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At dawn, I started walking in the opposite direction of Krag-an City as soon as I woke up and had breakfast.

I could have tried jogging or running, but my body still aches when I move it, and I prefer not to overexert myself after the magic coma.

I think it will be better to analyze my limits little by little until I am sure that I can use 100% of my capabilities.

Yesterday I saw that I have an abnormal state called [Weakening Nv 8], which explains why I feel so weak.

The description of the abnormal state says that it decreases my abilities in general and gives no indicator of duration, nor does it specify how much it is weakening me, but I assume it will be decreasing in level as time goes on.

At first, I thought it wouldn't take long to find some trace of civilization.

But I've been walking for hours now, and all I've seen are a few animals.

Most of them are small in size, such as hares, birds that prefer to travel on the ground rather than in the air called partridges, and some foxes.

I have also seen the occasional small herd of deer walking in very small groups, but they always keep their distance from me.

'It's strange that I haven't seen any large predators yet, or any monsters. It must be an orc thing.... They probably hunted down all the large sources of meat until there was almost nothing left. But… Although it is true that in this place there seems to be nothing that could serve as a hiding place for large animals, which must have facilitated the work of the orcs, not everything must have been the result of indiscriminate hunting. Surely the scarce sources of semi-frozen water and the fact that the vegetation of this place is composed of grasses, shrubs, and moss do not serve as much sustenance for the large creatures either. Anyway, that's probably what allowed me to be alive now.... After all, who knows how many days I was unconscious from the magic coma?'

As I walk, I start to observe the things that have changed in my abilities.

Yesterday, while I was getting rid of the soldiers, a series of notifications kept appearing before my eyes one after another, but at the time I wasn't in the mood to pay the slightest attention to them.

Now, however, I get ready to see all the changes in my abilities, which almost seem like a mockery of the hive towards me, proving that no matter how hard I try to get stronger in the labyrinth, I will only really become stronger through the suffering of my loved ones.

The first thing I see is that my magic sense and spiritual fusion skills have leveled up to 7 and 4, respectively.

Then I see the notification of a new passive skill called .

And, after reading the skill description, I understand that it is simply an enhanced version of my ordinary fire magic, allowing me to make my fire spells twice as powerful but with a mana cost that is twice as high as usual.

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'It will be quite useful in situations where I have to do a lot of damage in a short time.'

The last change is the addition of two new active abilities, and .

Both are area abilities that affect a 30-meter area

Both have a mana cost of 50 per second.

And both are strangely unique abilities for spiritual fusion.

The description of the first one says that it allows me to directly incinerate the mana of chosen targets within the range of the skill.

And the second one is similar in regards to the area of effectiveness, only in this case it allows me to directly affect the mana of chosen targets to damage their spirit.

'Besides the skills I got so long ago with my interface, there are also more skills without levels, huh?'

None of the new skills I acquired have their level marked next to their names, which means that they either have no level and are strengthened in some other way, or I can't see their level for some unknown reason.

These new spiritual fusion abilities are very useful since normally a mage can only cast magic from his body or from areas very close to it.

But with these auras, I have a large area of effect around me where I can manipulate the mana of the environment to fight.

'This information would have interested Lilian.... She was always very enthusiastic about anything related to spirit magic...'

As I think about it, I look sadly at the ring on my left hand that served as an artifact of communication with her.

'Now that both she and Deirdre are dead, it's simply an unusable clunker. Even if it is now useless, I will not take it off. It will be a physical reminder of why I have to stay away from everyone I hold dear. Besides, even if I know it could be used to track me, there's really no one left alive who knows about the connection between the ring Deirdre had and mine.'

***

I've been walking for several days now, and yet the landscape doesn't change in the slightest.....

'This is starting to irritate me. Wasn't the orc empire supposed to be incredibly vast and powerful? Then why the hell is there such a vast expanse of land without any kind of civilization?'

During this time, I started jogging slowly for short periods.

When I started, I tired very quickly, but slowly, my body is starting to respond again as it should.

At night I have nightmares, so lately I have been having a hard time sleeping.

Or, more correctly, I am having the same nightmare repeatedly.

Initially, I thought it was Azur's doing, trying to torment me in my sleep since my stupid partner is still mad at me.

But I quickly realized that it didn't make sense, considering the content of the nightmare.

In it, I saw Deirdre falling victim to the soldiers' rifles.

And when the bullets hit the therian's body, I felt them as if they were hitting my own flesh.

As I watched the scene closely without being able to do or say anything, I heard Deirdre ask over and over again, 'Why, Xelean, why did you do this to me?'

"Azur. Please... couldn't you help me? I know you're annoyed, but I'm sure it's really boring for you too, always seeing the same thing.... We could travel a lot faster if you would let me summon you."

However, my partner is still keeping the vow of silence he initiated four days ago, and I only vaguely feel his presence through the link.

The first few days, he was constantly sending me images of Deirdre and the city to try to get me to come back.

But at a certain point, he got tired of seeing me ignore him and decided to stop trying.

...

Suddenly, in the midday light, I see what appears to be a lone house on the horizon.

Something like a tiny speck in a landscape of endless emptiness.

Excited, I start running in its direction.

Fortunately, I was right in my assumptions.

The abnormal state called Weakening is now at level 4.

So I can almost run at the same speed I could before I almost died from a combination of starvation and dehydration.

But I still try to be very aware of my body and the signs of fatigue and pain it sends me.

Ten minutes or so after I start running at a good pace, I stop to catch my breath and let my body cool down, and I resume walking at a brisk pace that is close to a jog.

But even though I was only able to run for a relatively short time, with the distance I covered, I can now see the house with a little more clarity and detail.

It appears to be a stone house about two stories tall, though I'm still too far away to be sure.

Alternating between a few minutes of running and a few hours of walking, I finally get within a few dozen meters of the place by dusk.

As I get closer, I get a better look at the dwelling and notice that it is actually a three-story stone and concrete house.

All around it are plantings, and to the side of the house is a huge corral where three orcs are penning a large herd of goats.

"It's nice to see some signs of civilization after so many days," I murmur to myself while walking.

'Hmm… Maybe they are hostile to anyone that isn't an orc, but it's better to try to communicate with them peacefully first and then decide how to proceed'

"HEY! HELLO!" I shout from a distance so that the orcs can see me in time and not attack me for taking them by surprise.