One Last System

"I will surely help you become a true cultivator capable of wielding the true mana, instead of the inferior stuff you are using right now."

It felt good to give out a powerful statement such as this one. And it felt even better knowing that I was fully capable of actually doing it.

The question now, though, was whether Levi would be satisfied with this or not.

"Can you really?" Levi raised one of his eyebrows, giving me a look of suspicion.

"There might be times when our ideas of how the world or people work might be different," I replied, seemingly changing the topic. "But does that mean I suddenly turned into someone who gives out this kind of statement lightly?"

There was one thing to doubt my ability. But it was a whole different thing to doubt the honesty behind my words.

And if I said that I would do something, then given the position Levi occupied in my heart, he could be damn sure I was willing to back those words up with action!

"Well, fine then," Levi finally relented. "It's not like I actually wanted this boost in the first place. So when the time comes when you will be ready to introduce it, I will just treat it as a nice, little present," Levi finally said.

And now, for the first time in a while, he openly smiled, showcasing just how he played me.

'Right, he wasn't interested in true mana at all,' I realized what kind of game my former master played.

I had all the facts right before my eyes, all his intentions spelled out. And yet, in the heat of the moment, I simply forgot about them.

Or rather, when the topic of distributing the benefits of the loot from the recent fight came to be, instead of treating Levi as a proper friend and companion, I treated him like a stranger party of equal standing to mine.

"Guys," Mia interrupted our talk just as it drew to an end. "I think they are starting to wake up."

Mia's report caused both of me and Levi to turn around and look in the direction of the small, barrier-oriented prison I created for all the former hosts of the anti-mana monsters.

And with just a single glance, I confirmed Mia's report.

"Ugh..." one of the men who ended up cleaned off the anti-mana relatively early released a pained groan. Then, he moved his upper body up while raising his hand to his head to massage his temples.

The man then shook his head. And judging from how the sides of his jaws bulged up, he also clenched his teeth. Then, he raised his face and opened his eyes, taking the very first look at the new world around him.

"I'm... alive?" he muttered, unable to figure out what was going on.

"Good morning," I said, approaching the invisible prison and squatting down just an inch away from where my barrier stood.

This allowed me to be at a comfortably close distance away from the man without making him suspicious about the presence of the barrier itself.

A perfect distance that wasn't awkwardly far yet didn't intrude upon the man's comfort zone.

"Who are you?" the man then asked, fighting off his headache while he looked up at my face.

Yet, right as I opened my mouth to explain the situation, two more guys and one girl started to move as well, indicating they would be waking up any moment now.

So, rather than putting myself in a situation where I would have to endlessly repeat everything over and over again, I simply waited before all four of them regained their consciousness.

"Okay, listen and listen well because you will need to repeat it to everyone else once they wake up," I said.

And it appeared that it was those words that made the four of the awake otherworlders finally realize the presence of nearly two hundred other people sleeping in a relatively small area.

"For now, I will just give you the bare rundown of what's going on. Once you all wake up, we will move towards the next step of the conversation," I stated.

Then, rather than killing the blood flow in my legs by continuously squatting down, I pushed myself to the back a little, plummeting down on my ass before crossing my legs and taking a somewhat comfortable position.

"Your world fell apart. Those who were powerful enough all used some sort of technique to weather through the pains of falling through dimensional rifts that followed the destruction of your world. Am I right so far?" I then asked, trying to make the conversation a bit more interactive than just a dull monologue.

The man who woke up first clenched his teeth again.

"How do you..." he attempted to ask, only to end up shaking his head. "No," he then shook his head sideways, only to then turn this motion into a continuous nod. "You are right. That's exactly what happened."

'So that lass didn't lie to me,' I thought, recalling the very first victim of the disaster that I saved. 'Now that I think about her, I wonder what she's up to?'

For a second, I allowed my curiosity to run wild. And then, with a shake of my head, I dropped the topic and turned my attention back to the problem at hand.

"In short words, when you passed through the dimensional rift, it corrupted your defensive technique. As a result, the energy used for that technique turned you into monsters made up of the spiritual energy of the opposite factor to the spiritual energy occurring in this world," I explained a bit, intentionally using some more complicated terms to see how the man would react.

Yet, he didn't appear to be confused at all. Instead, his eyes twitched a little only for his eyelids to drop down as he got into thinking.

"We fought with your monster forms and sheared all that negative energy off you so that you could wake up as humans again," I said before pointing my hand out to where the battle took place. "You can see the liquified form of that energy all over the place."

I stood up in one, fluid motion.

"And now, I will leave it to the four of you to explain this mess to everyone else," I added only to turn around on my heel and move back to my own group.

"Now then, what are we going to do with all of them?" Levi asked with a small smile.

"That's exactly the problem that I want to discuss with the two of you."