Luke ran into the temple with Layla in his arms.

  “She’s going to die,” he said flatly.

  “There’s nothing you can do?!” Artemis shouted.

  “You want me to brew an antidote in under twenty seconds for a poison I don’t even know? I’m a botanist. I don’t understand venom like this, and I don’t have the right skills.”

  Luke laid her body on the ground, straightening her so she could breathe. He dumped everything he had from his storage item around them, but he didn’t even know where to start.

  “You evolved a potion-related skill in the past. Figure something out, damn it!”

  “I don’t know how, Artemis,” Luke said, pouring every antidote he’d taken from the alchemists into Layla’s mouth.

  “You ate poisonous plants and crossed a forest that literally produced venom. You found a way then.”

  “That was my body adapting. I don’t know how to help her.”

  Layla began to convulse. Her body jerked violently, foam forming at the corner of her mouth. Nothing he’d given her worked.

  Luke pulled the kunai from her body.

  “Suck out the poison!”

  “That only works in movies, and it’s already in her bloodstream.”

  Her spasms grew worse. Luke stripped off her boots, gloves, and damaged clothing. Her body was swelling. Some of the fabric was burned from the explosion, but the real wound was in her leg, right where the kunai had struck.

  “Snake… the daimyo talked about snakes. That has to be it. Hemotoxic venom. If it reaches her heart, it’s over.”

  Luke licked the poison from the kunai blade and took some of her blood into his mouth.

  “I’ll use my blood to try to create something.”

  His body would produce antibodies to the venom. The problem was keeping Layla alive long enough for that to matter.

  He made two shallow cuts above the wound to force bleeding and slow the spread of the poison. Then he tied off her leg to reduce circulation in the area.

  Layla was drenched in sweat, her body still trembling, but Luke knew that alone had bought her time.

  He placed a damp cloth on her forehead, trying to calm her.

  Luke grabbed a wooden cup, held it over a torch to burn out the air inside, then pressed it against the wound, creating suction to slowly draw out contaminated blood and keep it from circulating.

  Layla whimpered in pain, broken sounds slipping from her lips. At the same time, Luke used telekinesis to tend to the cauldron, forcing his mind to work through how to make a potion.

  Depending on the type, a healing potion could make things worse.

  For long hours, he stayed beside her while she burned with fever and muttered fragments of her life.

  “Mom… I’m sorry,” she whispered again and again, always her mother.

  Luke continued administering the alchemists’ antidotes in small doses, trying to suppress the symptoms while he worked on creating his own using his blood. At one point, he drove a kukri into his own body, piercing his stomach and tearing out a piece.

  He had to drink a Verdant Vitality Potion immediately just to survive that.

  He dropped the piece of his own stomach into the cauldron and kept going.

  When the antidote was finally ready, he tried to give it to Layla, but she spat it out.

  “Drink it, you idiot.”

  She kept choking and coughing.

  “Tastes bad…” she murmured, delirious.

  “You’re dying, dumbass.”

  At least the effects were starting to fade. Luke grabbed one of the coconuts from the palm trees and cracked it open. He scraped out the white flesh, mixed it into a bowl with the antidote he had prepared, and carefully fed it to Layla.

  After tasting the antidote himself, he realized just how awful it really was. And that was coming from someone who had eaten plants, bark, and dirt-covered roots without hesitation. Even for him, this crossed a line.

  The coconut helped. A little. The milky liquid that formed was still foul-smelling, but there was a faint sweetness that made it barely tolerable. Once Layla stabilized, Luke laid her down on a mattress and cleaned the wound on her body.

  Then he collapsed onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Damn… ninjas…” he muttered, yawning. “Three days awake. No sleep. I even performed surgery on myself.”

  As his eyes finally started to close, his thoughts drifted back to the daimyo and those damned metaphors about tea. He opened his system interface and looked at the faces of Charlie and Angie. Their displays were gray.

  “Sorry, you two… it’s going to take me a little longer. Wherever you are, I hope you’re safe.”

  Then his gaze shifted to the system notification that had been hovering there ever since he killed one of the ninjas.

  [Your skill Basic Blood Regeneration is evolving…]

  [Your skill Basic Blood Regeneration has two available evolutions.]

