Chapter 112: Ch150. Sickness - 5 (New skill)
Kurt’s head hurt when he opened his eyes.
The last thing he remembered was seeing and talking about something with Evellyn, Nikolai, and Rodrick, but he knew that, as he was at that moment, it could well have just been his head playing tricks.
When he looked to the side, forcing himself to focus his vision, while the world around him seemed to spin and make him more dizzy, Kurt saw a boy who looked to be the same age as him.
Short, ruffled, reddish hair. Slightly slanted eyes, white skin, and some freckles covering his face.
He was dressed like a doctor, and from his hands, a purplish glow emanated, which seemed to carry some heat.
"Ah, I’m glad you’re awake, young man." The boy said, smiling at Kurt. "My name is Yoshida Keisuke, and I’m the healer of the Hana no Nagame guild. How are you feeling?"
He wanted to say that this was too much information to take in, but Kurt’s head hurt slightly when he tried to speak, so he just spluttered.
"Well enough. Where are my friends?"
His tone of voice was so low and weak that Keisuke could only hear it when he brought his ear closer to the young man’s lips.
Keisuke looked beyond the window of the infirmary room, which showed the guild’s main courtyard, where flowering cherry trees showered a shower of pink on the ground, and birds sang, as if the world wasn’t a dark place, and full of threats to it. Kurt and his friends.
"They went to the United States, together with Toshinori-sama and a special attack team..."
Kurt suddenly sat up in bed, the world around him spinning dizzily faster.
"What did you say...?"
Keisuke immediately stood up and grabbed Kurt by the shoulders.
"You shouldn’t move like that, man. Don’t you know you’re sick?"
"Fuck it." Kurt spluttered. "Why would my friends do something crazy like that?"
"I’ll only talk if you lie down again." The healer said. "Here, take some of this potion." He offered Kurt a vial containing an iridescent greenish liquid. "It’s a potion that will slow down the infection a little, and allow your dizziness to pass, even if just a little."
Kurt took the bottle and sniffed it.
"Are you sure this isn’t poison?"
Keisuke laughed.
"If it was poison, you would already be dead, Blake-san.
"Blake-san?" Kurt asked. "Aren’t you Japanese?"
Keisuke shrugged his shoulders, and with a chuckle, replied.
"My mother is Japanese, my father, however, is Norwegian. But that’s not important at the moment, right?"
Kurt sighed, nodded ever so slightly, and drank the contents of the vial.
"Okay... Why would my friends invade the United States?"
Keisuke looked at the ground again.
"You have good friends, Blake-san. They went there because of you... One of your friends, Arias, I think that was his name, said that a doctor there, Doctor Lee, had the best chance of being able to find a cure for the infection you carry, and as it seemed to be hidden somewhere out there, they saw no alternative but to try and convince the guild master to go with them, on a rescue mission.
As the words flowed from Keisuke’s mouth to Kurt’s ears, Kurt’s jaw dropped.
It didn’t seem real that Evellyn and Nikolai could be so irresponsible, to the point of playing with their own lives, because of him.
"Who else was...?" Kurt asked.
"Toshinori-sama, Rodrick-san, three of the strongest wielders in the guild, plus a small group of their irregular friends."
"Shit... Shit, shit, shit!"
Kurt wanted to get up and go after them right then and there.
But as much as I wanted with all my might, I simply couldn’t find the energy to even move my legs.
"Holy shit... I’m a mess..."
"How long has it been since they left?"
"About noon."
Kurt looked out the window, as the sun began to arc downward in the sky, towards the horizon.
The sky was painted a slightly dark blue, painted with pink and reddish tones, announcing a majestic sunset.
"Shit... I need to go to where they are..."
Keisuke looked at him firmly.
"I can’t let you do this, Blake-san. Neither your friends nor Toshinori-sama would forgive me."
Kurt thought and thought, but there didn’t seem to be any solution to that problem.
Trapped in a hospital bed, unable to move, feeling pain even in his pain.
And even worse, feeling completely useless and powerless.
It was as if, for the umpteenth time in his life, Kurt was about to lose everything he held dear.
Beep!
The sound of the system about to say something in Kurt’s mind sounded, like an alarm announcing an exhausting game that was coming to an end.
[I CAN HELP YOU]
[BUT I CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL GET OUT OF THIS UNHARMED]
’Spit it out, system... What do you have to offer me this time...?’
[YOU, AS A PLAYER, HAVE PERFORMED UNIMAGINABLE FEATS, WHICH NOT EVEN YOUR OTHER VERSIONS HAD BEEN ABLE TO ACHIEVE, UNTIL TODAY.]
[AND ONE OF THEM IS THE EMERGENCE OF A UNIQUE, COMPLETELY ORIGINAL SKILL, COMING FROM THE SKILLS THAT YOU YOURSELF CULTURED DURING THE THREE YEARS OF EFFORT THAT YOU CULTURATED, IN K’S WORLD.]
[I SHOULD WAIT UNTIL YOUR BODY IS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT HEALTHY, TO ANNOUNCE THE AWAKENING OF THIS ABILITY...]
[BUT...]
’Quit with the idle talk! Just spit out what you want to say about this new skill!’
As Kurt talked to the system, in his mind, he laid his head on the pillow, pretending to Keisuke that he was slightly dizzy.
The healer placed his hand on Kurt’s forehead, and as he already imagined, the young man was feverish, so Keisuke went to prepare a cold compress.
Meanwhile, Kurt felt a little freer, with some privacy, and heard the voice of the system in his mind, accompanied by the holographic windows that Kurt was barely able to read.
[THE AWAKENED SKILL IS CALLED - SHADOW PUPPETEER - AND GRANTS THE PLAYER THE POWER TO CREATE A SHADOW PUPPET WITH HIS SHAPE, ANYWHERE HIS - SHADOW TRAVEL - CAN REACH]
[BUT YOUR BODY IS IN VERY BAD CONDITION]
[WHICH MEANS THAT IF YOU USE THIS SKILL FOR LONGER THAN ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY...]
’I might die...’
The silence between the system and Kurt made it seem to him as if the system was, in a way, laughing at him.
But when the system’s next words appeared in the holographic window in front of Kurt, accompanied by the already extremely familiar, somewhat robotic voice, Kurt was even surprised by the apparent empathy that the no longer game-like system seemed to possess.
[I CANNOT HELP YOU MUCH MORE THAN I HAVE ALREADY HELPED YOU, OR THEY MAY END UP DETECTING ME HERE]
[BUT I WILL WARN YOU IF YOU ARE REACHING THE MAXIMUM USAGE TIME OF THE SKILL]
Kurt furrowed an eyebrow, perplexed.
’How do you know I’m going to use the skill, regardless of what you’re telling me?’
At that moment, the system actually laughed at Kurt.
A somewhat computerized, almost mechanical, emotionless sound.
But Kurt felt like there was some emotion there.
As if the system REALLY found what he had just said funny.
[I AM IN YOU, AND WE’VE BEEN THROUGH A LOT TOGETHER]
[OF COURSE I KNOW YOU WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT YOU WILL BE KIND OF IRRESPONSIBLE TO USE THIS NEW SKILL FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOUR FRIENDS]
[THAT’S HOW YOU ARE, KURT BLAKE...]
