A stunned hush fell over the bystanders.

  One person gagged, and another muttered a quiet curse.

  His savior, however, remained perfectly calm.

  "That's... bad," he muttered.

  Albrecht's vision wavered. He could feel the world slipping sideways, his strength draining with every pulse of pain. He was losing blood too fast.

  Then, her voice cut through the haze, sharp and certain.

  "Listen to me."

  He barely registered when she grabbed his chin, forcing his dazed eyes to meet hers.

  "I'm Selene. And I know that you are an Outsider."

  His thoughts stuttered, barely keeping up with the pain.

  "Outsider?" he mumbled.

  "You don't belong to this world?" she continued, looking at his face. "Which world are you from?"

  'How does she…'

  It didn't really matter how she knew.

  His throat felt like sandpaper as he tried to speak.

  "...Earth."

  Selene's gaze didn't waver.

  "And do you know what your innate ability is?"

  Albrecht winced, trying to process her words, but the pain was unbearable.

  His body was falling apart.

  What the hell was an innate ability supposed to be?

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  His voice was strained, raw.

  "And I want to know who exactly you are and how you know all of this."

  Selene exhaled sharply, eyes narrowing.

  "That's not important right now."

  'What a cliche thing to say,' he thought, frustrated.

  Was this how it ended? In a world that wasn't his, bleeding out in the arms of a stranger?

  His sister…

  Would she ever know what happened to him?

  She pressed her palm flat against his chest, not aggressively, but firmly.

  "Listen carefully," she murmured. "You're about to pass out. And you will definitely die if you don't figure out your ability right now."

  Albrecht's heart pounded.

  "You need to feel for it."

  "Feel for it?" His voice was hoarse.

  "Your ability is already there. You have used it before on accident. You just need to acknowledge it."

  The world was spinning.

  His thoughts fractured.

  But somewhere deep inside him, something besides his hanging-out organs shifted.

  Like a door creaking open.

  A concept not spoken aloud but etched into his very existence.

  A name.

  A truth.

  [Innate Ability - Mirrorbound]

  You can shift any physical damage you receive to another world, causing that realm to bear the impact instead. However, the usage puts a significant strain on your mind.

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  [Innate Ability - Mirrorbound]

  'What just happened?'

  The gaping wound remained, his ribs still exposed, flesh torn and slick with blood, every ragged breath sending fresh stabs of agony through his side.

  The pain was still there, sharp and relentless, but the crushing sense of imminent death had dulled. There was no longer any new blood flowing out of the wound.

  He wasn't healed, far from it. His body was still failing, the injury still real. But something had changed.

  He no longer felt like dying.

  He could endure it now.

  Beneath him, Selene lay pinned, her golden eyes gleaming with an unreadable mix of amusement and intrigue as she studied his face.

  "You made it! That has to be the fastest awakening time ever," she said, laughing. Her tone was oddly excited.

  Albrecht barely had the breath to glare at her.

  'Fastest awakening?'

  His body was still screaming in pain, and she was talking like this was some kind of competition.

  And now, a dull, throbbing ache bloomed behind his eyes, creeping through his skull like iron claws digging into his mind.

  The pain in his body was still very real, his wounds still raw, but something else was invading his thoughts, twisting at the edges of his awareness.

  Selene's voice cut through the haze.

  "Let's get you out of here. Try to keep Mirrorbound active."

  She shifted beneath him, slowly pushing Albrecht off herself before moving to her feet in a single, fluid motion.

  He barely had the strength to lift his head when she hauled him up with surprising ease, slinging his arm over her shoulder.

  Albrecht tried to protest, but his limbs were sluggish, his thoughts slow.

  "Selene... ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■?"

  Selene's grip tightened slightly.

  "Selene… where are you taking me?"

  "Somewhere safe. Just rest for now, but don't fall asleep," she said.

