The Life I Refuse To Waste [Slow Burn | Isekai | Remastered ]

Zeldryn remained seated in his chair with his eyes open, his gaze fixed on the empty space in front of him even though his mind was paying no attention to the room. Only one thing continued circling through his thoughts.

Mana.

How was he supposed to absorb it? More importantly, once it had been absorbed, how was he supposed to make that mana move toward his Mana Hole?

Zeldryn dug through his memories of Life Really Is Happy, Right? He had read more than five thousand chapters filled with countless battles, training sessions, increases in power, and abilities that used mana. Somewhere among all of that, there had to be something he could use, even if it was only a tiny piece of information, a single explanation, or one sentence he had overlooked at the time.

He leaned back slightly in his chair and shifted his eyes toward the ceiling as he continued trying to remember. How had the protagonist absorbed mana for the first time?

Zeldryn remembered a few parts. The protagonist had sat down, sensed mana, absorbed it, and then...

He frowned.

That was it.

Apparently, the novel had never explained the process in much detail, or at least there was no detailed explanation that Zeldryn could still remember. In the story, everything had seemed simple. The protagonist absorbed mana from his surroundings, and once it entered his body, he let it move toward his Mana Hole. Then the process was complete.

Zeldryn slowly tapped one finger against the table as he repeated the sentence in his mind.

'Absorb the mana, then let it move toward the Mana Hole.'

His finger tapped the table several more times before suddenly stopping. Zeldryn's eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Wait,” he said quietly.

There was one part that suddenly felt important.

'Let it move.'

Not move it himself. Not force it.

Let it.

Zeldryn immediately sat up straight as his mind returned to the experiment he had done that afternoon. When he first managed to focus on mana, a single tiny golden-yellow particle had appeared within the darkness of his mind. Afterward, once he opened his eyes, he had been able to see the mana particles filling the air around him.

Until now, Zeldryn had assumed that he needed to find some way to control those particles. He had thought he needed to pull them, move them, or somehow force them inside his body. But what if that assumption had been wrong from the beginning?

What if the moment a mana particle appeared inside his mind was already the beginning of the absorption process?

Zeldryn touched his chin as he considered the possibility. “If that's the case... maybe I don't need to force it to move.”

He remembered the sentence from the novel once more.

'Let it move toward the Mana Hole.'

“So I just need to let it?” Zeldryn asked himself.

Of course, he had no idea whether the theory was actually correct. He didn't even understand what had truly happened when that single mana particle appeared inside his mind earlier that afternoon. Compared to every other possibility he had right now, however, at least this theory was based on something he had actually read.

Unfortunately, that still left him with another problem.

The Mana Hole.

Zeldryn knew the term and understood that every Manholer possessed one, with absorbed mana eventually moving there. Beyond its general function, however, his knowledge became embarrassingly vague.

“What exactly is a Mana Hole?” Zeldryn quietly asked himself.

What did it look like? How was someone supposed to sense it? How could a person know when mana had reached it?

Zeldryn had absolutely no idea.

The novel had treated things like that as basic knowledge that everyone in the world already understood. The problem was that Reka wasn't from this world. He had only been a reader, and now he needed to understand something he had never even bothered thinking about while reading.

He slowly rubbed his face.

'If only this body didn't belong to some isolated bastard...'

If his circumstances had been different, he could probably have just asked someone. Zorin Giorry was a Manholer, and there had to be other people at the main residence who understood mana as well. Guards, knights, teachers, or anyone else who regularly used mana could probably answer a few simple questions.

What was a Mana Hole? How did someone sense it? How did someone absorb mana?

That would have been enough.

Instead, Zeldryn was stuck far away from the main residence while carrying the old Zeldryn's terrible reputation. Asking someone to teach him something he was supposedly already expected to know would only create even more questions.

Zeldryn gritted his teeth, irritation rising as he thought about the circumstances of the body he had ended up in. A few seconds later, however, he took a slow breath and forced himself to settle down.

“There's no point complaining,” Zeldryn told himself.