  [Choose the new evolution of your skill.]

  “Go to hell, system. I just want to sleep.”

  And that became Luke’s routine over the following days, tending to Layla, managing the poison with coconut pulp, waiting patiently until she finally began to recover.

  ***

  Layla opened her eyes, her head pounding. The first strange thing she noticed was the ceiling. It wasn’t the ceiling of her little house back in Maine. No, this was different.

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  “Where am I?” She sat up, confused.

  She tried to remember how she’d gotten there, but her mind was blank. The room was small, its walls made of stone. There were no windows. It was bare, lit only by a torch mounted on the wall.

  When Layla sat up fully, the blanket slipped away, and she noticed something else.

  “What are these clothes?”

  That was wrong. Very wrong. Why was she wearing men’s clothes? She glanced at a small table nearby and spotted a potion vial. Instinctively, she used [Identify].

  [Verdant Vitality Potion (Rare): A healing potion infused with the invigorating essence of the Energizing Luminous Mushroom, stimulating the body’s tissues and accelerating their natural recovery. The potion enhances regenerative processes and can even aid in the minor restoration of damaged limbs, bones, or tissue, mimicking the growth patterns of plants. As the body is revitalized and re-energized, stamina, resilience, and endurance increase. Restores 1550 HP and, due to intense physical activation, may cause a slight rise in libido.

  “Li… li… libido?”

  A sharp pain flared low in her body. When she looked down, she saw blood on the sheets.

  Her hands began to tremble.

  The door opened.

  “Hello, Layla,” came a familiar voice.

  “Y-you bastard. W-what is going on here?” she demanded.

  “Layla, we made progress,” he said calmly. “And you’re waking up late. You delayed all my plans. Sleeping for a whole week is a bit excessive.”

  She stared at him, lost. Her memories offered no help.

  “B-bastard! What do you mean, progress?” she asked.

  He sat down in the chair beside the bed. “You know.”

  “I-I know what?!” Her words rushed out. “And why do I feel pain… down there? And why is there blood on the sheets?!”

  “Do I really need to explain the obvious?”

  Layla froze as panic surged through her.

  No. No no no. This isn’t happening. I didn’t do anything. This can’t be real.

  “Relax,” he continued. “I took care of you the whole time. You should be thanking me.”

  “Thank you for what, you damn bastard? And whose clothes are these I’m wearing?!”

  “Mine, obviously. Better than leaving you naked.”

  Her cheeks burned. “You creep! You drugged me, didn’t you?!”

  “What?” He blinked, confused. “Are you talking about what I gave you? Is it a drug? That depends on how you define things. Medicine is technically a drug, right?”

  “You gave me something, didn’t you?!” she snapped.

  “Yes. But hey, you ended up liking it. It was bitter at first, but I managed to make it sweet later.”

  Layla went rigid. “B-bitter? W-what exactly did you give me?!”

  “I don’t have a proper name for it yet. Unofficially, I just called it my special white liquid.”

  White liquid?!

  Her mind short-circuited.

  She lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar. “You filthy bastard! I’m going to smash your face in!”

  “What is wrong with you, girl? I saved your life! Okay, it was bitter at first. I admit that. But then I sweetened it, figured out how to get it into your mouth properly without spilling, and in the end everything worked out.”

  “You sick maniac!”

  She started slapping him wildly.

  “Listen to me, you’ve lost it. I was saving your life,” he said, dodging her blows.

  “Saving my life? You call that saving my life? You molested me, you bastard!”

  ***

  Layla finally managed to calm down. She sat on the bed, bow still pointed at the scoundrel while he finished explaining everything. In the end… it had all been a massive misunderstanding on her part. Even the white liquid had actually been an antidote mixed with coconut pulp.

  “Then why was I in pain… down there?” she demanded.

  “Well, you’re missing a chunk of your leg. Poison damage. I couldn’t give you a healing potion until your body was stabilized, but I left a high-grade one right there next to the table for when you woke up,” he replied.

  She looked at the back of her calf. Raw flesh. A deep hollow where meat should have been. That explained why the sheets were stained with blood.

