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nCh. 48: Resting After Waking

n“Of course this is where I end up.”

nLoren was lying on top of a hospital bed, listening to Lapis, who seemed to be in a bad mood. He silently looked up at the ceiling, trying not to look at her.

nThe location was the city of Kauffa.

nLoren was lying in a room in one of the few hospitals in the city.

n“Do you know how hard it was for me after that? You’re way too heavy for me to carry with these thin arms of mine. Plus, you’re way taller than me, you know? Your feet were dragging even when I carried you on my back.”

n“Yeah, my boots have cuts and sc.r.a.pes all over. I might have to get a new pair.”

nHis expenses would increase, but a pair of boots wasn’t that expensive.

nWhile he was thinking about the cost of the boots and asking Chuck, who seemed like he would know much about this kind of thing, if he knew a place to get a cheap pair, Lapis’ scolding continued.

n“You were heavy enough, but I had to drag your great sword as well, you know? I believe that it would be fair for you to make up for this service, don’t you think?”

nLoren’s great sword was something a normal warrior would have trouble holding with both hands, but Lapis said that she was able to drag it, so he was able to get a general idea of how strong she was.

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n“Let’s talk about that later. Anyways, hey Lapis?”

n“Yes, what is it?”

nLapis had been complaining the whole time, but when Loren spoke in a tired voice, she stopped doing so and answered him.

nMaybe she wasn’t that mad, and she just wanted to complain.

nOr maybe she was just fast and clear when switching over.

nLoren had no idea, but he asked Lapis the one thing he had to know.

n“What happened after that?”

nShayna, who had become a No Life King.

nLoren had shattered the jewel on its chest and defeated it.

nApparently normal No Life Kings didn’t have weaknesses like that, so Loren knew that he wouldn’t be able to defeat other ones in the same fashion, but anyways, he was able to defeat it and while it was disappearing, Shayna’s consciousness returned.

nHe remembered up to the point where he reached out to her to comfort her and took her hand.

nAt that moment he felt that Shayna had whispered a few things to him, but he blacked out right after so he couldn’t recall what they were, and so he decided that he needed to check with Lapis what happened after.

n“The thing is, I’m not sure.”

nLapis pulled up a chair next to the hospital bed and sat down.

n“Loren, you went up to it as its body was crumbling, but that was really careless, you know? A > doesn’t exactly die even after its body disappears.”

n“What’s that supposed to mean?”

n“Do you know that every living thing has two different bodies, Material and Astral?”

nLoren immediately shook his head.

n“Material is the physical body. Astral can be considered as the spiritual body. The two of these merging together makes up the existence of a living being. This can be slightly confusing, but even if you damaged the material side, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you damaged the astral side.”

nLapis peered into Loren’s face, wondering if he understood.

nThe explanation that Lapis gave was simple enough for Loren to understand, and he nodded for her to continue.

n“There are only a few beings that are aware of both of them. The logic behind growing back missing limbs by using high rank Divine Arts is in this area, but I won’t go into that. So, unless both of these bodies are destroyed, they won’t truly die.”

nLapis then said that for beings that are not aware of the two types of bodies, the death of the material body is the definition of death.

nIn that case, since the astral body is still alive, it is possible to revive them with the highest ranking Divine Arts, >.

nBut even the astral body will weaken and eventually die if its material body isn’t alive, so there is a time limit for reviving people.

n“What is the difference between that and a ghost?”

n“A ghost is an astral that has been rooted to this world, although it is but a shadow of its former self. Since it is but a shadow, it is impossible to resurrect it. Although it seems that necromancers are still researching this.”

n“I got what you’re saying. But if the material dies, the astral will die as well, right?”

n“But the thing is, if the being is aware of the two, even if the material is destroyed, it can live on for a while in its astral state. A > is one of those few beings.”

nSo what Lapis was trying to say was that although Shayna’s body started to crumble from the recoil of the jewel, but that was just the material body, and was unsure of whether or not it was the same for the astral body.

nIf the astral side was untouched, it was impossible to say that the No Life King had truly died, so Lapis was angry that Loren was too thoughtless.

n“Well, you don’t need that kind of information when you’re a mercenary. I’ll admit that I was careless, though.”

n“Yes, indeed. But in any case, the disappeared, and you only lost consciousness, so it seems that the recoil was powerful enough to destroy the astral body as well.”

nLapis voice had a bit of relief mixed in it.

nThat meant that although she was angry about Loren’s actions, she was worried about him, and Loren coughed, starting to feel slightly embarra.s.sed.

nBut then something caught the corner of his eye.

nThe only thing in front of his eyes was the ceiling, but at the corner he saw a small girl with wings wearing a dress. She was floating there, without needing to flap her wings.

nThe girl, who was hovering in his sight ever since he regained consciousness, looked very similar to Shayna, and it seemed like Lapis couldn’t see her at all.

n“Falling unconscious…was that really all that happened?”

nLoren asked Lapis, worried that he hit his head really hard and something was wrong with his mind.

nOf course, he didn’t mention anything about seeing a girl in the corner of his eye because he didn’t want anyone to think that he had gone insane or something.

n“You’ve gone through a few examinations just in case, but you’re quite healthy. But this time you were a lot more weakened than last time. You were one step away from dying, to be exact.”

