries, just tensing their bodies produced a sky-blue aura — proof that Spiritual Power was flowing. I had nothing like that. Well. Nothing I could do about it.

There was still plenty of time. I needed to learn how to use it fast, and I needed to obtain a Trait. Without a Spiritual Power Trait, I wouldn't have even a sliver of a chance to fight back in the entrance test.

A Trait was basically a superpower. Fire, water — abilities like that. They manifested automatically somewhere between twenty and thirty percent, so I told myself not to worry too much.

Ten months.

I figured out how to use Spiritual Power. I suffered like hell for that one thing. Every time I used it my body overloaded, so I could only manage a little — but the feeling was overwhelming. I could punch through a wall, just like in the comics. My fist hurt along with it, though.

I wasn't that loser anymore. After ten months of grinding like a dog in this world, I had gotten used to it. Slaughtering livestock barely moved my Soul ratio now, so I threw myself into mercenary work completely.

The monsters came in all kinds. Specters, Void Ghosts, Echo Breeds, and more besides. I only picked off the weak ones, so I had never been badly hurt. And from the moment I could use Spiritual Power, I could actually step up and fight myself.

I kept training in the gaps, too. Resting was not an option. Even in the beginning, when the body aches nearly killed me, I hadn't stopped — and that was paying off now. All I needed was a Trait.

And then an incident happened.

It was the same old mercenary work. We were heading out to put down what we thought was an ordinary target. Contrary to expectations, it had real combat power — and one of my comrades was torn open. A massive claw mark had carved through the upper half of his body. Blood spilled out of him in sheets, pooling on the ground, and the light in his eyes was already starting to go out.

The mood turned heavy. Of course it did. Who celebrates when a comrade dies? Medics came to try to save him, but they were nowhere near enough. All that was left was to wait ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for him to die. Originally, it would have been nothing more than a sad situation.

Then his soul began to surge.

It melted, thick and viscous, its color rotting as I watched. I knew what I was looking at. I had played the game tens of thousands of times. I knew a soul that glowed with that wrong, unnatural light.

Bound Species.

When a dying soul flares up with an intense will to survive and comes back, just for a little while. A Bound Species becomes enormously powerful in Spiritual Power — but it is a last desperate struggle. Hold out a little, and it burns itself out.

The problem was that even as a human, he had been one of the stronger fighters among us. Facing him with that much extra power was impossible. Since you won just by lasting long enough, the rest of my comrades started running. They burned tomorrow's strength just to stay alive today.

I was no different.

What stopped my feet was another comrade going down. I didn't have to save him. If I didn't, no one could say a word against me. It wasn't even efficient. I had ground myself into the dirt to get this far — dying now because I tried to help would be too miserable for words.

But the regret would stay.

Ah, shit. I really don't know either!

I was scared. Insanely, viscerally scared. The fear of death — my own instincts — screamed at me to run right now. But my feet had already turned the other way, and there was nothing left to do but prepare to die.

I grabbed my comrade's leg and, with an arm reinforced by Spiritual Power, hurled him as far as I could. And the instant I looked back—

WHAM!

A sword came crashing down behind me. I twisted, barely getting clear, and threw the distance wide open. This was a battle of endurance. If I just held out, I won. I only had to last until that thing burned through everything it had.

But can I hold out?

A continuous barrage of slashes tore my collar open. The blood welling through the ripped fabric reminded me, all over again, that death was standing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right in front of me. It was already too late to run.

And this situation — this thing I had only ever seen inside a game, only ever watched on a screen, this thing I was sure I would never have to live through — was unfolding right in front of my eyes.

My hands shook so badly I couldn't focus. My heart was pounding just as hard.

I want to win.

I had never really gotten along with other kids. I never had the energy to start a conversation, and I was too busy studying to care. I regretted that later. Being alone turned out to be surprisingly hollow — that feeling of being the only one left in the world. I didn't want to add another regret to a life that was already full of them.

Unrestrained. I wanted to draw myself. That was my ideal.

...What the hell is this.

A blue aura gathered in my hand, flashed — and a brush the size of a person appeared. A brush, of all things. Not fire. Not water. Not any of the cool abilities. A brush.

Who cared. This was what I had. There might be more to it than the brush, but junk thoughts could wait. I needed to focus.

It was coming again. It had definitely gotten weaker. Time was burning through its fuel. The problem was that at this rate, I would die before it vanished.

I wound Spiritual Power around the bristles. The tip darkened, blue bleeding through it the way a brush takes on color when you dip it in paint.

This thing is filthy heavy...!

I had never learned sword or spear in my life, so swinging it felt horribly awkward. It seemed like my wrist might tear clean off — but this was my Trait. I didn't need to land hits. I needed to draw. Just like my ideal.

My body felt light. The tension of the fight pushed my physical control higher than it had any right to go. The mindless thing charged, slashing blindly. Even a wild swing was dangerous, but I could see the pattern. It kicked off the ground, closed the distance, and brought the sword around to take my head.

I had already seen the trajectory. I ducked under it, then painted over the path with the brush. I carved into it without stopping, filling every stroke with the color of blood.

I had to finish before my Spiritual Power ran dry. The moment I let this flurry break, I would collapse. So this — this was everything I had left.

Sweep.

Slash.

I cut and cut in a mindless frenzy, and little by little it began to fade. When the last of my power was gone, the brush hanging from my hand vanished on its own. I felt like I would drop any second, but there was still something I had to do. I absorbed the soul immediately — and then I went down in a heap. Filthy exhausting. Seriously.

Still. This time, I had no regrets.