That night muffled groans could be heard through the infirmary’s corridor.The failed assassin from the day prior had woken up in spite of the odds.
He had already found his weapon and was struggling through the building looking for the only occupied room besides his own.
His mental state was in shambles. He might have been able to force himself through the pain but the suffering was so great that he was single mindedly searching for the source of said suffering.
When he finally found the place he was looking for he broke down the door without hesitation. This caused alarms to go off and every guard on standby was rushing towards them.
But at that moment he didn’t care.
He walked up to the unconscious body of the boy responsible for his current state.
The annoying shadow appeared once again but he simply swatted it away and continued forward.
He raised up his knife and struck down.
However, the fountain of blood he expected didn’t appear. Instead his weapon was hovering in the air with a black rabbit that appeared out of nowhere separating the blade from the boy’s neck.
{You have already lost. Stand down!}
Without caring about the voice in his head the assassin continued to push on his dagger to no avail. Then the voice continued.
{Fortunately for you I won’t raise a finger against you. Others already reserved the opportunity for themselves.}
Suddenly the man lost control of his body and fell to his knees. Behind him he could hear a high pitched voice. It was calm but aggravated.
“For the crime of harming my faithful subject, your punishment shall be death!”
Then everything went dark.
A while later the security team finally arrived only to find a headless corpse and an unconscious boy. They kept standing in the doorway, stunned, until an authoritative voice got them out of their shock.
“Alright people get moving, that body’s not gonna clean itself up!”
Leon arrived to handle the situation. He was called earlier because the whole project was being sabotaged way earlier than expected.
“Try to gather as much information as possible and get me in contact with that guy’s employer.”
The man left as quickly as he came but his mere presence was enough to make people motivated. It took a few hours for the investigation to conclude, in addition to the simultaneous cleanup, but they managed to finish before midnight.
Afterwards Leon went back to the room alone. He had a few things to discuss with a certain someone.
“So what’s the big idea? You get to show off and I’m stuck dealing with the aftermath. That hardly seems fair.”
{I couldn’t do much about it. I’m quite restricted in this form.}
“Yeah, sure. Now tell me which restriction prevented you from helping the poor boy?!”
Leon was instinctively repulsed by the gods and he was understandably angry by this one's inaction. The only reason he remained relatively calm was the fact that a similar person did end up helping, even if he did have other problems with them.
{We are only allowed to interfere if our champion is dragged into an unwinnable fight through no fault of their own. He provoked the first fight himself and it certainly wasn’t unwinnable. Even now all I could do was stand in front of the knife and try to be intimidating.}
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“You’re making it really hard to like you, you know that?”
{I can see why you would have that perspective, yes.}
Seeing that the conversation was going nowhere he turned his attention to the patient's bed. Rose’s shadow body had already reformed itself and she was back to guard Peter.
“What happened to her? She seems… weaker.”
{That’s hardly a surprise. She forced herself out of hibernation. Until she completely recovers she will operate purely on instinct. It’s a shame that her instinct is to fight like a human.}
He walked up to the living shadow. He tried talking to her, he tried to tell jokes, he even tried scaring her. But Rose remained motionless, not reacting to anything.
After a number of failed attempts to get a reaction out of the unresponsive shadow he just sat on the end of the bed dejectedly.
“A shame. I was actually looking forward to talking with her. Will she remember anything from what’s happening?”
{That depends on how much she cares about it. Right now you can probably guess what she will remember the most.}
“I see. Then please don’t tell her.”
He then took off his jacket and draped it over Rose’s unmoving shoulders.
{Never took you to be the caring type.}
“I’m not. I simply value dedication and think she deserves to be rewarded, even if I’m ignored in the process.”
After the conversation ended the room was left empty once again, except for the comatose champion and his vigilant shadow.
313.01.11.
“Argh!”
Peter woke up and immediately regretted it. In the process of trying to sit up he stabbed himself with one of his still broken ribs.
“It just had to be my lung again, didn’t it?”
He painfully laid back down on the bed. He could guess that physical activity wouldn't be a part of his schedule anytime soon, but that left him with plenty of time to deal with his obscured vision.
[Health: 54%]
[Stamina: 70%]
[Physical attributes are 58% effective.]
[Estimated time until complete recovery: 13 days]
[Notice: Recovery has been halted due to an absence of usable energy. Please consume food to continue recovery.]
[Achievement unlocked: Get below 50% health.]
[Achievement unlocked: Get below 40% health.]
[Phantom achievement unlocked: Torture master.]
[Total rewards: STR +0.05, AGI +0.05, END +0.55, EXP +10]
[Shadow Beast is entering hibernation to recover.]
[Ruler’s blessing has been reactivated: Progress boosted by 10 days.]
It was a lot to take in. He could guess where most of it came from with one exception. To his knowledge the notification about Rose’s hibernation got dismissed before he passed out.
Additionally, she should have recovered by now but that was evidently not the case.
[Stamina: 47%]
“Do you have any idea what happened?”
Unlike usual Rose didn’t even attempt to respond, she just kept staring at him blankly, at least he assumed she was staring based on her silhouette.
“I guess that’s a no. Could you get someone here? It’s getting hard to stay awake.”
Without responding in any meaningful way, Rose left the room by phasing through the wall. She returned a few minutes later with a heavily reluctant man in tow.
“Stop dragging me already you demon, I can go by myself!
Oh, you’re awake.”
“I’m sorry! She’s usually really nice.”
“Don’t worry about it. Based on what I’ve been told, she can’t help it, although it’s still bothersome.”
The doctor was clearly not happy with being dragged around and he only changed his tone once he was working with his patient.
“So, how are you feeling?”
He asked while examining Peter.
“Pretty horrible to be honest. This is the worst I’ve been conscious for.”
“I see. Can I ask what that system of yours is saying about your health?”
Peter quickly double checked the notifications, while wondering what caused the doctor to ask about that. He was the first person other than Anthony to do so.
“Fifty four percent and I will recover in thirteen days after getting some food.”
“That checks out.”
“Sorry?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you are the first of your kind to be one of my patients. While we’re talking about that, would you mind if I did some tests on you?”