nLapis, who had taken Loren back to the clinic in Hanza, was fl.u.s.tered at Loren’s condition and made Klaus, who was already exhausted from defending the place, go get the four who were sleeping in the clinic and throw them in the caravan along with Loren. She then fastened him onto the horse and forced them to come all the way back to Kauffa.

nThanks to their efforts, they were all able to survive, but Klaus, who was being worked overtime using > nonstop, pa.s.sed out completely and was currently confined to a bed with Ange and the other girls, now recovered, to look after him.

nHe wasn’t a bad person if he was just slightly more honest, so Loren hoped that he wouldn’t be traumatized by this incident, but there was no way of him knowing.

nOf course, if he didn’t work so hard, Loren might have died, so he was thankful.

nHe decided that he should go meet him when he recovered, but then recalled what Lapis had said about his condition, and muttered quietly.

n“The medical expenses were quite a bit, weren’t they?”

n“You’ve been hospitalized for seven days, Loren. If you only count the hospital charges it would be about seventeen silver coins…but this time, there is an expense for something else.”

n“What happened?”

n“As I mentioned before, you were one step away from dying. It was a race against time, and your condition was so bad that normal treatments wouldn’t have saved you in time.”

nAs Lapis crossed her arms, wondering how he could be so weakened even though he wasn’t even injured, Loren sighed, knowing what direction this conversation was going.

nSo basically he was almost dead and normal treatments wouldn’t have worked, so in order to save him they did something that wasn’t normal treatment.

nAnd because it wasn’t a normal treatment, it cost extra. Loren could already see the conversation going in that direction, so he just asked Lapis.

n“How much did it cost?”

n“We used elixirs, which are one gold coin per bottle, and we used five of them.”

n“You know you could’ve just let me die, right?”

nFive gold coins was a lot of money.

nBut if it was for an elixir, which was the highest quality healing medicine, it made sense.

nBut it was an amount that would make someone want to die again, so Loren wasn’t sure if he should be happy he didn’t die, or if he should be sad that he didn’t die peacefully.

n‘Onii-san. It might sound awkward coming from me, but if you’re living, good things are bound to happen.’

nLoren looked at Lapis in surprise as he heard Shayna’s voice, but it seemed that the voice didn’t reach Lapis, and she gave him a blank look when their eyes met.

n‘I’m sorry, Onii-san. I doo feel sorry, but when I touched your hand, I thought ‘I don’t want to die’, and so this happened.’

n“What the h.e.l.l?”

nLapis continued to look at him with a blank face as he unknowingly muttered out loud, confused.

nThe girl floating in his sight frantically waved her arms.

n‘Onii-san. You can talk to me even if you don’t say it out loud. I’m an astral body that’s living in your material body, after all.’

n{What about my privacy then?)

nAs he replied with a sullen thought in his mind, the girl drooped, disheartened.

n‘I’ll stay away from the deepest parts as much as I can. But…if it’s going to cause you too much trouble, I’ll leave immediately.’

n(What will happen if you do?)

n‘I don’t have a material body and can’t reconstruct one, so I’ll eventually disappear.’

n(I can’t tell you to leave after hearing that…)

nLoren didn’t feel like he could be so cold hearted as to make someone who knows she’s going to die, to leave.

nThe thought that he had a girl living inside his mind gave him a heavy feeling, but he forcefully convinced himself that it could be solved over time and that there was no reason to be hasty.

n“Umm…Loren? Is there something wrong? Are you not feeling well?”

nSince Loren stopped talking, Lapis, who was thinking maybe there was something wrong, asked him in a reserved voice. After replying that nothing was wrong, he said with resignation in his voice.

n“It means that you paid the expenses in my stead, right?”

n“Ah, yes. Umm…I’ll go ahead and add it to your debt. Along with the hospital charges and medicine and other things, it will be six gold coins and twenty silver coins.”

n“So it’s right at thirty gold coins, huh…my debt’s just getting larger and larger.”

n“The quest is considered a failure, but we will still get some hazard pay. They wouldn’t believe that a No Life King appeared, but we will get rewards for the zombies and revenants.”

n“Wouldn’t it become an uproar? It was a city-state, but still, a whole nation perished.”

nNo one actually said that, but based on Lapis’ speculation and Shutel’s att.i.tude, it was likely that Hanza was no more, and thinking about the effect it would have on the nations around it was enough to hurt anyone’s head.

nBut Lapis’ response to his words was a complicated one.

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n“What’s wrong?”

n“Well, the thing is…the herd of undead that was around Hanza disappeared completely.”

nFor some reason, the winged girl in the corner of his sight puffed out her chest.

nShe looked like a fairy, but she was the astral body of the highest ranking undead, a No Life King.

nWhen he guessed that on the way back, she somehow took care of all the undead that were in the area, Shayna nodded, saying that he was right.

n“Well in any case, the threat is gone, so I guess its fine.”

n“But because of that they wouldn’t believe that a bone dragon appeared.”

n“Can’t be helped. It just means that it’ll take longer for me to repay my debt.”

n“For that matter, I don’t really care whichever.”

nAt her words, Loren came to the realization that he was starting to not care about it either. While looking at Shayna fall on her face for some reason, he decided to rest and closed his eyes.

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