Following the successful distraction that had allowed me to slash at his leg, the Elite changed in expression. I could barely keep with his speed as he made a sudden thrust right at my heart.

My Nerve was beyond the scope of a normal human already, and with its being mostly concentrated on Balance, I had gained impeccable control over my body. I still was extremely fast by normal standards, but my forte was the precision of my movement. I smoothly avoided his attack by tilting my body forward, and the blade passed only a few inches away from its target. I doubted that the EF provided to me by my Gear would save me if the tip of the weapon pierced my chest.

The hilt of my scimitar was long and wide enough to be held by both hands if necessary, which I used to my advantage. With my lacking Strength, it would be too much for me to hold it with just one hand like a fencer.

While I had no experience with swords, my impeccable control allowed me to use the weapon effectively. While avoiding the kobold's attack, I simultaneously made a counter of my own, slashing at the right side of his lower torso as I gripped the hilt with both of my hands.

The scimitar cut through the monster's clothes—some kind of grey hide—but was stopped by the monster's own fur and Field. Why the kobolds wore the clothes in the first place wasn't something I had the leisure to ponder at the time.

With this, his EF was depleted, but the rebound from the strike made me pause for a moment so as to not lose hold of my weapon. This little opening was enough for the Elite to pummel me with his shield, sending me flying towards the table nearby.

The impact itself barely hurt, but the little bronze bar at the lower-left corner of my eye—which supposedly signified my Essence Field—decreased by half. And this wasn't even a serious attack.

My sharpened reflexes allowed me to regain my posture as soon as the table toppled over. I was just in time to block a strike of the kobold's sword with my own. I noticed that the glow around his body, shield, and sword had gotten much denser.

Due to the overwhelming difference in our Body stat, my block was almost completely useless in spite of the fact that I weighed way more than my opponent and was almost two feet taller. If I didn't react in time by pulling my belly button towards my spine—a technique I had been familiar with from yoga—I would have had a nasty wound in my stomach.

In spite of the danger, I felt awesome while fighting like this. My heart desperately pumped blood through my body, and my glands secreted adrenaline like crazy. Each breath filled me with life.

The Elite was fast when he struck, but his attacks themselves were clumsy and without any technique or skill. I didn't doubt for a moment that most of his Attributes were heavily focused on the Body side, with Endurance being the highest Sub-Attribute.

For the next dozen seconds, we lost ourselves in the dance-like exchange of slashes and thrusts. Even without the Essence Field to protect him, the brown luster seemed to decrease the effectiveness of my attacks. Each time my scimitar struck his body, only shallow wounds remained. Moreover, half of my attempts were blocked either by his shortsword or the buckler.

The kobold, on the other hand, had a really hard time connecting any of his attacks. He was obviously better at defense than offense. It looked to me like he wasn't that familiar with the capabilities of his body—perhaps because it hadn't been long since he had gained his current power.

The scales started to tilt to Lekta's side when my breathing became rougher and rougher. The same way his control couldn't catch up to the capabilities of his Body, my Body couldn't keep up with the strain brought by moving at the abnormal speed and precision brought by my Nerve.

Shallow wounds covered the hands and legs of the Elite's body, but in spite of me not getting directly hit even once, I felt pain in my joints from overexerting them. More than this, my left arm had been strained ever since he had blocked one of my slashes with his buckler, almost disarming me.

Holding the scimitar in my right hand, I thrust it at the kobold's remaining eye just a moment after dodging the slash of his sword. If I managed to make him completely blind, the victory would be mine.

At this critical moment, Lekta did something unexpected as if he had turned desperate. Instead of dodging or blocking my blow, he threw his buckler right at my face, at the same time catching the tip of my sword with his now free hand.

I barely felt the impact from the shield against my head, but the next moment scorching pain came from my left arm as my EF was completely gone, and blood rushed from the newly made wound. I barely managed to jump back and pull my scimitar from him—a second later, and I would have been one arm lighter.

The reason behind the drastic measures the Elite had taken became evident as soon as I saw that the brown glow around him had completely disappeared.

My left arm was now useless, but Lekta had lost more—both of his shields. The goddess of victory smiled at me and turned away from him.

The Health-Bar above his head still was in the green—even if barely—but it didn't matter. I only need one lucky attack to connect, and I wouldn't be surprised if my Luck was twice his own. This distorted Attribute of mine hadn't shown any obvious effects so far, but at that moment, I had this intuitive feeling that the world itself would help me to finish this battle.

As if something whispered to me to do this, I leaped at the Elite while slashing the scimitar diagonally from upper right to bottom left. It was a clumsy attack at best and an idiotic one at worst, but I had the feeling that it would work. And it did.

