20 A Missing Room Number

The drive to the hospital was quiet, it seems that outside of work, Natalie is the type to keep to herself. But just because it was quiet, doesn't mean I could relax. The whole time, I had to restrain my mana, which is something I had never done before. 'Some people can get to a level where they do it unconsciously, and I'll have to get to that level too. Maybe one day I'll be strong enough to stop hiding like this.'

"We're here," Natalie says as she stops in front of the hospital. "Do you need any help getting in? We could call a nurse."

"No, I've rested a bit already, walking in on my own should be fine. Thank you for the ride, Ms. Natalie," I answer.

Dragging myself into the hospital, I tell the front desk about my situation and they move me to a different room. A couple of minutes later, a doctor arrives, and they begin to do a checkup on me. After they finished the checkup, they tell me I have a couple of fractures in my ribs along with numerous shallow wounds on my body.

"Considering you are a hunter, a couple days of rest and you should be enough," the doctor says. "The bruises might not even last more than a day, the biggest concern is your fractured ribs. Make sure not to exacerbate your injuries with any physical activity."

Paying for the checkup hurts a bit, specially after I remember how many mana stones I used inside the dungeon. 'Damn, the ant queen's mana stone must've been very expensive… whatever, no use in having money if I'm dead. Not only that, but I also don't know if I could live with myself knowing I let the others die because of greed. Speaking of Natalie took me to the nearest hospital, so they should be here too.' I make my way back to the front desk and ask about the room numbers of Daniel, Anna, and Sam. She tells me that Daniel and Sam were placed in adjacent rooms but hesitates when mentioning Anna.

"I'm sorry, sir, no one by that name was recently admitted into the hospital," she says.

"What? But she was in the same incident and me and the other two. Why wouldn't she be here?" I ask in confusion.

"Perhaps she used an alias? Some hunters do that, right?" she asks, trying to help me. "Or maybe she has been discharged already, let me check."

'There is no way she's healed up enough to be discharged.' I still wait for her to check the system, just to make sure no miracles happened.

"When did you say she was admitted?" she asks, looking distressed.

"Hmm, around 2 hours ago," I answer.

"Sir, it looks like she doesn't have a room, because she died in the ambulance," she doesn't break eye contact with me as she speaks. "I'm very sorry, sir."

"Can I see the body? I need to make sure it's her," my voice is shaky.

"Are you family? We can't fulfil such requests for non-family members," her expression is full of empathy.

"N-no, I'm not family…" parting alongside those words, I head towards Sam's room.

Sam is in room 307, which is on the third floor. While I wait for the elevator to arrive, a commotion at the front desk catches my attention. An older woman, probably in her 50's is practically yelling at the receptionist. 'I'm sure I've never seen her before, but she looks so familiar… ah! She's identical to Anna.' Soon, a couple of nurses manage to calm her down and begin to escort her towards the elevators. The nurses use their ID's to call for a separate elevator, that one probably has access to the mortuary. My emotions are in turmoil, a mixture of grief, guilt, and anger. The elevator finally dings and opens its doors, there is no one inside.

The ride is short, since I only had to go up 2 floors, but it feels like an eternity. My thoughts keep going back to the fight. 'Why did it take me so long to think of absorbing the crystals? What if I had done so from before the fight even started? Sam was clear with what the ant queen's cry meant.' Only one thing superseding my guilt is the anger. 'That bastard, why did he betray his team like that? Did he even think of them as teammates? He was hiding his rank; his identity was probably fake too.' Images of Chris's face surface is my mind. The face of the greed filled monster that used Daniel as a hostage contrasts the one that cared for Sam's daughter. 'How could he do that to these people?'

The elevator comes to a stop, the doors open, a nurse is standing in front of me. He makes way, letting me get off first while giving me a polite smile. I'm in no mood to be smiling, so I just ignore them and search for Sam's room. When I arrive at the door, I knock lightly, but there is no answer.

"Will? The nurses told me he's still out of it," I turn around and see Daniel sitting down in a rest area. "Nothing to worry about though, they also said he's stable." He is wearing a hospital gown and is wheeling around a pack of IV fluids. His left arm is covered by bandages while his right one has a cast.