Complaining wasn't going to make Zorin suddenly appear in his room. It wasn't going to summon a mana teacher who could explain everything to him, and it certainly wasn't going to make a finished novel suddenly provide additional explanations.

For now, Zeldryn only had the information he could still remember, so that was what he had to use.

He returned to his theory. First, he needed to make the mana particles appear inside his mind. After that, he would do nothing. He wouldn't pull them, push them, or try to direct them in any way. He would simply let them move on their own.

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It sounded simple. Almost too simple.

But there was no harm in trying.

Zeldryn adjusted his sitting position and placed both hands as comfortably as possible. He slowly drew in a breath, exhaled, and only then closed his eyes.

The sight of the table, the candle, and the room disappeared into darkness. Zeldryn didn't do anything immediately, choosing instead to calm his mind first. The sound of the night wind could still be heard through the gap in the window, the heat inside the room still clung to his skin, and his body continued to ache from the injuries he had suffered earlier.

One by one, he began shutting those sensations out.

He repeated the same process he had used that afternoon and focused his mind entirely on mana. This time, it was much easier. He didn't need nearly as long as he had during his first attempt before a tiny point of light slowly appeared within the darkness of his mind.

Golden-yellow.

A single mana particle.

Zeldryn recognized it immediately, but before he could think about anything else, a second point appeared.

His attention sharpened in surprise.

Then came a third, followed by a fourth and a fifth. Their numbers continued to grow until more and more golden-yellow particles floated within the darkness of his mind.

That afternoon, Zeldryn had only managed to make a single particle appear. Now there were far more of them. Some looked fairly bright, while others were dim or almost transparent, yet all of them moved through the darkness surrounding him.

Excitement slowly rose inside Zeldryn.

The moment his attention began to shift toward that emotion, however, one of the particles grew dim. Another immediately followed, and several golden-yellow points slowly began disappearing.

Zeldryn understood what was happening.

'Focus.'

He quickly pushed the excitement aside and returned his attention entirely to mana. Slowly, one particle appeared again, followed by another. The points that had vanished began returning one by one.

This time, Zeldryn refused to let his emotions interfere with his concentration. He simply watched them without trying to do anything else.

Once the number of particles became stable again, he remembered his theory.

'Let them move.'

He didn't try to pull a single particle or influence their movement. Instead, Zeldryn kept his mind as relaxed as possible and allowed them to move however they wanted.

Some drifted to the left while others moved to the right. Several seemed to pass straight through one another, and others traveled in directions Zeldryn couldn't understand. Their behavior was almost identical to the mana particles he had seen in the real world.

Zeldryn simply waited.

One minute passed without anything happening. The particles continued moving randomly while he maintained his concentration.

Two minutes passed, then three.

Still nothing changed.

Not a single particle showed any sign of behaving differently, and Zeldryn gradually began to doubt his theory. Even so, he continued waiting.

Four minutes passed.

Then five.

Nothing happened.

'Was my theory wrong?' Zeldryn wondered. 'Maybe the word "let" in the novel didn't mean what I thought it meant. Maybe there's still another step I need to perform, or perhaps I really do need someone to teach me.'

'Looks like I'll have to find someone el...'

Zeldryn's thought abruptly stopped.

One of the mana particles had changed.

His attention immediately focused on it. At first, he thought his concentration had slipped again, but that wasn't what was happening. The particle truly was beginning to disappear.

Only this time, the process was different.

Whenever Zeldryn lost focus, the color of the particles became dimmer first. Their light gradually faded until they eventually vanished. This particle wasn't doing that. Its color remained golden-yellow and its light hadn't dimmed at all, yet its form itself was slowly disappearing, almost as though the surrounding darkness were swallowing it whole.

Zeldryn did nothing. He simply watched until, a few moments later, the particle disappeared completely.

'What was that?'

Before he could search for an answer, another particle began doing the same thing. Its color didn't fade, and its light remained unchanged, but little by little, it too was swallowed by the darkness.

'Huh?'

Zeldryn became even more confused.

