Chapter 173: Mr Fast

Simple on paper usually meant nasty in practice. He didn’t trust it. Momentum had already read like a trap rune, beautiful until you misused it. A belt that “can carry a rune” sounded like a polite way of saying this is a live wire you strapped to your waist.

In fact, it was too simple.

“Now, how do I use this?” Kael thought as he went to place his hand under his chin. Only to end up smacking his own face with his metal gauntlets.

The impact rang through his skull. Not enough to break anything, but enough to make his eyes water and his teeth ache. His hand hadn’t come up wrong; his whole body had moved wrong, like his arm had overshot its own path.

“What the fuck?” The reaction he got from backing away from the pain made him slam into the wall and fall on his back.

His shoulder hit first, then his spine, then the back of his helmeted head thumped against the floor. Dust puffed up around him. For a second, he just lay there, blinking hard, trying to decide if his balance had gone or if the Tower had decided to prank him.

“Shit! That fucking hurts!” he cursed and realized one thing.

He said that sentence way too fast.

No, it wasn’t fast at first; the last words were too fast.

His mouth had sprinted through the ending like it was being yanked forward by an unseen hook. He felt it in his tongue, in the way the syllables tripped over each other. It wasn’t adrenaline. It was… acceleration.

He didn’t notice it when he spoke the first time, but this time it was obvious.

“Hello?” he said.

Nothing seemed to change.

The word came out normal enough, which almost annoyed him. Like the belt was deciding when to mess with him.

“Hello, hello, my name is Kael Ardent!”

The words were at first normal, then they sped up.

He heard it clearly now, his own voice ramping, the tail end of the sentence snapping forward too quickly, like someone was fast-forwarding the last half-second of sound.

“Shit, this speeds up even my words?”

His eyes flicked to the blue bar out of instinct. He didn’t like mysteries that touched his body. He noticed one thing: whenever he spoke, a tiny fraction of the bar dipped down.

A tiny drain. Not huge, but consistent. Like the rune was paying for acceleration in small bites.

“I see, so it’s like [Presence] in a sense…” he muttered and was annoyed at how his words were accelerating.

If a rune messed with his timing, it messed with his fighting. If it messed with his fighting, it messed with his survival.

He went to remove the rune and ended up smacking his own belly.

The gauntlet moved too fast again, the motion overshooting. The metal kissed his stomach with a thud that made him grunt. It wasn’t a deep injury, but it was a sharp reminder: you do not get to be clumsy with heavy metal on your hands.

“Fuck… that hurts…” The lack of control over the speed and acceleration was painful.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened his fingers and then pried the rune out.

He forced himself to move like he was underwater, deliberate and cautious, compensating for the belt’s interference. The rune resisted a little, tight in the socket, so he used his thumb to lever it up millimeter by millimeter until it popped free. The instant it left the cavity, his body felt… steadier. His motions stopped trying to outrun themselves.

Taking a deep breath, Kael held the rune up, “You’re an annoying little thing, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t hatred in his voice. It was the tone you used for a tool that worked but bit you while doing it.

But it wasn’t bad.

In fact, if used correctly. This rune might be a very interesting rune.

He could already picture it: a burst of speed on command, a momentary acceleration that could turn a dodge into a blur, turn a punch into a truck. The rune wasn’t useless; he’d just been ignorant enough to activate it without a switch.

“But, I can’t just equip and unequip you whenever I want…” He sighed.

Equipping the rune was one thing, disabling it was another, unlike Presence, where he could simply stop fueling it with Mana, this one was more… mechanical.

He stared at the belt head on the table, the socket too firm, too precise. It didn’t allow “panic removal.” You couldn’t fumble it out while being chased. And if you tried, you’d probably punch yourself in the stomach again, which wasn’t a great combat strategy.

He removed the belt and placed it back on the table.

The metallic belt head was too firm and needed some precision when removing the rune or putting it in.

It wasn’t hard to place it, but with the acceleration effect, removing it is a pain.

“I need a way to remove it even if I’m accelerated… I can’t be prying it off slowly, especially if I’m in a fight or if I’m running, it needs to be quick, fast, and efficient…”

He tapped his fingers on the table a few times, thinking.

The rhythm was familiar: tap, pause, tap, like his brain was knocking on doors looking for an answer. His gaze drifted over the room’s junk: the broken chair, the splintered table edge, the scraps of leather. Nothing screamed “solution” until his hands started moving the way they always did when he was searching for one.

The motion he was doing with his finger is something he did for half his academic life.

“Computer keys… Springs… a spring-loaded activation?”

The thought settled in.

A button. A latch. Push once to lock, push again to release.

Something tactile.

Something reliable, even when your body was moving too fast.

Kael felt the idea click into place with the same satisfaction as solving a mechanical problem in class, except this time the grade was survival.

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