John counted himself as one of the luckiest men still alive.

  Three days ago, one of his kids had come down with the flu. It hadn’t been serious—just feverish, miserable, and contagious enough that John and his wife had made the sensible call to postpone their family trip to Sydney. The plan had been simple: attend the twins’ big birthday bash without the kids, then load up the car and drive out late that afternoon once everyone was well again.

  So they’d packed anyway.

  The big family car had been crammed full of bags, clothes, snacks, and all the little things a family of six needed on a road trip. Then, plans adjusted but spirits still high, the whole family had gone to the twins’ birthday party.

  That decision—that single change—had saved their lives.

  They had made it to the safe zone.

  Just.

  John remembered collapsing halfway there, the world tilting violently as something slammed into his stomach. He hadn’t even realised what had happened until he looked down and saw the shaft of a spear jutting out of his gut, blood soaking through his shirt.

  A hobgoblin spear.

  He should have died right there.

  Instead, a breathless, sweat-drenched young man named Kai had appeared out of nowhere, hands already glowing as he poured healing energy into John’s broken body. The pain dulled. The bleeding slowed.

  For a few precious seconds, John thought he was going to live.

  Then his health started dropping again.

  Fast.

  Kai froze.

  Part of the spear was still inside him.

  Kai had healed the wound without checking for foreign objects first, and they both knew what that meant. Healing tissue around embedded metal didn’t fix the problem—it made it worse.

  Kai’s face went pale as he checked his mana. He had enough for one more heal.

  Only one.

  There were no other healers close enough to reach them in time.

  John understood immediately.

  If Kai pulled the spear out now, John would bleed out in seconds.

  If Kai healed him again with the spear still inside, the damage would just happen all over again.

  Either way, John was dead.

  His fourteen-year-old son dropped to his knees beside him, clutching his hand so tightly it hurt. The boy was trying not to cry, failing badly.

  John squeezed his fingers back.

  “Be good,” John whispered, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. “Look after your mum. Look after your sisters.”

  He saw it on Kai’s face then—raw frustration, guilt, anger at himself. A healer who’d made the worst mistake possible.

  John reached out with his free hand and grabbed Kai’s wrist.

  “It’s alright,” John started to say. “You did your best—”

  Kai didn’t hear the rest.

  His eyes snapped down to his own forearms, and something in them changed. Not hope. Not relief.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Something manic.

  “Don’t move,” Kai said sharply.

  Before John could even process what was happening, Kai ripped off his own armguards—solid, well-crafted pieces of gear—and forced them onto John’s arms instead. Buckles snapped shut one after another as Kai worked with frantic speed.

  John tried to help, but he had nothing left. His limbs felt like lead. Keeping his eyes open was a losing battle.

  His son watched in stunned confusion as Kai strapped what looked like ridiculously good equipment onto his dying father.

  The moment the last strap was tightened, John gasped.

  It felt like life itself came flooding back into him—warmth surging through his veins, strength returning in a rush so sudden it made him dizzy. He instinctively tried to sit up.

  Kai slammed a hand onto his chest and shoved him back down.

  “Stay,” Kai ordered.

  Then, without hesitation, Kai grabbed the spear and yanked it free.

  John screamed.

  Blood poured out—

  —and stopped.

  Kai’s hands lit up again as he cast a precise, targeted heal directly into the wound, sealing torn flesh and damaged organs properly this time. No trapped metal. No complications.

  It worked.

  John lay there afterward, staring up at the sky, shaking and alive, unable to fully believe what had just happened.

  Kai leaned over him, eyes fierce and dead serious.

  “Keep them on,” he said, nodding at the armguards. “Until you’re fully healed.”

  Then Kai was gone, already running to the next person who needed him.

  John hadn’t understood what Kai meant at the time.

  He did now.

  Standing on his own two feet in the middle of the group, breathing steadily, feeling solid, John looked down at the armguards still strapped to his arms.

  Borrowed power.

  Borrowed time.

  And the unshakable knowledge that if not for one desperate, brilliant decision, his son would have been holding a dead man’s hand instead of a living one.

  And now, here he was the very next day, participating in the rescue mission into town to find and save more people.

  John still wore the armguards.

  He had tried to give them back to Kai during the meeting before the mission. He hadn’t really expected the young healer to argue—gear like that was rare, and Kai had clearly relied on them. John felt wrong keeping something that had quite literally saved his life.

  The look on Kai’s face when he saw John standing there, upright and alert, stopped him mid-sentence.

  Pleasant surprise flashed across the healer’s features.

  “You’re… up?” Kai said, blinking. “Already?”

  John nodded. “Thanks to you.”

  Kai waved off the thanks almost immediately and, to John’s surprise, refused to take the armguards back.

  “Keep them,” Kai said firmly. “At least for now.”

  John frowned. “Kai, I—”

  “With the lack of healers on this mission,” Kai continued, cutting him off, “it’s better you keep them. You know what they can do. Use them if you have to.”

  John opened his mouth to argue, then stopped.

  “…I don’t actually know what they do,” he admitted.

  Kai stared at him for half a second, then burst out laughing—not cruelly, but at himself.

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, that tracks.”

  Before John could react, Kai grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him across the clearing, straight toward Zane, who was mid-conversation with several people organising parties.

  “Hey, Dad!” Kai called out. “Can you do a quick item appraisal for John?”

  Zane paused, gave Kai a look that clearly said thanks for getting me out of this planning stuff, then glanced at the armguards on John’s arms. His expression shifted immediately.

  “Sure,” Zane said, already focusing.

  John felt a faint pressure behind his eyes as Zane activated the skill. A moment later, Zane nodded and turned the appraisal outward so John could see it clearly.

  “Here you go, mate.”

  Alpha Wolf Armguards (Unique)

  +5 Constitution

  Grants Passive Skill: Wolf’s Reflex

  Small chance to dodge incoming melee attacks

  Passive Skill requires Level 8

  (Now that’s bettera.)

  John just stared.

  Plus five to Constitution. That alone explained why he’d felt stronger, steadier—like his body had snapped back faster than it had any right to. And the passive dodge skill… even a small chance could mean the difference between life and death out there.

  It was a pity the skill required Level 8, John thought.

  Slowly, he looked up at Kai.

  “Well,” John said quietly, “that explains a lot.”

  Kai grinned back, clearly pleased with himself. “Told you they were good.”

  John’s reminiscing was interrupted by his teammate, Gabriel, as she angrily whispered in his ear.

  “Get your head in the game, John. We’re getting close to the untouched houses. There’s got to be people nearby who need us.”

  John swallowed, fingers tightening slightly around the leather straps. These weren’t just armguards. They were a second chance—one he hadn’t earned, but fully intended to honour.

  He straightened his shoulders and looked toward the road leading down the small side street they’d been assigned to check, smoke still faintly visible in the air.

  John whispered to himself, “Alright then. I’ll use them well.”

  Gabriel turned back to him. “What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

  John hastily whispered back, “Nothing. It was nothing.”

  As they started checking the houses, quietly calling out for survivors to reveal themselves, John moved forward knowing that if things went wrong again—if monsters charged, if chaos broke out—he wasn’t just a man who’d survived.

  He was someone who could help others do the same.