Looking through his notifications, Aki noted that despite still not having finished his basic grade talents, he now only needed to figure out one more intermediary level talent to unlock the (expected) next level of achievement from the one he'd gained some points from after he'd been with Mina.
Not that he actually knew what the fuck this Meta talent could be, as he was pretty much taped out in ideas, as many of his efforts and experiences had landed him a few advanced talents and even a couple of expert level ones, and in his understanding of this weird categorisation system, Meta was his worst subject.
He did know how to level and likely reach this missing talent however. Grinding. Grinding the most finicky of details about his every spell until he could formulate a proper system to help each and everyone of those parts at once independent of the spell itself.
Unfortunately that would take time, concentration, probably money somewhere along the road and also several somethings to experiment with. None of which he would have much access to considering he was pretty much completely bandaged and strapped to a bed.
Really, he didn’t see much of a need for it all. He wasn’t 100% and despite looking at his stats for a bit they weren’t going up, but despite not being combat ready, he was perfectly fine if you discounted his heavy need of a whole box of ibuprofen. Besides, he’d always been an imobile sleeper, just like his mother, who would either do nothing to move from her original position through the whole night or do several 360 in the same pla… Yeah, that was probably why they cuffed him.
But hey, at least they should not have had any problem penetrating his skin for injections or to seam his several small wounds closed.
AND THERE THEY CAME! The first nurse to come check on him in way more than ten minutes for whatever reason.
“Hello.” ‘General kenobi. Focus damn.’ He said in southeastern common, having a hard time really concentrating but still managing to dreg the word on the language he had started to learn after becoming good enough with fataram.
Seeing he was awake, the maid with a weird uniform was startled, but soon enough regained composure and calmly asked him to wait for a bit as she called for a doctor to take a look at him.
When said doctor came, she was running and almost breathless. Likely something related to his patrons and them wanting him back on the active or something.
"Welcome. Any chance I could be released from these? I don't think my wounds are that bad anymore and I feel like I'll get sores if I just keep like this." He asked in fataram as he wiggled his cuffs, the change in language surprisingly easy due to his mental stats.
For whatever reason though, this all seemed to shock the doctor and the guards at the entrance of his room, who'd not been visible before they tried to peek inside just now.
"You can speak." She stated with obvious surprise. "Do you remember what happened before you collapsed? Who you are?"
"Yes to both questions. Did you expect to speak to a vegetable instead? Or perhaps a different Mind inside this Body?" He snorted, ignoring the pressure in his chest and the pain in his throat and face.
"Anything can happen when dealing with such a dissonance between an injured body and injured mind." She responded, quickly and precisely enough that it was rather obvious she had practiced that sentence. Possibly to deal with people wanting to speak with him.
"In either situation, I assure you I stand no chance to defeat you, nevermind the guards outside at the moment. Of course, unless you give me your name or some such." He scoffed, showing teeth as he clearly frightened the woman, though he was making a reference to something in specific rather than the general problems in dealing with fae in general.
He had no doubt that he could be scarier than a Question given time however.
"May I approach to see your condition?" He gave the woman a quick nod and verbal assent, trying not to tease her anymore after she figured out enough courage to approach him.
Soon enough, she had that impassive and calm expression of a professional holding their opinions back so as to avoid possible psychological complication.
"Give it to me straight doc, am I gonna make it?" He asked in a husky and clearly faked voice.
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"I need to make at least a few more exams before concluding anything." She said, mana circulating through his channels and body and seeing exactly how fucked up he was.
"Uh, so you do have the same work ethic around here. No need to worry though, I know for a fact that I am half dead, and the only reason I went so far was because I knew I'd get better later. This is all still fixable." He pointed out, getting a skeptical look of askance for a moment before the doctor went back to examining him.
"Be that as it may, I would still like to make a few more tests." She repeated.
"Well, I can immediately tell you I'm not in a critical condition, so I find it more important to ask how to most quickly get some pain killers."
"I can see the need for it, certainly." She admitted out loud, stalling if the quick look she gave him was any indication. "Her royal highness wishes to see you however, and you need to be fully cognisant for that. I will begin preparations while you speak, but that may take a bit."
