50 - Bedridden

Adrin opened his eyes to almost the identical bed in the dream world. Obviously, it was, for the lack of words, more pronounced than the virtual reality version. More obviously, the thick haze that haunted the corner of his eyes was gone.

There were also huge tall windows nearby that weren't featured in the magical VR, and he could see the sun setting over the walls. It was overall colder too.

‘Winter is coming?’ he mused to himself.

Adrin turned his attention to his immediate surroundings. The ex-Matriarch was standing right beside the bed. She was fully clothed, prim and proper, thankfully, but there were more people in the room than he was comfortable with. Every one of them had a pity smile on their face before the new Matriarch waved the servants to leave the room. The girl probably had noticed his uneasiness.

And as Ana had said, he could feel nothing from the neck and below.

A gasp almost escaped his mouth even though he already told about the fact beforehand.

A few seconds felt too long as his chest began to stricten and his guts churned. Adrin learned firsthand that there was a difference between knowing the fact and feeling nothing from the neck down. The helplessness he felt at that short moment was downright dreadful.

Luckily, very luckily, he had worked intensively with his nerves before.

For very scientific purposes, Adrin had experimented with senses and nerves. The experiments were a mix of failure and success, but it had evolved the [Soothing Touch] skill. It was intriguing to witness someone completely lose their composure from a simple back rub.

Adrin nudged the said skill inside his head and it gave him a huge relief when [LifeTouch] responded to his call. He didn’t even realize he was silently panicking until the skill's existence calmed him down.

Adrin took a few deliberate deep breaths. Inside, he wondered why he had been able to open up to the opposite gender, but he brushed it off after a flash of painful memories of his old childhood came to mind. The abuse had made a deep mental scar that he carried even to this world. He found it impossibly hard to trust any other man than himself.

“I’m going to try something,” he said to the two who were holding his hand tight.

He could only see them holding onto him but he didn’t feel anything. The hand inside their dainty fingers did not feel like they belonged to him.

It was a disturbing realization and only the skill’s activation had stopped his doubts overwhelming his thoughts. Adrin recalled that he had connected a prosthetic limb to the nerves, surely he could do something about his current condition.

But to their credit, the healers in this world even had grown back his lost arm. No modern technology could have done that, at least while he was still alive. Nerina was holding the other newly grown hand while both of them nodded in reply. The image of its blackened cursed skin flashed inside his head for a second, reminding him of what could happen if he was careless.

Adrin closed his eyes and delved into himself. He wanted to check his stats, but not yet, not before he could confirm himself that he could do this.

He felt the familiar activation of [LifeTouch] and he checked his body for any other hidden injury if there was any. The skill had told him the same story Ana had told him, his bones had been broken in many places, but only traces of regrowth remained. He could tell that there were also minute changes to his facial bone structures and that explained the googly eyes the girls had.

Adrin sighed inside, ‘a question for later, perhaps,’ he mused.

As expected, the muscles on his body had atrophied and the condition should be normal after being bedridden for a few years. It should have been worse but it was a clear sign that Ana hadn’t lied to his face. Bracing himself, Adrin moved the skill’s consciousness to the base of his neck and along his spine.

Red lines began to show up, indicating the wrongs in his nerves in the spine. He couldn’t imagine how bad his fall had been after looking at everything. It was still probably doable, but the problem was the number of red lines that appeared on his spine. Thousands of tiny red lines needed his attention before he could expect to be able to move around normally again.

It was odd to see so many things to repair. If his memory hadn’t failed him, only 31 pairs of nerves were in the spine. Perhaps the evolved [Skill] also included the nerve ends he had to fix one at a time. Maybe the humans in this world indeed had extra-biological sensories than humans back on Earth.

Regardless, he had to be extra careful. He should baby step his healing process as he didn't know what could go wrong if he rushed it. Mana had and would make everything easier, but it wasn’t like he was a reincarnated doctor or anything.

Adrin tranced one of his nerves to his hand and nudged the [LifeTouch] to heal or correct the corresponding red line by his neck. He gulped when he felt the mana dip in deep as the nerve corrected itself a tiny bit. A single familiar gasp had told him that it was a success.

“His thumb moved,” Emilia’s familiar soothing voice said.

“His thumb had just moved!” she repeated in a more elated voice.

Tiny success for a huge mana cost. This would indeed take a while. He didn’t know how long he would be able to move normally again, but maybe this was the huge excuse he needed to finally get an exoskeleton system working in full.

“It is a start,” Adrin let out a silent sigh and opened his eyes. “I still have a lot to do to fix myself.”

Ana chuckled at his words, “a lot to do, he said,” and shook her head.

“You don’t even know how absurd it sounds,” she continued after a quiet meaningful long stare. “No one in history had recovered from this kind of injury. I guess you are ready to hear what has changed during your long sleep.”

—

Adrin had listened as the girls filled him with the details of what had happened.

One major theme had him somewhat divided. It seemed like everyone in the kingdom had given up on the crippled, bedridden [Lightbringer]. He didn’t let it show on his face, but even his ‘lovers’, as Bella had called them, had done the same.

Emilia and Nerina, at one point, had given up on him. It was obvious when he thought about it, but it turned out that a few years was enough for people to change their hearts.

He hadn’t expected that, to be honest with himself.

