Etzel Deymar had acquired an A-Rank summon.
This was, objectively, an excellent development.
There was only one problem.
Etzel was bleeding on him.
Dark Knight looked down at the red drops striking one polished silver gauntlet. Then he looked at Etzel.
Etzel followed his gaze. "Oh."
His shoulder had apparently decided that surviving the Graveglass Reaver did not exempt him from blood loss. "Right."
DK rose from his kneeling position. The movement was smooth. Too smooth. One moment he was kneeling. The next, he stood at his full height, shield on one arm and sword at his side as though the transition between the two positions simply hadn't required effort.
Etzel noticed something else. DK was tall. Not ridiculously tall. Just tall enough that Etzel immediately resented having to look slightly upward at his own summon.
DK's eyes moved over him. Shoulder. Ribs. Hands. Face. Back to shoulder.
"You are injured."
Etzel glanced at the dead Graveglass Reaver. Then at the shredded remains of his backpack. Then at the blood running down his arm. "I noticed somewhere between being thrown into a tree and bleeding."
DK did not smile.
Etzel waited. Nothing.
"That one was better in my head."
"You need treatment."
"I have a first-aid kit." Etzel looked toward the contents of his backpack scattered across the forest floor. A roll of gauze had landed beside a bush. His water bottle was several meters away. One of his knives had disappeared completely. The first-aid kit lay upside down beneath a fern.
Etzel pointed. "Technically, I have several pieces of a first-aid kit."
DK walked toward it. "Sit."
Etzel blinked. "Was that an order?"
DK stopped. For the first time since appearing, uncertainty crossed his face. "I..." His brow furrowed. "I believe so."
Etzel grinned. "Interesting relationship we've got here."
"Sit."
"Definitely an order that time." Etzel sat. Mostly because his ribs agreed with DK.
He leaned against a tree while DK collected the scattered medical supplies. Etzel watched him. There was something deeply strange about seeing a warrior in full plate armor picking antiseptic wipes out of dead leaves.
Stranger still was the way DK examined everything. He turned the sealed dressing once in his fingers. Read the label. Looked at the adhesive. Then seemed to understand what it was for.
"Have you used one of those before?" Etzel asked.
"No." That answer came immediately.
DK knelt beside him. "Take off your shirt."
Etzel looked at him. "You're moving very quickly for a relationship that's barely five minutes old."
DK stared.
Etzel sighed. "Nothing?"
"I do not understand."
"That's going to make this either much easier or much harder." He carefully pulled his shirt over his head. Pain stabbed through his shoulder. His breath caught.
DK's expression changed instantly. The uncertainty was gone. His voice became clipped. Precise.
"Do not move the arm." He pressed two fingers carefully around the wound.
Etzel hissed.
"Deep laceration. No obvious fracture." DK moved to his ribs. "Tell me if breathing becomes difficult."
"It's already difficult."
DK's eyes sharpened.
Etzel raised a hand. "Because it hurts. I can breathe."
DK pressed carefully along his side. Pain flared. Etzel swore.
"Bruised. Possibly cracked."
"You sound very confident for someone who doesn't know his own name."
DK's hands stopped. Silence.
Etzel immediately regretted saying it. Not because DK looked angry. He didn't. He looked at his own hands. The blood on his fingers. The bandage. Then back at Etzel's wound.
"I know how to treat this."
"Apparently."
"I know where the wound is dangerous." DK's voice had gone quieter. "I know how tightly to bind your ribs without restricting your breathing. I know how to recognize internal bleeding. I know how to tell whether a blade has damaged a tendon."
He stared at the dressing in his hand. "I do not know why."
Etzel's smile faded. DK looked almost offended by his own knowledge. As if his body were keeping secrets from him.
Etzel leaned his head against the tree. "Well."
DK looked at him.
"Until we figure it out, I'm voting that knowing how to stop me from dying goes in the useful category."
A pause. Then the corner of DK's mouth moved. Barely.
Etzel pointed at him. "I saw that."
"Saw what?"
"Nothing." DK began cleaning the wound.
Etzel discovered that antiseptic had survived the apocalypse specifically to hurt people. "Ah—"
"Hold still."
"That is an unreasonable request."
