Elara didn't look away from him.
"Lyra," she said calmly, her voice steady as ever, "have it recorded that this child possesses only Ice and Lightning affinities… and that he has awakened an SS- rank mana core."
Lyra froze for a brief second.
"Y-yes, ma'am."
There was hesitation in her voice, but she didn't question it.
"Now leave," Elara continued. "I want to speak with him alone."
"...Understood."
Lyra gave one last glance toward Rio—this time not amused, but uncertain—before turning and leaving the room.
The door closed.
Silence followed.
---
It wasn't the same silence as before.
This one felt heavier.
More personal.
Rio stood there, unmoving.
His thoughts were a mess, fragments colliding into each other without forming anything clear.
All affinities…
Grey core…
They know… no, she knows…
His breathing was uneven, but he tried to control it.
It didn't help.
Elara simply watched him.
No pressure.
No visible reaction.
Just—
Watching.
Then she stood.
Slowly.
And began walking toward him.
Rio's body stiffened instantly.
Every instinct told him to move.
To step back.
To create distance.
But he couldn't.
It was as if something held him in place.
Not force.
Not fear alone.
Something deeper.
Her steps were quiet.
Measured.
Each one closing the distance between them.
His breath grew shallow.
His heartbeat louder.
She can see through me.
That thought hit him suddenly.
Not logically.
Instinctively.
Her blue eyes didn't feel like they were looking at him.
They felt like they were looking into him.
She stopped right in front of him.
Close enough that he could feel her presence clearly now.
Rio didn't move.
He couldn't.
And then—
Warmth.
His eyes widened slightly.
"…Huh?"
He looked up.
Her hand rested gently on his head.
For a moment, his thoughts stopped completely.
Her expression hadn't changed.
Still calm.
Still composed.
But—
Her eyes…
They weren't as cold anymore.
"Child," she said quietly, her voice softer than before, "tell me your true name."
Rio's mind went blank.
He hadn't meant to answer.
He hadn't planned to.
But the words came out anyway.
"…Rio Valen."
Elara's gaze shifted slightly.
"Valen…"
A brief pause.
"As in the ducal house of the Astryx Empire?"
His throat tightened.
"Y-yes… ma'am."
Silence.
For a second, he thought—
This was it.
Suspicion.
Interrogation.
Control.
Instead—
She stepped closer.
And before he could react—
She pulled him in.
Rio froze.
It wasn't forceful.
It wasn't tight.
It wasn't even natural.
It felt—
Awkward.
Unfamiliar.
A hug.
His eyes widened slightly, confusion overtaking everything else.
"…What…?"
Her voice came quietly, close enough that he could hear it clearly.
"You've been through a lot."
That was all she said.
No judgment.
No questioning.
No pressure.
Just—
That.
Something inside him cracked.
He didn't understand it at first.
Didn't recognize the feeling.
Didn't even realize when his hands clenched slightly.
Then—
His vision blurred.
"…Ah…"
A weak sound escaped him.
The tension he had been holding since the lab—
Since waking up—
Since everything—
Collapsed all at once.
Tears.
---
He hadn't meant to cry.
Didn't want to.
Didn't even understand why.
But they came anyway.
Silent at first.
Then harder.
---
His body trembled slightly, the exhaustion finally catching up to him.
The confusion.
The fear.
The pressure of everything he didn't understand.
---
And for the first time—
He didn't try to hold it back.
Elara didn't move.
Didn't speak again.
She simply remained there, steady, letting him break without interruption.
His grip weakened.
His breathing slowed.
And eventually—
His body gave in.
The exhaustion pulled him under.
And just like that—
Rio fell asleep.
---
Rio woke slowly.
The softness beneath him felt unfamiliar for a moment, his mind still clouded from exhaustion. Then reality settled back in, piece by piece.
The room.
The guild.
Elara.
"…Right."
He pushed himself up slightly, running a hand through his hair as he adjusted to the light.
"Mhm…?"
Something caught his eye.
A note rested beside the bed.
He picked it up.
Training begins at 3:00 PM.
Rio glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall.
2:00.
"…I've got an hour."
His voice was quiet, still slightly hoarse.
For a moment, he just sat there, letting the silence settle. Then his expression shifted slightly.
"…Guess it's time."
He leaned back slightly, focusing inward.
"Let's see what I'm dealing with."
A faint pulse ran through his mind.
And then—
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ STATUS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Rio Valen
Title: The Extra 082
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Core & Energy
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Core: SSS− (Unstable)
Mana Capacity: E−
Mana Control: F+
Core Stability: D−
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physical Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: F+
Agility: E−
Endurance: F
Vitality: F+
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mental Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Intelligence: E+
Perception: D−
Focus: E
Willpower: D
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Affinities
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Fire — SS+
Water — SS+
Ice — SS+
Lightning — SS+
Light — S+
Darkness — S+
Space — SSS−
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Combat
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sword Styles: None
Combat Experience: Minimal
Adaptability: D
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traits
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Artificial Core Host]
[Multi-Affinity Vessel]
[Unstable Existence]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Condition
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Status: Stable (Temporary)
Warning: Core instability detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rio stared at it in silence.
"…What the hell is this…"
His eyes moved slowly across the information, processing each section one by one.
The core.
SSS−.
That alone didn't make sense.
But then—
His stats.
"…These are garbage."
His strength, agility—almost everything was low. Even below average.
It didn't match the core at all.
Then his gaze shifted downward.
Affinities.
All of them.
Every single one.
Fire. Water. Ice. Lightning.
Light. Darkness.
And—
Space.
His fingers tightened slightly.
"…SSS−…"
That wasn't normal.
That wasn't even part of the system, as far as he knew.
Even in the novel, space affinity had only appeared once.
And that person—
Was a monster.
Rio exhaled slowly, leaning back.
"Haah… seriously…"
A quiet, almost disbelieving laugh escaped him.
"How does a single body even handle this…"
Even Samuel—the protagonist—had needed a system to grow that strong.
And even then—
He didn't have this many affinities.
Rio closed his eyes for a moment.
"…So this is what they made."
Not strong.
Not yet.
But—
Something completely outside the rules.
He opened his eyes again, his gaze steady now.
"…Then I don't have time to sit around."
Training.
In one hour.
And with a body like this—
He couldn't afford to waste it.