"W-Wait! Do I seriously have to fight that monster?" I was seriously scared for my life.

"Hey, he's just an old buff man, don't call him that. He still has some emotions." the girl patted the man's arm to comfort him.

I looked at the man's face and he had a blank expression.

"To me, it looks like a robot now."

"Well, you are not wrong. He is just a puppet, so he is not as strong as the original was." she tried to reassure me but it didn't work because I started seeing something surrounding his body, it was a blue flame that was creating great pressure and I could feel it very well. My body wanted to tremble but I tried to keep it still.

"You can see his aura now, right? It's not that scary." she said with a smile.

"Not that scary? How am I supposed to beat him with this wooden katana??" I replied louder while shaking up and down the katana. It was light and it didn't give me a good feeling.

She rolled her eyes  "Relax. I don't expect you to beat him today. 1 week here is equal to 2 days in the human realm, so you have a lot of time to try."

"Can you give me a hint on how to beat it, at least?" I asked desperately

She shook her head and pointed at me "Be ready! We’ll start right away!"

I tried to reassure myself by thinking

'Shit. Ok, maybe that man is all strength and zero speed-'

In the blink of an eye, the man was already in front of me.

"Uh? I couldn't even-"

The man joined his hands together and smashed them against my head. Against all that strength my body was sent down to the ground floor of the ten floors palace I was on and thanks to some kind of miracle, I was still alive although with a few broken ribs.

'Not as strong as the original?! Don't make me laugh!' while getting up using the wooden sword as support I noticed that the broken ribs were coming together and the pain was also going away.

'Regenerations? This will surely come in handy.' I was trying to think positively by suddenly Nysilia spoke in my mind

‘Don’t be too sure of yourself. Regeneration is something everyone who got some decent training has’

‘Thanks for the encouragement…’ 

I held on tight to the wooden katana and looked up. The old man was still on the roof, looking at me through the holes my body made.

'That punch would have crushed me if I was a normal human. If only I had some more time to analyse the power I have."

I continued thinking while keeping an eye on the old man, still on the roof and realised something.

'Wait, I forgot that I have his powers. That means, I have super strength, speed and, since I was able to survive this fall, probably, high physical endurance too."

Suddenly, the man catapulted himself down trying to crush me again and I quickly moved away but when his feet touched the ground, a huge shockwave was generated, throwing me outside the building and this time I managed to fall on my feet.

"Phew, I'm making some progress."

Suddenly, a small stone fell on top of my head. I looked up and the palace was falling apart because of the man’s shockwave.

"OH, SHIT-"

I couldn't run away in time and the collapsing building buried me alive.

———

After a minute or so, I managed to dig my way through the debris and I was fine, still holding that crappy katana. The first thing I saw was the old man slowly walking towards me, with a broken column in his left hand and surrounded by his aura.

'is he planning to hit me with that? Even if it hits me, it won't be enough and it will break apart.'

I still stayed alert, ready to defend myself to minimise the potential damage and the regeneration wouldn't have taken too long. We were walking around in a circle waiting for the other person to make his move, but since it didn’t seem he was going to fight I tried to provoke him

"COME AT ME YOU GORILLA!" maybe the hits I took so far damaged my brain because this was a dumb move.

The old man did not think twice to charge at me; in a second he was in front of me and swang the column against my poor body causing me to simply fly away like a baseball ball. I crashed through some buildings and when I started losing altitude, a big tree in the middle of the city stopped me with its branches and then I fell to the ground, near its base.

Every bone in my body was broken and I could feel them slowly coming together, meanwhile, the big man reached me with the column in his left hand and my wooden katana in his right hand, both still intact without a single scuff.

"So, that's what your other power is."

Once the fractured bones healed I slowly stood up.

"You can fortify the objects you surround with your aura right?" I asked but the old man was just a puppet, so he didn't reply and suddenly threw at me the katana, which I caught on the fly.

'Obviously, I didn't expect an answer from him'

I looked behind me, there was a bench near the tree where the girl was sitting and looking at me with a little smile on her face.

'No answers from you either huh? I'll take this silence as a yes then.'

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I visualised my aura slowly surrounding the katana

'and by applying a similar logic, maybe I can…' After thinking, I concentrated part of my aura around my legs and the rest around my arms.

When I finished the preparations, I opened my eyes, pressed my feet against the ground with enough strength to make some cracks and then charged at the man at lightning speed.

In a second, I was standing behind him and it didn't seem I did some damage at first but when I was about to lose hope, the old man's head fell on the ground, followed by his body.

I was exhausted and breathing heavily while looking at the body surprised by myself and looked towards the girl, who looked surprised too.