"That's ok, sure. Say, how long was I unconscious?" He said, his voice surprisingly soft despite dessuse.
“Only a few days. Three or four depending on how you count in, but currently it is barely past dawn. There were a few complications during first response due to some strange mana type you seem to naturally produce, but there shouldn't be any problem in your body derived from treatment.” The way she said it sounded like she wanted to know about it, but honestly, he had not seen anybody else use this shit yet and wasn’t about to hand over such a card in his sleeve without even putting up a great many zeros in it’s price tag.
“It won’t be a problem so long as i don’t go into battle.” He dismissively deflected, starting the long wait for his handler.
Which actually turned out to not be so long, the doctor barely out the door when suddenly she sprinted out of the way and bowed. To a giant of a man he had never seen before. Considering his clothes, he wasn’t just a normal noble either, but…
“I am Prince Krazstovitny, second in line for the demonic trone of Lasti.” Boisterously said the man with a tone and volume to his voice that was strident and also rather painful. “And you have a lot of explaining to do.” He said in an intimidating way.
“Sorry to break it, but royal essence doesn’t work on someone that doesn’t see you as superior to themselves. As it stands the mana in your voice just hurts, and that’s because my body’s practically destroyed.” Wincing, Aki nonchalantly ignored the compulsion to fear and respect the man before him, sending the man into what seemed to be semi-catatonic state of incomprehension while standing in front of the door.
“Move it you big oaf, i told you your usual routine wouldn’t work.” Complained a voice he recognised from behind the red hulk that had to bend to pass through the rather tall door to his room. And indeed, it was the bodaciously blonde princess who came in right after, the woman clearly in a bad mood.
“I take it follow ups were not very successful?” He asked.
“We caught several agents and stopped many problems, but no, whoever is behind this just got set back on their time table. They’re still at large.” She huffed, readily admitting after closing the door and turning some array on.
“Sorry to say, but little old me won’t be able to even help search for the bitches that struck at me when i was protecting the kid from before though.” He tried to shrug with his eyes, but by the expressions of the royals it just looked weird, so he sighed. “I can assure you none of them lived though. Those that got away would need too much treatment to ever be of any use and simply live in agony if not put down.”
“Like you then?” She asked with a sharp gaze that showed that she too had her doubts about him.
“Not even close. What i have is a minor dissociation between mind and body, what i gave them is a broken mind, perforated soul and empty body. No matter how mean or inopportune i am to the medical staff here, they will be having a better time than those that still need to discover all of this.” He explained with a small shake of his head, a smile blooming at the memory of the tremendous fight he’d just fought despite the pain of moving.
“I don’t even want to know. Rather, i just need you to reaffirm your contract so we can get this over with and go get you ready for whatever you need for recovery.” Sighed the princess.
“I should still inspect his mind, sister.” Grunted the fiend besides the succubus.
“Ha, you’d die even if I was heavily sedated!” He guffawed, the man clearly not having a mind anywhere needed to understand even the dank memes floating through his mind. While he wasn’t a psionic, actively looking for someone’s mind with magic was entirely possible, and he’d already done so a couple of times since waking up.
Luckily magic didn’t hurt too much to cast, thought it was admittedly rather slow compared to normal.
“Is that a threat?!” Asked an incensed demon that had all the signs of an angered man, with wide eyes and flared nostrils even.
“It’s an assessment of your capabilities. Not only is your mind too small and slow, it is also put together in a way that would waste processing power through every bit of the process to interpret the things you’d see, nevermind how labyrinthine my thought process has always been. You have neither the specs nor the experience to do it even if you actually wanted to, in which case you would have brought a more experienced cabal member to safeguard your royal mind. Now fess up Sera, why the bad guard good guard routine?” He explained as laughter settled down on him, going through the weirdness of the situation and calling them out.
“There was an assassination attempt to the Demon king. This whole thing was just a diversion.” She sighed and proceeded to talk, her brother surprised but a lot less ‘cartoony’ in his act now. Which had mostly been a bet from his part, but luckily it’d paid off. “And the energy on your body after you passed out matches with that of the weapon that harmed him.”
“Oof.” That was a bit more of a problem than he thought. “I can’t really help with that.”