Chapter 134: First Return

Zaid heard the voices of Selene and her allies in the distance as they faded away.

He heard those footsteps.

He couldn’t feel his arms, legs, or any part of his body. He could only feel the cold.

Everything disappeared immediately afterward.

Until something glowed in front of him.

[Loop Reset has been activated.]

Zaid opened his eyes.

Before him were the first rays of the morning sun, shining on his face and skin next to a window on the third floor of a building.

His hands were unharmed. His chest showed no wounds. There was no blood. Nor was there a forest, a church, Garrick, or Selene.

The snake wasn’t there either… in fact, he could feel it, but he couldn’t communicate with it.

Valia was lying asleep beside him.

He recognized the place. It was that sunlit room inside Scarlett’s house, though she was nowhere to be seen.

He stood motionless for several seconds, gazing at the sunbeams streaming through the window.

‘Those bastards are pretty tough, but why did that system message pop up?’

He tried checking all the system windows to see if he could find any clues, but there was nothing.

He sighed.

The time loop had begun. For now, he felt nothing inside.

‘I hope it stays that way…’

Zaid looked at the system and checked to see if he had retained anything.

‘I hope so…’

[ME: 47,300.]

Zaid closed his eyes a couple of times to make sure he was awake. The numbers hadn’t changed.

‘All right. I didn’t lose anything.’

It was a brief reply, but he felt a great sense of relief.

Now, he looked at his status and level window…

‘I hope this has gone back to 10…’

[Rank E: Level 20.]

‘Damn.’

The stat points were exactly the same, too. Unfortunately for him, everything in that section remained unchanged.

He resigned himself to the mistake he’d made and decided he wouldn’t level up until he could figure out how to fix this problem…

‘Wait, I can’t do that…’ He let out another sigh as he remembered that he needed to kill Rank C beasts to level up his Scavenger…

‘Wait, that’s still there, right? I haven’t touched it…’

Just in case, he checked that section of the system.

[Scavenger Fragments: 26/100.]

His heart settled when he saw there was no problem at all. It was still intact.

He thought about closing that section and focusing on something else: the information.

But out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something.

He frowned and instinctively turned his head in that direction.

[Scavenger can help you increase the Rank of your Soul Talents.]

[Allow Scavenger to absorb and process the bodies of beasts of the required ranks and add the Fragments to the Talent of your choice.]

[Bloody Spear Fragments: 0/500.]

[Blood Spear feeds on Rank D beasts and higher.]

[Corpse Illusionist Fragments: 0/100.]

[Corpse Illusionist feeds on Rank D beasts and higher.]

Zaid blinked several times and jumped to his feet. “I-I can evolve all my talents in the same way…”

He swallowed hard.

‘Will this work with Spirit Talents?’

He kept scrolling down the huge window he’d accidentally opened, but found no answer to his question.

However, another question arose: Why?

‘Why could Scavenger raise the rank of different talents?’

He got no answer.

He looked at his previous window and carefully analyzed what he was seeing. Those two talents evolve with beasts of Rank D and higher. Much better than his Scavenger, which evolves only with beasts of Rank C or higher.

But of course, that makes sense. Scavenger can steal and add time and space to something—anything. It can create a time loop that affects… Who knows who? Will it affect the entire world?

He doesn’t know yet, but what he is sure of is that Scavenger is a talent on a whole new level.

‘But its Rank is C… clearly inferior to Bloody Spear. Even the number of fragments required to rank up proves it.’

‘Then it must be something else.’

Zaid wasn’t stupid.

He looked, once again, at the Concepts.

‘It must be. I’m absolutely certain of it. What makes Scavenger superior to the other talents is its Concept,’ he thought.

In that case, was the Concept more important than the talent itself?

‘Maybe it’s even more important than physical strength…’

He swallowed hard. Zaid knew he had to investigate whatever was going on.

‘I need to go to the academy library. I’m sure there must be information there,’

Zaid relaxed again. Somehow, he could see that his path was slowly opening up and being illuminated by new information. The uneasiness of having leveled up without realizing the system’s terrible error made him uncomfortable.

However, it made him even more uncomfortable to know that this woman, Selene, had discovered something about him. She mentioned the Talent Copy.

‘And she was someone who rose to Rank B with a Rank D talent… She herself knew the system’s flaw, too.’

