Chapter 735: Self-Annoyance
Liam listened to everything without interrupting, but the more Charlotte explained, the heavier his thoughts became. Being unconscious for a day and a half was not a small thing. In a hostile realm like Nalim, it was practically a death sentence.
If Charlotte had not found him, if she had decided to run like she had originally planned, if she had valued only her own safety in that moment and left him behind, Liam had no real guarantee he would have survived. Even with the academy watching, he could not place faith in Forced Extraction anymore, not after Charlotte had nearly been killed by the Berserker and no extraction had occurred. That meant his survival had depended on something outside his own control, and the thought irritated him deeply.
His irritation was not directed at Charlotte. If anything, her actions had been more than useful. They had been necessary. No, the irritation was entirely toward himself. He had let frustration decide too much. He had wanted a fight, wanted something strong enough to force him to stop holding back, and he had allowed that desire to carry him into a situation where victory still left him helpless on the ground afterward.
Killing the Berserker meant very little if he had been too broken to survive the aftermath by himself.
Liam’s gaze lowered toward the fire.
If this had not been an assessment, if there had been no academy watching from afar, if there had been no Charlotte to return for him, what would have happened? Would he have died unconscious in the forest after winning the fight? Would some lesser demon have found him and torn him apart? Would the victory have become meaningless because he had failed to consider what came after the enemy fell?
That thought bothered him more than the pain in his ribs.
It forced him to remember other times when things had ended similarly. Mystica finding him after the Blood Demon incident in Grandeur City. The aftermath of the Advanced Horror during the Vlardia assessment.
The pattern was clearer now than he liked.
Liam had always focused on eliminating the threat in front of him, pushing through damage and exhaustion without much concern for the condition he would be left in afterward. He had relied too much on the idea that surviving the fight meant surviving the situation.
But those were not the same thing.
That realization settled heavily in him.