The diagnosis of Acquired Savant Syndrome was truly a shocking one.

One that none of them could have ever imagined.

And yet, as they continued extensively testing him with a battery of neurocognitive tests, the results became exceedingly clear. Cæ had come to develop a truly impressive aptitude in several cognitive parameters, particularly in the trait of divergent thinking.

It was difficult to understate how rare the condition was. In the entirety of the world of Alaria, there were less than a hundred known recorded cases of Acquired Savant Syndrome. It was so astronomically rare that less than one in a million people who experienced some kind of neurological disorder or brain injury of any kind were diagnosed with Acquired Savant Syndrome.

“Don’t you see, Mr. Cæ?!” Doctor Dane exclaimed with an excited expression. “It’s a miracle! You have been blessed!”

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the reaction that he sought.

His patient barely stirred at the otherwise stunning revelations.

It couldn’t be helped.

It hadn’t even been a day since he had woken up six months after an accident that killed his lover.

The grief and sorrow were still fresh in his mind.

It still consumed him.

The doctor heaved a sigh, putting a hand on his patient’s shoulder. “Mr. Cæ, I know that you are hurting inside… but you have been blessed with an extraordinarily rare gift. This gift can help you in any and all ventures. It will be a source of great power for you for the rest of your life!”

Cæ’s cold gaze shifted towards the doctor. “…Will it bring everything that I have lost?”

The doctor flinched at the frost in his words.

“Will it allow me to fix the past?”

His voice was frosty.

“Will it allow me to travel back in time and heal her when the hospital refused to?”

His voice sparkled with anger.

Already, his grief had become fuel for his rage and hatred for the way things had unfolded. So much so that he wasn’t even able to appreciate the gift that he had inadvertently received after losing the one person he loved with all his heart.

“Will it allow me to mourn before the hospital disposed of her like she was a piece of garbage?” he growled.

The doctor shook his head helplessly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cæ. I truly am.”

The man’s heartfelt remorse for something that wasn’t even his fault made Cæ feel a hint of guilt and regret.

Doctor Dane didn’t deserve to be subjected to his emotional turmoil when he was simply expressing heartfelt concern and care.

“No…” Cæ shook his head as his voice quivered with emotion. “…I should be the one saying that.”

He gazed at the doctor with soft eyes. “Thank you for doing everything you could to save Lilia.”

Gratitude could be heard in the depths of his voice.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he continued. “Thank you for everything.”

The doctor smiled warmly at Cæ. “I was just doing my duty as a doctor, young man. You have nothing to thank me for. I only wish I had the healing magic needed to save Miss Mandal.”

True regret could be heard in his voice.

Unfortunately, even if he had possessed that power, he would undoubtedly have been sucked into the system. The cold, cruel system that would let an innocent person die just because they weren’t wealthy enough to be worth saving. Even if he had had the power to save Lilia, he would have been unable to help her whatsoever.

Cold fury, unlike anything Cæ had ever felt before, chilled in the depths of his heart as his gray eyes grew eerily perilous.

It took every ounce of self-control to stop himself from quivering with wrath.

“Mr. Cæ…” Doctor Dane hesitated. “We have yet to talk about the rest of your condition and your diagnosis. You have been through a terrible accident and our primary concern after you woke up was ensuring that your neurocognitive parameters were just alright. And now that we have confirmed that you have fortunately not only not received any impairment, I think it’s time we brief you on the rest of your condition. Your physical condition.”

They had been the most concerned about his mind when he woke up from a coma of six months, but that didn’t mean that his physical body was entirely unscathed.

Most certainly not.

“This is going to be important, so please pay attention, Mr. Cæ.”

What followed was a long list of injuries, conditions, and wounds that he had suffered as a result of the accident.

A myriad of broken bones, damaged internal organs, muscle tears, large swathes of lost skin and flesh, and a multitude of other more minor conditions. Thankfully, six months had already passed since the accident, giving his body time to heal the worst of it under the care of Doctor Dane and the nurses.

The scars on his body and across his face revealed that he had truly suffered a brutal and devastating accident. Scar tissue streaked across the entirety of his skin and flesh.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“We have deployed some basic healing magic to slow down muscle atrophy and nourish your body just enough to ensure that there is no severe permanent impairment of sorts. However, it will still take time before you fully heal,” the doctor explained. “Unfortunately, this also comes with an extensive list of supplements, some medication, physiotherapy, and lots of rest. Additionally…”

The doctor continued droning on and on about important pointers, notes, and a multitude of dos and don’ts.

The accident had ravaged his entire body, leaving so many health complications that it took an hour for the doctor to fully finish communicating everything he needed to Cæ about how to look after himself in the aftermath of the accident.

“…In general, do not push your system and your health too far,” Doctor Dane warned. “You have not and will not fully return to the condition that you were in prior to the crash; it is best that you do not stress or strain yourself too much for the rest of your life.”

The severe tone of the doctor’s warning conveyed the importance of his prescriptions.

And yet, Cæ couldn’t even bring himself to feel the slightest sense of severity.

Did it even matter?

“We have monitored your condition and have deemed you fit for discharge,” Doctor Dane continued.

