100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 835 - 845 - Decision

Lucien woke to sunlight.

For several seconds, he had no idea where he was.

Then the rough wooden ceiling above him became familiar, followed by the faint scent of dried herbs and smoke that always seemed to linger inside the house.

He was back home.

Lucien blinked slowly as awareness returned.

His entire body ached.

His shoulders hurt when he breathed too deeply, his arms felt heavy, and even his palms throbbed beneath the cloth wrapped around them. There was something strangely reassuring about the discomfort.

At least it proved that he was still alive.

Lucien let his head sink deeper into the pillow.

Then he remembered the sound.

The exhaustion disappeared from his thoughts immediately.

Just before losing consciousness, that strange, distant resonance had reached him again.

Lucien stared at the ceiling for several moments.

"Why now?"

There was no answer.

He had already considered the simplest possibility.

His soul had been occupying this fractured identity for some time now, and the synchronization between them had become increasingly natural. Perhaps enough of the damaged spirit had stabilized for that strange sense to function again.

That explanation was reasonable.

It was also incomplete.

The timing bothered him.

The sound had returned only after the strange disturbances intensified, after the animals fled from the forest, after the ground trembled, and after a dragon emerged from somewhere deeper inside.

Perhaps the synchronization had simply reached the necessary point at the same time.

Or perhaps something else had changed.

Lucien could not completely dismiss another possibility either.

He had spent much of his time in this era deliberately restraining himself, observing more than acting because he feared disturbing the past.

Yesterday, he had finally made a different choice.

He had fought.

He had commanded.

He had used what knowledge and experience remained available to him instead of standing aside and allowing history to unfold around him.

Then the strange sense returned.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

It would be foolish to assume the two things were connected merely because they had happened close together, but the thought refused to disappear.

Perhaps everything was beginning to move again.

Perhaps the moment he stopped behaving like an outsider waiting for history to correct itself, something that had remained dormant began responding.

Or perhaps he was simply looking for meaning where there was none.

That possibility was equally likely.

The young Lucien had possessed this peculiar sense for years, yet even his memories did not explain it properly.

There had never been a clear pattern.

Young Lucien had simply listened whenever it came.

Lucien found that almost irritating.

He had inherited a mysterious ability with no instructions, no predictable condition, and no convenient System description explaining what it actually did.

It felt oddly appropriate.

He still suspected some connection to the Origin Core, but suspicion was not proof.

The sound might instead be related to whatever changes were spreading through the world. It might even be responding to something Lucien had not discovered yet.

The only certainty was that it had returned.

That meant he could investigate it.

Lucien closed his eyes.

If there was a condition behind the strange hearing, he would find it eventually. He could compare locations, disturbances, people, terrain, and anything else that seemed relevant whenever the sound appeared again.

Perhaps, with enough observation, he could even learn to invoke it deliberately rather than waiting for it to come to him.

That possibility alone made the discomfort in his body easier to tolerate.

Just then, the door opened.

Lucien turned his head.

Cienna stepped inside carrying a small bowl and froze as soon as she noticed his open eyes.

"Darling."

The bowl was forgotten on the nearest table.

She crossed the room quickly and sat beside the bed before wrapping both arms around him.

Lucien stiffened when the movement pulled at every sore muscle in his shoulders.

Then he relaxed.

"I’m fine, Mother."

"You slept through an entire day."

"Then I was very tired."

Cienna pulled back and gave him a look that made it clear she did not consider that an acceptable explanation.

"That is your answer?"

"It is accurate."

Her expression suggested she was seriously considering hitting him and had decided against it only because he already looked sufficiently punished.

A voice came from across the room.

"He’s awake?"

Lucien turned.

Luke was seated near the opposite wall with his torso wrapped tightly in bandages. His face remained pale, although there was considerably more color in it than there had been during the battle.

He raised one thumb.

Lucien stared at him.

"Father, you look terrible."

"So do you."

Cienna looked between them.

"You are both impossible."

Lucien smiled faintly.

The exchange felt strangely normal after everything that had happened.

Then the memory of the creature beyond the trees returned.

His smile faded.

"How is everyone?"

Cienna’s expression softened.

"We lost two."

Lucien closed his eyes briefly.

He could still remember both men.

The silence that followed was enough for Cienna to understand what he was thinking.

"Several others were badly injured," she continued, "but no one else died during the night. Some will need time before they can work again."

Lucien glanced toward Luke.

"And father?"

Cienna sighed.

"He will recover if he stops behaving as though getting stabbed by a tusk was an inconvenience."

Luke looked offended.

"It was mostly an inconvenience."

"Do you want me to tighten the bandages?"

Luke wisely stopped talking.

Lucien almost laughed, but voices from outside drew his attention.

There were too many of them to belong to people simply working.

