Waking up with a headache, muscle aches, and every other ache in his body was the first thing Benny noticed.
All the body reconstruction that had happened to him felt meaningless—he had no clue it had even occurred. But hey, at least he was alive. That was all that mattered to him right now.
Inspecting his body brought a moment of serious doubt. He began overthinking whether he might actually be dead right now. Not a single sign of the wounds he'd sustained could be seen on his body. He slapped himself hard, thinking this was all a dream, but the pain he felt and the lingering aches were real enough to convince him this was actually happening.
"Am I truly alive? But didn't the bugs eat me already? So how?" And how had he even gotten back here? He'd forgotten how he'd returned to the sanctuary. He'd already lost consciousness when his subconscious took control of his body, driving it to keep moving forward towards the place he felt was the most safe. He had no idea that he'd literally been saved by his weak will—which turned out to be his strongest asset.
Why? Because despite his daily fears, he'd kept on living through all the years he'd been alive.
So the question remained: how had he survived that whole ordeal? He was sure he'd been dead already. And where were the bugs that had latched onto him?
Was fighting those roaches all just his delirium? Or was it some elaborate dream he'd had before waking up here? All these questions plagued him. He was certain he'd left the sanctuary, and looking at his tattered clothing, he could see ripped holes as big as roach mouths that had slowly gnawed at him.
So what the hell had happened?
He took his time thinking it through, refreshing himself with a drink from his water source. He even checked the smoked meat—the fire had burned down to mostly embers.
Nothing seemed out of place. So for now, if it was indeed true that he'd somehow managed to survive, he didn't want to explore the outside caverns again. It would truly break him and send him into another crazy emotional outburst. He didn't want that right now.
He wanted to think about what had happened to him, but nothing came to mind. The only thing he could remember was desperately trying to survive. Other than that, nothing else.
"Ahhhhhhgggg, what the fuck? Have I lost my mind already? Fuck all of this!"
Well, it might seem that way if you looked at it from an outsider's perspective. And yes, it was the inherent effect of being stuck in darkness for too long, combined with this particular labyrinth somehow multiplying those effects by at least a hundred times more than normal.
That being said, everything else seemed back to normal for him. It was as if he'd never left the sanctuary. But he didn't inspect himself thoroughly enough to discover that the scars from before were also healed. When he'd drunk that lesser healing potion earlier, some scars had remained from his old wounds. Now they are gone completely.
When he found that nothing seemed out of place except for the holes in his clothing, he shrugged it off.
The fact that he didn't know about the sanctuary's defensive system, or that he'd already evolved into something stronger, was somehow very typical of him. Benny had always been oblivious to his own potential.
But he continued living. At least now he felt rather light and energetic—a curious thing that contrasted sharply with waking up in severe pain all over.
Still, he was careful enough not to go outside. His gut told him that what had happened wasn't just a dream. Those roaches he'd encountered were real, and he'd barely survived them.
He sat by his dying fire, staring at the sanctuary entrance. Part of him wanted to venture out again—he'd need food eventually, and he couldn't stay holed up forever. But a bigger part of him, the cowardly part that had kept him alive all this time, screamed at him to stay put.
"Maybe I'll wait another day," he muttered to himself. "Or two. Or however long this smoked meat lasts."
He didn't know that his body was now capable of things that would have seemed impossible before. He didn't know that the mana heart growing inside him would eventually give him power he'd never dreamed of. He didn't know that the labyrinth itself had been designed to test and transform people like him.
All he knew was that he was alive, confused as hell, and too scared to leave his little safe zone. Some things never changed, even after cosmic intervention.
But deep down, something had changed. He felt it in the way his body moved, in the clarity of his thoughts, in the way the aches from waking up had already started to fade. He just didn't know what to make of it yet.
For now, being alive and confused was enough. Tomorrow, maybe he'd figure out what the hell had happened to him. Or maybe he'd just keep hiding in his sanctuary, smoking rat meat and talking to himself.
Either way, he was still breathing. And for Benny, that counted as a win.