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

“Kekekeke...”

A quiet laugh escaped Kera's mouth.

Zeldryn, still leaning against the side of the window, could only stare at him in confusion. A moment ago, the man had been laughing like a lunatic. Now he was making another strange sound while wearing the same smile that did absolutely nothing to make him look more trustworthy.

'What now?'

Zeldryn hadn't even had a chance to say anything before Kera raised his empty hand.

Then he snapped his fingers.

Snap.

Something changed immediately.

Zeldryn's eyes widened, not because there had been an explosion or some deafening burst of sound. Nothing broke, no fire appeared, and the room itself remained completely intact. Instead, something far stranger happened directly in front of him.

Mana.

The golden-yellow particles Zeldryn had been able to see since first succeeding in sensing mana the previous day suddenly changed their behavior.

Until now, those particles had always moved according to their own incomprehensible patterns. They drifted lazily through the air, floated in seemingly random directions, and passed through one another without reacting to the physical world around them. Zeldryn had tried touching them, only for his hand to pass straight through. Blowing on them hadn't worked either, and even slapping the air where they floated had produced absolutely no reaction.

Anything Zeldryn did physically seemed to have no effect on mana.

Now, however, the particles were moving.

Not merely one or two of them.

Almost all of them.

Zeldryn instinctively straightened away from the window as dozens, perhaps hundreds, of golden-yellow particles throughout the room changed direction at once. He had no idea how many there actually were, but the difference was impossible to miss. The particles that had previously wandered without any clear purpose now seemed to be responding to something.

The mana near the floor gradually rose while the particles close to the ceiling moved downward. Those around the table, bed, door, and even the open window shifted from their original paths and began gathering together.

Zeldryn held his breath as he followed their movement with his eyes.

The particles slowly formed an arc along one side of the room. That arc continued upward, curved across the space above them, and descended along the opposite side until, within only a few seconds, Zeldryn and Kera were standing inside something resembling a massive sphere.

It wasn't a solid wall. Zeldryn could still see the furniture, door, and everything else in the room through it, but the amount of mana gathered around them had become far denser than before.

Zeldryn said nothing as his gaze followed the moving particles.

'This is...'

One word immediately surfaced in Reka's memories.

'Magic.'

Of course, Zeldryn already knew mana was real. He had seen it, sensed it, and had even attempted to absorb it the previous night. As Reka, he had also spent three months reading more than five thousand chapters of Life Really Is Happy, Right?, so he knew that the world contained things far more extraordinary than what Kera was demonstrating.

He had read about massive battles, attacks fueled by mana, weapons coated in power, enormous explosions, and conflicts destructive enough to bring entire kingdoms to ruin. Compared to everything that happened later in the novel, whatever Kera was doing now probably wasn't even considered particularly remarkable.

But that wasn't the point.

Back then, Reka had only been reading words on a screen. He had seen letters, sentences, and descriptions, then relied on his imagination to turn them into something he could picture.

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This was different.

Mana was genuinely moving directly in front of his eyes.

The same particles he hadn't been able to influence even slightly the previous day were now obeying a single snap of Kera's fingers. Something Reka had only ever encountered in movies, games, comics, and novels throughout his decades of life as a modern human was happening a few meters away from him.

Zeldryn remained speechless for several moments.

Reading about something and witnessing it with his own eyes really were two completely different experiences.

His amazement didn't last long, however. Reality suddenly caught up with him, and Zeldryn's attention snapped back toward Kera.

'Wait. Why the hell is he suddenly using mana?'

“W-What the hell are you doing, bastard?”

A slight stammer slipped out before Zeldryn could stop it.

Kera obviously noticed. The man gave a quiet chuckle while the strange smile returned to his face.

“Hehe. I simply don't feel comfortable letting other people hear our conversation,” Kera said before pausing briefly. “Or see us.”

Zeldryn frowned and looked back toward the dense layer of mana surrounding them.

“Huh?” He pointed toward the particles. “You mean people can't see or hear us while this thing is here?”

Kera went silent.

Then his smile slowly widened.

Zeldryn immediately recognized that expression.

