Lisan Al-Gaia: Tales of the First SSS Human

"It seems I’m stuck."

Five days had passed since Silas discovered a way to purify his Mana pool. Ten days had gone by since they returned from the mine, and despite the promising progress he had made, he had reached a wall that refused to budge.

"It’s been like this for two days..."

He had just finished another meditation session, yet his body remained clean. Before, every successful purification forced the black impurities out of his body, leaving behind a foul substance that took nearly an hour to wash away along with the mess it left in his dorm.

For the past two days, however, nothing had happened.

"I’m doing everything the same way."

Silas sat cross-legged, a frown settling on his face.

He carefully retraced every step of the process, comparing today’s session to those that had worked before. Nothing had changed. His breathing, his circulation of Mana, even the rhythm of his meditation remained identical, yet the black threads inside his Mana pool no longer budged, and the dark impurities had stopped leaving his body altogether.

The stagnation was frustrating.

For a brief moment, he had believed he had finally found a cure for the curse festering inside him. Now, it felt as though he had been dragged back to the beginning.

"Should I change something?"

The thought surfaced almost immediately, only to be dismissed.

He barely understood the meditation technique he had been taught, and his teacher had made it clear that he would learn nothing more until the end of the year. Blindly altering something he did not understand felt less like experimentation and more like desperation.

Unable to find a better approach, Silas forced himself to abandon the assumption that he already possessed the solution and returned to the problem as though he had never solved it in the first place.

Unfortunately, time was no longer on his side.

His teammates had already consumed the dragon blood, while he was still trapped by his polluted Mana.

Cher had repeatedly warned him to leave at least ten days for his body to fully absorb the dragon blood. Those ten days limit would start from tomorrow, and the Bubbles would open once they ended, marking the start of their next mission.

"I have to solve this today..."

"Or else..."

He remembered his friends trying to reassure him, insisting they would manage even if he failed to recover in time.

Yet their words brought little comfort.

Several days had passed since they consumed the dragon blood, and none of them had shown any obvious change. Even Lara had started joking that they must have collected fake dragon blood, or perhaps the dragon had simply been a hatchling.

After nearly an hour of fruitless thinking, a dull ache spread through Silas’ head.

"I was lucky enough to discover the first solution."

He sighed, trying to calm himself while eating the instant noodles he had prepared.

"It’s already noon."

He glanced through the window, watching the sun for a moment before finishing his meal and deciding to meet the others.

The day before, frustrated by his lack of progress, he had told them he wanted a few days to himself. There was little point in joining their training when he could barely contribute.

His Raven ability had recovered enough to recall the daggers he threw, but his overall combat strength remained disappointing.

At most, he could control two daggers simultaneously. Attempting a third caused him to lose control of all of them, while his Mana drained so quickly that he could barely train for ten minutes before exhausting himself.

None of them argued with his decision, though their careful words and cautious behaviour made their concern painfully obvious.

"Being weak really isn’t pleasant."

He muttered as he put on the academy uniform.

Standing before the mirror, he studied his reflection for a moment. Had he seen himself only a few weeks earlier, he would never have recognised the healthy young man staring back at him.

"I spent my whole life being weak without complaining."

"And now a single setback is enough to shake me."

"What a joke."

Shaking his head, Silas left the dorm and headed toward the shuttle.

***

"Well, look who finally decided to show himself."

"If it isn’t the great leader of the academy’s top-ranked team, Silas Ashborne."

Only a few minutes after leaving the dorm, as Silas walked through one of the academy’s crowded corridors, a voice he had no desire to hear echoed from behind him.

Silas didn’t need to turn around to recognise it.

It was Montar.

As expected, he was surrounded by a group of G-students.

Silas remained where he was, feeling nothing but indifference toward the arrogant bastard before him. Darius had already told him what happened between Leopard and Montar, while Lara had filled him in on Rachel’s confrontation with Leopard. From those two stories, he had pieced together everything that had been left unsaid and understood most of what had truly happened.