"You fought that creature."
"Yes."
"You can survive this."
"The creature didn't smell like a hospital."
DK paused. This time Etzel definitely saw it. A tiny smile. Victory.
"You're learning."
"I fear I may be."
DK finished dressing the wound with the efficiency of someone who had done it hundreds of times. Perhaps thousands.
That thought remained with Etzel. He watched DK secure the final bandage. The man's hands never hesitated. Not once.
His memory was gone. His knowledge wasn't. At least not all of it.
Which raised a rather significant question. What kind of life taught someone to treat sword wounds so naturally that forgetting his own name couldn't erase it?
Etzel decided not to ask. Not yet.
Instead, he summoned the interface. DK's information appeared.
[SUMMON STATUS]Name: Dark KnightRank: APotential: SS
Etzel stared at it again. No matter how many times he looked, the letters refused to become less absurd.
DK noticed. "What is it?"
"You."
"I am aware of that much."
"Oh, good. We're making progress." DK waited.
Etzel pointed at the floating interface. "Can you see this?"
"No."
"Right. You're A-Rank."
DK considered that. "Is that good?"
Etzel stared at him. "Is that good?"
"I assume from your expression that it is."
Etzel gestured toward the dead Reaver. "I nearly got turned into forest decoration by that thing."
DK glanced at the corpse. "Yes."
"You don't have to agree that quickly."
"You were badly injured."
"I survived."
"Barely."
Etzel rolled his eyes. "F-Rank. Level One."
DK looked him over. "Ah."
Etzel's eyes narrowed. "What does 'ah' mean?"
"I understand the disparity."
"You're enjoying this now."
"I believe I am."
There it was. Etzel smiled. The armored stranger had been alive—or dead, technically—for less than half an hour, and somehow Etzel had already discovered that beneath the solemn voice and military posture lived a man perfectly capable of being annoying.
Excellent. He liked him.
That realization came surprisingly easily. Maybe because DK didn't feel like a creature. Or a spell. Or a servant.
He felt like a partner. A very shiny, heavily armed, slightly condescending partner.
Etzel's stomach growled. Loudly.
DK looked down. "You require sustenance."
"I require a feast. But I'll settle for the protein bars that didn't get crushed." Etzel reached for his bag. Then remembered his backpack was shredded. "Right. No food."
He looked at the Basic Recovery Potion in his inventory.
ITEM: Basic Recovery PotionEffect: Restores minor health over time│Note: Tastes like regret.
"Sometimes strategic genius is knowing when the obvious answer is obvious for a reason." Etzel selected it.
A small glass vial appeared in his hand. Etzel stared at it. Dark red liquid shifted inside.
DK stared too. "Convenient."
"Finally, something we agree on." Etzel removed the stopper. Paused. Smelled it.
"What?" DK asked.
"I'm checking whether it smells poisonous."
"Would that stop you?"
Etzel considered. "No."
He drank.
It tasted like someone had dissolved bitter herbs in warm metal. His face twisted. "That's horrible."
"Effective?"
"Ask me when I stop tasting coins."
The effect came gradually. The pain didn't disappear. That would have been absurd. But the sharpness around his ribs softened. The throbbing in his shoulder eased. His forearm stopped bleeding within minutes.
Etzel looked at the empty vial. "Okay." He turned it upside down. "Still horrible."
Then he noticed DK had moved to appraise the surrounding forest.
Branches cracked somewhere to Etzel's right.
Fast. Very fast.
Etzel turned. DK's sword was halfway out of its sheath when a gray shape burst through a wall of fern.
Etzel saw four legs. A narrow head. Two curved horns. Blood along one flank. And eyes wide enough to show white.
The System flashed.
TARGET DETECTEDName: Ashhorn RunnerThreat Classification: Common
The creature didn't slow. It wasn't charging them. It was running through them.
"Move!" Etzel jumped left. DK stepped right.
The Ashhorn shot between them. Then Etzel saw the problem. A fallen trunk blocked the path ahead. The creature saw it too late. It tried to turn.
One hoof slipped in wet soil. Its body twisted. The horn swung toward Etzel.
He moved before thinking. Not away. Inside. Yesterday's lesson. Don't watch the weapon. Watch what has to move before it.
