"Hnngh–!"
A groan slipped out of Soren's mouth as he stretched his body and sat up.
His back cracked faintly.
The familiar weight of a blanket slid off his shoulders and pooled around his waist.
Orange light was peeking through the curtains of the living room window, thin lines of sunrise spilling across the wooden floor and over the sofa he had been sleeping on.
For a few seconds, he just sat there, dazed.
The ceiling above him wasn't the one he had stared at for months in his dorm; the air smelled of wood, tea, and something sweet that lingered from last night's dessert.
"Ah… that's right," he muttered. "I'm at the clubroom."
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and blinked a few times until his vision cleared.
It had been a couple of days since he started staying here properly.
At first, he had only said it as a joke, half-serious at best, but somehow that joke had turned into reality.
One day of staying over became two, then three, then it felt stranger to go back to the dorm than to just crash on the sofa.
The Sweetheart Society's clubroom had slowly transformed over that time.
The beds and wardrobes he had bought with Amelia and Lilliana had been moved into two of the spare rooms.
A coffee machine now sat proudly on the kitchen counter.
A pair of bookshelves lined the living room wall, filled unevenly with a mix of academy textbooks, random novels, and a couple of smut books with fake covers that Soren pretended not to notice.
People had started bringing their own things too.
A pillow Amelia liked.
A tea set Lilliana had insisted on.
Alex's training gear stacked neatly in one room.
Louise's decorative lace cloth on the dining table.
It was messy in a lived-in way.
Soren slid his legs off the sofa and stood up sluggishly, stretching his arms above his head until his shoulders popped.
"Ugh…"
His muscles complained a little, but nowhere near as bad as they used to.
He scratched his head and shuffled toward the bathroom.
Inside, he splashed cold water on his face, watching his reflection blur and sharpen repeatedly in the mirror.
The bite mark on his neck from Lilliana had already faded, leaving only smooth, pale skin behind.
He brushed his teeth, combed a brush through his hair to tame it a little, then left the bathroom and made his way to the kitchen.
The clubroom was quiet.
No footsteps, no voices.
It was still early, and it was the weekend.
He filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove, then opened one of the cupboards and pulled out a loaf of bread; he took a few slices and slid them into the toaster without much thought.
The morning routine was simple.
Comfortable.
By the time he had taken out a mug and thrown in a teabag, the kettle had started whistling.
Soren turned off the heat, poured the hot water into the mug, then added a splash of milk and a few spoonfuls of sugar.
He stirred slowly, watching the colour change.
The toaster popped.
He spread butter over the warm slices until it melted into the bread, then picked up the plate and his mug and walked over to the dining room.
He sat down and took a bite of toast.
It wasn't anything special, but the stillness of the room, the faint sound of wind against the windows, and the knowledge that this space belonged to him and his friends made the simple breakfast feel better somehow.
He rested his elbow on the table and his cheek against his palm, eyes drifting around the dining room.
It had only been a short time since they had gotten this place, but it already felt more like "home" than the Arden estate or his dorm ever had.
People came and went as they pleased.
Some stayed to talk.
Some just crashed on the sofa after a long day, ate whatever they pleased, then vanished again.
Some used the spare rooms for naps or reading.
Soren didn't mind it.
If anything, he liked it.
Sure, it was more effort to manage than a tiny dorm room.
It needed cleaning, stocking, and someone had to keep an eye on the budget and supplies, but he liked how lived-in it felt.
He liked the way the air carried traces of his friends, much like when he had lived with Aria in the past.
He took another bite, chewing slowly.
If he had a single regret, it would be the random throwaway line he had said to Lev when they had obtained the clubroom.
– As thanks, you can use one of the spare rooms however you want, as long as you take responsibility.
At the time, it had felt like a fair trade.
Lev handled all the administrative work for the club without complaining… well, with complaints, but he still did it, so giving him a space of his own seemed reasonable.
The result of that decision was what the club members now designated the "danger zone."
One of the spare room doors was almost always shut.
Whenever it opened even a crack, a wave of chemical stench would pour out into the hallway, aggressive enough that Soren had nearly choked the first time he walked past at the wrong time.
He had almost banned Lev on the spot.
But the brown-haired alchemist had just snorted, waved a magic engineering device in his hand, and cast a few spells.
Since then, smell and sound were mostly contained, and he cast [Clean] obsessively after every experiment, so it wasn't actually a problem, just… visually tiring.
Lev would emerge from his room sometimes looking like he had crawled out of a battlefield, his hair a mess, dark circles under his eyes, ink and dust smudged all over him, then he would grab a snack, mumble "Thanks, President," and vanish again.
"It's like having a stray cat that blows things up," Soren muttered to himself, finishing the last bite of toast.
