I wake up in what appears to be a small hospital room. I still feel tired, but I manage to sit and take a look at my body.
While the flames covering it during the fight didn't feel hot at all, I'm glad to see that they didn't leave any scars or burn marks on my skin. I lift my shirt up and inspect the location where the orc pierced my body with its sword, but there are no traces of the injury left.
I close my eyes and focus on the energy flowing through my body. It's definitely more substantial than what I had before. The power I awakened on that evening hasn't gone back to sleep. If I'm not mistaken, that means I'm still just as strong now as I was while fighting the orcs. During that battle, my body couldn't contain the power, but that seems to have changed afterwards. That's good, I wouldn't want to spontaneously burst back in flames at random moments.
But what even is that power? It definitely wasn't normal magic, otherwise I'm sure I'd have heard of adventurers who suddenly unlocked enormous strength in critical situations. I would also have stumbled upon people talking about feeling like they can't reach their full potential, like I used to.
As I'm pondering these questions, the door of the room opens, and a serious-looking guy wearing a suit enters, followed by a nurse.
"Hello, Matt. My name is Christopher, and I work with the Adventuring Association. We're currently investigating yesterday's incident, during which an individual covered in colorful flames appeared and saved the lives of countless adventurers and civilians. I am aware that you just woke up, but I would appreciate if you could answer a few questions to help us track down this individual as soon as possible."
Oh, they're looking for me. That's a funny thought, but at this point it's probably safer for me to keep what happened to myself. After all, I have no idea what this power is or why I have it. I wouldn't want to be turned into a guinea pig by the Association after telling them I have some kind of new and mysterious energy flowing through my body.
"Of course, I'll answer your questions as best I can."
"Thank you. Now, according to the report, you were found unconscious on the battlefield. Did you manage to see the individual in question while they were fighting?"
"I can't say I have. I'm pretty weak so I was taken down early into the battle. Honestly I'm surprised I even managed to survive."
"Right, your file does mention that you're only level 8. So you did not see the flaming individual fight, or in which direction she went after the battle?"
Uh? "She"? Are they not actually talking about me? In that case, I really have no idea who they're looking for.
"I'm afraid not."
"Very well. Thank you for your time. Make sure to contact us if you hear anything while out adventuring."
Christopher gets back up and leaves the room while the nurse proceeds to check my vital signs.
Was there another person covered in flames participating in that battle? I feel like we would have bumped into each other if that was the case. But if I managed to awaken something within me at that moment, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that someone else managed to do the same.
The nurse finishes checking everything before saying:
"Since you fought monsters, your level might have gone up. I'll ask for an aetherologist to examine you before you leave. Your health seems fine so that'll be the last thing before you can go."
She grabs a notepad next to the bed and quickly checks it before asking:
"Do you have anyone you can call to come over and give you clothes. There's a note here saying that what you were wearing got destroyed during the invasion."
I think back to the serious injuries I suffered. It makes sense that my clothes wouldn't have survived.
"I can probably call one of my roommates. Is my phone intact?"
"It appears to be. It should be in the small pouch to the right of your bed."
Sure enough, I find it there, along with my keys. I'm thankful these items survived.
I don't have their phone numbers, so I start trying to track my roommates on social media apps as the nurse leaves the room.
Cal eventually comes over with some pants and a shirt he found in my stuff.
"When you didn't come back last night I figured you got caught up in the thing the news was talking about."
He still looks as nonchalant and disinterested as he did when I met him at the dormitory, but he must care at least a bit if he was watching the news and agreed to bring me my clothes. He continues:
"You must have gotten beaten up real good to end up at the hospital without any clothes to wear."
"I'm fine, actually, I just fainted during the fight so they brought me here with everyone else they found. I'm not even injured."
Cal seems surprised by what I just said. He scratches his head and shrugs before saying:
"There's a lot of stuff I don't really get about adventurers. Eh, whatever. As long as you're fine. Would have been sad to lose a roommate before the semester even started."
The comment gets me to chuckle.
Some time later, a nurse comes to get me to bring me to the room where they test adventurer levels.
I always had the same aetherologist checking my level back when I lived in a small town, but in a big hospital like this I guess whoever is available is the one doing it.
This aetherologist is an older man, with a grey mustache and graying hair. He seems to be reading my file when we enter.
"You are Matt, correct?"
"Yes."
"Good. Please take a seat, this is just a routine check of your magic level so it should be quite fast."
I sit in front of the machine as the nurse starts strapping a few bands on various parts of my body.
A minute later, the aetherologist activates the machine. It does the usual series of noises before displaying the number "0" on its screen.
Uh? 0?
Last time I was a bit over ten thousand. An adventurer's level is determined by calculating how much magic power they have and then using that value to get a level between 0 and 100 that's a lot easier to understand than the raw number given by the machine.
But a 0 here corresponds to a level 0. And levels aren't supposed to go down.
"The machine must be defective, or maybe the bands aren't placed correctly on your body."
The nurse hurries up to undo and redo everything. The aetherologist then hits that button again, we wait for a bit, and the same "0" shows up on the screen.
I can feel magical power in me right now. Clearly I'm not level 0!
"The machine must be defective. Otherwise, you'd be the first recorded instance of an adventurer losing their magical power. I'll go get a spare machine, please wait here a moment."
He gets up and leaves the room, leaving me and the nurse looking at that "0" still displayed on the screen with confusion.
A few minutes later, he comes back with a much smaller machine.
"All of the modern machines are in use right now so this older model will have to do. It's less precise, but it's nothing we can't work with."
The nurse grabs the bands from the smaller machine and attaches them to the same spots on my body. For a third time, we wait for a reading, only for a "0" to appear again.
This time, I decide to say something:
"I don't know what's going on, but I can feel the magic in my body right now. I can do everything I'm used to doing as an adventurer, so my level obviously can't have gone down to 0."
To demonstrate my claim, I grab my phone and cause it to levitate over my palm. I never learned to do this so I wouldn't have been able to pull this off before yesterday, but my new power is so instinctive to use that something like this is effortless to me now.
"Right, it's hard to deny that there's magic in you while you're doing something like this. I'll keep your old level in your file, so for now you can keep working as a level 8 adventurer, but I'll consult my colleagues about this. We might contact you for new tests soon."
I nod while putting the phone back in my pocket.
As I leave the hospital, I can't help but wonder why the machine is unable to detect my power. I'm clearly far stronger than I ever was before, so my level should have shot up accordingly, but instead it went all the way down to the lowest possible value.
I empower my legs and leap to the roof of a building. I can travel so much faster now, I might not even need the city's public transit network to get around.
This feels a bit like cheating. Could it be that this power isn't really mine, I'm simply borrowing it from someone else? Would something like that explain the machine's behavior? But I can't just assume that and start looking for whoever is lending me strength. If I'm wrong, I'd just go on a goose chase.
As glad as I was to have it within me during the invasion, I'm dealing with something I don't understand. This could very well end up being a curse, and I have no idea where to even start searching for answers.
With the setting sun as the backdrop, I leap from building to building, making my way back to the dormitory.
