[I didn't remember anything after that. But when I woke up, I learned that the creature I fought, more accurately, the one that knocked me out in a single hit, was an orc. A native creature of this world, closer to a monster than a human.]
[My classmates faced it as well and suffered similar defeats. Though from what I heard, they lasted much longer and weren't hurt as badly as I was. My left hand was broken, along with several bones and ribs.]
[We later learned that the orc was only an average-ranked gladiator here. Not even one of the best. And none of us had managed to scratch it.]
[We were given time to recover. One of my classmates, Ethan, recovered within a week. When he did, we noticed he was acting differently. He began to panic, saying he could sense some sort of particles or fog around us, and that it was everywhere. It was trying to enter his body, but there was nothing he could do about it.]
[My other two classmates Noah and Liam didn't pay much attention to it. All of us were mentally vulnerable at that moment. It wasn't abnormal for someone to fall sick. And what could they even do about something they couldn't see?]
[But the panic on Ethan's face was too real. I don't know why, maybe because this isn't our world, or because we are no longer bound by the same social norms, but I decided to show him concern. A sign of weakness I was never supposed to expose.]
[When I confronted Ethan about it, he looked puzzled. But after being ignored by the other two, he explained that this "thing" he could see was everywhere, and it was terrifying him.]
[From his explanation, it sounded like a giant living entity parasitizing everyone in this world. While we otherworlders were not yet affected by it, this "thing" was constantly trying to invade his body. It moved in and out of all the people in this world, yet nobody seemed able to see it.]
[I asked how unaffected we were. He said that while it had not yet invaded my body, it was trying to invade Liam and Noah at that very moment.]
[Days passed as we recovered while watching Ethan lose his sleep and sanity trying to stop this "thing" from parasitizing him. One day he finally snapped, shouting that it had already invaded Noah.]
[After that, the other two stopped paying attention to him, saying he had finally lost his mind and was speaking nonsense.]
[It wasn't wrong to think that way. I would have thought the same if I hadn't seen how sincerely Ethan believed what he was saying from the look on his face.]
[I comforted him, telling him not to stop resisting. While it was never my intention to become buddy buddy with an Esper, he seemed to seek my company because, somehow, I was completely unaffected by the invasion of this "thing."]
[Days passed as the other three recovered and were once again placed in the arena. This time none of them lost, because they fought other gladiators who were humans and also novice fighters. The gladiators had their own rules, so there were enough breaks between battles to recover. And I, who had yet to recover, didn't have to fight again.]
[Ethan's situation seemed to worsen with each passing day. He was overworking his Esper ability, which allowed him to reinforce his body with energy. He used it constantly to resist the parasitizing force. Espers need time to recover between uses, especially someone like Ethan, a control-type Esper. Abilities of that type carry a high risk of permanent nerve damage if overused.]
[Even though I wasn't particularly concerned about him, I told him to take a break. According to his own explanation, everyone except the two of us was already infected. So what was the worst that could happen? He snapped at me for saying that. But eventually fatigue caught up to him, and he fell into a coma that lasted five days.]
[When he woke up, he told me he had already been infected. Yet he looked strangely relieved. At least now he didn't have to keep struggling against it. I didn't know what this thing was, or whether it affected his mind. But I didn't ask him about it again. Something about the way he spoke made it clear the subject was sensitive.]
[The next day, I saw him walking around as if nothing had happened. This sight might not have been unusual for people in this world, but it startled me and my other two classmates. He had suffered nerve damage. Even if it wasn't permanent, he shouldn't have been able to move so normally so soon.]
[When we asked him about it, he said he wasn't sure what had happened either. But later that night he suddenly asked if he could try something on me. This was usually not something I would ever agree to if any Esper had asked me back home. But I didn't feel any ill intention from him, so I agreed.]
[He used his Esper ability on my broken bones. But after a few tries, nothing happened. I didn't ask anything, but Ethan explained that after being infected, he became able to use this foreign thing like his Esper ability. It was different, but more fundamental. I didn't understand what he meant.]
[But what he said next surprised me. He had used it to heal his damaged nerves. Not only that, it increased the body's natural healing ability, which was why he recovered in just one day. He tried using it on me, but it seemed that it didn't work on others.]
[ I could not tell whether Ethan tried it on me because he needed someone to experiment on or because he genuinely wanted to heal me. In the end, I chose not to think about it. All my life I had known one thing about Espers. They never act without a reason that benefits them. That truth was not going to suddenly change just because I had shown him concern without expecting anything in return. So whatever his reason was, it did not matter to me. ]
[The next time Ethan fought in the arena, he had already won three times. This was his fifth battle. His next opponent was a veteran gladiator. When the battle began, he crushed his opponent, who was wearing full body armor, with a single punch. The shocked crowd cheered at the sudden turn of events. It's not every day that a novice defeats a veteran with one punch.]
[But even more shocked were me, Liam and Noah . We knew Ethan was a level 2 control-type Esper with the ability to create a thin protective layer around his body to reinforce it. Even if he had advanced to level 3 overnight, it shouldn't have given him such explosive speed and strength. It was a completely different category of power than control.]
[For a control-type Esper to do something like that, we would have been less shocked if he had simply made the enemy explode like a balloon.]