He washed his plate and mug, put them back, then wandered back to the living room.
Technically, he had his own bedroom here.
He had slept there a couple of times, but most of the time he ended up on a sofa.
The living room was bright, open, and filled with soft noises even when nobody was talking.
It felt like the heart of the place.
He dropped onto the sofa again and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
He wasn't planning to sleep; he just liked lying here.
He adjusted his pyjamas slightly, checking that his shirt wasn't riding up too high.
As much as he had gotten used to everyone, he still tried to be careful.
The last thing he needed was some misunderstanding born from him being careless.
Click
A faint sound came from the dining room.
The front door in the next room opened.
"President, I'm going to my room!" Lev's voice echoed throughout the clubroom.
"Alright!" Soren called back without moving.
He had never told anyone they had to announce themselves like that, but somehow, it had become a habit.
Whenever anyone entered, they would usually call out where they were going or what they were doing.
He found it a bit funny.
'What should I do today…' he wondered, turning his head toward the window.
It was the weekend.
His new class schedule was tight, and he was training regularly with either Lilliana or Amelia, plus the physical classes he had taken nearly killed him each time he took them.
But he didn't feel like he was falling behind.
If anything, he felt like he was pushing too hard.
And with the [Elixir of Growth] in the works, it felt like a waste to push his body too far before using it.
"Ah," he murmured. "There was that… 「Store」"
A translucent window appeared before him, hovering gently in midair.
He hadn't opened it in a while.
He flicked his fingers and swiped through the menus until he found the one he wanted.
[Points: 2559]
The number floated calmly on the screen.
One of the main purposes of the summer break was sitting right there.
Between the constant farming at the Goblin King's Nest and the hell that was The Verdant Hollow, he had racked up a ridiculous amount of points.
Soren grimaced as a flicker of memory rose up uninvited.
The smell of skin and sweat.
The sound of wet tearing.
Eight bodies falling.
He swallowed.
Nausea rose in his throat, but he forced it down.
Things were okay now.
He had decided not to let that night swallow him anymore.
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in and out slowly until his heartbeat steadied, then opened them again and focused on the numbers.
"Two thousand five hundred and fifty-nine, huh…"
It felt like both a lot and not enough.
He tapped the screen and brought up the main store window.
Rows of items appear: consumables, equipment, and strange relics.
He filtered them quickly, swiping away everything else until only one category remained.
Skills.
"Which do I even get…" he murmured, eyes scanning the screen.
Among the list, two skills stood out immediately.
[Mana Control]
[Mana Sensitivity]
Both were expensive, but equally important.
He rested his arm across his forehead, staring at the text upside down.
Thanks to the second hidden piece, [Lunaris's Liquified Mana], his control was already absurd compared to mages at his level.
If he added the [Mana Control] skill on top of that, his casting would become sharper, more efficient, more stable.
Spell chanting would be cleaner, mana consumption would drop, and higher-level magic would be easier to attempt.
It was a tempting offer.
On the other hand, [Mana Sensitivity].
That one didn't change how he manipulated mana.
It changed how he perceived it.
It would let him feel the flow of his own mana more clearly, allow him to sense ambient mana in the environment, trace spells, and detect disturbances.
On top of that, it could also function as a way to "see" other people's mana, like a radar.
He could gauge an opponent's general strength before picking a fight.
He could sense attacks before they landed.
He could spot mana in the distance.
In a world like this, where the wrong opponent could kill him in a second, that kind of information was worth more than a cleaner [Hemokinesis].
"And my control isn't lacking right now anyway…"
He stared at the two options a while longer.
Then he nodded to himself.
"Alright, let's do this," he said quietly.
He reached out and tapped the screen.
The list shrank until only one entry remained.
.
[Mana Sensitivity] → 2000P
[Buy?]
[Yes] [No]
.
His finger hovered for a moment.
Two thousand points was a huge chunk.
But if he died because he was stingy now, he would never get another chance to spend them anyway.
So he pressed it.
.
[Yes]
.
[Success!]
▶ Acquired [Mana Sensitivity]! ◀
.
The number in the corner of the window dropped sharply.
[Points: 559]
Soren stared at it and let out a long sigh.
"Well, that's that done…"
He felt oddly empty as he saw the small number, but he pushed the feeling aside.
There was still one more thing he needed to check.
"「Status」"
The familiar window unfolded in front of him.
.
[Status Window]
Name: Soren Arden
Age: 18
Race: Human (?)
