Four days after the end of the speech...

  San was in his room reading a book, wearing different new clothes, his messy black hair covering half his face, and his slightly grown beard. He was thinking deeply, trying to comprehend the new world he found himself in.

  I invested the last few days well.

  San picked up scattered pieces of information and wove them together to form a troubling picture. When they said they had "many choices," the reason was grim. The money paid to the Lost was less, it could reach half of what was paid to others. The Kingdom wanted them more, sometimes even more than its native inhabitants. They were a cheap resource and... expendable. Even in rights, they were inferior. But the treatment was "just fine" so far, they hadn't reached the stage of being considered slaves... at least not yet.

  The second matter was more terrifying. This world was divided into three regions, and in these regions existed creatures they called "the Cursed Beasts." They were not friendly at all. The humans here didn't have major wars among themselves, and the reason was simple and horrifying: these creatures killed millions of humans over the years. War was ongoing, but it was against a non-human enemy, an enemy that came from the shadows and the tainted regions.

  The third matter was more personally strange. San remembered how they taught them to focus on their "cursed" energy. It involved changing the breath between inhalation and exhalation in a specific way, and thinking of specific negative emotions... repressed anger, cold fear, a sense of injustice. After two days of continuous training, where he sat in an isolated corner trying to force his mind and body to respond, something opened in his consciousness. It was like a transparent panel, visible only to him.

  On this panel, one thing:

  [Ability: Return to Origin - Level 1]

  [Details: This ability can be activated to return something to its state from two seconds ago.]

  [It can be activated once every ten seconds.]

  [No known side effects.]

  Meaning, I have the ability to control time... for only two seconds.

  San felt a wave of conflicting emotions. Incredible excitement mixed with disappointment. Two seconds. What could be done with two seconds? But it was something. It was his power, his mark in this strange world.

  To test it, San opened the book he was reading, then raised his hand towards it. He focused on the mental image of the book being closed, on the feeling of moving backwards. He felt a strange energy pulling something from within him, like a droplet of his being flowing through time. In a blink, the book disappeared from its open state on the same page, and reappeared closed on the desk, exactly as it was two seconds ago. The page he was reading didn't change, the dust on the cover didn't move. He had turned back time for the book itself only.

  San smiled an uneasy smile. Then he thought about the mysterious restriction. "For some reason, it cannot be activated on a complete living being." He looked out his window where a small bird was standing on the outer ledge. He raised his hand again, focusing on the entire bird. Nothing. It was as if his ability hit an invisible barrier around the living creature. It wasn't that the energy wasn't consumed; it was consumed but nothing happened, as if he was trying to push a mountain.

  Then he thought of another way. If a "complete" living being resisted, what about a part of it? He looked at the small bird's foot. Focused again, this time on just that tiny foot. He felt the internal pull.

  Suddenly, the bird's foot jerked backward, moving away from the window ledge by a few millimeters. The change was slight, but enough. The bird lost its balance, wobbled wildly, flapped its wings before falling off the ledge for a moment and then flying away, chirping angrily.

  And San laughed. A short, mocking laugh, but deep inside, the coldness of that act seeped into him. He had changed the fate of a living being, albeit in a trivial way, by manipulating a small part of its past. What if it was a larger part? What if it was something more vital? Thoughts tumbled in his head, dark and tempting.

  Knock... Knock... Knock.

  His door was knocked on rapidly. The voice of an employee from outside demanded he head to the training yard immediately.

  San closed the book, standing up. He touched the pocket of his new jacket, where he kept a few small coins he received as an "advance." Then he left.

  As he walked through the clean, dimly lit corridors of the center, San thought about the nature of this place. This was, in essence, a rehabilitation camp. But it was the best of its kind, they said. Everything was clean, the food acceptable, the rooms single-occupancy. Its only problem? The work here was voluntary, but with a salary "above average." And the reason for those high salaries was simple and frightening: the people here were in constant danger.

