I Was Reborn in Another World, But I Awoke Inside a Corpse

Chapter 144: What Did You Two Do?

The midday sun filtered through the pale canopy above the elven palace's upper training terrace, a mosaic of light and shadow dancing across the polished whitewood sparring floor.

Lira adjusted the strap on her gauntlet and cracked her neck as she faced Sylvalen, who stood poised and quiet as always—calm, unreadable, elegant.

It was supposed to be a light spar.

Like always.

"Ready?" Lira asked.

Sylvalen gave a simple nod.

Lira lunged.

And got floored.

She didn't even register the hit. One moment she was moving, the next she was rolling across the floor, the impact ringing through her ribs like she'd been struck by a golem's arm.

She came up coughing, blinking.

"…Ow?"

Sylvalen stood where she'd started, arms slightly lowered, looking vaguely surprised.

"Did I overdo it?"

Lira stared.

"You cracked the ground."

She pointed behind her.

Indeed, there was a clean fracture in the terrace—barely an inch deep, but unmistakable.

Sylvalen looked down at it with polite curiosity.

"I suppose I am a bit… sharper today."

Lira narrowed her eyes.

"No. No-no-no. You don't get to sharper your way through this. I felt your stats jump mid-swing. That wasn't practice form. That was… Isaac-level power."

Sylvalen gave a faint smile. "Is that so?"

"Yes, that's so," Lira grumbled, standing fully and brushing herself off. "Okay, wait—hold still."

She activated her detection skill: low-tier stat vision, enough to give her a rough sense of strength bands, not exact numbers.

And what she saw made her eyebrows shoot up.

"Hold. Up. Your Strength's up like 400 points. Endurance too. What the hell did you eat?"

Sylvalen tilted her head gently. "Nothing I didn't earn."

Lira blinked.

"…You're dodging."

"I'm smiling."

"Same thing, coming from you."

Sylvalen gave a little bow and walked off the sparring ring without offering any more explanation.

Which, of course, drove Lira insane.

Later that afternoon, Lira found Isaac sitting in the quiet overlook behind the main hall, drinking tea.

She marched straight up, stopped two feet away, and jabbed a finger toward his chest.

"Talk."

Isaac looked up. "About?"

"Don't play innocent. You know damn well."

He sipped his tea.

"We spent the evening together."

Lira squinted. "Evening together like tea and moonlight? Or evening together like secret soul-meld power-transfer bonding snugglefest?"

Isaac tilted his head.

"What does that even mean?"

"You tell me! Sylvalen suddenly has a mini god-core in her torso and is swinging like she's part dragon. And you're just sitting here drinking tea like a man who's guilty of something… but not sorry."

Isaac set his cup down.

"She didn't ask for power."

"Not denying it."

"She didn't know about the skill."

"You picked a skill?"

"It was already waiting," he replied. "I just… decided to give something back."

Lira opened her mouth, then closed it.

"…You're serious."

"I usually am."

She ran a hand through her hair. "Okay. Just to be clear—you casually gave her, what, two or three thousand stat points? Through… physical bonding?"

"Roughly."

She groaned. "That's not romantic, that's terrifying. Do you realize what would happen if people found out you could do that?"

"They won't."

At that moment, Sylvalen stepped around the corner, her steps graceful as ever.

She smiled warmly at Lira.

"If you're so curious, perhaps you should spend a night with him too."

Lira choked.

"I—what—I—excuse me?!"

Sylvalen walked past them, serene as the moon.

Isaac calmly raised his cup again and took another sip.

Lira stood frozen for a few moments, blinking furiously.

Then she spun around and walked off muttering:

"Stat-stealing, status-boosting, system-bending flirt demons… the whole lot of you."

Isaac glanced toward Sylvalen.

She simply raised an eyebrow.

He smiled.