"I-I did it… why didn't you tell me it would hurt that much?" Liam said breathlessly, still half-delirious from the pain and shock. In his exhausted state, he had even forgotten he could speak to the system through his thoughts instead of speaking out loud.
His arms trembled slightly as he pushed himself upright against the stall wall, during the pain, he had somehow managed to fall off the toilet seat. His entire body felt weak and strangely light at the same time, as though something deep inside him had been hollowed out and filled back up incorrectly.
The screen floated calmly in front of him, completely unmoved by his suffering.
[PAIN WARNING WAS PROVIDED.]
Liam stared at it for a moment, his mouth parting slightly in disbelief. "That was not a warning," he muttered hoarsely.
[HOST SURVIVAL RATE REMAINED ABOVE ACCEPTABLE THRESHOLD.]
Liam's expression flattened.
He let out a weak, exhausted sound that was somewhere between a groan and a frustrated sigh, then pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. The pain had faded now, but the aftereffects were still all over him. His body felt shaky. His head felt fuzzy. Even his thoughts were slower than usual.
"Whatever, the most important thing right now is going back home," Liam murmured to himself, dismissing the system's comments.
He knew he should be more excited about this.
An SSS-rank talent. A rank that had only appeared once in recorded history. Sareno, the Good One's own chosen servant, a legendary figure who was still remembered and revered even tens of thousands of years after his death. Any noble family in Ortheon would lose their minds if they heard about this.
But Liam was simply too exhausted to care properly. There was only so much a child his age could endure in a single day.
He had gone to his Awakening Ceremony expecting a normal system and a decent rank. Instead, he had been thrown into another world, nearly flattened by strange metal machines, dragged into a police station, and painfully tortured by an impossibly rude system.
At this point, he just wanted his bed... and Mathilda... and maybe some warm food too.
His shoulders drooped slightly at the thought, then he lifted his gaze back towards the floating screen.
Can you send me back to my own world, System?
The interface remained silent for several seconds, long enough that his initial hope had already begun to fade.
[YES, BUT FOR A PRICE.]
A price, Liam almost scoffed, of course there was a price. Nothing in his life ever seemed to come simply on its own. Still, the answer made his stomach tighten all the same.
What price? He asked carefully, this time only thinking it.
[PRICE UNKNOWN.]
[RETURN FUNCTION REQUIRES EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE.]
[CURRENT SYSTEM OUTPUT INSUFFICIENT FOR FULL CALCULATION.]
"Unknown?" he whispered under his breath, that was not comforting at all, not one bit.
He leaned forward slightly, his earlier exhaustion pushed aside. If even the system did not know what the price was, then that meant the exchange was real enough to hurt him in ways it could not properly predict, and that was not a very nice thought.
The interface continued.
[PROBABLE COST: TALENT CORE DEGRADATION.]
[FINAL RESULT CANNOT BE GUARANTEED.]
His eyes widened a little, and his fingers slowly curled against his knees. Talents were not small things in Ortheon. They were the first real measure of a person's future, the one thing noble families obsessed over, the cathedral and the entire world judged, the thing that decided whether you would be praised or ignored or possibly discarded to the side as waste.
He swallowed hard.
"...If I do this," he asked, trying to keep his voice steady, "what happens?"
[RETURN TO ORIGINAL WORLD: POSSIBLE.]
[HOST TALENT RANK: UNSTABLE POST-TRANSFER.]
[ESTIMATED OUTCOME RANGE: S RANK TO UNKNOWN.]
Liam let out a small breath of relief.
An S rank was still within acceptable range. In fact, it was excellent by most standards. His father and mother would be satisfied with that much at least. An A rank would be fine too, nothing extraordinary, but respectable enough to maintain his standing. Even B rank, though disappointing, would still be manageable, not enough to ruin his future entirely, but enough for relatives and nobles to compare him to his parents and shake their heads in pity.
And C-rank or lower...
Liam physically shivered at the thought, he did not even want to imagine it.
Of course, he would still be disappointed about losing the SSS rank. Anyone would be, Something that legendary, something tied to a figure like Sareno. But if this was the price for going home, then S or even A was a fair exchange.
Liam swallowed, which was hard given how dry his mouth was, he had already decided. There was no point hesitating now. He lifted his chin slightly, still trying to ignore the uneasy feeling curling in his stomach, and gave the system his final answer.
Yes.
The stall, the mirror, the cramped little space around him all seemed to tilt at once, as though someone had reached into reality itself and twisted it in weird angles. Liam's grip tightened on the edge of the toilet seat, but before he could brace himself properly, the world around him dissolved into a blur of white and static.
A strange pulling sensation yanked at his entire body, his vision flashed. The system's screen stretched into a long ribbon of light before vanishing completely.
Then-
He stumbled, he had tumbled back out of the portal, back into the cathedral.
Liam's feet hit solid ground again, and he nearly fell forward from the sudden change. His hands shot out automatically, catching himself before he could crash into the floor. His breathing came quick and uneven as he blinked hard, trying to get his bearings.