"What about you? Shouldn't you be resting?" I say.

"It's only a couple of broken bones, I'll be fine. Besides, I am resting," he answers shamelessly. After a brief pause, he continues, "Did you get the news? About Anna…"

"Yeah, I did," I answer.

"Listen, kid-" Daniel stops himself and sighs. "Never mind."

Seeing that the conversation is over, I take a seat next to Daniel. We stay silent for a while, until Daniel speaks up.

"I know we barely know each other, but I can't let you destroy yourself like this. Sam must've mentioned my hunter record, right?"

"Are you referring to you being the sole survivor of a failed raid?" I ask.

"Yes. Do you know the details?" he replies.

"No, we only saw the warning on your profile. Why?" the topic came out of left field, I'm confused about it's relevance.

"The group I hunted with was like family to me. You know how it is with low ranked hunters like us, most have a difficult life. Only idiots would choose to risk their life when they have better options available," his words are soft. His eyes are unfocused as he stares up at the ceiling.

"I was no different; debt, a poor education, you name it. Growing up in an orphanage wasn't the worst part, since it was run by good people. The problems started when I got adopted at the age of 8, the couple only wanted me to receive money from the government." Daniel lets out a long sigh as he rubs his face.

"They collected the payments for taking care of an orphan and spent them on drugs and gambling. They never cared for me, only paying me attention when child services did their inspections. They'd force me into lying to the inspectors, threatening to kill me if I talked. If all I had to suffer was some negligence, then perhaps I would've endured it, but things got worse. The man started to hit me whenever he got high, after a while, he even started doing it sober. When I was 13, I decided to run away from them."

"Where did you go?" I ask him. "Back to the orphanage?"

"No, I felt betrayed; I questioned why they would let people like that take me away. It's difficult for someone so young to understand incidents like those. Anyway, now that I was a runaway, there was no place for me to sleep in. I also stopped attending school, the thought of finding those monsters waiting for me kept me away." Daniel's face holds a faint expression of melancholy. "Well, the rest isn't hard to guess, a homeless teenager doesn't have many options when it comes to income. I begged in street corners and did some odd jobs for the locals. Some loan sharks approached me and offered me a bed and a roof over my head; I naively gave in."

"That's the debt you mentioned?" Daniel's story has me completely reeled in.

He nods and continues to talk, "Things where stable for a while, I did some work for the loan sharks in exchange for the apartment. Things changed when the breaks started to happen. They lost a lot of assets to the rampaging monsters which caused them to start collecting their debts. I had signed an unfavorable contract, it allowed them to ask for nonsensical amounts of money from me. One day, my prayers were answered when I awakened as a hunter… or so I thought. You don't need me to tell you about the disappointment of being an E rank hunter. The looming threat of death hangs over your head, all in exchange for an average payout, but people like us don't have better options. It's all thanks to those guys that I got to where I am today," he pauses, a small smile grows on his face.

"At the time, the association was still a baby, things like the group finding program didn't exist. It was through pure luck that I bumped into the group leader at a convenience store. He asked me if I wanted to join his group; to this day, I don't know what he saw in me. I agreed and got introduced to the team, they were a close-knit group. None of them knew each other before the break, but relationships develop quickly when you fight alongside people. When they heard of my circumstances, they all agreed to diverge most of our earnings so that I could pay off my debts. We grew closer with every passing day, and soon enough, they became family to me. I had found a happiness that I never even dreamt of." Daniel's smile fades, leaving behind nothing but sorrow.

"It all ended with in that dungeon. We had grown complacent, taking for granted our success in the raids. During my scouting, I failed to spot a group of lesser imps. Thanks that, the group got stuck in a two-way fight. On one side, they were facing hellhounds and the other the imps. I tried to help, joining in against the imps, but as the fight dragged on, it was clear we were the losing side. The team leader turned to me, I thought that in his final moments he would curse me for my mistake. Instead, he told me to run, that they could buy enough time for one of us to make it out. You'd expect me to have argued, to insist on staying and going down with them…but as soon as I heard those words, I fled."