Around ten seconds later, another particle followed. Roughly eight seconds after that, another disappeared. Zeldryn started paying closer attention to the intervals between them.

Twelve seconds passed before one vanished, followed by another only five seconds later. The next took fifteen seconds, then twenty, then fourteen.

There was no consistent pattern. Sometimes the particles disappeared quickly, while at other times he had to wait longer. Regardless of the interval, however, their numbers continued to decrease.

Zeldryn still didn't interfere. He remembered the only clue he had.

'Let them move.'

So he waited.

Minute after minute passed as the number of particles continued to decrease. Five minutes became ten, yet Zeldryn maintained his concentration. He didn't know whether what was happening was correct or whether he had made some kind of mistake, but the way these particles vanished was clearly different from what happened when he lost focus.

Because of that, Zeldryn decided to continue.

Twenty minutes passed.

Only a small number of particles remained. The darkness inside his mind, which had previously been filled with golden-yellow points, gradually became empty again as they disappeared one by one.

Around thirty minutes after he had begun, the final particle vanished.

Darkness once again filled Zeldryn's entire mind. There was no more golden-yellow light and not a single mana particle remained, yet he still didn't open his eyes.

'What just happened?'

Zeldryn genuinely didn't know. Had all those particles been successfully absorbed? Had they moved toward his Mana Hole, or had they simply disappeared?

Nothing he remembered from the novel could give him an immediate answer. Maybe that part had never been explained, or perhaps it had been explained and Reka had simply forgotten it. Considering he had read more than five thousand chapters in only three months, either possibility was completely believable.

Zeldryn was still trying to decide what he should do next when something began to feel strange in his lower abdomen, just below his navel.

At first, it was nothing more than faint pressure, and he didn't pay much attention to it. Several seconds later, however, the pressure grew stronger and the area began to tighten.

Then it tightened further.

Zeldryn frowned.

'What is this?'

The pressure continued increasing, becoming stronger with every passing second until pain suddenly exploded through his lower abdomen.

“ARGHHH!”

Zeldryn screamed as his eyes snapped open. His hand instinctively flew toward his lower abdomen, and the pain struck so suddenly that he didn't even have time to understand what had happened before his body folded forward.

“ARGH... DAMN IT!”

He screamed again and immediately tried forcing his attention away from mana. Maybe the pain was happening because he was still concentrating. If he stopped focusing, perhaps it would disappear.

It didn't.

The pain remained exactly where it was and quickly became even worse.

Zeldryn gritted his teeth. It felt as though his lower abdomen had been struck by a blunt object with tremendous force, except pain from a blow usually reached its peak before gradually fading. This was different. The agony wasn't weakening or decreasing in the slightest. It felt as though the same crushing impact remained trapped inside his body, refusing to end.

“ARGHH!”

Zeldryn grabbed his clothes tightly as his body bent even farther forward. The bruises and wounds covering him suddenly felt insignificant compared to the new agony centered beneath his navel.

Then the pain began spreading.

It moved from his lower abdomen into his stomach and waist before reaching his chest, arms, and legs. Zeldryn's breathing became uneven as sweat covered his face and his hands began to tremble.

“Hah... hah...”

Reka had experienced pain during his life in the modern world. He had been injured, fallen, and gotten sick, but never had he experienced anything like this. The pain was so intense that even thinking clearly had become difficult.

Zeldryn tried supporting himself against the table, gripping its edge tightly with his fingers. His strength, however, gradually began to disappear.

His vision started to blur.

The candle flame on the table, which had been perfectly visible only moments ago, began swaying inside his sight. One flame became two before merging back into one, only to become even blurrier.

Zeldryn tried forcing his eyes to focus, but it didn't work.

“What... is happening...?”

He forced the words out through uneven breaths, but there was no answer. Nothing in the room had changed, and the silence was broken only by the sound of his rough breathing.

His vision slowly began to darken as the candlelight shrank before his eyes. Zeldryn's body lost what little strength it had left, and the fingers gripping the edge of the table gradually slipped loose.

The darkness continued closing in until the candlelight disappeared with it.

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