(The Man’s POV)

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The piercing pain was slowly giving way to a much more subtle… Throbbing pain? From that moment on, it was as if my life was divided into two parts. Before the piercing pain and after the piercing pain... What was there before the piercing pain? That… was… painful to remember?

Muscles that I didn't even know existed were aching. My whole body was sticky with sweat and blood, my eyelids were like a pair of iron ingots refusing to open.

AWAKEN

The cold metallic voice of the system in my mind sounded creeping me out and making my eyes shoot open. It felt like an electrical current ran through my body. I restrained my urge to groan and cursed internally. ‘Damn you and your system, Reason. I hope you would give me a good explanation for all of these because I am going to demand one as soon as things settle down a little bit.’

I don't know how long later when I finally managed to focus my sight in front of me and she was there again. Her back was turned towards me, sitting close to what looked like a cave entrance. Her thick braided hair was still disheveled and ungroomed, she was still wearing the same robe, so that was easy to recognize even from the back. The damned augmented reality engine was working properly, marking the woman as the target with a red cone above her head and that indicates the distance.

Interestingly, my two subconsciousness one of which is now my system operator were still bickering after all the things that happened as if they were individual consciousnesses, almost as if I didn't exist. 'At least Reason is still sapient.' I thought sighing in relief. Assigning him as the augmented reality operator looked like was a gamble that paid well in the end.

‘Losing consciousness behind enemy lines due to friendly fire? You are so useless that I can't find appropriate words to define. We are lucky to be alive and I hate leaving things to luck.’ Reason was berating Passion. If it wasn't for the augmented reality data on my peripheral vision I would have believed that he was the responsible one of the two.

‘You know, we are the luckiest person alive. There is no surprise in that.’ Passion acknowledged easily. ‘Yeah, sadly Reason was the responsible one.’ I thought. Alas... What was this luckiest man alive thing anyway? Why were my consciousnesses giving me weird titles out of the blue?

‘That is only because I never leave anything to luck.’ He retorted immediately and continued berating. ‘Now shut up and listen. Something is seriously wrong with this place. I told you to hold fire but you refused to listen and thus almost killed us.’

As much as I was angry at Reason, although inadvertently, Passion almost got me killed which should never be repeated under any circumstances.

‘You are demoted until a second order. You will not trigger anything unless we understand where we are and what is wrong with this place.’ Declared Reason his verdict on Passion. As much as I wanted to think that it was unfair, I too did agree that Passion was still too inexperienced to cast a three-step will construct and too injudicious to know that he shouldn't try in the first place.

‘You know you can’t do that. You are not my superior.’ He opposed as expected but in the end, I was the one to decide and I sure was not going to let him cast anything in the near future. Still, that didn't prevent Reason from throwing his weight around as he liked.

‘Oh, I am. It's just you don’t know of it yet, and even if you refuse to accept my superiority, you must still obey me due to my seniority. Now, shut up, and let's get going.’ He said in my mind and concluded the argument prematurely, at least for now.

Despite all the pain, I tried to collect my thoughts, then started to prepare to cast my will without moving and talking, a silent still casting with image sharing while still ignoring all the system shenanigans in front of my eyes. Reason channeled an appropriate amount of energy toward my ears while preparing the proper mental image that would increase the air density inside my ears while I simply thought the trigger word that was going to enhance my hearing inside my mind.

‘[Ezin]’

With this, I listened. Listened for a long time while also trying to understand the situation I am in. The system log already showed that there was no one except my captor and me inside the shelter for a long time but that didn't mean that there was no one outside.

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I was in a high ceiling low length cave, lying on an elevated, flat rock platform. My hands and feet were tied up with something that feels like a… leather rope? I still didn't understand the reason for still being captured. Even if I was unconscious and taken captive, Reason and Passion were awake, and together they would have been more than enough to handle just one person.

‘... too many unanswered questions, too little time to address them …’

I was facing the cave entrance with my hands at the back. The woman was right in front of me, facing towards the cave entrance too, engaged in something I can’t see. My coat was thrown aside, my shirt was messy, my belt was unbuckled, boots and socks were missing, nowhere to be seen. I was obviously undressed to be searched properly. Not that I had anything on me worthy of value except my coat.

'Now that is humiliating.' murmured Passion inside my mind. The image of being groped properly while still being unconscious may have been humiliating for Passion but for me, such a vulnerability was only terrifying.