  Because we here, the Lost, are even further out than the adventurer guilds that operate on the fringes of the Kingdom. Adventurer guilds at least had advanced forts, defenses, and military presence. These "settlement" centers were something else. Located in recently cleansed areas, or on unstable borders. There would be attacks from time to time from "the Cursed Beasts." And on the other hand, the Kingdom's harsh logic: if the Lost... were disturbed, insane, killers... then killing "volunteers" fighting near the Cursed Beasts in a place that could be isolated and abandoned, was much easier than bringing them inside the Kingdom where they might cause trouble. They were a safety valve, and expendable material at the same time.

  San reached the large outdoor training yard. Its ground was covered with fine gravel, surrounded by wooden training structures and archery targets. The air was slightly cool, carrying an earthy smell. He looked around. There were dozens of other Lost training, some with noticeable seriousness, others pretending to train. Their glances sometimes met, filled with challenge, apathy, or suppressed fear.

  He spotted a pile of wooden weapons stacked to the side. He approached and picked up a long wooden sword. It was somewhat heavy, not perfectly balanced, but sufficient. He advanced towards a training dummy shaped like a tree trunk covered with thick leather. He began swinging, then performed multiple strikes: a horizontal cut, a thrust, an oblique cut. His movements were somewhat mechanical, lacking fluidity, but they carried real intent. He was practicing remembering the basics of swordsmanship he had seen in old movies, trying to adapt them. With each strike, he thought: Two seconds. How could two seconds save me if a beast like the ones they described attacked me?

  Then he heard laughter and discussions from not far away. A group of four people, their ages close to his, seemed to be training together. Two young men and two young women. One of the young men, fair-skinned with somewhat long black hair and prominent muscles, was telling a story with a loud laugh. The tan girl with the yellow streak was laughing with him. The other young man, with black hair and a neat appearance, was listening quietly. And the fourth girl... was completely silent, standing next to the tan girl, looking at the wooden sword in her hand as if trying to decipher the code of its existence.

  San hesitated for a moment. Isolation might be safer, but knowledge and power sometimes lay in connections, even temporary ones. He took a deep breath and walked towards them.

  "Sorry for disturbing," he said, his voice carrying clear caution. "Do you mind an extra person?"

  The burly young man turned towards him, smiling a broad, revealing smile. "Of course! On the condition that you perform the joining dance first!"

  San was slightly flustered, but he saw the playful glint in the young man's eyes. He tried to smile. "Glad to know you. See you later then."

  The young man burst out laughing. "I'm joking, I'm joking! Don't be so sensitive. I'm Jake." He extended his hand; it was strong and dry.

  San shook it. "San."

  The other young man approached with a slight, formal bow. "I'm Shin. From Japan." His voice was quiet and clear.

  "I'm Sarah," said the tan girl with a friendly smile, but her eyes were quickly sizing him up.

  The fourth girl didn't speak, only raised her gaze from her wooden sword towards San for a moment, then returned to it. Her eyes were strikingly green, and her blonde hair looked faded under the overcast daylight.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "Don't worry about her," Jake said with a gesture towards the silent girl. "She's Elena. Doesn't talk usually. Took me a whole week to get her to exchange a word with me." He said it without sarcasm, but as if stating an accustomed fact.

  Elena was about Shin's height, slightly shorter than San. Her long, ash-blonde hair was tied simply, a few strands blowing on her slender, elegant face. She looked at Jake when he mentioned her name, then returned to contemplating her sword. Her beauty was of the quiet and cold type, like an iceberg floating in an ocean of apparent indifference.

  San was thinking one thing: Extremely beautiful. But beauty here was a luxury, and perhaps a weakness. He pulled himself away from these thoughts.

  Jake wanted to continue talking, perhaps asking San where he was from, or what his ability was, but the sound that happened next erased all conversation, all thought, every whisper in the yard.

  It wasn't an explosion. It was a sound of tremendous tearing, wood shattering, stones flying, and metal twisting like tin foil.

  From the direction of the academy's huge front gate, which was made of thick oak reinforced with iron bands, a cloud of dust and pulverized wood erupted. And from the midst of that chaos, emerged... something.

  A deformed creature standing on two legs. Its body resembled a mass of incompletely formed flesh, grayish-purple. It had three arms protruding from random areas of its torso, each arm ending in long, bony claws. As for its head, it was a huge vertical mouth extending from where the eyes should be down to the neck, and out of that mouth, sharp teeth intertwined with the remains of a human arm, still wearing the remnants of a blue uniform jacket – a guard's uniform. The creature's height was about four meters, and every step it took shook the ground beneath their feet.