More surprisingly, they did not sound frightened.

There was excitement among them.

Lucien frowned.

"What are they doing?"

Luke grinned.

"Talking about the dragon."

Lucien stared at him.

"Why do you look happy about that?"

"We saw a dragon."

"Yes. That is generally considered a problem."

Luke laughed before immediately regretting it when the motion pulled against his wound.

Cienna shook her head.

"The creature left. People are frightened, but nobody here has ever actually seen one. Most thought they were stories."

Lucien listened more carefully.

Someone outside was arguing that the dragon had been twice as large as the village hall. Another person insisted its wings had covered half the sky. Someone else loudly claimed that he had always believed the hunters who spoke of enormous tracks beyond the eastern ridges.

Lucien slowly rubbed his forehead.

There was fear in those voices.

There was also unmistakable wonder.

The villagers had just survived an attack that killed two of their neighbors, yet the appearance of something they had considered nearly mythical had already begun turning into a story people would probably repeat for the rest of their lives.

The optimism of this village was almost offensive.

Lucien sighed.

At least nobody was suggesting they follow it.

His thoughts returned to the battle.

Lucien had spent too long worrying that every action he took might disturb history.

Yesterday had given him a much less comfortable truth.

Refusing to act was still an action.

If he had begun strengthening the village earlier, perhaps the casualties would have been fewer. Perhaps Luke would never have been injured.

Perhaps the two men who died would still be alive.

Lucien stopped himself there.

He had no way to know.

The village might have suffered the same losses anyway, or different ones.

Regret could become just another form of arrogance if he convinced himself that every tragedy would have disappeared had he simply acted sooner.

There were no second attempts.

He could only decide what he would do from this point onward.

His gaze shifted toward the faint System interface that only he could see.

It remained quiet.

The knowledge stored within it, however, was still there.

Lucien had treated that knowledge cautiously because he understood how dangerous it could be in an era this young. Introducing something centuries or millennia ahead of its time without considering the consequences could alter entire civilizations.

He still believed that.

What had changed was the conclusion he drew from it.

Possessing dangerous knowledge did not mean he should refuse to use any knowledge at all.

A better wall would not overthrow a kingdom.

A safer method of storing food would not suddenly create a magical civilization.

Teaching people how to survive a threat already standing in front of them was different from forcing history forward merely because he could.

Dragons existed here.

Perhaps other creatures existed as well.

The disturbances across the kingdom were growing.

Humanity had no mana, no Skills, and none of the supernatural foundations Lucien had once taken for granted.

Yet humans clearly survived this era.

They had to.

Somewhere between this age and the world Lucien remembered, humanity found a way forward.

That path already belonged to history.

Lucien simply did not know how it began.

His eyes settled on Luke.

His father had nearly died holding an ordinary spear.

Lucien thought about the Origin Core.

He thought about the strange sound.

He thought about the tremors spreading through the kingdom and the enormous creature that had stepped out from the forest without carrying even the faintest trace of usable energy.

By the time his thoughts settled, his decision had already been made.

He would stop treating knowledge itself as forbidden.

Alanthuriel’s warning still mattered.

Lucien had no intention of recklessly transforming the ancient world or scattering knowledge everywhere simply because he possessed it.

He would interfere where interference was necessary.

When people could be protected by something he knew, he would no longer deliberately leave that knowledge unused.

Cienna noticed the change in his expression.

"What are you thinking about?"

Lucien looked toward the window.

Beyond it, he could hear the distant sound of hammers.

"Tavian is probably going to need more iron."

Luke raised an eyebrow.

"That is what you were thinking about?"

"Among other things."

Lucien pushed himself upright carefully.

His muscles protested immediately.

The village needed stronger defenses.

The damaged walls needed to be rebuilt properly rather than restored to exactly what they had been before. They needed better warning methods and defenses designed around the possibility that another group of frightened animals might come through the forest.

They also needed weapons that could make better use of the strength ordinary humans actually possessed.

Lucien did not intend to turn the village into a fortress overnight.

He simply refused to let the same weakness remain untouched after it had already cost lives.

Eventually, he would leave.

The Origin Core was still somewhere in this world, and the return of the strange sound gave him one more reason to investigate what was happening beyond the village.

Before that day came, however, he wanted to know that Luke, Cienna, and everyone else here would not collapse the moment another threat reached their walls.

Lucien looked past the window toward the distant forest.

Somewhere beyond those trees, dragons existed.

Something was disturbing animals across the kingdom.

Somewhere in this ancient world, the Origin Core remained whole.

He had no magic with which to face any of it.

For the first time since losing everything, that fact no longer felt like an excuse.

He still had the System.

He still had everything he had learned across countless experiences and identities.

Most importantly, he was no longer alone.

For now, that was enough.