He looked at my direction with a surprised look on his face, before sitting back on the chair, moving it closer to the bedside. "Fine..."
He pressed his fingertips against her eyes, which was soothing. They were burning due to the headache and the heat of the fever. If I could, I would have hammered my brain again and again until I miraculously regained health again.
He leaned forward, whispering something I couldn't catch on to. Right before I could fall back asleep again, I completely remember seeing lime green light at the tip of his fingers that were cooling my forehead down within seconds.
With the fever gone momentarily, I fell back asleep for only a swift moment. But it didn't last long at all.
***
"What are you doing?! This cloth doesn't work!" I shouted like a kid while pulling off the towel that was set on top of my brows. I yanked it into the bowl, and stood to my feet immediately. I found out there was no one in the room.
I walked outside and there was no one at the living area. Then, feeling defeated, I walked back inside the room and sat on the bed. I looked at my left hand where my symbol rested. It was a half butterfly that was bright red, and then the remaining half was make of flames and flowers.
"What kind of a mark is this? I already want to take it off. It will give off that I am a Guardian." I smiled awkwardly to myself. My eyes flew to my stabbed left hand. "By the way... Where is Spectrum?" I asked into the air.
[I am here.]
My eyes flew to the side of the room, where it stood cleaned and beautiful against the wall. I went over to pick it up and unsheathing the navy blue blade. I stared at it, before hoisting it up above my head with a bright smile, that got Spectrum screaming for its life.
"Spectrum!"
I was just as happy by seeing it, as when I saw Helio standing in front of me in the forest. I hugged the blade and the scabbard while skipping to the side of the bed and then settling back down. I didn't know when I was grasping it by the sharp blade.
[Master! What are you doing! I am a cursed sword!]
"A cursed sword who helped me through the battle. Oh yeah! About that..." I finally remembered about my appearance. I took a look at the blade, but I was surprised to find my crimson eyes back to normal from the half black and half red, and so was my hair from the cosmic navy.
[I think you are actually the worst owner I had until now.]
"Same goes to you." I smiled while puttung it back into the case to keep it from becoming dull and rusty looking. I wanted to keep it shiny and beautiful as it was. "Anyways... How is the situation that you have seen? I mean... Helio said I had woken up once before."
[Unfortunately... I don't quite remember since your mind was hazy. But I can guarantee that you were going to grab a glass of water, and fell to your knees then started to clench your left arm in pain. After that, you broke into a high fever. He assumed it might be your magic energy being too much for you to handle. I think the same too.]
I thought about what Spectrum had just said. "But I think it is the toxins acting up again..." I added after a long moment. Then diverted my gaze to the window, where it was clearly still afternoon. I need to get used to it before I find a cure.
Just then, the door to the room swung open. Causing me to snap my head towards the direction. I didn't say a word, just held a questioned gaze at him.
"Sorry. I just went out to fetch somethings." He replied while setting down the paperbag onto the table and then stepping to my place with a few things at hand.
"You went out to grab stitching items?" I asked while calming my facial expression. "I thought I don't have anymore injuries? Are you the one hurt?"
"No. I am fine. You are the one injured." He replied swiftly while threading the needle. I couldn't do much then to watch at first. Then, my mind snapped back to reality and I stood up.
"Wait! What?!"
"Yes. Isn't it obvious? You have one more injury that I couldn't quite treat properly. I couldn't use my skills on that injury."
"No?"
"Your left hand."
My gaze flew to the hand which was stabbed by me to feed Spectrum its doze for the stronger connection.
"Oh..."
"You understand it now?"
"I am afraid, still not."
"Oh well..." He had finished threading just then, and walked towards my place while pulling my wrist up. "Do you see the problem?"
"Still not." I answered. "But I am actually the one to stab it. I had to do it to feed my connection with the cursed sword."
"Yes, and that is a cursed wound. However, the real problem here is that you almost cut your entire hand in half. You were short of your knuckle and I believe that somehow, during your battle, you stressed the already troubled muscle a little too much. If you don't stitch it up, you won't have your left hand."
I took a closer look at the injury. He was in fact speaking the truth that I had almost dissected my hand in half. It was short of my knuckles.
"Sorry..." I gritted my teeth as I looked closer.
"Why are you sorry to me?"
"No reasons. I don't know what to say I guess?"
He frowned at me for a while before looking back at the hand, and starting the needle work from the palm. "Nevermind... You are lucky that you didn't accidentally snap your bone or joints or stuff like that. You also... Somehow... Missed the important nerves. However, you won't be able to feel pain at some parts of your hand."
"I understand..." I answered while watching the way the needle moved. "Are you sure that it would heal easily?"
"I am not sure. But I have tried it a few times on myself. That if the wound is cursed, it is better to wait for the curse get used up and then heal it."
"That is possible?"
"I stimulated it with poison. I can't tell how one day my patient would appear."
"Thanks... But jokes aside. How did you know I was in the forest?" I asked while holding a suspicious gaze at his face.
He suddenly paused and stayed silent. However, his work continued a split second later. I see now why Nada used to complain about him being mysterious about everything. I didn't expect him to be this secretive either. If anything, my curiousity was glaring at him.
