Recovering

Through a haze of weariness, and discomfort, I slept, albeit with difficulty. I experienced brief stints of conciousness every now and then, but it was not enough to fully rouse me from my dead-like state. By the time I finally did wake up, a dim ray of light enveloped the living room with an almost ephemeral glow.

I checked the wall clock besides the wall, and discovered that the time was 5:30 am. A whole day passed, and it was already the next morning.

The first thing that greeted me was a wave of hunger and thirst. It was quite a familiar combination, one I’ve recently grown accustomed to. Although in retrospect, I don’t think it’s really the type of thing someone should be familiar with, but, what’s done is done.

I grunted with difficulty as I sat up on the coach. The soft looking cushions felt like slabs of hard concrete, but that too, I had grown accustomed to.

My prolonged nap seemed to do wonders on my mental state. The hazy feeling from yesterday has lessened by a considerable extent. With a clear mind, I quietly assessed my situation.

I had plenty of thoughts and problems that plagued me, but to some it up, the issues I needed to deal with included;

Secure food and water

Heal my injuries

Meet back up with Cielle, and the others

Collect the dropped loot from the Manticore

I mentally assorted everything, and ranked them by priority. I wanted to take care of everything in one go, but I had a vague feeling things weren’t quite that simple. After some more deliberation, I let out a long winded sigh, before I got up and started the long day ahead of me.

****

I drank some water from the tank cover, before I poured what little remained into a mettalic water bottle I happened to find in a cabinet within the kitchen.

While I had quenched the itching thirst in the back of my throat, the gnawing pain in my stomach was another problem entirely. With no food anywhere to be found, I knew I needed to leave the house, but in my current condition, that thought brought a sense of trepidation to my heart. Although I’ve recovered a little, and my current state was considerably better than what it was yesterday, as expected, I was still far from my peak condition. The most notable factor was [Extreme Burnout], which still hasn’t dissapeared since yesterday.

As long as this remained, my active skills will remain locked away. In a world filled with so many dangers, this was probably my biggest setback.

With a heavy sigh, I pushed my concerns aside and began searching the house for anything useful. Such a simple task sapped out a considerable amount of my stamina, but after an hour or so, I did find a few useful items. The first, and probably most useful item was a mountaineering backpack I found in a closet near the master bedroom. This was a great find, because it was considerably more sturdy than regular backpacks, and has a larger storage capacity. On top of that, within the same closet, I also found a sleeping bag, an insulated blanket, some durable rope, the type meant for mountain climbing, a cooking set - complete with a mini portable hot stove, and a pick axe.

Judging from the items I found, it was cleer that the owner of this house was an avid mountain climber. This guess was further solidified after I found his passport, and a ticket to Tibet in his bedroom.

There were a few other things I found within the closet, but compared to the ones I listed, they were too bulky, and troublesome to carry, so I left them alone. As for the ones I did mention, after I put them away, they took up about a third of the backpack’s total space. I would have actually preferred [identifying] them beforehand, but as expected, in my current condition, that was impossible.

I also created an impromptu sling from a few of the items I found around the house. It wasn’t anything special, but it did lessen the load on my broken wrist.

Afterwards, I padded the inside of the backpack with the insulating blanket and placed the manticore egg within it. Due to its size, it took up a majority of the space, but that couldn’t be helped. I was tempted by my hunger to pounce on the egg and eat it, but considering the war potential this egg possessed, I thoroughly held myself back.

With the whole house searched and looted, I thought about my next step.

I wanted to leave this house, but after considering the situation, I decided that it wasn’t the time yet to attempt to go back and meet back up with the others. For one, in my current state, I’d be as dead if I run into anything even remotely strong, especially with the effects of [Extreme Burnout], which practically invalidated all of my active skills. While I knew the residential area was still relatively safe for the time being, considering it was part of the manticore’s previous territory, all the same, I couldn’t be too careless.

I decided that, I’d postpone my way back, and further spend a day on recovering.

But even after deciding this, I knew full well I couldn’t just stay within this house. There was absolutely no food available, and I needed nourishment in order to recover my stamina and further facilitate my healing. I couldn’t go too far, but I needed to find food fast.

If I’m remembering correctly, there should be a convenience store close by, but if I do go there, that will take me even further away from the school building, and even further away from where the others are. I could always loot from the neighboring houses, but there was always the possibility of them being cleaned out like this house.

With a frown on my face, I thought for a long while before I eventually decided to search the neighboring houses.

****

With my sword in hand, I moved carefully through the neighborhood.

I had already mentally prepared myself. I was ready to abandon the previous house at a moment’s notice, so everything I had on me was basically everything I was willing to carry. I had abandoned the exoskeleton armor, mostly because they felt bulky, and in my current condition, they weighed me down like a heavy pair of chains. Plus, after two consecutive boss battles, the hastily created equipment had long since lost their usefulness. Right now, they were in tatters, a state beyond repair.

My current equipment was rather light, or at least, I tried to keep it that way. I wore a pair of sweatpants and a clean shirt that I had looted from the previous house. Coupled with my sword, and a few daggers I kept tucked away in my modified utility belt, I also carried the new backpack with me. It felt rather heavy, but it wasn’t to the extent where I could not support it with my current strength.

I moved as quietly as possible. I did not use the main streets, but rather, I climbed over the fences, and traveled through the neighboring yard. The whole place was quiet, almost eerily so. There was no movement within the streets or the yards. Save for the obvious signs of destruction and blood stains, the whole scene was almost no different from before the apocalypse.