◈ Titles
- Transmigrator (Year 1)
- Stella's Secrets
- On the Path
◈ Unique Skills
- Library of Memories
- Chimera
◈ Stats
Stamina - 3.0 (D) [Increased by 0.7]
Strength - 2.3 (E+) [Increased by 0.7]
Agility - 2.6 (D-) [Increased by 0.6]
Mana - 2.9 (D-) [Increased by 0.4]
Divine Power - 2.1 (E+) [Increased by 0.6]
Charm - 9.0 (S)
◈ Special Effects
- Lunaris's Liquified Mana
└ Mana Control increased by 200%
└ Mana can be materialised.
◈ Skills
- Life Magic
- Basic Magic
└ Breeze (B-) [Increased by 2]
└ Ignition (C)
└ Shockwave (C) [Increased by 4]
└ Shock (C-)
└ Gaia (D) [Increased by 2]
└ Shield (D) [Increased by 2]
└ Freeze (E-) [Increased by 1]
- Blood Magic
└ Hemokinesis (D-) [Increased by 1]
└ Blood Absorption (C-) [Increased by 1]
- Basic Axemanship (C+) [Increased by 6]
- Pain Tolerance (C-) [Increased by 3]
- Concentration (D+) [Increased by 2]
- Stealth (F)
- Mana Sensitivity (F)
.
"...Huh?"
Soren blinked.
He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
The numbers didn't change.
"What the hell…?"
He had expected some growth over the summer break.
After all, he hadn't been slacking; he had been doing quests, fighting monsters, and nearly dying.
But this was on a different level.
Strength, stamina, and agility, every single one had gotten a noticeable boost, especially considering how hard it usually was to move those numbers.
Even his mana and divine power had risen more than he had expected.
His skills were worse… in a good way.
[Basic Axemanship] had shot up by six whole levels.
[Pain Tolerance] had jumped three.
Basic magic spells like [Shockwave], [Breeze], [Gaia] and [Shield] had all climbed.
And on top of all of that, there was a skill he hadn't seen before.
"[Stealth]... F rank, though…"
He tried to think back.
When had he "learned" that?
The answer came quickly.
Sneaking around the Arden estate to avoid running into people he didn't want to see.
Moving through the Goblin King's Nest, avoiding each camp.
Slipping through The Verdant Hollow's twisted trees, keeping his presence as small as possible to avoid being targeted.
He hadn't noticed it at the time, but apparently, the system had.
He stared at the screen a bit longer, eyes tracing the lines over and over.
'This is insane,' he thought.
If this had been a game, he would have wondered if the devs had been drunk when they calculated the growth.
"...No," he corrected himself quietly. "It actually makes sense."
He thought back to the game version of ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱.
Back then, he had tested it.
No matter how hard you trained against a dummy, your stats would barely move, but the moment you fought something that could actually kill you, your growth would spike.
Real combat had always been the biggest factor.
"Now that I think about it, the status window always rewarded actual combat more than training, too," he said out loud.
It was true there, and it seemed to be true here as well.
When he traced his growth back, every major jump had come after something real.
Rena Forest.
The thugs in the alleyway.
The duel against Ivan.
The fight with Murmur.
Reality was consistent.
He swiped the window away.
"I guess it makes sense, then."
He had been fighting nonstop for almost two months.
If he hadn't grown much after all of that, it would have been more worrying.
Still, seeing it all lined up like this…
It hit harder.
He lay there for a moment longer, staring at the now-empty air where the window had been.
Then he exhaled and sat up.
"Next thing is this," he said quietly.
He reached into his inventory.
The air above his ring rippled like water, space distorting as his hand disappeared up to the wrist.
When he pulled it back out, he was holding a small, worn book.
He placed it on his lap.
The name in the inventory list was [???'s Diary].
He had gotten it near the start of summer break, back when he was stuck at the Arden Estate.
The quest had been simple on paper: to stay there for two weeks.
If not for the reward, he would have left on the first day.
The quest had given him 500 points, and this.
An item related to the original Soren Arden.
Until now, he hadn't had the time or mental capacity to really think about it.
Every time he had considered opening it, something else came up, but things had finally settled down.
He was breathing again.
So this was as good a time as any.
The diary was in terrible condition.
The leather cover was wrinkled and worn, the corners bent and frayed as if it had been carried around constantly.
The spine had tiny cracks from being opened and closed too many times.
It wasn't the kind of damage that came from being stored in a library and forgotten.
It was the kind that came from being used.
But from being important to someone.
Soren ran his fingers along the edge of the cover.
He opened it just enough to see the first page.
A name was faintly pressed there, almost rubbed away by time and handling.
His throat tightened.
For a long time, he didn't move.
The clubroom was quiet.
The only sound was the faint ticking of a clock on the wall.
Soren stared at the name until his vision blurred.
Then he took a slow breath.
His fingertips curled around the edge of the diary.
He opened it.
————「❤︎」————