That meant she had a ridiculous number of stats. Tens of thousands… or more. He didn’t feel like calculating it.

Zaid shook his head and looked at his talent. “Tendon Breaker” was there… The two bloodied soldiers had vanished.

‘What an interesting loop. It keeps my Strength, ME, and everything else. It returns me to my previous self, but it takes away my HP and yet leaves me with everything else…’

He thought he might get used to it.

“So everything I carry with me remains…” he murmured, thinking of Valia. Would she remember anything?

He looked over at her.

“Zaid?” Just then, she was waking up.

She frowned slightly and looked around. Various memories swirled through her mind, but she quickly understood what had happened.

Her ears perked up toward him, and their eyes met. Immediately, she leaped toward him with a strange smile on her cat-like face.

“Do you remember anything?” he asked.

“Everything! I didn’t think a time loop would work like this… It’s strange. I’ve even kept my strength,” she replied.

Zaid nodded. ‘Is it because she belongs to me?’ he thought.

Valia lay back on his lap, licking his fur over and over again. She seemed delighted with her own level-up.

“Can you communicate with that Serpent?” Zaid asked her.

Valia shook her head. “He’s sleeping. Why don’t you level up to Rank D or C? You should be able to see him in your inner world then. Even though his power is still active, he doesn’t seem to be.”

Zaid nodded. “I’ll do it soon.”

Zaid got out of bed and walked over to the window next to Valia.

From the third floor, he could see a considerable portion of the surrounding area. The neighborhood was quiet, and the sun was just beginning to illuminate the buildings.

“This heat feels strange,” Zaid said with an unusual cheerfulness.

“Strange? It’s the same as always,” Valia replied.

Zaid smiled.

“Maybe it is. When you feel the coldness of death… you start to appreciate little things like this,”

Valia stopped licking herself and looked at him. “I think I really appreciate the sun, even though I haven’t died. It’s a blessing the world gave us, and look… it feels so good.”

Zaid burst out laughing.

“I like that you’re so carefree. I still feel my heart pounding and the voices of those bastards ringing in my ears. I can’t be like that just yet.”

“You’ll be like that soon enough. After dying so many times, you’ll probably get used to it.”

“I really hope I don’t get used to dying… I could literally die.”

Zaid turned around and walked down the hallway… The third floor was empty.

‘Didn’t Scarlett say she was very poor when I met her?’

Now that he thought about it, this house didn’t look like it belonged to someone poor… Maybe he’d been tricked by that beautiful woman so she could pay him less, though he didn’t really care.

The hallways were unusually pretty, and although they weren’t very clean, they had a special charm with that herbal scent.

Zaid went down the stairs and reached the ground floor, where morning light was streaming in through the windows.

As he went down to the first floor, Zaid heard the sound of a knife cutting something on wood, coming from the kitchen.

Zaid peeked in…

“Did you wake up?” Scarlett noticed him immediately and smiled at him. “It’s been a while, Gio… Or should I call you Zaid?”

Zaid stared at her. That beautiful woman was chopping some vegetables and herbs for the meal. Her gorgeous red hair fell over her shoulders, illuminated by the sun’s rays, and her features possessed that unusual beauty that made it hard to look away from her, even though she was a little dirty and disheveled.

Zaid watched her for a moment. He wanted to gauge her reaction.

Scarlett tilted her head slightly. “What’s wrong? Do I have something on my face?”

“You always have something on your face,” Zaid joked immediately, a big smile on his face.

Scarlett was speechless for a moment and lowered her head in embarrassment. She used the sleeves of her apron to wipe it off, but it was no use.

“Tsk, I’m surprised you don’t smell bad,” Zaid teased.

“Hey, that’s rude!” Scarlett protested, shooting him a furious look. “Just so you know, I shower every day!”

“Really?”

“Why are you so surprised?” she shouted, indignant.

“If I’m dirty, it’s because… because… because that’s just how alchemy is,” she sighed.

Zaid burst out laughing.

“I believe you.”

“You sound sarcastic…” Scarlett sighed and went back to work. “What should I call you? Zaid or Gio? I heard your real name is Zaid.”

Zaid sighed. ‘She doesn’t remember anything… Well, we didn’t share much. But I’ll have to be careful around her now.’

“Zaid? Hm, did you tell me earlier to call you Zaid?” She turned her head, slightly confused… She had memories she didn’t know where they came from.