  A deafening scream erupted from one of the employees on the observation platform: "It's one of the strongest Class D beasts! And there are dozens of Class E beasts with it! Where are the Class C fighters?!"

  Another shouted: "They went out with the supervisor to bring resources from the city! They won't be back for at least two hours!"

  The words fell like stones into a pool of shock. Class D. San had heard about the classifications. Class E were the weakest, but still capable of easily killing an ordinary human. Class D required trained fighters or a group of experienced Lost. And Class C... they were the ones supposed to protect this place.

  The beast, if a creature with no eyes could "look," turned towards the observation platform where the female employee who had spoken stood. Then, with terrifying speed disproportionate to its size, one of its three arms extended. The arm was like a fleshy rope shooting out, extending an unbelievable distance.

  Splat.

  It wasn't the sound of a gunshot or an explosion. It was the sound of a ripe fruit hitting the ground with force. The employee's head simply vanished, and her torso turned into a trembling column for a second before collapsing. The silence that followed turned into a high-pitched, sharp, collective scream, full of pure terror.

  San felt as if this "Curse" – his new fate, this world, this small ability – was laughing at him in a hideous way. This beast. What is this? His thoughts stopped working logically.

  Then the slaughter began. The beast charged, its three arms moving like huge whips. Every swing turned the area it struck into a spray of blood and torn bodies. The yard, which had been a place for training and aspirations, transformed in moments into a slaughterhouse. It wasn't a battle. It was annihilation.

  "Run! To the shelters!" Jake shouted, but his voice was drowned in the noise. He started moving towards a side building, grabbing Sarah's wrist and pulling them with force. Shin jumped with them, his face pale but his steps quick and disciplined.

  But they hadn't gone far.

  From the rising dust directly in front of them emerged one of the arms of the Class D beast. It moved like a giant serpent, its bony claws waving in the air to cut anything in its path. It wasn't specifically aimed at them, but its trajectory would pass directly through them.

  In that moment, San didn't think. The instinct for survival took over. He focused on the arm, on that moving fleshy mass. He felt the energy pulling from him, much more than what he pulled to move the book or the bird's foot. It was like a suction in his chest. Two seconds. Go back.

  The scene before him changed. The arm, which had been meters away from them, extended for an attack, suddenly found itself retreating backward several meters, still in the preparation phase for the strike. It was as if a video tape was rewound slightly, but only for the arm and everything it touched, air and dust. The dust it raised retreated in a strange path.

  Elena, who had been closer to them near the arm's path, didn't understand what happened. She saw the arm disappear from her peripheral vision and then suddenly appear farther away. She hesitated for a second, her wooden sword raised defensively.

  "Come on!" San shouted, grabbing her wrist and pulling her forcefully towards the building behind which Jake and the others had hidden. Her arm was slender but firm under his grip.

  They hid behind a stone corner. San breathed rapidly, his heart pounding like a war drum. If it comes here, we are doomed. One arm consumed that much from me. And it has three. And there are still dozens of Class E beasts. A quick glance from behind the corner confirmed it: smaller creatures, with discordant shapes – some crawling, some flying, some with multiple limbs – were spreading across the yard, gnawing on the fallen or chasing those trying to flee.

  Then, as a sarcastic addition to the nightmare, another one appeared. Descended from the sky, or from the roof of one of the buildings, a beast the size of a large dog, but its shape resembled a deformed bat. The skin of its wings was wrinkled and full of holes, and from its main body emerged strange plant roots, black and full of nodules. It stopped about ten meters away from them, and those roots trembled.

  Thorns shot out from them.

  They were thin and sharp as needles, traveling at high speed, emitting a faint, deadly whizzing sound.

  Elena moved before any of them could react. She took a step forward, and her wooden sword began to move. Her movements weren't strong or violent like Jake's, nor were they technically masterful in an obvious way. They were economical. Precise. Every deflection from her side, every turn of the sword, collided with a thorn and pushed it aside or shattered it. Clank clank clank clank. The sound of impacts was rapid and rhythmic, as if she were performing a silent dance against death.

