His eyes opened to canvas stretched over wooden frames. The medical tent that Rebecca had established during the battle's preparation phase. Dim light filtered through gaps in the fabric, casting everything in shades of grey and amber.
Four bodies lay on cots around him. A dozen more a bit further out.
Jonah looked around until he found Miranda. Her face was slack and breathing shallow but steady. Black lines crawled across her exposed skin like veins of corruption, the visible damage from channeling more mana than her pathways could handle.
The three other mages who'd formed the improvised circle showed similar marks. Their bodies paying the price for desperate innovation.
Jonah tried to sit up.
Pain lanced through his chest and pulsed through his entire body until it hit his skull. Every mana pathway in his body screamed protest at the movement. The damage from Poliva's Touch wouldn't heal for weeks without intervention.
"Don't you dare—"
Rebecca's voice cut through the tent like a blade. She appeared from behind a partition, her healer's robes stained with blood that wasn't hers, her face twisted into an expression that promised violence.
"...you absolute idiot." She crossed the distance in three strides, pressing him back down with hands that trembled with exhaustion and fury. "Do you have any idea what you did to yourself? Your channels look like someone took a cheese grater to them from the inside. Your core is cracked in three places. Your—"
"I'm alive."
Rebecca's eyes were red-rimmed. From fatigue or tears, Jonah couldn't tell. "Barely! You're alive barely, and only because the System apparently decided your stupidity was impressive enough to reward! I've been pumping healing into you for hours and you're still a mess. What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking the Warboss would kill everyone if I didn't stop it."
"There had to be another way."
"There wasn't. Not one that kept enough people alive to matter. We'd run out of proper resource that could kill it because of line A falling before it should have."
Rebecca's jaw worked.
It looked like she wanted to argue or scream at him for being reckless, for nearly dying and making her watch another person she'd started to care about almost destroy themselves.
She didn't though. Instead, she stepped back, arms crossing over her chest. "You're an ass."
"Noted." Jonah smiled.
Movement at the tent's entrance drew his attention.
Sarah stood at one corner, her sword drawn and ready, eyes scanning the area outside with predatory focus. Alexa had taken position near the back, spear planted like a banner and face still bearing the hollow expression of someone processing too much grief and violence.
Liam guarded the main entrance, his daggers sheathed but his stance ready for instant action.
I need to get him a proper sword now that the event is over. Something worthy of his talents and potential. At least based on what can be found on this tiny level's tower dungeon.
Everyone around him was injured and exhausted.
The other guards and his own party were covered in gore that had dried to brown flakes on their armor and skin. They looked like survivors of something terrible, which... was exactly what they were.
"How long was I out?" Jonah asked.
Rebecca's expression softened fractionally. "Few hours. Sun's going down already."
"How's everything?"
"We won." Rebecca sat down on a chair next to him and put her hands in her face. She had witnessed all the injuries and horrors of people dying while her crew tried to save them. "The goblins routed after you killed the Warboss. Martinez organized pursuit teams to make sure they don't regroup. Casualties were..." She paused, swallowed, "Heavy. But we held. And we got the notification too. A settlement stone? What does that even look like? Are we expected to find it? Assuming you don't already know what it looks like and how to find it, too."
Jonah did not respond just yet, ignoring her raised eyebrow.
She sighed and gestured vaguely toward the tent entrance. "Everyone got experience. Lots of it. Most of the survivors are celebrating, evolving their classes, picking new skills. It's chaos out there, but the good kind."
"You all haven't, right?" Jonah tried to sit up despite the pain, but fell back when his head spun and vertigo assaulted his senses.
"We knew you'd be upset if we did," Rebecca's expression shifted to something approaching smugness. "Figured you'd want to lecture us about optimal choices first."
Relief flooded through him.
Anything to do with class was permanent. The wrong choice at Tier 2, or any tier after, could cripple development for dozens of levels if they were lucky, life if they weren't. His core team understanding that, waiting for guidance despite the temptation of immediate power, meant they were learning.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Martinez and David went out to gather stragglers," Rebecca continued. "People were too excited to be on the attack instead of defense, wandering too far from the defensive perimeter, chasing goblins or looking for loot. They had to drag Justin with them after..."
She stopped. Her face closed off in that way people's faces did when they realized they'd said too much.
"After what?"
Silence stretched between them as Rebecca covered her mouth.
"Rebecca."
"We can't prove anything." Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "But we think Derek's been manipulating people: wannabe dictators trying to establish themselves as kings by coming out with your head. Sarah killed a few people already. One lady tried to seduce Liam to get in, but he already intends to go straight with Alexa. It got so bad a couple hours ago that Justin and Derek got into a confrontation. It was not good. I've never seen so much lightning and thunderous explosions. That maniac almost killed Derek and his entire crew."
Jonah's jaw tightened.
"Martinez and Sarah stopped him. Barely. Justin was..." She shook her head. "You didn't see his face, Jonah. Whatever Derek said or did, Justin was ready to murder everyone in that faction. Lightning was arcing off him in sheets. They couldn't stop him."
Martinez and Sarah made the right move.
