Inherent Techniques!

A faint red light flickered beneath the rubble, catching the dim glow of the setting sun. It came from an eye; an eye that once shone with confidence, now reduced to a weak, intermittent glow.

"I was careless…" James muttered, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his lips. The taste of failure lingered.

'Damn it,' he thought. 'I'm from the modern world, yet I completely forgot about something as basic as firearms.'

He tried to shift, but his body was pinned under the weight of the rocks, unresponsive. The only part he could move was his arm, barely hanging on by shreds, its torn ligaments barely functioning.

Suddenly, a cold, mechanical voice rang in his head.

[Warning! The host's body damage is 84%. Permanent trauma is 32%. Physical strength has dropped sharply. Please seek treatment immediately.]

The warning repeated, relentless.

[Warning! The host's body damage is 84%. Permanent trauma is 32%. Physical strength has dropped sharply. Please seek treatment immediately.]

James winced, then chuckled weakly. 'Sure, sure. But how exactly do you expect me to treat myself when I can't even move?'

The pain was excruciating, spreading through every fiber of his body. He cursed silently. 'Permanent damage?' That part stung more than the physical pain. 'How could I let it get this bad?' He shook his head slightly, as much as he could. 'It's not like I can just get up and walk away from this.'

His eyes scanned the dim cave. Most of the passage had collapsed, but the cave itself seemed relatively intact. There was a small glimmer of hope.

'Wait... Laura.' His thoughts jolted. 'Where is she?'

Panic set in. 'She didn't... no, she couldn't have been vaporized by that blast, right?' James glanced down at his own battered form. His F-rank body was practically in pieces. 'And she... she was just G-rank...' The thought hit him like another blow. 'No, no...'

A pang of guilt twisted in his chest. When the thunderfire bomb went off, James had barely managed to complete a life harvest on the dying F-rank giant scorpion, snatching up 62 points of growth just in time to advance himself into an F-rank inferior scarecrow. It was in that split second of chaos that he'd dragged a dazed Laura beneath him, shielding her from the worst of the explosion.

But now... there was only silence, broken by the faint hiss of settling debris.

His eyes landed on something a short distance away, a tattered skeleton.

"This..." His breath caught. 'The bomb was so powerful it blasted away the flesh itself?' His heart sank. "Laura, you... you should have pushed harder. If you had just been stronger... I did what I could to protect you. Don't hold it against me." His voice was shaky, muttering to the stillness of the cave. "You should've been smarter..."

He sighed and, with the only hand he could move, made a small bowing gesture in the air, his body too broken to show more respect.

Suddenly, a voice, clear and sharp, cut through the gloom. "That's enough, James! Stop cursing me to death already!"

A pile of rubble shifted, rocks lifting from his body and tumbling away. He blinked in disbelief.

"I thought you were buried!" His mind raced as he craned his neck to see Laura standing there, dusting herself off. She looked... surprisingly intact, save for a few scratches.

"Turns out you're more than just a warrior, huh?" James said with a forced chuckle, ignoring the pain gnawing at him. His relief was palpable.

Laura tilted her head, a smirk playing on her lips. "Mage's skills aren't as flashy as yours, but I get by," she replied. But as if to remind him of her limitations, a floating stone slipped from her control and landed squarely on James's wounded side.

He sucked in a sharp breath, teeth clenched as pain surged through him. "You call that 'getting by'?" he grunted.

Laura winced. "Sorry! Still working on precision."

James turned, eyeing her up and down, noticing her relatively unharmed state compared to his own. "You know, it's hard not to think you dropped that on purpose after I said you were dead." His tone was teasing, though the pain was real.

"Of course not!" she replied with mock indignation. "Am I that kind of person?" She paused, looking him up and down. "By the way... were you always this... big?"

James groaned as he finally managed to push himself up, his colossal figure of nearly five meters towering over the cramped cave. His transformation had come at a cost, but there he stood, still alive.

Barely.

"I've been promoted... so naturally, I'm bigger." James muttered, his voice tinged with disbelief as he glanced down at his own form. His body had grown more than twice its original size, towering over the scattered debris.

Laura, still staring at him in shock, took a hesitant step forward, her eyes wide with confusion. "You… James, tell me the truth… Are you even human?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, her gaze fixed on the sorry state of his scarecrow-like body.

James's form was a mess, a patchwork of straw and torn fabric. Dozens of gaping holes riddled his body, and his limbs dangled, held together by only a few remaining strands of straw. He looked more like a puppet barely held together than a person.

He stood there in silence, meeting her gaze. His expression remained unreadable, but there was something in his eyes that made Laura pause, her hand trembling slightly as she reached for her Nepal knife. The tension between them thickened as she bit her lip, her sharp eyes waiting for an answer; waiting for the truth.

The sight of James's tattered body confirmed what she had suspected all along. This was no magician, no disciple of some mysterious cult. He had been lying. But what 'was' he?

Fingers tightening around the hilt of her knife, Laura's breath hitched, her muscles tensed in anticipation.

"I've always considered myself human," James finally spoke, his voice calm, almost too calm. "What you think? That's your business."

His words hung in the air, heavy and ambiguous. Laura froze, her grip loosening. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of it all. The man who had protected her, who had fought beside her, was standing there in front of her; a creature that defied explanation.

With a sudden gasp, her whole body gave out. She collapsed to the ground, her knees hitting the cold stone beneath her. "What… what the hell is going on?" she mumbled, her hands covering her face, her voice shaking. "The one who tried to kill me was human... but the one who saved me... you... you're a monster. How does any of this make sense?"

James didn't respond. He turned away from her, his eyes scanning the rubble blocking the passage. With slow, deliberate steps, he moved closer, his hands brushing against the rocks as he searched for an opening, for a way out.

"This isn't going to be easy," he muttered under his breath, the weight of exhaustion creeping in.

Minutes passed, and just when he was about to give up, Laura's voice broke the silence. It was tired but steady. "There's a way out."

He turned to look at her, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "What?"

She pointed toward a large boulder near a puddle, her finger trembling slightly. "Behind that rock, there's a passage. It's bright, it leads outside."

James frowned, skeptical. "How do you know?"

A small smile crept onto her lips. "The wind told me."

He blinked. "The wind?"

"You probably don't know this," she continued, "but some humans are born with special techniques. We call them inherent techniques. Mine is called 'airflow affinity.' I can feel and control the flow of air naturally. The wind in this cave whispered to me, guiding me to the passage."

Without waiting for a response, Laura walked up to James. In one swift motion, she jumped onto his massive shoulder, settling herself with surprising ease. "You don't mind carrying me, right? You're a big guy, after all."

James let out a low chuckle, his straw-like features shifting. "And you don't mind that I'm a monster?" He turned his head slightly to glance at her, his face, worn and eerie from the explosion, looking even more unsettling up close.

"Hey!" she shrieked, instinctively gripping onto him tighter. "Don't turn around so fast! You're creepy enough as it is."

A grin tugged at the corner of his lips, but it was far from reassuring; his scarecrow face made the smile appear downright terrifying. Laura's grip tightened, but then her voice softened. "It would be a lie to say I didn't care. When that thunderfire bomb went off, though, you… you protected me. You didn't have to, but you did. So, whatever you are… I guess you see me as a companion."

She paused, her voice growing even quieter. "Thank you."

James didn't respond immediately. Instead, he turned his attention back to the boulder, placing his hands firmly against it. With a grunt, he pushed, the stone scraping and groaning as it moved aside, revealing a small, bright passage beyond.

But as the light poured into the cave, his haunting smile remained; still just as monstrous, just as unsettling.