Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee-Chapter 43: The Target
I watch Rae carefully, noting that the man’s pragmatic, manipulative nature hasn’t changed a single bit with time or regression.
The timeline is completely shattered. This meeting—this exact conversation—isn’t supposed to happen for another four years, like when I met him in a bar in my past life.
Everything is a mess...
I know it’s a trap. It’s a gilded cage offered by a sociopath. But this time around? I am more than ready to step inside and lock the door behind me.
I extend my trembling hand and accept the deal.
"I’m in your hands. Count on me."
Rae’s smile widens, perfectly practiced and chillingly warm.
[Hadal Notoriety: +40]
Oh, come on...
"Excellent. This arrangement is better for everyone. I expect to see your growing results in the near future."
Oh, you have no idea what you’re waiting for, I think, my grip firm against his.
Rae stands up, smoothing the pristine fabric of his robes, and prepares to leave. But right before he crosses the threshold, he pauses. He turns back, pushing his thin-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"By the way," Rae says, gesturing vaguely toward the corner of the room. "That girl hasn’t left your side since we pulled you all out of the mud. Be careful who you make allies with, Dryden."
My stomach physically churns. Hearing a warning about treacherous allies coming from him is a level of irony so thick it makes me want to vomit.
I just let out a long, heavy sigh and nod.
Rae closes the door behind him, leaving me alone with the quiet hum of the medical equipment.
I need to calm down. The sheer stress of shaking my murderer’s hand has my pulse racing. I close my eyes and focus on my HUD, pulling up the backlog of system messages that piled up while I was bleeding out in the dirt.
[Reward: +6% to Rank Advancement (Humanoid Kills)]
[Reward: +4% to Rank Advancement (Battle Royale Survival)]
[Current Rank Status: 32%]
[Reward: +2 Pure Shards]
[Scales: 275 -> 475]
[Hadal Notoriety: Unknown > Local Rumor]
I stare at the glowing numbers.
Thirty-two percent and a local rumor...
In less than three days since dropping into Thirstfall. The growth rate is absolutely insane. The System is violently reactive to my actions. In my last life, it took me four agonizing months of scavenging to reach this point.
It took an entire year just to afford my first "resurface" back to Earth.
But the rank percentage isn’t the only thing that changed while I was unconscious.
A notification buried at the bottom of the backlog catches my eye. It’s timestamped six hours after I blacked out in the ravine.
[Attribute Adaptation: Vitality → D (4★)]
[Condition: Critical injury recovery cycle ×4 within 72-hour window. Shell-class regeneration ceiling breached. Structural adaptation registered.]
I read the condition line three times.
Recovery cycle times four.
The System didn’t count the hits. It counted the recoveries. The Stalker’s headbutt on my chest. The cracked ribs from the fall. The crossbow bolt in my shoulder. The crushing hug that nearly snapped my spine. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Four times this body shattered, and four times it stitched itself back together with nothing but cheap potions, raw Scales, and sheer biological spite.
I press my thumb against the fresh scar tissue on my shoulder. The skin is taut, dense. Not the soft, fragile tissue of a Shell. It feels like leather that’s been worked too hard and came out tougher for it.
The System doesn’t track how many times I got hit, I realize, staring at the sterile ceiling of the infirmary. It tracks how many times I refused to stay down.
I dismiss the window. A faint, bitter satisfaction settles in my chest—not pride, but the grim acknowledgment of a body that’s learning to take a beating without falling apart.
I swipe to the next notification.
[Message: Phase One - Battle Royale Rankings]
[1st: Freya Gunnulf / Dryden Sands (Tie)]
[2nd: Gustav Romanov]
[3rd: Lola Shrapnell]
[4th: Veric Azurea]
[5th: Lee Hye Jin]
[...]
[20th: Rhayne Vesper]
My eyes lock onto the top of the list.
Freya Gunnulf. A dead tie for first place.
The Ice Valkyrie doesn’t disappoint, even in this broken timeline.
Back in the day, she was the gold standard—the absolute monster of a cadet I used to idolize and model my own survival after. But tying with a prodigy of that caliber isn’t a blessing.
It’s a death sentence.
It is going to paint a massive, glowing target on my back for every noble house in Azure Prime.
My eyes drift down the list. Rhayne at 20th. I am genuinely surprised she managed to place in the Top 20 as a Top-Graded cadet considering she spent most of the trial tied upside down like a piñata.
Finally, I pull up the status for Eventide.
[Eventide - Devoured Soul: 3/50]
So the two cadets I sliced in the ravine counted too. Good to know.
A low moan breaks the sterile silence of the infirmary.
I dismiss the System windows and turn my head. In the corner of the room, the bandages wrapped around Rhayne’s wrists shift. Her storm-cloud gray eyes flutter, opening slowly as she wakes up to the new reality we forged with blood and OXI.
I grab a red apple from the nightstand beside my bed and toss it underhand. It lands perfectly in her lap.
She flinches, looking at the fruit, then up at me.
"You absorbed the catastrophic cost of my blade," I tell her, my voice flat, dealing only in absolute facts. "If it wasn’t for you, my core would have collapsed in thirty seconds, and we’d all be rotting in that ravine right now."
Rhayne just stares at me, completely shell-shocked.
She stares at me like I’ve spoken a language she’s never heard before. I can almost see it hitting her—maybe the first time anyone has looked at her curse and called it a weapon.
She opens her mouth, struggling to find the words to respond, but a loud, metallic slam interrupts her.
The infirmary door swings wide open.
Veric marches in.
He is still carrying his trademark arrogance, but the vibe is entirely different. He looks less like a noble looking down on a peasant, and more like a frat bro who just realized his quiet roommate is a millionaire.
"Well, well, well," Veric booms, crossing his arms. "I guess I officially lost the wager. Which means I’ll be taking care of your OXI tab from now on. Don’t think I’m thrilled about it, Sands, but numbers don’t lie. You are, without a doubt, the best investment I’ve ever made."
Right behind Veric’s massive frame, little Lola shuffles into the room.
She isn’t her usual apathetic self. Her head is down, her steps quick and anxious. She looks incredibly sad.
"What’s wrong, Little Bear?" I ask, pushing myself up into a seated position.
Lola stops at the foot of my bed, her fingers aggressively twisting the hem of her white hoodie.
"I was worried," she mumbles, not making eye contact. "I thought you were going to disappear. Like my parents did."
The room goes quiet for a second. Even Veric doesn’t say anything.
Lola sniffs once, hard, and straightens up. "And the Pot was being extremely loud while you were asleep."
Veric rolls his eyes and shrugs defensively. "I was commanding the medics. Someone had to make sure they didn’t harvest your organs, rat."
"I’m fine, Lola. I’m not going anywhere," I reassure her, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. The cold floor sends a shiver up my spine. "Come on. Let’s get out of here."
I grab my tattered jacket and prepare to lead my highly dysfunctional squad out of the ward.
As I walk past the plastic chair, I feel a weak tug on my sleeve.
I stop and look down. Rhayne is holding the fabric, her gray eyes wide and serious.
"What is it?" I ask.
"Thank you," she whispers, her voice rough from disuse. "Truly."
I give her a single, firm nod, ready to keep walking.
But Rhayne doesn’t let go of my sleeve. Her grip tightens.
"You need to be careful, Dryden," she warns, her tone dropping into a dead-serious whisper that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
"You made far more enemies out there than you think. In the last two days while you were unconscious... someone tried to kill me twice in this hospital."
She looks up at me, the shadow of the void swirling in her eyes.
"And I don’t think they were after me. I believe you are the real target."
