Recovery

When I opened my eyes, first thing I saw was familiar brown ceiling of my room in the attics. I chose attics as my room because this is the only place where I can avoid some awkwardness during night time.

As our house has only thin wooden walls separating different rooms, any sound you make can travel through the whole house except the attics.

Since my parents are still young, they spend their nights sweating every now and then. At first I found it funny because I didn't really accept them as my parents.

I mean, can you really accept total strangers around same age as yourself as your new parents? Although they are my biological parents in this world, I'm a reincarnated person. Obviously I felt, no, I created and continued to maintain some distance between me and them in my mind.

But after calling them father and mother for years and looking at their eyes filled with love and adoration whenever they saw me, I started to feel like they're my family. Though I still feel bit awkward from time to time when I had to act like a child.

So, two years ago, I moved to the attics where I can sleep peacefully and avoid my guilty feelings when eating breakfast.

I tried to move my body but groaned in pain as soon as I did so. The life and death struggle with the beast flashed through my mind, and the pain from my left shoulder and arms proved everything has happened for real.

My left shoulder was wrapped in white cloth bandages and red stains of blood can be seen on them. I'm surprised at how I feel no pain from my left lungs when I breathed. If I remember correctly, the fangs of the beast should have reached my lungs.

I only felt the pain from my shoulder wounds. Did Diana and Ethelon do something? While I was wondering what happened to the beast after I went unconscious, Diana entered my room carrying my laundries and new bedsheets.

"Kaelud! Thank goodness, you're awake! How do you feel?" Diana asked after seeing that I'm awake. She put down everything she was carrying and put her hands on my forehead with worried look.

Now then, How would a ten year old kid act when they meet their parents after life and death battle with scary beast? Cry and hug their parents and tell them how scary it was. Probably.

Damn, how do I cry? My tears have already dried up ages ago when I was in my past life! I mean, I am the type of guy who would bite the beast back when it bitten me! Do you think I can cry?

Oh well, let's get it done and over with. Just got to remember how I cried when a certain sheep headed ship went down. Not enough? Then let's remember how I felt when little Ushio followed after Nagisa to the heavens!

It's coming, it's coming. Yes! I did it! I can do it if I try after all! Haha Good job me!

"Kaelud, what happened? Why are you smiling like that? Is it the pain?" Diana asked as she got worried when she saw my creepy smile with my eyes bloodshot.

"N-nothing, I'm just h-happy to be alive. H-haha" I replied awkwardly as tears gathered at my eyes. Damn, crying is so difficult!

"Of course you are, You've worried me to death! If not for a lung pharmakos in the Ethelon's stash... We nearly lost you!" Diana barely completed her sentence, her tone shaking from the half way.

I've never had a child before, but I know how terrible it feels to lose my loved ones. Probably the fear she went through because of me was equal or even greater than that.

Dying when one's parents are still alive is one of the greatest sin you could commit as a human being. I've come so close to repeating that sin.

I hugged Diana who was trying her best not to cry in front of me. She got surprised since I usually don't do intimate stuff like this.

In fact I hated the idea because I didn't like the fact that my family has changed ever since I've been reincarnated. It felt like some strangers trying to replace my parents.

In the novels, the main characters adapt to their new life and new family so easily, like its nothing worth to mention. I couldn't do that. It took me years, nearly a decade to just accept both Diana and Ethelon as my family within my heart.

"Oh? The great hero who slew Kharbars, the monstrosity from Tam is up already?" Ethelon joked as he threw a dusty box he was carrying near my bed.

"I bit that monstrosity to death, show some respect!" I replied, proudly puffing up my chest like a rooster. But grimaced as soon as I did so because of the pain.

"Yeah, you did. When I got there I got the scare of my life, Hahaha! Tearing the beast apart with your teeth huh? As expected of my son!" Ethelon laughed heartily like usual. But I felt he really was proud of my deed this time just from his tone.

"You two... Eth, Hurry and get it out already! Got to heal his outer wounds or else it will start decaying!" Diana snapped while we continued our pointless jokes.

"Sure, Here goes nothing!" Ethelon opened dusty box he threw earlier with yellow key as long as my forearm.

Tink!

Satisfying metallic sound came and it opened. I saw the items inside were neatly packed small bluish cubes with various human body parts name written on it.

Ethelon searched through them and seemed to find what he was searching for. I read the names on it, confused. 'Left shoulder, Blood type: AB+, 8-13 age, Male', 'Left forearm, Blood type: AB+, 8-13 age, Male' .

Diana started to carefully undo the bandages around my shoulder. Pain assaulted me again when she removed the innermost layer where my flesh tightly glued to it.

The sight of my wound was gross, I could see the messy flesh and fats underneath it. As I averted my gaze from it, Diana's eyes began to glow with golden light until her eyes were nothing but lights.

I kind of panicked as it was my first time seeing her like this so I sent my helpless look at Ethelon who gave me a wink, finding it funny.

Man! The heck are you doing? I'm quite shocked here you know? Although I know magic exists, at best I saw some small amount of mana manifesting outside of the body.

While I was complaining in my head, my wounds started to feel very itchy. I barely held the urges to scratch at it, and saw Diana holding her hands now clad in golden mana above my wounds.

The cube she held in one of her hands, melted wholly and became bluish liquid hovering in the air near my wounds. As time passed like that, the liquid went into my wounds bit by bit guided by Diana's mana.

My wounds healed at a visible rate whenever part of the liquid went into my wounds. Thanks to my wounds being on the heavy side, the whole process took around two hours.

"Urgh, I'm spent! Been a while since I've done this before! Those days I could continue healing whole day without any rest while the army..."