‘I swear I am going to discipline both of you properly as soon as I handle this woman.’ I thought, but interestingly there was no answer from either of them. I was not experienced enough with the augmented reality mode of the system to understand if it was courtesy of it or not, but I was not willing to experience it one more moment than what was necessary.

From what I heard, there were no heartbeats other than the two of ours in the immediate vicinity, including outside of the cave. I didn’t know if she had any accomplices away, that would return sometime in the future, so I decided to act fast. As far as I can sense, there was no energy-intensive or conductive object other than my coat, which makes things much easier. Immediately, I planned my route of action.

The first thing to do was to get rid of the ties on my hands and feet respectively, without alarming my captor if possible. Then I was going to reach for my coat and energize the runes on its back to utilize the remote control.

The coats of the 5th Tactical Command were state-of-the-art gear that was designed not only to protect its wearer against elements of nature and supernature but also to act as low-level reactive armor. Moreover, even the basic coats of the initiates were adorned with multiple enchantments for survival, search and rescue purposes.

One of these functions was remote control which literally helped the user puppet his coat from a distance. Originally integrated to allow trainers to restrain initiates easily in case they show aggression, this remote control function had many possible applications from wearing and removing without effort to division and diversion tactics. Thus, getting my hands on my coat was the easiest way to capture someone alive.

With my plan formed, I started with the first part, which was freeing myself from my restraints. I have chosen something that was created just for this kind of situation, a will-construct to tear fibers apart. Again, Reason prepared the appropriate mental image for another silent and still casting and channeled the energy towards the ties through my wrists.

‘Tearing individual strings of a thread’ was an easy and straightforward mental image that poses no threat to the user unless it was cast upon self, but utterly devastating for inanimate objects as long as they were made of fibers. Without sight, this kind of will-constructs was often prone to miscast. However, touching the object was always a great help.

‘[Besk]’ I thought the trigger word which literally means tear in Imperial but may also mean split or elongate. Any of those meanings may be used for the same purpose thus making the trigger word easy to use even for novices such as Passion. Still, I was neither in the mode to train the unruly child nor undermine the authority of Reason despite being mad at him. Thus, I used the trigger myself.

As soon as I cast my will, I felt the ties weakening and loosening around my wrists. But when I subtly tried to break the strings apart, to my surprise they made an abrupt, glass-like, breaking sound but hold.

'What the hell is this thing made of to make such a sound?' Passion cursed, but I didn't give any thought to it and immediately rip the ties on my hands with much more force this time, again with that abrupt breaking sound. Once I freed my hands, I straightened myself from my lying position and grabbed my coat. But as I sat up, what greeted me was sweet dizziness and less than a moment of blackout.

It was like my body was sweet talking to me, ‘No need to stand up. Just pass out now, and everything will be much better.’ though the nausea accompanying just didn't allow me to do so. My gaze involuntarily moved towards the yellow head of the small human male icon on the top right corner of my peripheral vision.

‘Must be the lingering effects of the mild concussion.’ I thought. Such a concussion may be the trigger for Reason to put me to sleep and activate the system, but even that still wasn’t enough to explain the situation I was in properly. Those two could have handled many things while I was asleep, even immobilized, but chose to do nothing.

However, during that brief moment, I was trying to collect myself was all it took for Passion to start yelling vulgar things in my mind. ‘OH HELL! EIGHTH ENTRANCE OF THE SIDE NUT! NOW WHAT!’

I couldn't help but get startled, ‘Really now? Anger issues?' As if there was nothing more that can go wrong. 'Well... when it rains, it pours.' On another note... 'Side nut? Eight entrance?’. At any other time, I would have been amazed too even only if for his creativity, but now it only irritated me more and more.

Reason wasn't taking this random burst of rage kindly either. ‘I swear I will smite you myself one of these days.’ he said. But Passion just wasn't aware of the possible consequences of such outbursts on himself and continued bickering. ‘Yes, yes. Just do your thing while I am pitying myself.'

‘One more time, and I am going to suspend that idiot until a foreseeable future.’ I thought while trying to stay awake and stabilize myself, but the moment was already lost. The woman was already facing me.

Reason was experienced enough to know what to do and fast enough to repeat the sequence himself without prior input, almost in moments.

With another “[Besk]”, audibly this time, I tore the ties binding my feet this time, not caring about the breaking sound, and stood up with my coat in my hand. Stabilizing myself, I tried to stay on foot and braced myself against the cold stone wall while the woman watched me with shocked eyes.