Darkness consumed his vision.
His head felt hazy, his body devoid of strength—and his face hurt a little, too.
The last thing Rikuto remembered was getting a little too carried away. He'd tried to use [Process Simplification] to overturn all the surrounding land in one go, hoping to uncover minerals or something useful beneath the surface.
And then—he blacked out.
"Rikuto, Rikuto, Rikuto…"
A familiar voice echoed beside his ears.
Something soft and wave-like brushed against his aching cheek, soothing the pain away.
Must be healing magic.
That was the groggy conclusion his muddled brain came to after filtering the incoming information.
Wait—am I unconscious?
The moment that realization hit, the dreamlike haze shattered.
Rikuto opened his eyes.
What greeted him was the worried face of the silver-haired half-elf.
From his angle, he quickly realized he was resting on Emilia's lap.
And with this up-close view of her face…
Emilia definitely still has a lot of room to grow…
That random thought bounced through his head before vanishing a second later.
"I told you he'd be fine," Puck said from above, floating mid-air and pointing his tiny paw at Rikuto with a serious expression.
"That's not up to you to decide," Emilia replied, still gazing down at Rikuto, her face filled with the fretful care of an overprotective mother hen.
"Rikuto, do you feel unwell anywhere?" she asked earnestly.
"Does your face still hurt? Are you dizzy? Any discomfort here, here, or here? What about your head? Want me to give you a massage? Puck says rubbing the temples helps relieve fatigue—"
She rattled on without pause.
It was the first time Rikuto had seen Emilia so talkative.
"I'm fine, really," Rikuto said, waving his hands in front of her to assure her.
"This guy's situation isn't exactly rare," Puck added, hovering beside Emilia's head, though his tone carried a faint trace of jealousy.
Drawing from the knowledge stored in his mind, Puck explained Rikuto's condition.
"Those blessed with Divine Protections are favored by the world itself. It's common for them to misjudge the limits of their own abilities early on," he began.
"In this case, Rikuto probably pushed his [Process Simplification] too far, attempting something beyond what his body could handle. So, to prevent burnout—or worse, collapsing into a husk—his brain's self-preservation instinct kicked in and forcibly shut everything down."
"The physical response to that is sudden unconsciousness."
Puck gave a thorough and logical analysis, all while smugly lifting his little cat head toward Rikuto.
Rikuto simply grinned in response.
"Yeah, that sounds about right," he said.
"I just overdid it and ran out of stamina."
He chuckled wryly at himself.
[Process Simplification], after all, consumed stamina to activate.
Its primary energy cost came from correction and completion.
Take chopping trees, for instance. Each tree had different properties—size, density, shape. When he simplified the action, his ability had to correct the swinging motion so that it would work for all trees, no matter the variety.
And where did those correction algorithms come from?
—Rikuto himself.
He had to at least know what a given tree looked like. Only with that data could [Process Simplification] refine and complete the cutting motion.
The ability drew entirely from Rikuto's own experiences and observations. It used up stamina to fill in missing information during the process.
So if Rikuto attempted to simplify an action—like digging up land—without knowing what was underground or where it was, the stamina cost would skyrocket.
It was practically infinite.
Because if he lacked even basic intel like "what is it" and "where is it," then failure was inevitable.
In summary:
The less he understood about something, the more stamina [Process Simplification] consumed to complete it.
The ability worked by drawing on existing knowledge in his mind, and the less he knew, the more energy it drained—on an exponential scale.
"So basically," Rikuto muttered, "this ability hinges on intel and knowledge."
"The more I know, the less stamina it costs. The better my understanding, the cheaper the price."
"And if I could reach something close to omniscience…"
"…then I'd be damn near omnipotent."
He smirked.
"Sounds really impressive, huh? Too bad I nearly passed out just trying to dig a little dirt."
Rikuto mocked himself, rolling his eyes.
To be fair, simply digging wouldn't normally knock him out. The problem was that he'd tried to overturn all the land around them at once—way too ambitious.
That drastically increased the area affected, and since he had little knowledge of what lay beneath, the number of "unknown variables" soared. His stamina burned up like wildfire.
And so, he collapsed.
Still, if I had already dug through all the land once…
Then doing it again in one go should be way easier, right?
After all, I'd already know what's down there.
With that thought, Rikuto glanced up at Emilia, whose lap he was still using as a pillow.
"Hey, Emilia. What do you think about me flipping all the surrounding soil again later?" he asked.
The silver-haired half-elf blinked in surprise at his question.
Then, wordlessly, she reached out and placed a hand on his forehead.
"Rikuto," she said softly, "if you're not feeling well… just rest, okay?"
Her face was filled with an especially gentle warmth.
"…"
Off to the side, Puck hovered with his tiny arms folded and looked down on Rikuto with a smug expression that could only be described as… adorably mocking.
Rikuto, still resting on Emilia's lap, rolled his eyes in silent protest.