Han let out a weak smile as he read the system notification.
『Grade-C Healing Potion.』
『Consume?』
'Yes...'
Golden light shot out of his eyes, and a moment later, a glass vial filled with crimson liquid materialised in front of him.
He used his chin to pull himself forward, fighting through both the burning sensation that wreaked havoc on his body and the numbing weakness trying to knock him out.
Using his tongue, he brought the vial into his mouth before attempting to remove the top. However, he just didn't have the dexterity... so with a deep breath, he bit down it.
Glass and liquid filled his mouth. He tried his best to filter out the shards with his tongue; however, a good portion still managed to go down his throat with the healing potion.
So, as his wounds healed, he had to endure the pain of his throat and stomach being cut to shreds.
He lay there, whimpering and squirming in agony as the potion took effect.
All the while, more system notifications came through.
『A higher-level creature has been slain!』
『+ 30XP』
『Level up!』
『Level up!』
『Level up!』
'Fuck off...' he thought, every chime the notification let off, causing him to shiver.
『A transformative energy awakens within you...』
'What?'
Even as he struggled to keep from crying out in pain, that last notification caught his attention.
『Processing evolution quest...』
『Please stand by.』
'Why is the potion taking so long?' he thought in frustration. Although he could feel his strength slowly returning and the wound slowly closing, his body still felt like shit.
To distract himself, he opened up his system screen to get a better look at the changes.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━┓
─System Overview─
〖Trait: Beekeeper〗
〖Grade: U〗
〖*Rank: Transition in process...〗
─Player Details─
〖Level 4: (0/200)〗
〖Health: 30.../100〗
**2 New items currently in Inventory**
┗━━━━━━━━━━━┛
His health stat was slowly increasing, albeit slowly, as it was only restoring by 1 unit per second, which explained why the potion was taking so long to take effect.
However, what really caught his attention was the change in his rank.
'Transition in process? It's that notification from earlier, isn't it. But what does it mean?' he pondered.
After a bit of thought, he concluded that only time would tell. There was no point mulling over it.
"For now...," he whispered weakly. "Inventory."
With that, a burst of golden light shot out of his eyes, and two more vials appeared in front of him, both crimson in colour.
'So I have two more heals, huh,' he thought to himself. If he had gotten beaten up this badly from just one of the creatures here, then he was going to need them.
"Speaking of which," he whispered. "Why am I still in this store? Isn't the quest complete?"
He rolled over, so that he would face the ceiling. "Well, it doesn't matter," he whispered, reaching for his dagger. "If I get to feel that... rush again... maybe, just maybe I don't mind that much."
You see, Han had lived his life in an almost robotic manner up til this point. Starting in poverty meant having to work hard, having to work hard meant having a solid system in place; one that could reward him for consistent effort. And in turn, that meant that most of his life went more or less the same.
Of course, he wasn't complaining... well even if he did, it wouldn't matter much. These were just the cards that had been dealt to him. Besides, seeing the smile on his father's face whenever he achieved something had been enough to keep him going.
But he himself had never really felt like he was doing much worthwhile... a life with no 'calling' as some would say.
'I wonder how father's doing right now,' he thought to himself. 'I wonder if he's heard what happened at the school yet.'
For a while, Han just lay there on his back, conflicted.
'Why does it feel like I don't really want to go back home?' he thought to himself. 'Why do I feel so... satisfied when I kill monsters?'
'Is it the system? Is this because of the Beekeeper trait?'
However, no matter how hard he thought about it, it just didn't make sense for a trait inspired by bees to be giving him a bloodlust.
Thinking about it made him uncomfortable, so he just stayed there in silence until he was strong enough to get up again.
*
'So it takes around five minutes for the potion to heal me completely,' he thought, as he got to his feet.
It was a rough estimate, but nonetheless, the healing potion clearly wasn't an immediate get out of jail free card. If he were injured too badly in the middle of a fight, he would die.
To make matters worse, after he stretched a bit and inspected his body for injuries, it was clear that it hadn't completely healed; as a scar was still left on the spot he had been stabbed. It wasn't bleeding, but it was bright red and stung to the touch.
'I could take another potion... but that would be a waste,' he thought, retrieving his dagger from the thrall's corpse.
He studied it for a moment, feeling its scales and wings. 'Feels like steel,' he thought. How the creature had managed to move so fast with such an armoured body was beyond him... but he was at the stage where he wasn't even surprised anymore.
This magic thing threw all logic out the window.
Regardless, he used his dagger to try to carve out a few of the scales. Perhaps he would be able to use them later.
It took him several difficult minutes to jam his dagger into the sections of flesh where the scales met. But after some careful manoeuvring, he managed to dig out five scales, all about the size of a playing card.
『Store 'Low-Rank Thrall' scale into inventory?』
'Well, that's handy.'
'Yes.'
With that, the scales burst into blue particles before disappearing into thin air.
"Now what?" he whispered.
He tried walking out the door, but the forcefield was still there, hinting at the fact that the quest was still active.
So he went in the only direction that made sense... the back door.
"Why does this feel like a bad idea?" he whispered to himself, placing the key into the door. With a deep breath, he opened it.
It led out into a pitch black void. And Han already knew what that meant.
'Fucking hell...'
A tugging force dragged him in.
And for what felt like the hundredth time...
The world went dark.