Panic, raw and undiluted, seized Professor Finch. His face, moments ago flushed with academic excitement, turned a pasty, terrified white. "A Fen Lurker! Here? They're not supposed to come this far out of the deep marsh! Elara! Oh, my dear girl!"
He fumbled in his multi-pocketed vest, his hands shaking so violently that he dropped a sample jar, which shattered on the ground. He was a scholar, a man of books and theories, completely unequipped for the bloody reality of a monster attack. His reaction was exactly what Zero had predicted. Useless.
In contrast, Zero's mind was a realm of ice-cold clarity. The unexpected attack wasn't a disaster; it was a stage, and the perfect opportunity had just been handed to him. His `[Callous]` skill worked like a charm, stripping the event of all emotional weight, leaving only a clear, tactical problem with a set of variables.
*Variable 1: Elara.* She was wounded, poisoned, and immobilized. Her value as a future asset was immense, but her current state made her a liability. The poison, he remembered from a bestiary in his past life, was slow-acting but potent. Without an antidote, it would lead to respiratory failure within the hour.
*Variable 2: Finch.* A non-combatant. His panic made him a danger to himself and others. He needed to be managed.
*Variable 3: The Fen Lurker.* A reptilian ambush predator, about the size of a large wolf. It possessed low cunning, camouflage abilities that made it nearly invisible in the fog, and claws tipped with a potent neurotoxin. Its key weakness was its poor endurance; it relied on a single, decisive strike from stealth. A prolonged fight would exhaust it.
Zero's new passive skill, `[Intellectual Bait]`, was already whispering in the back of his mind, not with words, but with a pure, intuitive understanding of Elara's psychology. *She doesn't value brute strength. She values cleverness, knowledge, and the application of unorthodox principles. Saving her isn't enough. I must save her in a way that impresses her.*
The entire analysis took less than a second.
"Professor, your bag!" Zero's voice cut through Finch's panicked fumbling, sharp and commanding. It was so out of character for the timid 'Ashe' that it shocked the professor into a moment of stillness.
"My… my bag?" Finch stammered.
"Your sample kit," Zero clarified, his tone urgent but controlled. "Is there a vial of purified alcohol? And a flint and steel?"
"Y-yes, of course! Standard sterilization and heating equipment!" Finch said, his training finally kicking in. He pulled the requested items from a side pouch.
"Give them to me," Zero commanded. He knelt beside Elara, ignoring the blood seeping from her wounds. Her sharp grey eyes were wide with a mixture of pain and surprise, her breathing already becoming shallow. She was analyzing him, even now. "The poison is a complex protein," Zero said, his voice low and steady, pitching his words for Elara's benefit as much as Finch's. "Heat can denature it, slow its spread. It's a temporary solution, but it will buy us time."
This was a fringe theory from a controversial medical text he'd read in his first life, one most healers dismissed as barbaric. But he knew it worked, and more importantly, it was the kind of obscure, non-magical knowledge that would intrigue a mind like Elara's.
He uncorked the alcohol, poured a small amount onto a strip of cloth torn from his own tunic, and began to clean the wounds with a steady, practiced hand. Elara flinched, a sharp hiss of pain escaping her lips, but she didn't pull away. Her eyes were locked on his, a question forming in their depths. *How does a Porter know this?*
As Zero worked, a rustling sound came from the fog bank just at the edge of the clearing. A low, guttural hiss followed, a sound like steam escaping a corroded pipe.
The Fen Lurker was still there. It was watching them. Testing their defenses.
"It's waiting," Elara rasped, her voice strained. "It knows I'm wounded. It's waiting for one of us to make a mistake."
"Then we won't make one," Zero said calmly. He took the flint and steel from Finch. He didn't try to cauterize the wound directly; that would be too slow and would cause her to go into shock. Instead, he took the skinning knife he'd looted from Pike and held the flat of the blade over the flint. He struck it, showering the alcohol-soaked cloth he'd set aside with sparks. It ignited with a soft *whoosh*, burning with a clean, blue flame. He then heated the blade of the knife in the fire until it glowed a dull red.
"This will hurt," he warned Elara, his gaze steady and unapologetic.
Before she could protest, he pressed the heated flat of the blade against each of the three claw marks. Elara cried out, her body arching in agony, but the sound was sharp and quickly stifled. The smell of seared flesh filled the air. It was a brutal, almost savage act of first aid.
But when he pulled the blade away, the bleeding had stopped, and the purplish discoloration of the poison's spread around the wounds had visibly receded.
"The heat has localized the toxin's effect," Zero explained, his voice still level. He was lecturing, not consoling. "It won't stop it, but it has slowed it down. We have maybe thirty minutes now, instead of ten."
Finch stared, aghast. Elara, however, looked at Zero with a new, intense focus. The pain was secondary. Her analytical mind was grappling with the brutal but effective logic of his actions. He hadn't just saved her; he had demonstrated a principle.
The Fen Lurker hissed again from the fog, its patience wearing thin. The smell of blood and cooked meat was a potent lure.
