Chapter 366 Volume V - Epilogue
I looked with great interest at the corridors with white walls that we walked through. Dwarf technology... was one of the things that really intrigued me.
Well... I also had to work really hard to get here. So I couldn't help but feel justified in examining it.
Three weeks, three whole weeks... twenty-one days! That's how long I had to wait to get here.
Rector Melany believing what I said, testing that I wasn't lying, saying she would consider my request, contacting the dwarves, them also testing that I wasn't lying, preparing the plane... and so on!
And I hadn't spent these twenty-one days just waiting. Apparently, the importance of what I had said was so great that I had turned a lot of things upside down, like my ordea training with Professor Calvin... Normally, we were supposed to start after I was discharged, but that had been delayed a lot.
And then there was the news, of course. We came out of the dungeon in the middle of the street. And, somehow, a few things managed to leak out to the media.
Three young people cleaning a B grade dungeon, one of them Adrian Caleo, the best of the CDA first-year students, the other Lucia Quie, the young lady of the Quie Family, and the last one... an ordinary girl. Although, after cleaning the dungeon, not so 'ordinary' anymore.
The news spread with terrifying speed. So I had to deal with that too.
But... in the end, I was here, I had managed to get in here after all.
I was surrounded by dwarves, and then there was Professor Calvin... their goal was not so much to protect me but to protect the environment from me. Just in case... At least that's what they told me.
It wasn't something I didn't understand, though.
I wasn't... heading for a simple place.
I was heading to perhaps the safest and most protected place in all of the Holar continent, no... all of Lunerra, where a hero was kept alive.
With every step I took, excitement built up inside me that I couldn't contain. It had been months, literally months, since I had last seen Aiden, since I had last been able to talk to him. And now... after all these months, I wasn't just going to see him, I was going to wake him up.
How could I not be excited?
"Stop."
With the word echoing in my ears, I stopped so fast that I didn't realize what was happening for a moment. It was only when I refocused that I realized we had reached the end of the corridor, in front of a closed door.
The dwarf at the front stepped forward after we had all stopped. He spoke to the six guards standing in front of the door.
"Major Dorhud Gen'dai, behind me be Adrian Caleo and Calvin Gladio."
Six guards put the three of us through a long, really long test. Our retinas were scanned, our fingerprints were taken, and even our DNA was checked... all the controls took about two minutes for each of us.
So, after about six minutes, we were finally done. The closed door in front of us slowly opened, accompanied by a transparent white gas that was released into the corridor. It revealed the huge room behind it.
It was a white room with screens everywhere, just like this entire facility. There were five dwarves in lab coats moving around inside. They were constantly checking the screens, occasionally tinkering with some of the devices.
But they certainly weren't the most noticeable thing. Instead... it was the huge screen in the center of the room.
It showed a view of a bed from above, from the side... from many angles. The person lying on this bed... was the reason for all these security measures, the reason why everyone here was working so hard and seriously in the first place.
I could see Aiden on the screen. From the waist down, he was covered with a sheet, but from the top, he was naked and open. So it was easy to see the condition of his body.
The left side of his body was actually quite normal, it just... looked like he was sleeping, even. But the real problem was on the right side. As soon as one's eyes moved to that side, his skin began to darken abnormally, his muscles were emaciated as if they had shriveled up. His right arm was in the worst condition, literally black... as if it had been burnt to a crisp.
I could tell he had been in a lot of pain. He may not feel anything now, yes... But there was no way that something that did this to his body could not be painful. I... I could only imagine it, and even that was probably not enough.
Just then, one of the five dwarves already in the room came up to us. He had a serious expression on his face, studying me.
Finally, he took his eyes off me. He turned to the two who had entered with me, the dwarf whose name was Dorhud and Professor Calvin.
"You wait here, Adrian Caleo be comin' wit' me."
No one objected, even the dwarf's tone of voice which lacked respect was unimportant. His work was important and serious, and it was hard to imagine the workload. So no one made a sound.
The dwarf turned around, moving to a certain side of the room. A holographic screen popped up in front of him even though he was doing nothing, then he quickly made a few changes to it as he walked. When we came in front of the wall we were moving toward, he finished his work. The screens went black for a moment, then they moved toward us and retreated to the sides. The door hiding behind them was thus revealed.
The doctor did a few scans in front of the door, verifying his own identity and many other things. Then the same process was done to me. And, finally, this door also slowly opened. What was behind it... was another small room with a closed door on the other side.
"Go inside, wait."
I nodded my head, and without a word, I entered the small room. The door closed behind me, and then a deep silence surrounded me.
After a short time, a transparent gas filled the room, and nothing happened for a few seconds. Then it was filled with another gas, which also lasted for a few seconds. Finally, when both of these processes were finished, the closed door on the other side of the small room opened.
What I saw this time... was the room I had seen on the screen a few minutes before.
I swallowed, took a few steps into the room. The door behind me closed the moment I entered. It quite literally locked me in here. And right after that, the walls on all four sides of me opened and four human-sized robots came out of them.
They had eyes that glowed with a blue light. And... they were looking at me. Like they were ready to kill me at the slightest movement. It all showed how much Aiden was valued, so I could understand.