  Albrecht wanted to protest, to ask more, but the creeping exhaustion was pulling him under, the weight in his mind pressing heavier and heavier.

  It was not just from the pain of his wound but also from using Mirrorbound. Something deep inside his mind twisted and stretched like an unseen force, grabbing his thoughts and pulling them apart, unraveling them thread by thread.

  The urge to deactivate it grew stronger with every passing second. His instincts screamed at him to stop.

  Some primal part of him, something deeply human, begged him to deactivate Mirrorbound, to let the injury return. The pain of a torn-open body was nothing compared to the suffocating pressure on his very being.

  But at the same time, another instinct clawed for control. A different kind of self-preservation. It urged him to endure, that survival, at any cost, was the only option.

  Two instincts, two opposing forces, locked in a silent war within him.

  A cold sweat dripped down his temple as his body trembled, caught between the two.

  "But still, who am I to complain? I am basically cheating death." he thought.

  At some point, the cobbled streets must have changed beneath them, but he hadn't noticed. He was too wrapped in his own suffering, the crushing strain of keeping Mirrorbound active.

  He hadn't even noticed where they were going.

  It wasn't until the soft scent of a floral aroma hit him that he realized that they were no longer on the street.

  They were inside a shop.

  Albrecht forced his eyes open, blinking sluggishly. Rows of potted plants lined wooden shelves, clusters of herbs hung from the ceiling.

  It was a flower shop.

  A voice, low and composed, cut through the haze.

  "Selene?"

  The man standing near a shelf panicked. His hands fumbled, and with a sharp crash, a ceramic flower pot shattered against the wooden floor.

  His wide eyes flickered from Selene to the bloodied mess that was Albrecht.

  "Save him, " she said, walking past him and pushing through a wooden door at the back of the flower store.

  The room beyond was small, dimly lit, a simple cot tucked against the wall. A few cabinets lined the space, stocked with vials of unknown liquids, dried herbs, and tools that definitely weren't used for arranging bouquets.

  Selene carefully dropped Albrecht onto a soft bed.

  The man followed behind them, his gaze landing on Albrecht's wound.

  "How the hell is he still alive?" His voice carried more disbelief and curiosity than actual concern.

  She shot the man a cold, sharp look.

  "Do what you're paid for, and don't ask unnecessary questions."

  "Fine," he muttered, moving toward Albrecht.

  "But I hope you understand that I can't heal a wound like this. The best I can do is stabilize for a few days until I run out of mana."

  The man sat on a stool beside him, holding his right hand over Albrecht's ruined side.

  Albrecht could instinctively feel that he could now finally release Mirrorbound. The pain from the wound was obviously still there, but he no longer felt like going crazy. His mind only felt a bit foggy.

  "You need a very capable healer," the man went on, his expression grim. "Or a very powerful artifact."

  "Then just stabilize him," Selene said. "I'll get a Chronos Watch."

  The florist's head snapped up, but he refrained from asking any unnecessary questions.

  Selene left toward the door, leaving Albrecht with the strange mage.

  "All this… from a damn metal pipe," Albrecht muttered bitterly, trying to strike up a conversation. He wasn't much of a talker, but he desperately needed a distraction.

  The florist huffed, not looking up from his work.

  "Sure, a metal pipe. I guess you have too much honor to admit defeat in a fight."

  Albrecht stiffened slightly.

  "What?" His voice came out more defensive than he intended.

  "I'm sure it was a… no, how exactly did I get injured?"

  "That's a sword wound. Caused by a clean, deliberate strike. Whoever did this wasn't just aiming to injure you… they were trying to kill you."

  A dull chill ran through Albrecht's spine.

  'A… sword?'

  That didn't make sense.

  Albrecht had been in the canal. There was no fight, no enemy, just the current of water, the sharp impact of the merchant boat slamming into him, and the brutal scrape against the canal wall.

  But the wound said otherwise.

  So, who had attacked him?

  And why didn't he remember?