"A Lisan Al-Gaia like you is nothing but a disgrace to the entire Enhancer community."

Montar stopped a few meters away, folded his arms, and deliberately raised his voice, drawing the attention of everyone passing through the corridor.

"You should have claimed first place with your own strength, yet you thought yourself some clever conman and treated everyone like fools, just as you did with that loser, Terio."

With every word that left Montar’s mouth, Silas could feel the hostility around him growing thicker. Terio had already warned him that malicious rumours had been spreading throughout the first-year students from unknown sources.

Now, Silas was standing before the rotten root that had started them all.

"What?"

"Cat got your tongue?"

Silas remained silent, meeting Montar’s gaze without the slightest reaction. That unwavering silence made the latter visibly uncomfortable.

"You aren’t worth my time."

Silas turned around and continued walking, dismissing Montar as though he were nothing more than an annoying fly.

"Hey! How dare you!"

Just as Silas took another step, Montar shouted. At the same time, the sound of crystals being drawn echoed through the corridor.

"A loser like you shouldn’t stand in our leader’s way."

Silas’s hand instinctively moved toward his daggers. Before he could turn around, Alfred’s calm voice cut through the tension.

Silas looked over to see Alfred walking out of a nearby corridor with steady steps, his expression unusually serious.

"Another scammer?"

"Why don’t you call the rest of your pathetic team? We’ll teach all of you a proper lesson."

Montar continued provoking him without restraint. Ever since gaining Rachel’s favour, his confidence had swelled beyond reason, and most of that courage came from knowing the academy strictly forbade fighting outside the sparring halls.

He also knew Silas’s reputation. Everyone who had met him during the mission knew how cold and decisive he was.

That was exactly why Montar was baiting Silas to strike first.

The loud clinking of crystals had been intentional, but what he and his companions actually held were worthless pieces of metal. If Silas reacted to the apparent threat and drew his weapons first, he would become the one at fault.

Fortunately, Alfred had witnessed the entire exchange and stepped in before the trap could close.

As he recalled the scene, Alfred quietly studied Silas.

’It seems what happened really shook him.’

If this had been the old Silas, before his powers were diminished, Alfred doubted he would have fallen for such an obvious trick. He would have trusted his own strength enough to face any attack without becoming so tense or overly cautious.

’I know what it feels like to lose your strength...’

’I watched someone precious to me go through it.’

Alfred’s fists tightened as painful memories surfaced. He remembered his friend’s slow decline, the despair that had consumed him, and the inevitable end that followed.

When he looked back at Montar, his gaze had grown noticeably colder.

"Back in... the army..."

"A hunting dog that bites its master’s hand always ends up dead."

He stepped forward. Although Montar was actually taller, Alfred somehow felt more imposing.

"But a dog that betrays one master just to serve another isn’t a dog."

"It’s a snake."

"You..."

Montar’s expression twisted with rage.

Only moments ago, Silas had been exactly where Montar wanted him. Now Alfred had shattered the trap and turned the humiliation back on him.

Montar’s first instinct was to attack.

Fortunately, several members of his group still had enough sense to stop him. They knew the academy’s punishment would not fall on Montar alone if he broke the rules, so they hurriedly dragged him away before he could do something reckless.

"Just wait..."

Even while retreating, his pride refused to let him leave quietly.

"In the next mission, I’ll repay this twice over... and spit on your corpses."

Alfred watched him disappear before turning toward Silas.

"Forget about him."

Then he tapped his own temple.

"But don’t let your condition affect you here."

Silas froze.

Only then did he fully realise what had happened.

The moment he had heard the crystals, he had instinctively prepared to counterattack without confirming whether the threat was real. Montar had never intended to fight. Those crystals had been nothing more than worthless scraps of metal.

What unsettled him wasn’t the trap itself, but the realisation that his deteriorating condition had begun clouding his judgment so badly that even Alfred had noticed.

"Don’t worry."

Instead of discouraging him, that realisation only strengthened his resolve.

’One way or another...’

’I’ll break this damn curse today.’