SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 25: No More Power-Up for You

Hiroshi opened his eyes to white ceiling beams.

He didn’t recognize them. The wood was clean and pale, not the dark stone of the dungeon or the rough planks of the inn. Sunlight streamed through a window to his right, warm and bright.

He tried to sit up. His body didn’t respond correctly. His arms felt weak. It took three attempts to prop himself on his elbows, and even that left him breathing hard.

"Easy." A woman’s voice came from his left. "You’ve been out for three weeks. Your muscles won’t work right yet."

Hiroshi turned his head slowly. A healer sat in a chair beside his bed, middle-aged with gray streaking through her hair. She wore the simple robes of the Church medical division.

"Three weeks?" His voice came out as a rasp.

"Twenty-two days exactly. You collapsed outside the dungeon and didn’t wake up." She stood and poured water from a pitcher into a cup. "Here. Take small sips."

He took the cup with shaking hands. The water was cool and helped his throat. He managed three sips before his arms got tired and he had to set it down.

"What happened to me?"

"Internal trauma. Your body was destroying itself from the inside when they brought you in. No external wounds or any poison we could detect. Just massive internal damage." She pulled out a slate with notes on it. "We stabilized you with healing magic and kept you sedated. The rest your body did on its own."

"Did you find a cause?"

"No. Best guess is extreme dungeon contamination or a delayed reaction to something you encountered down there. Bodies are strange sometimes. Damage doesn’t always show up immediately."

Hiroshi nodded slowly. That told him nothing useful. The healer had treated symptoms, not causes. She had no idea what had actually happened to him.

He opened his status screen. It loaded normally this time, no flickering or delay.

Name: Hiroshi

Level 9

HP: 120/150

Vitality: 20

Strength: 12

Agility: 17

Intelligence: 17

Wisdom: 12

Charisma: 8

Skill:

[Adaptive Evolution]

[Undead Stride]

That was it.

Hiroshi stared at the screen, processing what he was seeing. Everything else was gone. Cold Grip. Life Drain. Undead Resilience. All the abilities he’d gained in the dungeon, the skills that had kept him alive on the lower floors, were simply erased.

The healer couldn’t see his status screen. She had no way of knowing what had changed. To her, he was just another adventurer who’d collapsed after a dungeon run.

But Hiroshi understood now.

The system had rejected something. The collapse, the internal damage, the three weeks unconscious, all of it had been his body trying to survive a fundamental incompatibility. He’d copied too many skills too fast. Acquired abilities that his base system wasn’t designed to support.

The system had made a choice: strip the unstable skills or let him die.

It had chosen to strip them.

"How do you feel?" the healer asked, watching him carefully.

"Weak."

"That’s normal. Three weeks of bed rest destroys muscle mass. You’ll need physical therapy before you can walk properly again."

Hiroshi looked down at his arms. They were thinner than before, the muscle diminished. He could see his ribs through his shirt. His body had cannibalized itself while unconscious, burning through reserves to stay alive.

He’d lost the skills and the physical strength. Back to almost nothing.

"Your party members have been visiting," the healer said. "They’ll want to know you’re awake. Should I send for them?"

"Yes."

She left. Hiroshi used the time alone to think through what had happened.

The skills he’d copied weren’t permanent. They were built on top of his core abilities like scaffolding. Adaptive Evolution was the foundation. Everything else was temporary construction. When his system destabilized, it had torn down everything except the foundation to save his life.

Could he get them back? Probably. Adaptive Evolution still worked. He could copy skills again.

But would the same thing happen? Would his system reject them again if he acquired too many?

He didn’t know. The system didn’t come with warnings or limits. He’d have to figure it out through trial and error. And error might kill him.

The door opened. Kenji entered first, followed by Aria and Marcus. They all looked different. Cleaner. Better equipped. Marcus had a new mace, higher quality than his old one.

"You’re awake," Kenji said. He didn’t smile, but relief was clear in his voice. "We were starting to think you wouldn’t wake up."

"Three weeks," Hiroshi said.

Aria sat in the chair the healer had vacated. "We’ve been taking turns checking on you. The healers said your condition was stable but they didn’t know when you’d wake."

Marcus leaned against the wall. "What happened to you?"

"Lost most of my skills. Only two remain."

Silence.

"Which ones?" Kenji asked.

"Adaptive Evolution and Undead Stride. Everything I copied in the dungeon or outside the dungeon is gone."

"Can you get them back?" Kenji asked.

"Maybe. I don’t know if the same thing will happen again."

"Then you don’t risk it," Marcus said firmly. "Not worth dying over."

Hiroshi looked at the three of them.

"What happened after I collapsed?" he asked.

"We carried you to the nearest Church facility," Kenji said. "They stabilized you and kept you sedated while your body healed. The dungeon clear was officially logged. We got paid."

"The Church was suspicious," Aria added. "They questioned us for hours. Wanted to know every detail of how we managed it."

"What did you tell them?"

"The truth. That we avoided fights when we could, used strategy over force, and got lucky on the boss." Kenji shrugged. "They didn’t believe it at first, but the results speak for themselves."

Marcus pushed off the wall. "You’re famous now, by the way. Word spread about the clear."

Hiroshi felt his stomach tighten. Fame meant attention. Attention meant scrutiny. And scrutiny was the last thing he needed if the people who’d tried to kill him were still watching.

"Is the party still together?" he asked.

"That depends on you," Kenji said. "Aria and Marcus are willing to continue. But you’re in no condition to dungeon dive right now. You’ll need weeks to recover physically, and losing your skills changes everything."

"I slow you down," Hiroshi said.

"You need time to rebuild. That’s different."

Aria leaned forward. "We talked about it while you were unconscious. If you want to keep going, we wait for you to recover. If you want to quit, we understand. Your choice."

Hiroshi looked at his hands. Thin. Weak. Barely able to hold a cup of water. He’d fought through a E-Rank dungeon, survived impossible odds, and gained power he’d never imagined having.

Then lost it all in one moment.

He could quit. Take whatever money he’d earned and disappear. Find simple work somewhere quiet.

But quitting didn’t solve the real problem. Someone had tried to kill him. Someone had probably arranged for him to be assigned to that dungeon. Quitting wouldn’t stop them. It would just make him an easier target.

"I want to continue," he said. "But I need time." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Kenji nodded. "We figured. We’ll take small jobs while you recover. Guard duty, escort missions, basic contracts. Nothing dangerous. When you’re ready, we tackle another dungeon together."

"What about payment? Three weeks of healing must have cost..."

"Covered," Marcus interrupted. "We used part of the dungeon payment. You’re clear."

"You didn’t have to..."

"Yes, we did. You’re part of the party. We don’t leave people behind."

Hiroshi felt something shift in his chest.

"How long until I can walk?" he asked.

"Healer said another week of rest, then you can start moving around," Aria said. "Maybe a month before you’re functional again."

A month just to walk normally. Then more time to rebuild muscle. Then more time to figure out his skills. He was looking at months of recovery before he could fight again.

They stayed longer, updating him on smaller details. His equipment was stored. His inn room was paid through the end of the month. The Church had upgraded their party status slightly, which meant access to better contracts.

When they left, Hiroshi lay back and stared at the ceiling.

Two skills. Wasted muscles. Months of recovery ahead.

But he was alive.

And now he knew his limits.