As if I chose the perfect time to strike, Lekta blinked his only healthy eye just at the moment of my jump. His left eye was of no use, and without the buckler, nothing protected his only blind zone. Before he could understand what was happening, the sharp edge of my blade cut into his neck, beheading the poor doggie.

Without the glow or the Field hindering my weapon, it cut through the kobold’s bones as if they were mere tofu. The blood from the open neck splashed over me, covering my face and clothes in a warm crimson fluid. I almost threw up from disgust and decided to avoid killing blows like this in the future.

A bunch of notifications appeared in the corner of my eye as I wiped my face with the sleeve, but I had a more important matter at hand. At my left hand, if I was being precise. I hadn't noticed in the heat of battle, but apparently, the hand was half-severed and the blood just wouldn't stop flowing.

At this point, my medical coat was completely drenched in blood—both mine and my enemy's. With the adrenaline rush subsiding, the pain of almost losing an arm was unbearable.

"Ahhhh!" I screamed in spite of trying to hold myself back, even my naturally high Willpower hadn't helped.

"Crap!" I could see my Healthbar decreasing at a visible pace.

"Listen here,"—Ciesta materialized nearby in her pristine pure white form—"you can survive if you act fast. Otherwise, you'll lose consciousness and die from the blood loss in a minute."

I hopefully looked at the beautiful cat that, at the moment, seemed like an angel descending from the heavens. There was not a speck of blood on her silky fur.

"Unequip your weapon, put it back to the Storage, then open the Shop to sell it," Ciesta commanded. "Do it, now."

I gave a mental command to Unequip the scimitar, and a light, barely noticeable shock passed through my body as if something invisible was cut off.

It was the first time I had to place anything in the Gear, and one of my hands couldn't be moved, so this simple course of action was harder than it should have been. I sank my teeth into the scimitar's handle, holding it tightly as I pointed its tip at my right wrist. With a mental command, the portal into my Storage opened, and it sucked in the weapon as easily as it had spit it out before.

I hurriedly gave mental commands to the System, opening the Sell screen and choosing the only item in the catalog. The scimitar was sold for half of its initial price, adding fifteen Lesser Essence Coins to the eighty-eight I had gotten from the kill.

As soon as I was done, the cat continued, and urgency could be heard in her voice, "Now open the Consumables page and choose the Health Potion. Hurry up!"

I felt lightheaded as the blood continued to pour out of my wound. My knees gave out from the weakness, and I found myself sitting in a crimson pool near the fresh corpse of my enemy.

I should pull myself together, or else I'll join him. I told myself as I proceeded to browse the holographic screen.

Inferior Health Potion—An alchemic compound that, upon consumption, significantly accelerates the physical regeneration of a Bronze-ranked individual by activating the hidden reserves of the body. Restores up to 20% of overall Health. Can be directly applied to severe wounds for a more targeted effect. Can't be used repeatedly, requiring around one day of rest between the uses and sharing this cooldown period with other healing-type Potions.

EM: 0.1

I barely gave a glance at the description as I chose to buy the item. Without reading the notifications or further instructions from Ciesta, I commanded the Storage to pull out the Potion and then seized the appearing flask with my mouth.

The container was two times as big as that of the Attribute Potion. I hurriedly removed the lid with my teeth, took the flask with my right hand, and then splashed the contents on the fatal wound.

I wasn't a doctor, but I had some basic understanding of human physiology. The problem with my left hand lay in the fact that the brachial artery was cut. Normally, it should have taken me less than twenty seconds to lose consciousness, but it seemed that my increased Attributes gave me some more time. And so, I made it.

I tore off the left sleeve of my coat, which wasn't hard considering it was barely holding up, and then tried to adjust my left arm, which had been half-severed at the biceps. The Health Potion did its job as the sense of pain was gone in a moment, and the injury started to heal at a visible speed.

I wasn't relieved, though—the world started to get blurry, and I could barely keep my eyes open. My Health had fallen to the red zone as nine-tenths of it was gone. I had a feeling that if I closed my eyelids now, I wouldn't make it. Hoping that it would save me, I gulped down the remaining one-third of the Potion.

"If you pass out right now, there's a rather high chance that you'll survive this injury, but it should take you at least five hours to wake up, and you won't be in any state to fight for a couple of days." I focused my mind on Ciesta's voice to keep myself wakeful. Now, of all times, I noticed that its timbre reminded me of my mother's. Or maybe it was but an illusion resulting from my unstable state.

"There's another way, though," she said firmly, "this path will make you unconscious for an hour and a half, but you'll wake up stronger than ever. Do you hear me, Lexy? Concentrate. You can do this."

