Chapter 27: One More Percent
Chapter 27: One More Percent
"Behind me," Aria said. "Left wall. Stay behind my shoulder."
I pressed my back against slimy concrete. "How many?"
"Four." Her head tilted. "Five."
They emerged around the bend in a loose spread. Each was the size of a large dog, long-bodied and pale, with powerful forelimbs and flat heads that appeared to have no eyes. Their claws passed from silt to concrete with a faint scrape. Every blunt head turned toward the sound.
I touched the rifle strap, then let it go. A shot in this tunnel would lead Eastbridge directly to us.
"They listen," Aria murmured. "Keep still."
At Level 4, she had forced a failing body through movements it could barely support. Level 6 gave more room for her technique.
The first scavenger charged. She met it with one short thrust beneath the jaw, withdrew the blade, and stepped aside before the corpse finished sliding past her. The second died to a cut so brief I registered it only when its claws stopped moving.
Two attacked together. Aria tried to pivot left, and her injured hip failed to follow.
One slipped past her guard and struck her thigh. She killed it with an ugly downward blow from a poor angle, losing a second while the last two circled behind her.
"Right side," I hissed. "They’re coming around the low pipe."
"Keep speaking."
I listened for claws. Silt made a wet drag, concrete a dry scratch. Each time a scavenger moved behind her, I called it, and Aria turned toward my voice before it arrived. She caught the fourth beneath the front leg as it came around the pipe, but killing it pulled her blade wide.
The fifth broke through and came for me.
I got the military knife out with both hands, braced myself against the wall, and pointed it at the thing’s chest. It ran onto the blade. My arms folded almost at once.
Aria reached it before its jaws reached me.
Silence returned to the tunnel.
She stood among five bodies with most of her weight on her right leg, drawing ragged breaths. The red fire was gone from her sword. Whatever she had found at the gate had been spent there.
[Class-Assisted Kills Confirmed: 5.]
[Combat contribution verified.]
[Experience transferred.]
[Level increased.]
[Adrian Vale has reached Level 7.]
[Active summon synchronisation complete.]
[Manifested Level: 6 → 7]
[Attribute and energy ceilings increased.]
[Existing injuries unchanged.]
[New energy capacity: Unfilled.]
[Duration added: 10% of B-grade Level 1 duration.]
Three new points took Strength, Vitality, and Agility to eight. My body tightened around the improvement, then met the familiar limits of Frail Body, Weak Constitution, and Poor Coordination. A healthy Level 7 would never have felt that ceiling.
Aria used the extra time immediately.
She dragged two carcasses away from the area where we would rest and cut portions from the back and hind legs. She inspected every piece under my flashlight, discarding anything that looked or smelled questionable.
"Cook all of it," she said. "The organs are unsafe when we do not know the animal. If the meat smells wrong tomorrow, throw it away. Hunger does not make spoiled food edible."
She wrapped eleven portions in a strip torn from my spare shirt, then inspected everything I carried.
"Rifle. One loaded magazine and three spares. Keep the loose ammunition separate so you can find all of it in darkness. Soldier’s knife on your dominant side." Her eyes found the cloth bundle at my belt. "What is that?"
"Kitchen knife."
"Keep it. If your only blade is valuable, you will hesitate to use it for ordinary work."
At the far end of the passage, she showed me a maintenance ladder leading to a hatch behind the industrial units.
"If anything enters this tunnel and it is not me, leave through here. Take only what your hands can carry."
"Second bend, sixty metres, ladder, hatch. Hands only."
"Good."
She also checked my wounds. The dressing beneath my ribs had loosened during the escape, and the shoulder cut had bled through again. Aria cleaned both with the last water from my bottle and retied the cloth firmly enough to make breathing unpleasant.
"Pain is information," she said when I winced. "Listen to it. Do not worship it."
"Is that what you’re doing with your hip?"
"I know precisely how damaged it is."
"You’re still standing on it."
"Because the alternative was leaving you at the gate."
There was no useful answer to that.
There was nothing left to prepare. The timer continued falling.
I had known Aria for less than an hour. She had carried me out of a settlement I could never have escaped alone, been shot while doing it, and taught me more about survival in minutes than I had learned in my entire life.
"I don’t want you to go."
The words came out plain and awkward. Aria studied me in the weak flashlight glow.
"When the guard began firing, you climbed out of the container."
"I couldn’t have stopped him."
"You could not." Her certainty made the choice feel heavier. "That is why I will remember it."
"What happens when you return?"
For the first time, her composure shifted. Behind the Call, a gate in another world remained fixed at the exact instant of her departure. Monsters waited inside unfinished attacks. Civilians remained caught mid-stride.
"I return to my line," she said. "The wound remains, but so do the treatment and the higher ceilings your levels gave this body. My people lose no time at all."
She lifted her sword. The blade showed no fire, yet her grip had steadied.
"Will you hold?"
"Long enough for the last civilians to cross."
She spoke with the finality of a decision.
The timer dropped below thirty seconds.
She gripped my shoulder with a soldier’s strength. "Survive, Adrian Vale. Become strong enough that meeting again is possible."
I promised her I would try, and I meant every word.
[Resonance: 4% → 5%]
[Preservation threshold reached.]
[Signature Status: Fading → Preserved.]
[Repeat Selection Chance: 5% after an eligible B-grade roll.]
[Direct Summoning: Locked.]
"Your signature is preserved," I said quickly. "It can’t guarantee anything. If Blind Call rolls B grade again, you have a five-percent chance of being selected instead of a stranger."
"A small road is still a road."
Then she vanished.
[Manifestation duration complete.]
[Aria returned to origin dimension.]
[Return Point: Exact origin place and instant.]
[Origin-Time Elapsed: 00:00:00.]
[Injuries, healing, poison, exhaustion, spent energy, and technique backlash retained.]
[Active Summons: 0]
[Blind Call Charges: 0/1]
[Natural charge recovery initiated: 72:00:00.]
Five dead scavengers remained at the bend. A bundle of meat lay at my feet.
The tunnel had been quiet before. Now the silence felt endless.