"Professor," Zero said, standing up and facing the fog. "Take Elara and run. Head directly east. Do not stop. I will create a diversion."
"A diversion? My boy, you can't fight that thing! It will tear you to shreds!" Finch protested, his voice cracking.
"He's right," Elara added, her voice weak but firm. "Its camouflage is perfect in this fog. You won't even see it coming."
"I don't need to see it," Zero said, his eyes scanning the clearing. His gaze landed on the scattered, silver-filigreed Whisperwood Caps. His plan clicked into place. "I just need to make it see me."
He walked over to the largest cluster of the mushrooms. "Professor, your research. You said these caps absorb and neutralize harmful magical energies, correct?"
"Yes! In theory! But what does that—"
"And Professor," Zero cut him off, turning to face Elara. "Your spectrometer. You said the Abyssal Mana here was chaotic, but had a resonance. Like corrupted data."
"Yes…" Elara breathed, her eyes widening slightly as she began to see the faint outlines of his insane logic.
Zero knelt beside the mushrooms. He closed his eyes, not in prayer, but in concentration. He reached out with his will, not to his skills, but to the very core of his power. The Glitch. The anomaly. The screaming paradox that was his soul. He didn't try to control it. He simply… released it. He let a tiny, controlled sliver of his corrupted essence bleed out into the environment.
`[WARNING: Intentional release of core system energy detected. This is highly inadvisable.]`
He ignored the warning. The air in the clearing instantly changed. It grew heavy, cold, and a low, discordant hum filled the air, like a broken tuning fork. The gentle, ambient Abyssal Mana of the Fen was nothing compared to the pure, concentrated chaos now pouring out of him.
The Whisperwood Caps reacted violently. Their purpose was to absorb and neutralize harmful magic, and Zero was now broadcasting a signal of pure magical poison. They began to glow, not with their usual soft, silvery light, but with a brilliant, pulsating, angry white. They were absorbing his energy, trying to contain it, but they were reaching their capacity. They were becoming magical bombs.
The Fen Lurker, whose entire biology was attuned to the subtle energies of the marsh, shrieked in pain and confusion. Its world of soft, gentle resonance had been shattered by a blast of pure static. Its camouflage, a form of low-level magic that bent light and energy, flickered and died.
For the first time, they saw it clearly. It was a hideous creature, a slick, reptilian body with a flat, serpentine head and eyes that were milky-white and blind. It saw not with light, but with the magical energies of its environment. And Zero had just turned himself into a lighthouse in its sensory world.
It abandoned all pretense of stealth and charged out of the fog, its claws tearing at the ground, its blind face pointed directly at Zero, the source of its agony.
"Now! Go!" Zero yelled at Finch.
The professor, finally spurred into action by the sight of the monster, hauled Elara to her feet and half-dragged, half-carried her away from the clearing, stumbling eastwards as fast as his short legs could carry him.
Zero was alone with the monster.
The Fen Lurker was fast. It crossed the clearing in a blur of scaled motion. Zero didn't run. He stood his ground, a small, smooth rock already palmed from the ground, his inventory ready.
Just as the Lurker lunged, its poison-tipped claws aiming to gut him, he acted. He focused his will. *Retrieve. Inside its open mouth. No latency.*
`[Retrieve: Rock (0.8kg). Location: Vector 0.1. Overriding Latency Protocol... System Violation Accepted.]`
The rock materialized from nothingness at the back of the Lurker's throat.
The creature's lunge faltered. It made a horrifying gagging, choking sound, its jaws snapping shut on the unexpected obstruction. It stumbled, its momentum carrying it past Zero and crashing into the largest, most overloaded cluster of Whisperwood Caps.
The impact was the final catalyst.
The mushrooms detonated. It wasn't a fiery explosion, but a silent, concussive blast of pure, white, neutralizing energy. The wave of force ripped through the clearing, shredding the fog and tearing leaves from the trees.
The Fen Lurker, at the epicenter of the blast, was caught in a storm of anti-magic. Its body, a being held together by the very Abyssal Mana that was now being violently erased, simply came apart. Its scales turned to dust, its flesh dissolved, and its bones crumbled, its entire form disintegrating into a cloud of fine, grey powder that was then scattered by the shockwave.
`[Fen Lurker Eliminated.]`
`[Experience Gained.]`
`[User Level Up! Level 5 -> Level 6!]`
`[Stat Points Awarded: 5.]`
`[No suitable skills available for absorption.]`
Zero stood, battered but triumphant, in the center of the now-silent, fog-free clearing. The ground was scorched white where the mushrooms had been. He had won. He had saved the arrogant noble girl, solidified his cover with the professor, and tested a new, dangerous application of his core power.
He allocated his new points, three to Endurance and two to Strength, and then started walking east, following the path Finch and Elara had taken. He adopted a slight limp, mussed his hair, and tore his sleeve a little more. When he caught up with them, he needed to look like a survivor, not a conqueror. The performance was not over yet.