I would have already guessed what she was talking about if my thoughts weren't so clouded. Instead, I completely lay down on the floor, unintentionally using the still warm corpse as a pillow. It would be gone soon, but until then, I had something fluffy and comfortable to support my head.

"Listen to me!" the cat shouted just when I was about to completely relax. "Invest three of your Free Points into your Spirit, do you hear me?! Three, no more! Then return to the Quest Reward screen and choose to become the Truthwalker! Do it! There's no time to waste, you idiot!"

As if her words were my command, I absentmindedly obeyed.

Body: 8 (-1)

Nerve: 32 (-1)

Mind: 13

Spirit: 24

Fate: 25

Free Attribute Points: 9

I didn't pay attention to the FAP, Spirit, and Fate, all of which were higher than I'd expected. I just did what I should.

Body: 8 (-1)

Nerve: 32 (-1)

Mind: 13

Spirit: 27

Fate: 25

Free Attribute Points: 6

The next part was even easier. Genesis System asked me a rhetorical question as if testing my patience.

Are you sure you want to embark on the path of the Truthwalker?

"Yes," I hoarsely whispered. As the last bits of my awareness left me, I heard the familiar emotionless voice.

ESSENCE CONVERSION COMMENCING

***

I had a wonderful dream. It was as familiar as it was foreign. There, others recognized me. There, I was loved and adored. There, I was the center of attention. . . until my future crumbled before me.

I returned to the dream I had seen just before an apocalypse changed my home planet. Now, though, I caught the details I had forgotten back then. The important bits that had eluded my mind until now.

In this dream, I was a promising young actor—as talented as I was handsome. I was literally the protagonist of the stories that others trusted me to play. After my performance was done, the eager audience showered me with a thundering ovation. It was a sight I fell in love with. It was the sight that made my life worth living.

But, one fateful day changed everything. A rare illness took the scene from me, turning my everyday life upside down, locking me in a room of the hospital, requiring constant care. If not for her, my dear sunshine, I would despair. She gave me the reason to carry on. She gave me the hope to, one day, hear the cheering of the audience yet again.

She. . . who was she, again?

***

I was lying on the cold floor, still half-asleep and trying to catch the details of the obscure dream, when my instincts shouted to me to dodge. Without opening my eyes, I rolled to the right side, just in time to avoid something that lodged itself in the place I had been a moment ago.

I stood up, and I looked at the foe—the familiar face of my doggie friend who had betrayed me was filled with shock and fright.

"Hello there," I waved at him with a grin as I bent down to pull the stone ax from the marble floor that was painted reddish-brown by my dried-up blood.

"S-sorry, honored sire!" the kobold shouted as he turned his tail and ran to the stairway. "I c-can explain!"

His excuses didn't sound convincing with his back towards me. A bit more than twenty feet separated us, but this distance didn't mean much before someone with their Nerve above thirty.

Disappointed with my canine friend's behavior, I decided to return his weapon to him like a forgiving soul I was. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to warn him, so the ax ended up hitting his unprotected back.

"Hauuuuu!" the kobold wailed in pain as he tumbled to the ground. For whatever reason, his EF hadn't restored itself in the slightest, even if I was sure that some time had passed since our last meeting. Now, after receiving my generous gift, his Health entered the yellow zone and wasn't far from the red one.

"I guess your betrayal is the price I paid for not buying the Translation Module." I sighed in regret as I slowly approached the kobold's squirming form. "Let's get along the next time we see each other, buddy!"

You have contributed (61%) in slaying a [Shadowbark Kobold - Bronze, Level 8]. You receive a 10% Bonus EXP for killing a being above your Level. You receive 8 Lesser Essence Coins (LEC).

Quest notice: Shadowbark Kobolds slain: 8/10

I made sure that he hadn't suffered too much before his demise. Such a caring friend I was!

"You were lucky that the pup was such a scaredy-cat that he didn’t check on the situation here for a whole two hours," Ciesta said as she showed herself sitting on the reception desk. Her choice of insulting words was kind of ironic.

"I was out for two hours?!" I gave her an astonished look. "It's longer than you or the System mentioned."

"You are the first person I ever heard of who fell asleep during the Essence Conversion," her voice betrayed a hint of confusion. "I didn't want to wake you up unless something urgent happened."

I raised a brow. "Having an enemy nearby and an ax thrown at me aren't urgent enough events?"

She gave a small shrug accompanied by her typical feline grin. "You were in no danger. If anything, that clumsy parody of an attack would have woken you just fine even if it had actually hit. Check your Condition page."

"Oh my, oh my!" I imitated a certain Goddess as a wide grin formed on my face.

At last, I had the opportunity to gain magic powers of my own.