Chapter 128
Chapter 128
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 128
Chapter Title: Regeneration (2)
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“⋯⋯Can’t we stop seeing each other’s faces like this?”
“⋯⋯.”
“I’ve never had a patient who comes in this often, but it’s even more ridiculous that you don’t just show up injured—you always arrive half-dead.”
“⋯⋯.”
Waking up to a scolding from the doctor was a fairly rare experience in its own right.
Beringham, wearing his white gloves, scribbled away at some paperwork in front of Carlyle with a face full of exhaustion.
“⋯⋯How did things wrap up?”
At Carlyle’s question, Beringham shrugged.
“The demons were all rounded up and are being held in the imperial palace. No civilian casualties, from what I heard.”
Alistair had been subdued by Gray, and Cornelius, who’d been left in the tower, had been properly beaten down by Dean Shea and the Hero Party when they joined later.
⋯⋯That was.
Good.
It seemed his efforts to clean up that mess had paid off.
“And.”
Beringham flipped to the next page of his paperwork and continued.
“I’m a doctor.”
“I can see that.”
“Not some great person—just someone who’s learned the healing arts. I’m not important enough to judge who lives or dies. All I do is go where I’m needed and offer my skills.”
“⋯⋯Why are you telling me this now?”
“It means I’m not making any value judgments, so everything we say from here on out is just what’s necessary for your examination.”
With that, Beringham tapped the first page of the new section with his pen.
“Carlyle Bellfast.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve treated you before, but back then, you weren’t all that⋯⋯ exceptional.”
“⋯⋯Pardon?”
“Of course, staying sane after injuries like that isn’t exactly ordinary, but even among superhumans, those at the peak have survived with their guts torn open by using mana to substitute for their organs.”
He added that it was someone you know, too.
Shea Whiteburn, the dean of Cradle, had demonstrated it himself.
As he said this, Beringham looked at Carlyle with deeply sunken eyes.
“Compared to superhumans who boast that level of absurd vitality, you weren’t anything special.”
“⋯⋯.”
“But do you know what even those superhumans can’t do?”
Before Carlyle could ask what, Beringham drove the point home.
“Localized decay in the heart, lungs, spine, and sternum area. Left lung damage. Right lung pneumothorax. Multiple shattered ribs. Crushed larynx. Femoral artery severed.”
“⋯⋯.”
“That’s what I found when I examined you upon arrival. And that’s the abbreviated version.”
Even for the pinnacle of superhumans—
“To be frank, you were already dead. You should’ve been seeing an undertaker, not me.”
—they can’t come back from the dead.
Yet Carlyle had recovered flawlessly from injuries like that.
“Do you know what’s even funnier?”
“⋯⋯What?”
“Not only were you still breathing in that state, your recovery speed was dramatically faster than before.”
Beringham removed his glasses and set them on the bed.
“As a doctor and scientist, I should avoid subjective opinions, but your body⋯⋯ it reacted like it was ‘awakening’ upon contact with Hell’s atmospheric material.”
“⋯⋯.”
“I’m no superhuman myself, but I know a thing or two about how abilities work.”
In that sense.
This phenomenon was almost like.
“It makes it look like your ‘origin’ is on that side. The more you come into contact with it from now on, the more pronounced those traits will become.”
Biologically speaking.
This human was already.
“Let’s be honest, Carlyle Bellfast. Just how far from human are you?”
“-”
Answers quietly floated up in Carlyle’s mind.
As many times as he’d twisted his body searching for ways to tame the Hero.
As many times as he’d watched others die because he was inexperienced.
⋯⋯As many regressions as he’d been through so far.
“And Carlyle, according to my analysis, the side effects if this state persists—”
“-No need to explain that.”
He already.
Knew.
-May I call you oppa?
Intimately, excruciatingly well.
“Does the Lady or anyone else know the details about this?”
“⋯⋯What kind of doctor shares a patient’s private information without consent?”
“Good call. If you’d gone blabbing, even you, Doctor, would’ve gotten your jaw relocated.”
“⋯⋯Well, I figured as much, so I gave them some vague excuses. A few people saw you alive in that state.”
“How’d you explain it?”
“I lied and said I’d saved worse cases during my residency. Made it so you didn’t seem too freakish.”