When he came to, he was standing in front of the entire crowd of noble children waiting their turn to enter the portal and awaken their systems. Under their watchful, judgement-laced gazes, he straightened himself, forced his expression into something blank, and calmly walked back towards where Mathilda stood.
His steps were steady on the outside but on the inside, something felt off.
He was so confused. The other children had simply walked out of the portal as though nothing had happened at all, some even looking bored or slightly disappointed. But him… he felt drained. Light-headed. As if he had been through something far longer than a simple awakening cycle.
"…Weird," he murmured under his breath.
Ahead of him, Mathilda noticed him approaching and immediately relaxed, her usual warm expression returning as she opened her arms slightly in welcome. The moment he reached her, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, checking him over with subtle concern.
"You're back," she said softly. "How do you feel?"
Tired, obviously. And a little dizzy too, "I… don't know," he admitted quietly.
Mathilda tilted her head slightly, "That's normal," she said gently. "Most children feel disoriented right after their awakening. It settles after a while."
"Nana Mathilda, I'm a bit tired. Can we go back home now?" Liam rubbed his temples with his index and middle fingers. He could feel a migraine coming on, and his exhaustion had started to settle in properly now that the adrenaline was gone.
Mathilda's expression softened immediately. She crouched slightly so she was at his eye level, gently brushing a few stray strands of hair away from his face as she checked him more carefully.
"Of course," she said. "You did well today. Let's get you out of here."
Liam nodded weakly, not trusting himself to say anything more. His legs felt heavier with every step as they began moving away from the cathedral floor, the noise of the ceremony fading away behind them.
As they walked out of the cathedral and into the streets, and eventually reached their carriage, Liam had the unsettling feeling that he was forgetting something important, very important. It sat at the edge of his mind, just out of reach.
He frowned slightly and glanced out of the carriage window as Mathilda helped him settle into his seat. The cathedral slowly receded behind them, its towering spires and glowing runes shrinking into the distance as the carriage began to move.
Liam pressed a hand against his temple again, the feeling did not go away, if anything, it only grew stranger the longer he tried to think about it.
Mathilda noticed the small crease between his brows and leaned closer with concern etched on her face. "Still tired?" she asked.
Liam hesitated, then nodded slowly.
"Yeah," he said, though it did not feel like the whole truth. "A little."
Mathilda gave him a soft, knowing smile and gently made him rest his head on her shoulder. "Then don't force yourself to think too hard. Just rest for now."
Liam leaned back against her shoulder, but even as he closed his eyes, that strange feeling remained. Something had happened, but he just did not know what. It sat in the back of his mind like a blurry image, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not make it take shape.
The carriage rocked softly beneath them as it moved out of the streets of the cathedral into his family's colony, Astravia. The noise of the city gradually faded, replaced by the smoother, quieter rhythm of the journey home. Liam stayed still, simply too tired to keep trying to figure out the strange emptiness he felt.
Outside, the world shifted from dense urban structures into the more exquisite and old-styled architecture of most noble territory. Clean stone roads replaced the crowded streets, and the distant glow of the cathedral's district faded behind them.
Mathilda noticed Liam had gone quiet and reached over to adjust the blanket over his lap again. She had wrapped it around him earlier in the carriage, and now she smoothed it down carefully, making sure it stayed in place without waking him. For a moment, she simply watched him rest, her expression softening.
By the time the carriage rounded the final corner, the Velrodi estate was already right ahead of them.
Tall gates made of strong dark iron stood open to receive them, framed by long rows of trimmed hedges and lantern posts that cast a warm glow over the estate road. Beyond the gates, the mansion itself rose in elegant layers of white stone and deep royal blue accents, its windows lit softly against the evening sky. It was every bit as grand as Liam had always known it to be.
The carriage slowed to a stop at the front steps.
Mathilda shifted first, then gently reached over to help Liam sit upright. He opened his eyes a little more fully, blinking, trying to clear his eyes of sleep.
One of the servants moved quickly to open the carriage door, and the cool evening air brushed over Liam's face as Mathilda helped him down. His legs felt a little unsteady and wobbly at first, but he managed to stand properly after a moment, still clutching the edge of the carriage door for balance.
"Let's get you inside," Mathilda said softly. "You need some rest."
Liam opened his mouth to respond but instead, decided to settle for a nod instead.
He climbed the front steps, silently cursing whoever had decided that a home where a child with short legs lived should have this many stairs. By the time he reached the top, he was out of breath. Mathilda had offered to carry him, but he had rejected it; he could not let her do that in front of the servants. He had not felt this way coming down the stairs earlier that morning because of his excitement.
He had spent almost three hours away from home, and all he wanted right now was to sleep. He dragged his legs to the front door and stepped in through the grand entrance as the servants opened it for him, expecting the usual quiet return to order and routine.
Instead, he was met with a sight that was anything but welcoming.