Killing people based on suspicion, even justified suspicion, would set a precedent that destroyed everything they were trying to build. Stability required rules even if he hated them with a passion. That was the only way they could make it further. Order required due process, or at least the appearance of it. Derek was dangerous, but he was also smart enough to maintain plausible deniability.
Nothing linking back to him if Rebecca was right.
Seeing how Sarah and Martinez reacted, that might be the case.
Derek would survive until he made an obvious mistake. Something Jonah could point to and show everyone as justification; removing him would look like tyranny instead of justice otherwise.
Jonah forced himself to sit up, even when his head spun. The community needed his presence now. "That's fine. I need to re-establish—"
Rebecca's palm hit his chest, pushing him back down with surprising force. Her eyes blazed with the same fury from before, but tempered now by something softer. "You need to rest and recover. You're no good to anyone half dead. Heal up. Trust us to handle things. The other two leaders aren't nearly as bad as Derek. Let them pull their weight for once."
Jonah wanted to argue. Wanted to push through the pain and exhaustion and reassert control over the situation. Derek was out there scheming. People were making class choices that could cripple their development. The Settlement Stone needed to be found and claimed properly, resources allocated, defenses established for whatever came next, and a dozen other things they needed to finish as soon as possible.
Yet, Rebecca was right.
He nodded.
She watched him for a moment, suspicious, then turned and left the tent. Her footsteps faded into the sounds of distant celebration.
Jonah lay back against the rough canvas cot and stared at the ceiling.
Miranda and the other three mages hadn't moved. Their breathing remained steady, but consciousness seemed far away. The black lines of mana burns on their skin would fade eventually, but the channel damage might be permanent unless he found healing salves within the dungeon tower for them. Obtaining those salves would be his primary objective while wielding Liam's sword.
They'd pushed themselves beyond what their bodies could handle, and the System wasn't always forgiving about such things.
He understood that better than anyone now.
As if called by his thoughts, the system pinged him a dozen times.
The System notifications he'd been ignoring demanded attention. Jonah focused on the cascade of blue screens, letting them organize themselves into readable categories.
[Combat Summary - Final Wave]
Personal Kills: 1 (Tier 4 Warboss)
Assist Kills: 247
Leadership Bonus Applied
Experience Gained: 4,891
[Level Up: Level 5 → Level 9.9]
[Note: Experience cap reached. Class Evolution required to proceed.]
[Attribute Points Available: 16]
[Skill Points Available: 12]
[Achievement Unlocked: Warboss Slayer]
Kill a Tier 4+ enemy while below Tier 2
Reward: +3 to all attributes, Damage vs. Higher Tier enemies +5%, Fear Resistance +10%
[Achievement Unlocked: Beyond Limitations]
Successfully cast a spell 2+ Tiers above your current capability
Reward: +15% Mana Capacity
[Achievement Unlocked: Army Breaker]
Personally rout an enemy force exceeding 1000 combatants
Reward: Leadership Aura (Enhanced)
[Achievement Unlocked: Settlement Founder]
Lead the defense that unlocks a Settlement Stone
Reward: Territory Bonus (First Claim)
[Trait Gained: Overachiever's Constitution]
Your body has survived impossible strain
Effect: Recovery from mana exhaustion accelerated
[Trait Gained: Death's Familiar]
You have touched death magic and survived
[Recovery Status]
Base Recovery Time: 50 days
Modified by Healing Received: -20 days
Current Estimate: 30 days
[Note: Recovery time may be further reduced through high-quality healing resources, specialized items, external healing, or skill advancement]
That fifty days had been turned into thirty while he was asleep. Rebecca's work had cut his recovery time significantly, but it was still too long. He knew from experience that even with the best help available on this level, he'd be looking at a week minimum before he was combat-ready.
Floor 1 didn't have the miraculous healing items that higher floors provided.
The hard cap at 9.9 caught his attention as he moved away from the injury he had sustained to call that Death Attuned Spell.
[Experience Cap Reached]
[Class Evolution Gate Active]
[Current Level: 9.9 (Maximum pre-evolution)]
[Evolution Required to Reach Level 10]
Jonah studied the notification. He remembered his first evolution and shook his head. He had been too happy to jump on the shiniest babble he found.
The system did give me a cascade of error messages after casting Poliva's Touch. Wonder how I can exploit this.
The System had struggled to categorize him properly. His regression, the impossible spell, his knowledge that shouldn't exist, and how he ended up surviving it too. He'd expected errors where the framework couldn't quite process what he was doing.
Instead, the System seemed to be adapting to what he had done.
There had always been a theory that the system was limited when given to humanity. As though it was not the full thing they could take advantage of with barriers and class designs that weren't completely optimal.
Maybe that had some legs to stand on.
Jonah shook his head.
Conspiracy thinking could be saved for another day.
For now, he was forced to take a class evolution. Even a week was far to long and he needed upgraded skills and a stronger class that could help him recover faster and potentially continue to fight without agony tearing through his limbs every time he tried to move.
The longer they did not claim the settlement stone, the less likely they were going to survive.
12
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