My eyes opened slowly, then saw the clouds behind the tent, which were previously pitch black, had now turned bluish, signaling that it was early dawn.
'I fell asleep all night and I'm still safe? Oh, thank goodness…'
I wiped my face with my bandaged right hand, then realized that the stinging pain that had been gnawing at my palm all this time seemed to have vanished.
'Huh?' Startled, I immediately unwrapped the bandage covering my palm but didn't find the wound.
'I'm healed? How is that possible?' Then I saw Lumina sleeping on her side, facing me much closer than before. 'Did she heal me?'
Since there was no one else, it was clear that Lumina was the one who had healed me.
I stood up slowly so as not to wake her, then went out of the tent and breathed in the fresh morning air outside the walls.
Then I gathered twigs and stones to make a small pot stand to boil rice, as it seemed I'd had enough of eating noodles all day.
Once everything was gathered, I lit the twigs under the pot, which I had filled with water and rice, until it caught fire.
The sound of wood cracking from the fire began to fill the silent morning. As a result, Lumina woke from her sleep and poked her face out of the tent door in a panic, but calmed down again when she saw me.
"Morning," I said while putting wood into the fireplace.
After the rice was cooked, I put it into small bowls for each of us and then opened a can of meat to share together.
While eating, I asked Lumina if she was the one who had healed my wound, and she answered yes, but she also apologized because that was all she could do to repay her debt of gratitude to me.
I didn't mind it.
After the meal session was finished, it was now time for me to train again because there was now a deadline for my death that had to be canceled.
"Hey, where are you going again?" Lumina said as I started walking away from the tent to find a more spacious area.
"Stay there, I just want to practice not far from here."
Then I found a suitable spot on the shore near the waterfall because it had rock walls and ground that I could use as targets for my magic.
At the moment, I didn't want to meditate to absorb mana first because I had to rest my Mana Core from the excessive pressure of the absorbed mana.
If not, I could potentially die of a heart attack.
Therefore, today I would only practice controlling my magic and strengthening my physique.
Besides that, the Mana Core wouldn't improve if my magic control and physique were still poor because all of this had to be trained side-by-side.
With wind magic, I created arrows lined up in front of me to attack the stone wall.
Every wind arrow that hit the rock would immediately vanish easily without scratching it.
Because of that, I tried to combine all the small wind arrows radiating in front of me into one.
However, using this technique required a strong imagination and great mastery of magic. So, some of the wind arrows I tried to gather vanished because I couldn't control them all moving at once.
Although this was very difficult and made my head ache from thinking so hard, I still enjoyed the process from failure to success.
Because for someone like me who had never touched magic on Earth, the feeling of using magic felt very satisfying although, yes, there was a bit of pain with every use due to a sensation as if something was being pulled from within me.
I spent half that day training my magic control by attacking walls, water, and practice targets made by Lumina, who seemed to want to help me rather than just stay still.
Not only training magic control, I also practiced my swordplay by slashing the air…
Well, however, I felt that training the sword my way like this was useless, and it also seemed like I wasn't suited to using a sword.
Sigh…
So, I changed it to just physical training that was quite intense, starting from push-ups, sit-ups, running, and so on.
I kept repeating that cycle with only a little rest for water and a few bites of rice.
Practicing Magic.
Practicing swordplay.
Physical training.
Repeating it.
Repeating it again.
Then repeating it again and again as hours passed.
…
'I will surpass my limits.'
'For the sake of protecting my new family.'
That was the cliché word of a protagonist that I always said to strengthen my resolve when tired.
However, no matter how much I said it, my physique, which began to grow weak at every moment, could not be lied to.
Currently, I was on the last lap around the waterfall before the next training session, but my legs felt numb and my vision was always shadowed by a flickering darkness with every step.
*Gasping* *Gasping* *Gasping*
Finally, my legs were no longer able to step when my vision was filled with darkness for several seconds, before I regained consciousness with my body lying in the wet mud.
'Is this as far as my ability to try goes?' The shadow of my family's death caused by me two years from now filled my head.
'Damn it, come on! Do you want them to die just because you're being lazy like this?!' I forced my body to get up until I was trembling.
But my body collapsed again.
This really was my body's limit.
"*Chuckles* No matter how great my determination is, I still can't be like the protagonist I wrote who can train all day, morning, noon, night, without tired. I'm just an ordinary human who can get tired..." Tears began to well up in the corners of my eyes.
'I'm so tired... I want to sleep at home... Go to college... Meet my new friends here and talk about things teenagers my age do... enjoy a life that should be more decent than my previous life. Not bearing the burden of this knowledge…
'But if I choose to just enjoy my life and forget this, does that mean letting them die?'
The tears that I had held back for days finally broke. 'I'm so tired…'
I turned my body onto my back, staring at the blue sky which was now clear of clouds.
Suddenly the image of my old life appeared very clearly in my head, working in an office in a private company with a small salary, coming home to an apartment with no one waiting for me, writing to fill my loneliness...
'Now that I think about it, I've never tried this hard in my life.'
'This is the first time I've tried this hard because now I have family, and they are now the meaning of my life.'
"But why is it only this much...?"
"A-are you crying?" Lumina's head suddenly entered my field of vision, she looked at me in wonder and in her hand she was carrying my water bottle.
I really didn't realize she was approaching.
Immediately, I wiped my tears and the mud staining my face.
After I was done, or at least I was sure there were no more tears in my eyes, I looked at her from below and said:
"What are you doing here?"
"I-I... I just wanted to bring you drinking water because you seemed... to look so tired that you fell here. and... sorry, why were you crying?" Her face turned worried.
"It's nothing, I'm just very tired right now." I tried to sit up, since I couldn't, Lumina helped push me up. Then I took the drinking water from her hand and drank it.
"Thank you."
Then I stood up slowly with great effort.
"Need help?" Lumina offered, her hand already hovering over my body.
"No need." Finally, I managed to stand upright even though my legs were very tense.
Then I realized that my clothes were now covered in mud. 'Shit, I can't be like this.'
After I reached the tent with Lumina's help, I decided to use the rest of this half-day to rest and continue training tomorrow.
Therefore, I would enjoy this moment of calm for a while by bathing in the waterfall while washing my clothes.
While I was in the water, Lumina was on the shore as usual, playing by drawing in the clay with a twig; now she didn't dare to look at me, perhaps because I wasn't wearing a shirt, but only pants.
Seeing her like that made me tempted to tease her. "Hey, Lumi, why don't you get in the water with me?"
She now looked at me with a blushing face, then shook her head quickly.
I chuckled and continued the activity of washing my clothes.
Honestly, I was a little happy with Lumina's presence because it kept me from being alone in this forest, indeed, I had prepared to be alone before, but after being with her, it felt like being alone would be very lonely.