151. High Fever
151. High Fever
It had been a truly strange day.
He'd been trapped in a bizarre room straight out of some comic book, escaped, only to fall into hell and fight a life-or-death battle against a Great Demon.
Then he'd even met a wandering Master, someone you'd rarely encounter... It had been a chaotic day.
His second life had always been like a twisting rollercoaster, but lately it felt like it had gotten even worse.
-Kudangtang!
The moment he returned to the dormitory, he collapsed onto the floor.
His legs had given out; he couldn't stand anymore.
"Ugh... I overdid it... If I'd been in peak condition, I could've killed him..."
He'd pretended to be fine in front of everyone, but he was actually far from okay.
In hell, he couldn't afford to show weakness, so he'd kept insisting he was fine and pushed through, but the moment he was inside the dormitory, the tension must have snapped.
Being exposed to Asmodeus's Authority without any proper countermeasures had been the critical blow.
The external burns had mostly healed, but his insides were a wreck.
If it had been ordinary fire, he wouldn't have been left with burns like these at all.
Because he'd unleashed two major techniques while already ablaze with the flames of hell, his acupoints had nearly been ruined beyond repair.
As a result of attempting to use power far too strong while his condition was poor, he'd nearly been consumed by that power... Well, to put it in martial arts novel terms, he'd been right on the verge of a qi deviation.
"If I'd been in peak condition... I feel like I've said that before."
Belphegor, whose limbs he'd severed, came to mind.
Still, the fortunate thing was that unlike that bastard, he hadn't been the one on the receiving end — he'd nearly put Asmodeus down instead.
"From now on, I'll have to carry Squete and... a holy relic with me at all times..."
He'd left Asmodeus in a wreck, but he hadn't managed to kill him.
The likelihood that Asmodeus would come looking for revenge, nursing a grudge, was high.
It would be nice if fear made him lose interest in this side, but there was no way that would happen.
From now on, carrying both his sword and a holy relic at all times seemed like the safer bet.
It was a lesson learned through the agony of his bones burning.
But right now, rest was what he needed most.
He squeezed out every last bit of strength he had and hauled himself onto the bed.
.
.
.
.
.
In the end, he was bedridden.
He'd spent the night regulating his breathing and had healed most of the external wounds, but that had turned out to be the bigger problem.
With internal damage still present, stimulating various parts of his body to boost natural recovery had healed the external injuries but made the internal ones worse.
Burns had to be treated quickly, or the body's systems would break down, so it hadn't been a choice he could avoid.
It felt like he'd caught an absolutely brutal case of the flu.
Severe high fever, a sore throat, a headache, and even muscle aches — it was hard to find a single part of him that didn't hurt.
"...I need to demolish that mansion..."
He couldn't move a single muscle.
It had been a very long time since his body had been this wrecked.
He stared blankly at the ceiling as he lay in bed.
As he lay there, the things he needed to do and the things he wanted to do drifted up like puffy clouds in his mind.
Before more victims appeared at that unpleasant mansion, he needed to tear it down quickly... and go to the capital to find workers and materials for the construction.
As for the workers... first, he'd go to the Dwarf Kingdom and draft a few people.
During his time with the Snow Country Expedition, he'd darted across the entire continent, so he was well-acquainted with the guild members there, and they'd gladly accept his proposal.
Then, hiring one architectural mage to handle the heavy equipment work would wrap it up.
A structure with two floors, one underground floor, and a separate external warehouse would be ideal.
Making three or four rooms would be plenty... and adding a bathhouse on the first floor seemed like a good idea.
The dormitory's private rooms had showers, but soaking your body in a tub was a completely different thing from a shower.
From what he'd checked, the water supply still seemed to be functioning, so he'd just need to do a bit of sewer work.
The academy did have a large communal bath that could accommodate many people, but he wasn't too fond of it.
It was a place where crowds of people gathered, making it a frequent hotspot for trouble.
As for the toilet... considering this world, dry toilets were the norm.
But he still hadn't forgotten the memories of his previous life, so he was more accustomed to wet-style toilets.
He'd have to put up a new fence... and tidy up the garden too.
Though it was a temporary residence, he had no intention of building it shoddily.
Still, it wasn't like it would be a colossal mansion, so it wouldn't cost an exorbitant amount.
He had plenty of money, so there was no need to worry about that.
He held three accounts at the Imperial Capital Bank.
The account where his Imperial Knight salary came in, a secret account where the Imperial family deposited activity funds for his work as a Shadow, and the account where he'd stored treasure and commission rewards from his Snow Country Expedition days.
None of the three had hit rock bottom yet.
That was because he wasn't much of a spender, except when purchasing things like artifacts.
What style would be best for the exterior?
Something too eye-catching was problematic.
But he also didn't want it to look too shabby or tacky.
It would probably be best to examine the existing mansion and request something similar to it.
Giving clear, specific instructions on what style to build it in would avoid confusing the workers.