  “You moved around and tore off the bandage I made. Again. You’re not very cooperative when you sleep, Layla.”

  She lowered the bow, embarrassment burning through her chest.

  “What the hell did you think I did to you?”

  “Shut up,” she snapped. “You’re a scoundrel! You should have told me all this sooner!”

  “Huh? I literally did. I had no idea you had memory loss. You were the one who should have said something instead of attacking me. You owe me a lot of favors now, Layla.”

  “Yes, assaulting your savior,” Artemis added. “Good thing we weren’t worried about her at all.”

  Luke stood up.

  “And the ninjas? Those crazy ninjas? Where did they go?”

  Bit by bit, her memories started to come back as he spoke.

  “Those guys? Relax. They’re not a problem anymore.”

  He stretched, clearly exhausted.

  “You could have… gotten out of that situation easily if I hadn’t been there, right?” she asked quietly.

  Part of her felt guilty. They could have died. Still, gratitude outweighed everything else. He had stayed. He had saved her.

  Maybe… he really is a good person. Maybe I judged him wrong all this time.

  She felt embarrassed, yes, but now she wanted to make things right.

  “Th-thank you, Luke,” she said sincerely, no insults this time.

  She swallowed, gathering courage.

  “There’s… something I need to ask. I… I’m wearing your clothes.”

  “Yes. Yours were burned and torn.”

  “Right… did you… look at me while you were changing me?”

  “You mean did I see you naked while dressing you? Yeah. Obviously. There was no way not to.”

  “Ob-viously?”

  He stepped closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Layla.”

  At least he’s… kind of chivalrous about it. I really did misjudge him.

  “Relax. Your personality kills any possible attraction I could feel. See? You’re safe.”

  No, that guy isn’t a knight. He’s a scoundrel.

  “My words match his, Layla. You wouldn’t even make a decent sacrifice to the gods,” Artemis added.

  “You’re both awful! Absolute monsters!”

  “If you’ve got enough energy to complain, you’ve got enough energy to walk. Go change into one of your outfits. I need to burn the clothes you wore. Oh, and by the way, we don’t need to go to the fourth temple anymore. With three maps, I already found the location and solved the riddle.”

  ***

  Luke stood by the table, serving food onto a plate for Layla.

  “The lady is devouring my food with her hands, with absolutely no manners,” he remarked.

  “Sh-shut up! I’m hungry,” she snapped back.

  He dropped into a chair across from her. “I miss your coma version.”

  After Layla finished eating, she downed the potion.

  “Why do you even have a potion with a libido-boosting side effect, you bastard?” she demanded.

  “What matters is that it’ll heal you so we can hurry up and find Charlie and Angie.”

  Luke already knew the location of the hidden temple. He wanted to claim the Demon Smith’s legacy as soon as possible.

  Layla finished the last drop.

  “D-d-don’t get close to me! I don’t want to be influenced by that side effect at all,” she warned.

  “Oh, Luke, she’s going to be in heat the entire way,” Artemis said, laughing.

  “Stop talking nonsense, you stupid necklace!” Layla shot back.

  While Artemis continued provoking her as they left the temple, Luke focused on the system interface in front of him.

  [Your skill Basic Blood Regeneration has two available evolutions.]

  Below it, two options appeared.

  [Advanced Blood Regeneration (Ultra-Rare)]: The first cut is only the beginning of a deeper feast. Whenever you make an enemy bleed, your demonic nature awakens, devouring the life that spills from your prey. You heal as they weaken, your body growing stronger with every drop shed. When you directly touch an enemy’s wound, the bond intensifies. Blood flows faster, life is drained more greedily, and your regeneration accelerates. Your blade becomes a conduit for a hunger that no longer knows limits. In the end, it is not just the enemy who bleeds. It is you who consumes.

  [Crimson Fang (Ultra-Rare)]: The assassin causes the blade to glow red and lunges in a rapid strike aimed at the heart, dealing high critical damage. A successful hit absorbs a portion of the target’s health points. The attack significantly increases piercing power and damage dealt. It combines physical and magical damage, scaling with Lethality, Agility, and Intelligence. Strikes that miss the heart still cause bleeding, but only a vital hit grants regeneration.

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