"Well, that was unexpected. I'm truly impressed." she said.

Her expression slowly became serious

“But this isn’t enough.”

The old man's body slowly turned back into a puddle of blood and from that 3 copies of him were slowly coming to life.

"What…?" I looked at the girl, who while smiling said

"As I said before, 1 week here is 2 days in the human realm. It would be useless to waste all this time…" She stopped for a moment while looking at my preoccupied face and then continued "Time to start with round 2-"

“W-Wait!” I interrupted her speech “At least tell me one thing! Was I right about his powers?”

“1 out of 4” she promptly said.

“Huh?”

“Of the four powers you said, just one is correct but I’ll tell you more later, we can’t waste this precious time. Let’s start again.”

Three copies of that monst- old man were in front of me, a few meters away, waiting for my first move. But I was tired; the move I used before was cool and all but it exhausted me a lot.

'I could use that same move again, but if there are more rounds to go through after this one then I have to save my energies as much as possible. I have to kill at least two of them with the first hit.'

Even with all the exhaustion, my body felt like it didn't move for hundreds of years and it wanted to move more, making up for the time lost, but was limited by that human body. My aura was still concentrated around the wooden katana, my arms and legs and once I stopped thinking, I charged at two of the old men, but one managed to dodge and I only cut one head. Two enemies remained and I could feel pain in every part of my body.

'Shit. I have to finish this quickly.' I looked at the man in front of me and looked around for the other one.

'Where is he?! He can't be disappeared in thin ai-'

Suddenly, the other man fell on me like a meteorite, creating a shockwave that destroyed the buildings around us and created a huge crater.

I was in the middle of it, with my backbones and ribs broken, my arms and legs were integral because they were strengthened by my aura.

Cough cough

Blood came out of my mouth while it was flowing out of my nose and eyes too.

'My regeneration is too slow…is it because I reached my limit?" I looked around.

'I can't see them. Did they destroy themselves? I hope so…'

I tried to get up but one of those monsters blocked me against the ground with his foot and grabbed both of my arms.

"W-wait, no-"

He tore my arms from my body like it was paper and I screamed, I don’t know for how long, while tears were flowing down my face, while they were breaking more bones and even after stopping, I continued screaming until I didn’t have any breath and all if was left for me was to sob.

"It seems I overestimated your abilities." it was the voice of that girl speaking.

My neck was broken and I could only move my gaze in the direction the voice was coming from. She was on the edge of the crater, looking at me with a smile, not a malicious or happy one, it looked…sad.

"There will be many enemies even stronger than them, you'll have to be ready." she said before turning around and I was left confused, but also angry.

'Why were you looking at me like that? What do you want me to do?! This is all your fault! If I was that bad of a criminal why didn't you let me die that day?! What do you want from me?!'

I wanted to say this, but her powers within my soul stopped me and calmed my anger, it felt like someone was hugging me with the deepest love I ever felt. Was she just trying to control me? Or was she just faking her malicious nature? 

Both these assumptions felt ridiculous and whatever the answer was, I was too tired to think about it and my eyes slowly closed while one of those monsters in humanoid form grabbed my head with his giant hands and put a lot of pressure on it; I didn’t even try to resist and the last thing I heard before my head being crushed was a snap of fingers.

———

Suddenly, I opened my eyes and I was still on my feet, nothing in my body was broken with both my arms still attached. I touched my chest and back in disbelief then looked ahead, a few metres away the three copies of that monster were there, waiting for my move and the girl was sitting on the bench looking at me, ready to analyse my moves.

'Did she…turn back time? No, what am I saying? Would that even be possible?' while thinking I was still looking at her.

"Why are you looking at me? Your enemies are in front of you." she said to me.

"O-oh right, sorry." I looked back at the three puppets.

'I still have the same fatigue as before and I have to save as much energy as I can. If I truly came back in time, I’ll have to consider that one of them will dodge and I need to adopt a new strategy.'

After thinking I bit more I suddenly rushed at two of the 3 men with the katana in my left hand. I grabbed one for the neck before he could dodge, cut the other one's head and then stabbed the man I grabbed in the head. As I turned around to look at the last man, he tried to attack but I was able to cut him in half horizontally. Even without his lower body, he was still alive and tried to jump on me by using his hands and I stabbed him in the head while he was in mid-air.

This second round had finished and the three corpses slowly became puddles of blood; from them more of those monsters appeared, equipped with big axes this time.

I was exhausted and could not keep up with this.

This time I didn't have time to think, they quickly jumped on me hitting me in every part of my body with their weapons. On the brink of death, I heard that snap of fingers and time turned back again.