I didn't focus on any of the robots, though.
My first and dearest friend was finally in front of me.
Excitement, a strange feeling telling me to hurry, and... fear. I could feel many things as I looked at the bed in front of me.
I swallowed, walked slowly to the side of the bed, and the robots around me followed suit.
Finally, when I got to the very end of the bed, I paused. There wasn't even a meter between me and Aiden now, I could have reached out and touched him.
But... I didn't.
On the contrary, I took a deep, really deep breath, calmed myself, closed my eyes, and got ready. Then... with determination, I opened them. And... I imagined the system window.
<<------------------------------
This is a dimensional inventory that holds all the rewards you earn in dungeons!
--Rewards--
Items: [The Golden Blood of a Xavir(SS)]
You can summon your rewards at any time!
------------------------------>>
This was the only item I got, apart from a few small stats and a single skill, which was actually pretty good.
<<------------------------------
The Golden Blood of a Xavir(SS)
A drop of blood that a Xavir had managed to preserve in her last moments before dying.
Unlike the blood of most living beings, it is golden in color, almost every particle filled with unimaginable amounts of mana.
It restores the body of the person who drinks it to its natural state, no matter how bad his or her condition, and provides unimaginable benefits to the body.
It must be used within ten seconds of being summoned to reality. Otherwise, it will cease to exist and disappear.
------------------------------>>
It was a single drop of blood, and yet... it was an SS grade item.
I read through the description one more time, then finally prepared myself for the real thing and took the item out of the reward inventory.
A blue glow appeared right in front of my body, then slowly materialized... A bottle, half the size of my fist, appeared grain by grain and then fell between my hands.
I had only ten seconds, so I acted without hesitation. I removed the cap from the tiny bottle, and the moment I did so... suddenly, all my perceptions were turned upside down.
It was mana. It was extremely intense, truly overwhelming... So much so that if I didn't hold back so hard, I would have fainted, it filled the whole room so quickly that it was difficult to keep my balance.
Everything in the white room suddenly turned red, the blue eyes of the four robots around me turned the same color.
But I didn't care. I gritted my teeth, ignored the blood oozing from my nose, and brought the bottle to Aiden's lips. Slowly, gently, I bent it down. And then... a single, tiny, golden-yellow drop fell from it. It went right between Aiden's half-open lips, seeping in.
For a while, nothing happened, nothing was different in the room except for the sound of the alarm going off and the red.
But, then... Aiden's body began to glow with a dazzling radiance. The extremely dense mana that permeated the room slowly began to recede toward him.
Still, I kept my eyes on him.
I could feel it, nothing 'simple' was happening here. It was as if space-time was breaking. My perception of time had changed, things seemed to be merging together. And at the center of it all... was Aiden.
Still, the whole process took a very short time. My perception of time slowly started to return, and the things that had gotten tangled were fixed. The mana levels in the room returned to normal, and the glow surrounding Aiden's body began to recede.
Finally, when it was all over... Aiden had changed.
No, it was wrong to say that he had changed completely.
I don't know why, but he had not fully recovered. The dark mark covering the right side of his body had largely receded, for example, his face was now completely normal. But... his right arm, from the shoulder down, was still a dark color and a bit veined.
For some reason, his right leg was the same way, even though he held the sword with his right hand. However, the most important thing was... his body had not returned to the way it 'should' be. Something had gone wrong, even if I didn't know what. And... I didn't like it.
But, then... suddenly, my eyes widened. My whole body froze, I couldn't move a muscle.
Aiden's closed eyes seemed to twitch for a moment, the index finger on his left hand moved slightly.
Then... his eyelids opened slowly.
His gray eyes, which I hadn't seen in months, were fixed on the ceiling, waiting. After a moment... he turned toward me.
And that's when I noticed another change.
Not just his body, but Aiden himself... was different.
His eyes were much sharper than they usually were. His gaze, the expression on his face... was much heavier than before.
It was as if... he was a completely different person than before.
"Ah..."
Even his voice was different, as if... he had aged a few years.
But, nevertheless...
"Ad... rian?"
A smile appeared on my face.
Looking at my first and dearest friend... I could only smile.
And... I could only say one thing.
"Hi, Aiden. W- welcome back..."
--Volume V: The Breaking Seals--
--The End--
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*(A/N: First of all... greetings. I'm your humble writer, the one who left you without a chapter for so long...
Well, volume five is now finished... and there's a lot more to come in volume six, literally.
I have some things to edit, I'm going to make a few character changes... I'm even thinking of deleting a plot completely and re-planning it. So it's a lot of work and I need some time to do it.
It'll probably take me about three days to edit the plot, and I want to go into volume six with a few stock chapters, so that's the reason for the 10-day break I'm planning to take.
And... don't worry, even though I'm not posting chapters, I'm still here. I'll answer your comments, so if there's anything you're worried about, you can nudge me.
For now... I'm done. Thank you all for reading my novel up to this point. See you in volume six, and again, I apologize for the little break.
Also, if you get bored in these ten days, you can check out my second novel and give it a chance :P)*
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