And yet, his expression was severe.

“Good luck, Mr. Cæ. It won’t be easy. I have… tried my best to minimize the burden.”

His tone was grave.

Cæ didn’t understand at that time.

He only understood when he was officially discharged as a patient and was presented the bill for any and all medical expenditures that had gone into his treatment over the past six months.

“7,800,000 leenars…?” Cæ’s expression crumpled with darkness as he read through the long tabulated bill that detailed the extensive list of medical goods and services that he had consumed while in a coma. “Are you… serious?”

The nation of Elendir merely recognized the right to emergency aid.

Not the right to free emergency aid, unfortunately.

What especially boiled his blood was that the bill included the cost of Lilia’s healthcare as well as the cost of disposing of her body.

“Correct, Mr. Cæ,” the man replied with a cold voice as he adjusted his glasses. “You may pay through cash or make a magital payment, if you please.”

Cæ’s stared at the man before with grave reckoning. “And if I don’t have the money to make the payment…?”

“I am afraid that we will have to charge you with debt defaulting,” the administrative executive’s voice grew even colder. “At which time you will be ordered by the court of Colohen to pay the mandated amount plus an additional amount in compensation for our legal expenditure. If you are unable to make the payment then, your assets will be seized and liquidated as compensation. And if you are unable to make the payment even with your seized assets, then…”

His tone grew chilling. “Then I’m afraid we will have no choice but to demand the courts to have you compensate our damages with manual labor under a court-ordered slave contract.”

It was at that moment that all the grief and sorrow that boiled within his heart fully turned into hatred.

Pure loathing unlike anything Cæ had ever experienced before boiled in the depths of his heart.

Slavery was not outlawed in the nation of Elendir.

It was not outlawed anywhere in the entire world, in fact.

It had simply become a judicial instrument of remuneration and compensation in the event that a party could not uphold a monetary or financial obligation in any given contractual or legal transaction. A power exclusively held by the judiciary of most governments around the world.

Having always lived below his means, he never expected to even come anywhere near facing this much-feared judicial sentencing that he had actively stayed away from his entire life.

It was a truly horrible fate.

The mere threat of it sent shivers down his back.

“Do I need to make the payment all at once?” He gritted his teeth, struggling to rein in his wrath.

“Of course not.” The executive’s voice grew more relaxed. “It will be treated like an open-ended loan. You will need to pay interest, at a rate of about three-point-five percent, on the principal or the remaining amount until you have fully paid back every ounce of money. For a principal of 7,800,000 leenars, that should be about…”

The man pulled out a calculator.

“Two-hundred and seventy-three-thousand leenars per month,” Cæ correctly stated, even as sought to keep his emotions in check.

The executive raised an eyebrow with a momentary hint of surprise. “…Precisely.”

He pulled out a form and a contract from his briefcase before placing them before Cæ. “Fill in the details and sign there at the bottom, and our business will be complete.”

Cæ clenched his fist as deep consternation flashed in his eyes.

The air grew tense under the weight of the fiery emotions that boiled within him.

He wanted to strangle the man then and there.

He wanted to rain down on him an onslaught of blows, pummeling him to a pulp.

And yet, he couldn’t.

He was too weak.

The man was brimming with mana.

He was rich.

As long as he gained even basic proficiency in any field of magic with even the slightest relevance in combat, he would be able to effortlessly dominate Cæ then and there. Cæ was almost entirely devoid of mana at the moment.

A blood-curdling reminder that he had lost all his magicapita.

The small, congested, and poorly maintained apartment that he had rented was gone. The scooter he owned and painstakingly bought to make his daily commute was also gone. The meager savings in his bank account was also gone. He had almost certainly lost his job, having been absent for half a year.

Judging by how little mana he had left, he had lost almost everything he owned. He was so lacking in mana that even the administrative executive before him knew with a single disdainful and contemptuous glance that he was too poor to pay off the debt that he owed the hospital.

He felt like he was being squeezed of everything he owned.

It wasn’t enough that he lost Lilia?

Did he have to lose everything he owned, too?

Just how much would this world take from him?

Years of hard work, a frugal lifestyle, and steely perseverance had allowed him to lift himself up from abject poverty into something resembling a decent lifestyle. And all of that was robbed from him in the blink of an eye.

STEP

Cæ walked out of the hospital after signing the papers and undertaking a deep burden of debt. He found himself beholding the world around him for what felt like the first time in an eternity.

The lifeless array of skyscrapers owned by massive corporations littered the downtown.

A dark and desolate world.

A world that trampled over the poor and weak.

He gritted his teeth as he clenched his fists.

Pure grief and rage boiled in the depths of his eyes.

He truly hated this world from the bottom of his heart.

And yet, there was the slightest glimmer of hope amidst the fury and hatred in his gray eyes. From the moment he stepped out of the hospital, there was one and only one thing that he cared about.

The man who crashed into them with a truck.

Cæ would ensure that he got what he deserved.

“Justice…” A whisper escaped him as his expression hardened with chilling vengeance. “Justice for Lilia.”

Little did he realize just how naive his sentiment was at the time.

-