Chapter 62: The First Time

[DING!]

[Enemy Soldier Defeated!]

[EXP Gained: 660]

[DING!]

[Magic Beast Defeated!]

[EXP Gained: 1,040]

[DING!]

[Enemy Soldier Defeated!]

[EXP Gained: 732]

[DING!]

[Enemy Soldier Defeated!]

[EXP Gained: 1,380]

[LEVEL UP!]

[Level 59 → Level 60]

[Current EXP: 3,312 / 6,000]

More notifications pushed the earlier ones upward before Zishan could read them.

He laughed. "HAHAHAHAHA! HOLY SHIT!"

’God! I feel shit. My vision is turning...’

His Mana had fallen almost to nothing after the cast, leaving only ten points behind, yet the satchel struck against his hip as he moved.

Zishan remembered why he had stolen—borrowed. Yes! Borrowed. Why he had borrowed them. ’Wait... how the fuck am I supposed to return something I’ve already drunk?’

Ignoring this, he pulled one out, removed the stopper with his teeth, and drank while the battlefield continued exploding in front of him.

The familiar cool sensation entered his Mana channels and began restoring what he had spent. It wasn’t instant, and he knew from experience that exhausting himself over and over could leave him feeling like his brain had been wrung out, yet there were several bottles left inside the satchel and thousands of enemies in front of him.

He could work with that.

Another series of notifications appeared.

[EXP Gained...]

[EXP Gained...]

[EXP Gained...]

The numbers were arriving too fast for Zishan to follow individually, so he stopped trying and focused on recovering his Mana instead.

He kept drinking from the potion while watching the enemies who had escaped the first chain spread farther away from one another, with officers deeper inside the army shouting for the front ranks to reorganize before the flames could reach them.

His Mana was rising, although it still wasn’t enough for another 1,580-Mana casting. That hardly mattered when Wildfire Requiem didn’t need maximum output every time.

Zishan searched through the scattered formation until he found another cluster packed closely enough together, then raised his hand.

"WILDFIRE REQUIEM!"

Fire erupted among them.

A smaller chain spread across the survivors, catching soldiers who had moved away from the first inferno and several Magic Beasts that had been pushed toward the side of the formation.

Zishan reached for another potion.

Far above him, the Highland Griffin changed direction.

The rider on her back looked down.

Commander Holtz had long since stopped shouting for Zishan to return because the scene in front of him had become difficult to process.

One of the Majors slowly lowered the hand he had raised toward the battlefield. "Commander."

However, the commander said nothing.

The major stared at the burning enemy formation. "You said he’s a Soldier."

"I know what I said," the commander replied.

Another explosion erupted somewhere across the battlefield, but Zishan barely heard it. His attention had been swallowed by the green panels filling his vision, with new EXP notifications appearing before he could finish reading the previous ones.

He had already reached Level 60 from the first wave of deaths, yet Wildfire Requiem was still killing enemies throughout the formation and pushing him closer to the next Level.

Zishan stared at the notifications pouring in.

’Fuck... it hasn’t even stopped yet.’

Zishan’s grin widened. "Yes!"

More deaths registered.

The remaining EXP continued climbing.

He drank another Mana Recovery Potion while moving along the front of the battlefield, searching for the next dense group that had not learned the correct lesson from the burning soldiers several meters away.

Another Pyre Mark exploded among the enemy ranks, and the EXP from the latest deaths finally pushed him across the next threshold.

[LEVEL UP!]

Zishan slowed for half a second as the second Level-up notification appeared far sooner than he had expected. When he looked back at the enemy army, there were still rows upon rows of soldiers behind the burning vanguard, with Magic Beasts moving between them, officers shouting orders, and several Mages already beginning to redirect their attention toward him.

His satchel still contained Mana Recovery Potions.

A grin returned to his face as he pulled out another bottle.

The System had barely finished processing the previous Level when another cluster of enemies died inside the spreading flames.

[LEVEL UP!]

His smile returned.

’Oh...’

Fire Mana started gathering around his hand again.

’This is going to be fucking amazing.’

The next Wildfire Requiem exploded across the battlefield, sending another wave of flames through the enemy formation.

Zishan had already reached for another Mana Recovery Potion when his hand stopped inside the satchel.

His eyes remained on the burning soldiers ahead.

Until now, most of the bodies he had watched fall because of him had belonged to Magic Beasts. Ridgefang Hounds, Razorboars, and whatever else had thrown itself against the western defenses during the Stampede. He had fought people before, and Larper Forteza had tried to kill him, but Zishan had never actually killed another person.

Now, there were dozens of them lying across the battlefield.

Some had died from the Pyre Marks. Others had been caught in Funeral Bloom when the people beside them collapsed. The System had reduced every death to another notification and another amount of EXP, and Zishan had been so focused on watching those numbers climb that the difference had taken several moments to reach him.

They weren’t Magic Beasts.

They were people.

Zishan’s grip tightened around the potion inside his satchel.

’I actually killed them. People...’

For several seconds, the excitement that had been carrying him through the battle disappeared.

He could still hear the enemy officers shouting orders. Soldiers were trying to pull burning comrades away from the spreading flames, while others raised weapons in his direction after realizing where the attack had come from. None of them looked like nameless EXP when he actually stopped to watch them.

His stomach tightened.

’Fuck...’

This was war. They had marched toward the western station with weapons in their hands, and if Olmost’s defenders failed to stop them, people behind those barricades would die instead. Zishan understood that. However, understanding it did not make the first time feel normal.

Another enemy soldier raised his weapon and started running toward him.

Zishan stared at him for a moment before slowly pulling his hand out of the satchel, the Mana Recovery Potion held tightly between his fingers.

He wasn’t going to pretend those deaths meant nothing.

But he also wasn’t going to stand there and let the people behind him die because he had realized too late what a battlefield actually demanded of him.