The Ashhorn's shoulders dropped before its head turned. Etzel saw it. One step. The horn passed beside his ribs.
He caught the creature's neck with his left hand. Bad idea. The Ashhorn weighed far more than he did. It dragged him two steps. Etzel nearly lost his footing.
Then his hatchet came down. Once.
The blade struck behind the jaw. The Ashhorn screamed. Etzel released it before it could pull him down. It stumbled.
Turned.
This time he watched the shoulders. Drop. Turn. Horn.
Etzel stepped outside the arc. His hatchet struck the side of its neck.
The Ashhorn collapsed. Its legs kicked twice. Stopped.
Etzel stood over it, breathing hard. Not exhausted. Not terrified. Hard. That was different.
DK looked at the corpse. Then at Etzel.
Etzel waited. "Well?"
"You retained your weapon."
Etzel stared at him. "That's your compliment?"
"It is an improvement."
"I killed it in two exchanges."
"You retained your weapon during both."
Etzel pointed the bloody hatchet at him. "One day you're going to say you're proud of me and it's going to physically hurt you."
"I don't know what that means."
"I know."
The System appeared.
Ashhorn Runner defeated.Combat contribution confirmed.Level Progression gained.
A second line formed. Then another. Etzel's smile vanished.
[LEVEL UP: LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]
For one strange second, nothing happened. Then warmth moved through him. Not heat. Not exactly. It began somewhere behind his sternum and spread outward. Shoulders. Arms. Spine. Legs.
Etzel inhaled sharply. His muscles tightened without his permission. His vision sharpened. The trees did not suddenly become crystal clear. He didn't become stronger than physics. But the world felt—
Closer.
His breathing steadied faster than it should have. The ache in his ribs remained. The cut on his arm remained. His shoulder remained injured. Yet beneath all of it, something had changed. His body felt more capable of carrying itself.
Etzel flexed his hand. "That is weird."
DK watched him. "Level?"
"Two."
"Difference?"
Etzel rolled his shoulder. Pain answered immediately. "Still injured."
"Useful."
"But..." He bent his knees. Straightened. The movement felt easier. "I feel like I could run for another ten kilometers."
"Then run."
Etzel laughed. "No. But I feel like I could."
DK looked at the dead Ashhorn. "You learned its timing after three exchanges."
Etzel stopped. "Is that good?"
DK didn't answer immediately. That made Etzel pay attention.
"Yes."
One word. No joke. No qualification. Coming from the man Etzel had watched dismantle a Brambleback Tusker without effort, it landed differently.
Etzel looked at the dead Ashhorn. His breathing slowly steadied. "Good."
DK bent and picked up the discarded hatchet. He offered it to him.
Etzel took it. "Next time, keep hold of your weapon."
"There it is."
"What?"
"I was worried the moment might become too supportive."
They continued.
The next forty minutes gave them no answers. Only evidence.
A burrow abandoned so quickly that fresh food remained outside it. Broken brush. Feathers scattered beneath a tree, but no blood.
Tracks. Always tracks.
Some moving north. Others east. Different species. Different sizes. Same behavior.
Away from the deeper forest.
Etzel stopped beside a shallow stream. "Something doesn't fit."
DK looked at him. "Only one thing?"
"Helpful." Etzel crouched. He looked at the tracks crossing the damp earth. Different sizes. Different species, probably. All moving in the same direction.
Away.
"DK." The knight was already looking at him.
Etzel felt cold despite the potion's warmth. "The wounds."
"Yes."
"They weren't trying to kill them."
"No." Etzel looked at the fleeing tracks. Five sets behind them. More ahead. Creatures scattering toward the outer forest.
Except scattering wasn't the right word anymore. The directions weren't random. They only looked random individually.
Together—
They formed a pattern.
Etzel slowly turned toward the deeper trees. "Then what was it doing?"
DK's hand settled on his sword. For several seconds he said nothing. When he finally answered, his voice had lost every trace of humor.
"Herding them."
Etzel stared into the forest.
The forest beyond them was silent. Too silent.
Etzel stared into it. Yesterday, he would have wondered what was in there. Today, he knew enough to ask a better question.
What could make the monsters run?