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This was in part due to the Manticore’s influence. With a boss class monster roaming nearby, no human or monster dared to step forth within its territory. With the manticore now dead, I knew this scene would change soon, but for the time being, this neighborhood was probably one of the safest locations within this city. Despite knowing this, I still maintained my air of caution. I knew full well I was being overly paranoid, but I did not dare to slacken.

The risk was too great otherwise.

Although the distance I traveled was short, only to the neighboring house next door, to me, it felt as if I had just traversed across a sweltering desert. Sweat stained my face and body, while my breathing turned rough. The temperature was particularly hot today, and being an island of the coast of japan, it was also quite humid. This combination, coupled with my current condition, took quite a toll on my body. The constant pangs of hunger in my abdomen didn’t help either.

I swiped at the beads of perspiration that had accumulated on my forehead, as I stared at the building in front of me with narrowed eyes. The neighboring house was almost identical to the previous house, a two story building that took up a sizable square shaped plot of land.

With little hesitation, I broke into the house, and immediately began searching for food.

Unlike last time, I wasn’t as careful as before. I only bothered to check the kitchen and pantry for the things I needed. My actions were met with mild success. As expected, everything in the freezer and fridge were all spoiled and rotten, to the extent where maggots and flies had already gathered. While I had expected this, I still could not help but be disheartened.

I continued to check the neighboring cabinets and pantry. Almost everything had been ravaged and ransacked. Bags of chips were opened, while packets of ramen and other foodstuff had been thoroughly devoured. Judging by the layout of everything as well as the traces of pellet sized balls of dung on the floor, the thing that had gone and eaten everything wasn’t human. Most likely, something like a pack of rats, or maybe some sort of rodent monster had passed by.

Lucky for me, not everything had been devoured. Maybe because they could not get through the containers, but the canned goods were still in tact. Canned meat, some condensed milk, a can of fruits, soup, to my starving self, it was truly something close to heaven.

I ate an exorbitant amount of food that day.

After my meal, a self satisfied expression was plainly written on my face. I had thoroughly indulged myself, even to the point of bloating my stomach. I knew it wasn’t really smart to eat so much, especially after a period of starvation, but in the end I could not care less. Be it a stomach ache, or something else, I could not hold myself back, nor did I want to.

I easily cleaned out 3 cans of meat, 2 cans of condensed milk, a can of peaches, and 4 cans of soup. In all, I consumed a good 2/3rds of all the food I had found. The rest I stuffed into a plastic bag.

After my meal, I quickly went and checked on the current condition of my body. I did this through a series of basic body movements. Things such as stretching, and jumping. I discovered that the pain from before had considerably lessened, and that my body moved much smoother than before.

It was as if someone had oiled an old and rusty car. The oil did not bring the car to its peak condition, but it did help it run a bit better. All in all, my complexion had returned, the bulging veins from last time became less noticeable, and many of my open wounds had shrunk. I was recovering quite well.

At the same time, I also checked on my left wrist. To my fortune, I discovered that the deep purplish discoloration from before had somewhat lessened. The absolute numbness from before had also gone down. Obviously, it hadn’t completely recovered, but it was to the extent where I could at least feel a slight tingling sensation at the end of each of my fingers.

Although I still couldn’t move my wrist or my left hand fingers just yet, compared to when I could not feel anything at all, it was a considerable improvement.

Without a doubt, after assessing my current condition, I felt that the investment in greater vitality had payed off. While it didn’t necessarily increased my recovery speed, it did increase my recovering power. It was a bit hard to explain. The rate of hp regeneration stayed the same, but I felt that my resistance to abnormal status conditions had gone up.

I washed my left wrist with some water from the toilet tank. When that ran out, I used some more water from a couple of water bottles I had found in the pantry. There were a lot, so I could afford to be a little extravagant. Afterwards, I quickly gauzed up the wound with a fresh set of bandages, before I decided to try and create a splint for my wrist.

In the loosest of terms, I “set” my broken wrist back into place. I don’t have much medical knowledge, but I was positive that my wrist wasn’t commuted, or splintered. It was probably just a break. After I forcibly corrected my wrist, I wanted to create a splint so that nothing goes wrong with its recovery. I created a splint using a leg that I had broken off from a nearby wooden chair. The splint in itself wasn’t the most beautiful creation, but it would do the job.

After the amateur medical work I performed, I took a 3 hour break in order to recover my depleted stamina, before I quickly gathered the rest of my things, and moved on towards the next house. I wasn’t planning on lingering very long, nor did I plan on immediately making my way over back to the school.

I wanted to take things slow. Search through a couple houses at a leisurely pace so that I can properly heal.

I checked through 5 houses before the sun started to set.

Along the way, I managed to fill three plastic bags worth of food. The majority of it was canned goods, but all the same, I was happy. When night time finally arrived, I decided to stop.

The 5th house I searched through became my temporary base, and after I ate my fill of canned goods, I curled up in the living room, and got ready to go to sleep. Unlike before, I barricaded all the entrances of the house before hand. Again, I knew I was being overly cautious, but it was better to be prepared than to be sorry.

After thoroughly reinforcing the house to the best of my ability, I finally decided to head to bed.

With thoughts of tomorrow swirling around my head, I quietly drifted off to bed. I took no notice of the fact that I firmly held a sword in my right hand, while a dagger was securely nestled beneath my left.