"Diana, you must be tired, now that Kaelud is as good as new we need to celebrate his achievement! Wait for a bit and I will treat you to my Kharbars barbecue" Ethelon cut through in the middle with his golden promise for the dinner!

I drooled at the thought alone, as Ethelon rarely cooks but every time he does it, the food turns into a delicacy which could earn praises from the gods.

Wait, now isn't time to think about that! I didn't know Diana could use healing magic!

"Diana, are you a priest?" I asked when Ethelon left for the kitchen energetically.

"Silly, if I were a priest. how could you have born?" Diana replied with slight hint of red shade on her cheeks while stroking my hairs which reached to my shoulders.

"But how can you use healing magic then?" I asked one more dumb question corrupted by my 'unreliable' knowledge from the novels and games.

"Everyone with light type Kardia and some knowledge of how human body works can do that if they possess compatible pharmakos with the patient's wounds" Diana replied with a soft smile.

"Pharmakos? You mean those cubes?" I asked again as I pointed at still open dusty box who knows where it came from. Diana closed it off, and locked it up then moved it to the corner of the room.

"Yes, without these things healing magic won't work" she replied shortly after taking a seat beside my bed.

"How do you make those?" I got curious since I wanted to learn more about magic though I can't use it myself. Diana thought for a bit before replying with vague answer.

"It takes lot of time and process to make even one of these. The process requires number of skilled mages of water or shadow type Kardia with exceptional mana control"

"So are those cubes, I mean pharmakos, expensive?" I inquired wanting to know more.

"You could say that, because of the difficulty and importance to produce these, only the big merchant guilds or organizations with approval of the royal court sell them at high price"

No wonder, there is no way something that could heal heavy injuries within two short hours could be some common item. From what I saw and told to, this item should have strategic value to the kingdom.

Quality and quantity of such item must have quite an importance to the kingdom and that explains the involvement of the royal court.

Anything that caught attention of the royal court stinks with the smell of money. Oh, my mind is flying around randomly, again. But from where did Ethelon get those pharmakos?

When I woke up, Diana said she used the lung pharmakos from the Ethelon's stash to save me and that dirty box lying in the corner of my room with full of pharmakos inside should have quite an amount of value.

I doubt Ethelon could get them with the money he earn from hunting in the woods. Should be something from their past, forget it, I know they would try to hide it with some jokes or lies even if I asked about it. They did so before, whenever I approached the topic.

I guess they will tell me about it in the future, when I grow up little bit more. My mentality is already on the same level of a grown up okay? Urgh, the humiliation I had to go through.

The scary thing is that I'm used to it, being treated like a kid and acting as one. Seriously, isn't it bad?

"Dinner is ready, come down and enjoy!" a yell came as I played chess with Diana. Ethelon carved pieces of it from wood for me, when I claimed I read about it in a book. And the board is just a leather sewn together by Diana.

I taught them the rules of the game and it became one of our favorite ways to kill time. Ethelon is the strongest while I am barely holding my position of the second in the family.

"Kaelud, Your mom and I discussed things through and we decided to move to Rotrason, a border town built to trade with Raso-Eason" Ethelon announced the shocking news when we've finished eating once-in-a-while delicacy.

"Why, so suddenly..." I didn't complete my question as I've already guessed their reason. Staying silent for a moment, I asked, my face dark and with a tone that could barely be heard "Because of me?"

"That's right, Since you're a hoson its way too dangerous to continue staying here in the wilderness" Ethelon replied ruthlessly with his eyes focused on mine.

I felt bitter feeling of helplessness once again as I heard those words. Living in the town is good and all, I've no problems with it. If anything I actually wanted to live in a place with more people.

But its frustrating if the sudden change in our life is closely linked to my weakness and lack of the ability. Seeing my face go dark and anger at my helplessness showing up in my eyes, tears gathered at Diana's eyes.

I knew she felt guilty for me being a Hoson, Kardialess person. The Kardia of children are closely related to their mothers. During pregnancy period more than seventy percent of mother's Kardia separate itself from her body to build baby's Kardia.

The case of Hoson being born is when some kind of accidents happen or mistakes made by the mother during this process.

The reason she could barely last two hours while casting healing magic even though she used to do it whole day with no problems before probably has to do something with me.

I hurriedly put my poker face on as I didn't want her to blame herself and talked with perfectly normal tone.

"I see, When will we be moving then? And how do we get there?"

Ethelon smirked at my reaction then he brought out a thin brown leather with map drawn on it and pointed at the castle drawing with Rotrason written under it with a neat looking font.

Calligraphy level of the cartographer who drew this map were superb. Nothing to complain about it.

The Rotrason is a town located between the borders of Raso-Eason and Tenger Kingdom, a country which we currently live in. The road leading to Raso-Eason lies to the west from here, about distance of two days on foot.

All we need to do is to reach that road and travel to the south on it. Two days to get to the road and about a month of journey until we reach the town, if we solely travel by walking.

"This is the town we plan to settle on. It is famous for being a town which acts as a headquarter for the numerous big merchant guilds in both countries. It is big enough to be called a city, but out of respect towards both kingdoms they still call it a town"

Then the town should be quite lively one. Big merchant guilds of this world is powerful. Even the nobles avoid direct confrontation with them if they could.

In fact big merchant guilds are powerful clans or big tribes that focuses on trading for various reasons. They have their own armed forces, guards etc despite not possessing a land of their own.

"We will be moving after a week. During this time I will go and buy a mount to pull the carriage in our barn, from the merchants who travel on the road" Ethelon continued on his plans.

"Since we can't bring our livestock here, I will sell them to merchants, in the meantime you two are to pack up and prepare for the journey"

A week has passed by in the blink of an eye and our day to move has come.