Speaking of mansions, the one that came to mind first was the Titan mansion, the one he'd lived in the longest.
'No, that thing isn't a house.'
His mood soured immensely.
He decided to start thinking it over from scratch again.
But it didn't go well.
From the moment the Titan mansion surfaced in his mind, old, moldy memories that had been sleeping in a corner of his memory came flooding out, as if a dam had burst.
On top of his flu-like symptoms, it made his already dizzy head throb even worse.
-Knock knock
At that moment, the sound of a knock cleared his chaotic mind.
He didn't even know what time it was.
The curtains were all drawn over the windows, so he couldn't even tell whether it was daytime or still morning.
"Atlas, are you in there? If you are, answer me."
The person knocking was Edgar Lemnos.
It felt like the first time that bastard had knocked on his door. What could it be about?
"What is it..."
"Are you seriously not okay? Why does your voice sound so weak??"
"It's a cold, just a cold..."
He spoke with difficulty while lying down, and Lemnos, remarkably, heard it and answered.
He'd spoken very quietly, and the man was outside the door, too.
"I came at Russell's request. She said you didn't seem to be in good shape. Looking at your condition, she was right..."
Russell... So it had been Lucia's request.
She must have thought it strange when the person who never missed morning training suddenly didn't show up.
"...Now the girls can't enter the male dormitory either... It's gotten needlessly inconvenient..."
She'd probably wanted to come in person, but the rules had changed, so it seemed she couldn't enter even if she wanted to now.
"...."
But this had cleared his head.
Lying in the dormitory would probably lead to recovery... but shouldn't he move a bit more efficiently?
"I'll need to be hospitalized for about a day."
He'd have to go to the hospital and call for Professor Praha.
Elven medical arts worked well on internal damage.
If he went to the hospital... he could at least see everyone's faces...
Fighting through the excruciating muscle aches and headache, he rose from the bed—
-Kudangtang!!
"What the—?! Hey, are you really okay?!"
He fell again.
It seemed he was definitely not okay.
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In the end, he was admitted to the hospital.
Apparently, when he'd tried to get up from bed and collapsed, Lemnos had come in, helped him up, and hospitalized him, just as he'd suggested.
He had said it wasn't that serious, but both Edgar and everyone who passed by wore expressions of utter shock.
The sight of him, unable to control his body and collapsing, must have been quite the spectacle.
Suddenly, a funny joke came to mind.
"You broke the door, so you fix it."
"I was trying to help you..!"
"I know, it was just a joke. The golems will probably fix it anyway."
He'd said it as a simple joke, but Edgar's expression grew even more grave.
It seemed the man thought his head had gone bad.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Your body is a wreck. What on earth did you do to end up like this?"
Professor Praha, whom he'd designated as his attending physician, reviewed the test results and adjusted her glasses.
Lying in a private room with an ice pack on his head, he looked at Professor Praha and spoke.
"For exam takers... it happens often, doesn't it? I pushed my aura too hard and it got a bit twisted."
"The symptoms are similar, I suppose. But with that monster coiled up inside your body, Sponsor-nim, you need to be even more careful. One wrong move and you could have died."
The real reason was that he'd taken a direct hit from Asmodeus's Authority, but Atlas couldn't reveal that, so he just agreed with her assessment.
The symptoms and the treatment approach were similar, after all.
"First, we've put out the immediate fire, so just lie down and rest for about a week, and you'll recover completely."
"An entire week...?"
"That's on the short side. Do you know that anyone else would have to be hospitalized for two months?"
He had so much he wanted to do quickly, and now he had to be hospitalized for a whole week...
But calling for Professor Praha had been the right move.
Though hidden by his clothes, his upper body was currently inscribed with elven sorcery written in medicinal compounds, and the flow that had been a wreck had noticeably improved after the procedure.
But his condition was still poor, nonetheless.
"I'll erase what I've written in about two days, so hold out until then. I've corrected the mess you were in, so don't strain yourself until it stabilizes again."
"Yes..."
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Independently of the collapsed Atlas, the Headmaster's head was throbbing once again.
A Master had suddenly entered the academy in the middle of the night.
"...So, to summarize, you somehow ended up entering this place... is that correct?"
"Right. I'm a bit directionally challenged, you see. If I just keep walking, I somehow end up arriving in places I don't even recognize."
Master Hulan, who'd planned to tell the story while leaving out everything related to Atlas, ended up omitting the entire 'hell' part as well.
As a result, even though Atlas wasn't implicated, the fact that Hulan had returned from hell was left out, leading the Headmaster to speculate that a large hole might have formed in the barrier protecting the island of the academy.
Since Hulan was a non-hostile Master, that was fortunate... but what if some other suspicious intruder had crept in during the night and no one had noticed?
What if a major incident had occurred because of it?
'I'll have to reexamine the security from the ground up.'
Someone might have already gotten in.
Gordon steeled his resolve.