'This bastard is about to start again.'

Kera tilted his head slightly. “Even the child of a Level 5 Manholer doesn't know what this is?”

Zeldryn's eyebrow twitched.

“It appears I overestimated you earlier,” Kera continued with obvious amusement.

'Bastard.'

Zeldryn cursed him silently, but before he could answer, Kera moved his hand again.

The mana particles surrounding most of the room immediately responded. The enormous sphere began contracting as the particles near the window pulled inward and those above Zeldryn's head shifted toward the center.

Everything moved toward Kera.

The sphere that had occupied almost the entire room became smaller in a smooth, continuous motion. Its boundary contracted from several meters away until it drew closer and closer to Kera, eventually passing completely beyond Zeldryn's body.

At that exact moment, Kera disappeared.

Zeldryn froze.

It wasn't only Kera. The dense mana that had previously surrounded them also vanished from Zeldryn's sight. There was no barrier left behind, no cluster of golden-yellow particles revealing Kera's location, no human silhouette, and not even the slightest distortion in the air.

There was nothing.

The bedroom door remained open behind the place where Kera had been standing, but the space itself was completely empty.

“...Huh?”

Zeldryn blinked several times and tilted his head. He looked to the right, then to the left, before staring directly at the exact spot where Kera had last been standing.

Nothing appeared.

Even Zeldryn's ability to see mana gave him no clue whatsoever. It was as though Kera had been completely erased from the room.

Zeldryn swallowed.

'Mana can be used like this?'

His memories of the novel immediately surfaced. Based on what he remembered, concealing someone's presence certainly wasn't impossible in this world. There were abilities far stranger and far more difficult for someone from Earth to accept logically.

Yet once again, knowing something from a novel and witnessing it directly were entirely different experiences.

Or, in this case, witnessing absolutely nothing.

“Damn...” Zeldryn muttered.

Only seconds ago, Kera had been standing directly in front of him. Now, even though Zeldryn knew exactly where he had last seen the man, he couldn't detect the slightest trace of him.

Questions immediately began filling his mind.

How had Kera done it? Was he actually invisible, or was the mana interfering with Zeldryn's senses somehow? Was Kera still standing in the same place? If the earlier technique could also stop sound from leaving a certain area, then mana clearly had uses far beyond direct combat.

Zeldryn also wondered whether every Level 3 Manholer could do something like this or whether Kera had learned a specialized technique. More importantly, if someone used this ability during an actual fight, how was an opponent supposed to counter it?

He became so absorbed in those questions that he failed to notice anything approaching.

Slap!

Zeldryn's head jerked sideways as a burning sensation spread across his cheek.

“Huh!?”

His hand immediately rose to his face while he turned toward the direction the strike had come from.

The space beside him was empty.

There was no person, hand, body, or visible mana anywhere nearby.

“What...?”

Before Zeldryn could understand what had happened, another sharp impact struck his opposite cheek.

Slap!

“Hah?!”

He immediately stepped backward and raised both hands instinctively. His eyes moved rapidly across the room, searching the front, sides, and space behind him, but nothing revealed Kera's location.

Then the man's voice suddenly came from somewhere nearby.

“Young Lord Idiot.”

Zeldryn immediately turned toward the sound.

There was still nothing there.

Kera's voice returned before Zeldryn could locate him.

“If this were a real fight...” Kera paused briefly while Zeldryn continued searching the empty room. “You would already be dead twice.”

Zeldryn didn't answer immediately.

His hands slowly lowered.

He thought about the first slap. He hadn't seen it coming at all. The second had been exactly the same. Despite being able to see mana since the previous day, he hadn't detected Kera's approach or even realized an attack was coming until the man's hand had already struck him.

If Kera had been holding a knife, sword, or anything else intended to kill instead of using his bare hand, the first attack alone might have been enough to end Zeldryn's life.

Zeldryn stared into the empty space in front of him.

There was no Kera, no visible mana, and no clue telling him where the man was standing.

For the first time since arriving in this world, the difference between merely knowing that Manholers were powerful and actually standing before someone vastly more experienced became painfully clear.

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