The last remaining intruder was looking around annoyed. He was in a bad mood already which only worsened when he had to deal with some weird shadow. Now looking around, he was just about done with everything.
"I told them not to send the rookies. But once again, no one ever listens to me.
Sorry kid but this is kind of …"
He couldn't finish because he had to doge a flying lamp. He was told there would be some weird things but this wasn't exactly what he expected.
The boy was trying to get to him, surprisingly skillfully for someone who was supposedly untrained, but he didn't have to try evading too hard to remain unharmed.
He would have stuck around to humor the kid but he had a job to do so he just hit him in the head and turned back to the door he tried to open earlier.
He was quite surprised when he felt a hit on his back and saw the stupid lamp from earlier being held by the kid who was clearly struggling to remain standing.
He grabbed onto the weird weapon's lantern with his bare hands then proceeded to crush it to prove to the boy the futility of his struggle. What he didn't expect was to actually get burned by the flames inside.
"Damn it! Alright, I'm done being nice!"
He pushed the boy with all his power, making him crash into the hard wall. He then pulled out his knife.
His assignment specifically said to avoid unnecessary casualties and he planned to stick to that, but he also had to get the kid to leave him alone and he also really wanted to vent his frustrations.
He slashed at the boy's arm like he had done to so many people before.
This time however, it felt off somehow. The resistance was nowhere near what he expected and looking down he saw that the arm, although bleeding profusely, was still attached.
And to his annoyance the little brat was still trying to attack him with increasingly pathetic punches.
It was a sorry sight to see and he couldn't really comprehend why someone so pitiably weak wanted to fight him so bad.
He lifted the boy up by the neck and was seriously considering killing him. He couldn't really do much with that thought because suddenly…
CRACK
He felt a sudden pain in his chest. Initially he wanted to disregard it as the desperate struggle it was, but the pain wasn't going away.
In fact it was getting worse, a lot worse.
Eventually the pain was so unbearable that he let go of the beaten up kid and was left clutching his chest on the floor.
After a number of slow, agonizing minutes he passed out.
Meanwhile Peter got to his senses and staggered to his feet.
[Xe4lt:Z9#>
(St @m:n a: 3B%]
He had trouble reading his status but he could guess that it was horrible. But even if the situation turned out nothing like he wanted, he still won.
He looked down at his intact hand which was unconsciously still holding on to the dark crystalline handle of the Hostia. He didn't plan on using the weapon but it seemed like the best time to do so.
He knelt down next to the would-be assassin who was still convulsing in pain.
[Absorption failed.]
Peter stayed there for a while, looking into nothingness with a blank stare. Eventually a weak chuckle left his mouth.
"Yeah… I probably shouldn't have that."
And just like that, after getting bruised all over his body, receiving a concussion, having several of his bones broken and getting his hand partially cut off, the victor of the battle finally passed out.
In the morning Mr.Smith visited the academy's infirmary. His team spent all night hunting down an unreasonable amount of incompetent assassins. They were bogged down to such a degree that when they heard the alarm all of them thought that it was because of another moron who got past them by pure chance.
As a result of their complacency the team's youngest member got severely injured. He was an honorary member so they felt especially bad about it. Mr.Smith wanted to personally check the damage on the poor boy.
Although Leon managed to get an outstanding medic to supervise the academy, their equipment was subpar to say the least. Based on what he was told he didn't have high hopes for his young student's recovery.
Outside of the patient's room he had a sudden feeling of refreshment. He knew the doctor long enough to recognize his ability and to know that this wasn't how he treated individual patients.
Walking inside the room was a lot more crowded than it was supposed to be. First off there was the doctor who was sitting in a corner reading and Peter who was lying on a bed, unconscious.
Other than them there were also two black figures, one of them humanoid. They were both lying on the bed and seemingly watching the sleeping boy.
"Care to explain what is happening?"
"Sure. All that's happening is that the lady won't let me do my job."
Mr.Smith looked at the humanoid shadow trying to make sense of her.
"How do you know that exactly?"
"The damn thing jumped at me when I tried to get close to the kid. At least the other one is just sleeping"
"Couldn't you just subdue her?"
"Say that after you get punched in the kidney. If I didn't react fast enough I'd be lying in the other room."
The usually calm and collected man was quite surprised this time, looking back and forth between the shadow and the physician. Eventually he composed himself and returned to the original reason for his visit.
"Will he recover? That wound on his arm looks really bad."
"Don't worry. He could recover even without me. And about his arm, that's actually quite common for those who can make themselves incorporeal or have a strong regenerative ability. In his case it seems to be both."
"That's good. What about the other one? Can you do something with him?"
The assassin they found next to Peter was also in horrible shape. No one in his team had seen anything like it before, all they could tell was that it was serious.
"Aside from getting him a new torso? No, not really. At first I had trouble figuring out where his bones were supposed to be, it was so mangled!"
"You really can't do anything?"
Mr.Smith's doubt was understandable. The doctor was one of the best in the country. The only people he couldn't heal were those with large portions of their bodies missing or already doomed by some ability more powerful than his own, of which there weren't too many.
"Don't get me wrong, I could heal him. It's just that his body is so disfigured internally that it would remain mostly non functional. Right now the main reason he can't wake up is because he's feeling too much pain.
If we let his nerves die off he still might be able to wake up and consent to the installation of prosthetics. Other than that there's nothing we can do."
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'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?"
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