Ana also had admitted that she and everyone else had foolishly accepted the fact that he would never wake up except for Bella and Lily. The young Matriarch didn’t need to spell it out to him, but the lady, crazy or not, had stood by his side probably because of her odd obsession with [Fire] magic. Lily, on the other hand, probably had very little choice in the matter.

The fact was clear. The family’s Elders hadn’t thrown him away yet, most likely because of the said stubborn lady. Adrin suddenly felt deeply in debt to the woman.

It didn't matter what personal interest she had because it didn't deny the fact that he still had a chance at living because of the woman. It was also because she hadn't given up on him. Even in the modern days, the doctors would have suggested unplugging the life support system for a patient like him. Who would want to waste their time and/or resources without any guarantee of return?

In simpler words, he was as good as dead to everyone else.

It was no wonder the girls had moved on. If he was in their place, he couldn’t say for sure if he wouldn’t have moved on.

Nerina, the elf-blood, had found another man that she could relate to, and Emilia also had found another great guy who she was eager to introduce to him. Nerina had a tiny guilty look on her face while Emi’s big smile had cut right through his heart.

There was no need for them to say it as the shining in their eyes told him everything. What they had with the other guys wasn't a fling or something casual. It was serious. It was also obvious that they had passed being shy with each other some time ago.

The thought tore him apart inside.

It felt like his heart was torn by hundreds of claws but he couldn’t let anyone see it. He wanted to scream and yell but it felt pointless because the wise old man in him understood something important.

It had been a blink of an eye to him but it was already years, hundreds of days, for them. He couldn’t even imagine how to feel, day after day, looking at his motionless bedridden body.

They just didn’t see this moment the way he did.

And to be truthful, this was what he had once wanted.

He had wanted the girls to find their own life.

But still, it didn’t soften the sudden blow to the guts. It felt like they had sucker-punched him without even knowing that they did. Adrin’s smile faded away as the door closed behind the girls.

They left the bedridden cripple behind as they had their own lives now to live.

“It is painful, isn’t it, to see others move on with their lives,” Bella said as somehow she reappeared in the room without him realizing it. He could have sworn that she had left with the rest of them.

“How would you know,” Adrin replied to the busybody.

“I’ve been there myself,” the lady said and sighed.

Bella took a seat by the bed before she continued. “I was trapped in a dungeon for years, escaped only to find out my love had married my best friend, and it was all my own damnable fault,” she chuckled mockingly at herself.

Adrin swallowed down the venom in his throat. “What happened, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Curiosity, it seemed, was always his biggest motivation.

Bella stared out of the window for a long moment before she turned toward him. Adrin had never seen such complex emotion shown on the woman’s face.

“Teleport trap, and the next thing I know, I was released from inside a crystal, six whole years after everything. Everyone I know thought I was dead,” Bella shook her head. “I was too greedy and didn't realize what I had was something very special.”

“And you think I should hear that news from their lips,” Adrin said and sighed.

“I don’t want to be the bearer of the heartrending news.”

“I see,” he muttered before closing his eyes. The gorgeous lady didn’t want him to hate her for it.

Adrin knew this because deep inside he wanted to be angry and lash at the woman. He wanted to blame everyone but himself, but he knew that no one was at fault.

It was beyond anyone's control.

The man in him was old enough to see it but his reborn young soul hated the fact. The young blood in him wanted something or someone to be blamed.

The pain in his guts twisted to a knot. His greed demanded the girls to stay loyal, but the question buried his every instinct to retaliate.

What if he was in their place?

It wasn’t like they were a sworn lover or something. He probably would have others warming his bed almost every night just to ease the pain.

‘Enough of this,’ a part of him said. He recalled that he hated being soft like this.

He wasn’t a simp for god’s sake. Never again.

And he had his dream to fulfill.

Building himself a mechanical marvel. Or maybe become a cyborg monstrosity himself.

The flesh is weak, after all. It also went without saying that something he built with his own hands would never turn its back on him.

Adrin racked his brain on how to improve his current condition, well without really fixing it, so he could at least feed himself. Healing all at once would need an insurmountable amount of mana and he hated to owe the lady and the family more than he already was.

And the last thing he needed was to be called a miracle healer. There would be no end for people who wanted his aid if that happened. Being a miracle doctor on top of this [Lightbringer] title would spell the end of his personal time.

He felt it when the woman laid down beside him. Adrin groaned inside and rolled his eyes when she pulled his head and buried his face in her ample bosom.

Bella didn’t say a word and just hummed a slightly melancholy tune under her breath. Her voice was soothing and it was a fine tune that reminded him of sad love songs he used to enjoy listening to. It reminded him that a man might not be emotionally driven but he was still a human.

They stayed in that position for quite some time until something in him clicked. Tears began to gather in his eyes and he couldn't push her away.

Adrin recalled that he had almost died, again.

It was a horrible terrifying feeling.

It was damn scary.

His dreams had almost died with him, and he woke up just to be betrayed by the only few people he deeply cared about. They were the only reason he got in this state in the first place. He had given his all to save them.

It was painful and it wasn’t fair.

He felt betrayed.

He felt used.

Before he realized it, he was already bawling in the bosom of a woman he barely knew. Bella didn’t say a word but just held him tighter in her arms.

She was like the compassionate understanding wife he never had.