“⋯⋯They bought that?”
“Smart people spouting nonsense always sounds plausible.”
Good grief. What a competent doctor.
Carlyle chuckled as he rose from the bed and put on the neatly folded clothes on the adjacent bed.
Considering past treatments, Beringham would normally tell him to lie back and rest, but this time, he didn’t add any such words.
They’d both reached an understanding.
As if some ‘part’ of Carlyle had clearly changed since the last examination.
“Oh, and. You asked how far from human I am?”
“I did.”
“Close enough that you won’t forget who I am.”
For now.
That should suffice.
“⋯⋯.”
Beringham quietly gazed at Carlyle.
“⋯⋯I hope you can maintain it for a long time.”
“Hey, of course.”
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There’s a prison beneath the imperial palace that most people avoid.
More precisely, most don’t even know it exists.
A place to lock away the most horrific, irreverent, and insidious things.
In short.
No better spot to temporarily hold the two demons who nearly collapsed the entire capital.
And in such a place.
Gray quietly stared at the figure before her.
“Oh my, Hero. What brings you to such a humble spot?”
“⋯⋯Hmmm.”
Viscount Demon Cornelius. The one who’d taken butterfly form.
“What can I say. That old bat must’ve indulged her sadistic tastes to the fullest.”
Gray herself wouldn’t deny that Felix’s ‘interrogation’ of the demon had been utterly gruesome.
Even an abstract painter with the cruelest imagination would turn pale at the sight of this demon’s current state.
“What’s your business, Hero? You’re not here just to mock us, I assume.”
“No, just curious. Got some time on my hands.”
Gray alternated her gaze between the horrifically mangled Cornelius and Alistair behind her.
Compared to Cornelius, whom words failed to describe, Alistair looked relatively intact.
⋯⋯Though she’d heard he still hadn’t regained consciousness after Gray had pounded him so fiercely and passionately.
“I heard from the Gray Cardinal how the interrogation went.”
They’d subjected her to quite intense torture to extract any useful info, but she’d held out impressively well, apparently.
She’d endured even until she looked like this, but surrendered the moment they pressed her one weakness.
“The second you threatened to touch that guy sprawled out there, she spilled everything from one to ten?”
Gray said, looking at Alistair collapsed behind Cornelius.
That had been Felix’s final leverage against the resilient Cornelius.
I’ll devour your ‘husband.’
And the Cornelius who hadn’t yielded to any threats against herself had surrendered immediately at those words, she’d heard.
⋯⋯It was a phenomenon Gray couldn’t comprehend at all.
Why would these demons do something like that? Did they love each other like humans?
“Of course, Hero. Alistair and I are married, after all.”
Even in her gruesome state, Cornelius grinned.
“⋯⋯It doesn’t matter if I suffer, but I absolutely won’t tolerate a single finger being laid on him.”
“⋯⋯.”
What to say.
It seemed like genuine emotion, more than expected.
Which meant she’d come to the right place.
“Hey.”
Gray said softly.
“What exactly is that like?”
“Pardon?”
“⋯⋯Lately, I’ve been curious what love feels like—how it even works.”
“⋯⋯Pardon?”
“If you’re married, that means you got married.”
“Th-that’s right⋯⋯?”
“Then you can answer. What does it feel like when a man and a woman love each other? Exactly?”
“⋯⋯.”
“⋯⋯No one around me to really ask.”
What to say.
Everyone she could ask about this stuff was single.
Lionel was an option, but dragging up memories of his late wife with her father didn’t sit right.
“⋯⋯.”
But circumstances aside.
At the sight of a human asking a demon about emotions, Cornelius was utterly speechless.
“⋯⋯Hero, I don’t think we’re the ones to discuss this with, but still, if I may ask.”
And, what to say.
This human pulling an insane stunt that beggared belief from a demon felt oddly familiar.
Thinking of one particular man, Cornelius opened her mouth.
“Have you met someone you like recently—”
Before she could finish, Cornelius’s head was crushed with a squelch.
“Don’t like him.”
“⋯⋯.”
“I don’t like that bastard one bit.”
“⋯⋯.”
Hmph.
She hadn’t even named him, but someone popped into mind right away, it seemed.
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