  But the sword was wooden. And the thorns were harsh. After deflecting about six or seven thorns, they heard a clear crack! The wooden sword split in half, and an eighth thorn, slightly faster, pierced her defense and embedded itself in her left shoulder, near the collarbone. Elena bent slightly from the impact, but she made no sound.

  The bat-like beast turned, and the roots trembled again to unleash another volley.

  "No!" San exclaimed. This time, he focused not on the beast, nor on Elena, but on the thorns themselves. Those inanimate, deadly things that had just launched from the roots. He imagined them returning, going back inside those strange roots. He felt that violent internal pull, as if his soul contracted for a second. Two seconds. Go back!

  The scene was confusing. The thorns that had been mid-way towards them suddenly vanished. And at the same moment, the bat-like beast began to tremble violently. The roots that had launched the thorns suddenly swelled and then exploded from the inside, as if something had been forced back into them with force. A black, viscous fluid splattered, and the beast emitted a sharp screech before collapsing to the ground, its wings trembling then stilling.

  "Run!" San shouted at Elena, and began running quickly away from the dying beast, heading towards a farther wall in the yard where a few large trees might provide cover.

  But she didn't follow him immediately. She looked at him, then at the dying beast. She was staring intently, as if analyzing the scene. The beast was now decomposing rapidly, its body beginning to be consumed and evaporate as if made of thick black smoke, leaving behind only the remnants of the thorns that had previously shattered and a patch of scorched earth. Even the thorns embedded in the ground or in victims' bodies began to evaporate.

  Then, finally, Elena turned and followed him. She ran smoothly, despite the wound in her shoulder.

  They reached behind two huge adjacent trees near the high stone wall of the yard. The place provided some cover from direct view, and the sounds of screaming and destruction seemed to come from another world, partially muffled by the dense foliage. San sat leaning against the trunk, breathing heavily. He looked at Elena. She was sitting opposite him, her back against the other tree. She was touching her wound gently. Blood was flowing, but not with dangerous profusion. The strange thing... was the wound. It seemed to be... shrinking? Not magically and quickly, but as if the bleeding was slowing abnormally, and the edges of the wound seemed to press against themselves.

  "I don't know what you did," Elena said suddenly. Her voice was clear, quiet, and low, carrying a completely neutral tone. "But thank you."

  They were her first words to him. Not "you saved me" or "what happened?" It was "thank you." Simple and direct.

  "Let's get out of here," San said, trying to make his voice sound normal. "This place isn't safe. Others might come."

  She looked at him. Her green eyes held a deep, assessing look, as if reading more than just his words. "Alright," she answered simply.

  But she didn't stand up immediately. She was waiting. The screams of Jake or Sarah or Shin had disappeared in the noise. Maybe they escaped, maybe... no, San didn't want to complete the thought.

  San said, trying to break the silence that seemed more disturbing than the distant sounds of destruction: "What's your ability? We might need a plan if we want to survive this hell."

  She didn't hesitate. She didn't ask "and why should I tell you?" or "what's your ability first?" She looked directly into his eyes.

  "My ability is to control my own blood."

  The confession was so direct, so unexpected, that it surprised San a little. In a world where everyone hid their cards, she threw her main card on the table with such simplicity. If not for the catastrophic situation they were in, this direct trust, or perhaps apparent naivety, might have stirred romantic, foolish thoughts in his head – the hero and the mysterious savior. But reality was stained with blood and the smells of death.

  Then he remembered something. Her shoulder had been bleeding. And now, the bleeding had almost stopped. She had only been hit by one thorn, in her shoulder. A painful, annoying place, but not vital if the wound was superficial.

  He wondered: Was this her plan? Did she deliberately take an injury in a non-vital place to be able to activate her ability? The idea that someone could be so coldly calculating as to plan to injure themselves in the midst of such a beastly attack... was terrifying. But it also, in this world, might be genius.

  Elena was looking at him, as if she fully understood the train of thoughts running through his head. She didn't clarify, didn't deny, didn't confirm. She just let him reach his own conclusions.