After a long time, both sides of my wound was stitched up and cleaned. There was a bit of bleeding here and there, but other then that, it was painful at times. Other times, I didn't feel anything. Like he said, I won't be able to feel pain at some parts of my hand.
He wrapped the wound with the guage that he had bought along with the needle and thread. "That should be enough. Try not to use your left hand for much work. And keep away from battle. That is the best option honestly." He finally spoke while sitting on the chair near my bed. Exhausted from all that medical work around my hand. And then removing the stitchings will be even harder.
"So why did you wake up?"
"It was not cool enough."
"..." He stared at me with a tired face, which held an annoyed expression.
"What?! Don't look at me like that! You said you won't move!"
"I guess that is my mistake for not informing you."
"Anyways. I wanted to ask a few things."
"What is it about?"
"The competition." The air around the room tensed up so did my expressions. "Honestly. Do they know that you are here? Or that Nada is at the Countess' manor?"
"They don't care about our locations or whereabouts. Just like how they don't care about your sudden dissapearance."
"Why so?"
"We both left the competition a month ago. After your last message. Actually, Nada was the person who suggested it to me first."
"Nada did?"
"She is your cousin afterall." He smiled while placing a hand at the back of his head. "She mistook your message for having to leave the competition. So that is how we are in this mess. I guess it was a good thing since I have finally come across your whereabouts."
"..."
"But what were you doing at the forest like that?"
"It is a bit of a story... Since the last message that I had sent..." I answered while looking down on the floor.
"I mean. We both don't have anything to do. So you are free to speak for however long you need."
I hesitated for a long time, then decided that today or tomorrow, someone would somehow find my survival questionable. So at least one person knowing or being aware should be enough.
"Long story short... I jumped. The next morning after the text." I sighed before speaking.
"Jumped?" He asked confused, and it was expected that he would put up such a reaction.
"I took my own life."
"You–WHAT?!"
"Yes... I did." I felt guilty for saying this. But something done can't be hidden for long. I had done it already and it was part of the story at the end of the day.
"How does..." He straighted his back while on his chair. His eyes held some sort of concern and a hurt expression that I couldn't quite explain.
"I know! Because I couldn't quite escape Silence and I had to sacrifice myself to get rid of her intentions of killing those around me! So I had to die!" I shouted before he could say anything more. "I honestly didn't even know why she just sacrificed herself to reawaken me! But then... Now I am tied to many more responsibilities."
"Then–"
"I had already wanted to run away from the palace alright! At least now I have free reign! I am not a pawn anymore!"
"..." He stared at my face with a questioned gaze that was mixed with annoyance. "And how long have you been planning for your escape?"
"You know that artifact you got for me after having to go through a seperate 'mission'? I used it as a way of having cash on me all the time." I explained, because obviously I had forgotten how to say it. "I planned on using that as a way to hoist myself up financially. I had everything set otherwise."
"That long?!" He furrowed his brows with an upset look. "Well you could have asked me for help. It was not like I wasn't willing to. And you had that piece of land you had owned. There is practically no one there to search for you."
"Yes I know but... It was just not the right time yet. I had to wait until I could secure everything and maintain the order inside the palace, then I had to gain trust from the others. After doing all that and staying long enough to fool them, I would have been able to easily run away."
"This isn't even our world to begin with. We don't belong here. So what is the point in dying somewhere you aren't even recognized?" He asked out all of a sudden. I think that was all that was needed to push a bit of sense into me.
"I guess... You have a point there." I answered while lowering my gaze to the floor. "But if I hadn't taken my life a month ago, I won't have been able to come across so many things that made more sense now. I don't know how to explain this all in words... I just think I have gotten my necessary hint to the competition owner and its mission."
"Wait... How?"
I hesitated for a bit, contemplating between whether to be silent or to speak about it. "After I took my life, Silence had named me as the heir to the throne of the Guardian of Death. And just today I had come back from a visit to the Guardian Realm.
"This situation is related to the demon king, someone is trying to flip the entire spacetime fabric upside-down, the missing Aethalgard. And definitely the previous Guardian of Death who almost everyone says I look similar to.
"I can't quite prove it yet, but I think it may have also had something to do with the second Aethalgard Heir. She is the Guardian of Everlasting Health, of your healing element, and she was looking at me like my existence is a threat to her. Somehow, she also knew about my life which only the Guardian of Space, Time, Wrath and Destruction are supposed to know. So how does information about me leak to a person like her?"
I asked while placing a finger at my chin while I was in deep thoughts. "I would need a paper and pen to solve this case, but I am pretty sure that too will lead me to no ends. However, I am absolutely certain that the competition might just start recruiting new members or hunting down the ones who have quit to regain the lost numbers. Afterall... They are just fattening the prey before hunting it."
A light bulb seemed to have clicked inside his mind as he suddenly widened his eyes and jolted at his the chair. "So you are saying that they are trying to make us powerful enough to help with the spacetime fabric flipping and then when we are useless, they are just going to discard us?"
"Worse. We are gambling our lives when we say we will be contributing into this experiment. Because the past attempts at flipping it has failed. There is no doubt it won't fail yet again." I corrected him.
"I understand... But what I still don't understand carefully enough is how long exactly this situation will run."
"However long until the owner decides that he is tired. It had been happening for eighteen thousand and a hundred years, and he is just starting to grow exhausted."