part1 · 026-ep26

Episode 26: The Voice from Back Then

The next morning. Ren woke slowly.

"...It's morning."

He sat up. The wounds from yesterday were still there.

But—

"...The pain's way down."

He tried moving his shoulder. Yesterday, it had hurt just to move it. And yet now it moved like normal.

Ren checked the wound. It was clearly healing fast.

"...This really is weird."

His body felt light, too. He'd pushed that hard in yesterday's fight, and yet less fatigue remained than he'd expected.

Ren stood up. And remembered yesterday's fight.

Overwhelming speed. Sharp claws. No matter how many times he attacked, they'd barely gotten through.

And—

"...Come to think of it."

Ren stopped.

Yesterday, in the middle of the fight. Heat had spread from deep inside his body. His vision had suddenly gone sharp.

At that moment—

"It said... something, didn't it."

Ren closed his eyes. He'd been absorbed in the fight. So he didn't remember it clearly.

Still, he had definitely heard something.

"...What was it?"

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Ren thought for a while. Then, a different memory surfaced.

"Ah..."

When he'd killed the slime. That time, too, a voice had echoed in his head.

That mysterious voice he'd heard after slaying the monster. It had been about acquiring something.

"...The same voice as back then?"

Ren thought.

If so—

then the voice he'd heard yesterday might be a continuation of something.

"...But"

What had it said yesterday?

He tried to remember. But the memory was vague.

"...Hmm."

Ren held his head in his hands.

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And one more thing. Ren remembered when he'd entered the dungeon.

"...Come to think of it, I think I heard something that time, too."

Right after he'd entered the dungeon. Something had echoed in his head. That time, too, he'd had no room to think about what it meant. Just — it had been words of some kind.

"...Infinite Growth?"

Ren tilted his head.

"I think that's what it said..."

He had no confidence. Even whether he'd really heard those words was hazy.

Not that much time had passed since he'd entered the dungeon. Even so, he had been hard-pressed just to live through each day.

He'd had no room to remember each voice he heard, one by one.

"...Infinite Growth."

He murmured it once more. Somehow, those words alone had stayed in his head.

And yesterday. The voice he'd heard in the fight with the monster.

"...Is it all connected?"

Ren didn't know yet. The voice he'd heard when he killed the slime. The voice he thought he'd heard when he entered the dungeon. And yesterday's fight.

He felt like something was connected. But he couldn't yet see what it was.

　　　　　◇

Ren clenched his fists. Since yesterday, his body had been changing.

His wounds healed fast. His body was light. His strength had increased, too. And in battle, he'd seen the monster's movements more clearly than before.

"...First, let's test my own body."

If he didn't know what had happened, all he could do was find out himself.

Ren took up his spear. Yesterday, he'd lost. That was exactly why he wanted to know how much he had changed.

"...Next time, I win."

Murmuring that, Ren left his bed.

He didn't know yet.

That his defeat yesterday had been the trigger—

Ren's body had begun, little by little, to move on to a different stage.