Mother

Saturday was the day of the week when the store would normally stay closed. However, with the addition of the six new employees, the store stayed open. While he had offered them to take a vacation, they loved the job and wanted to work to repay for what he had done for them.

As such, while they stayed in the shop to work, Aurus went outside and planned to visit his mother at the hospital. Normally, he would bring his sister with him to visit their mother. However, this time, he was going alone because of one thing. He has managed to buy the healing card of the system for 100,000 points.

Thanks to the popularity of the shop and the high cost for the resources, he was currently extremely rich. Normally, he would visit his mother at least twice a week after Laia came back from school. However, this time, he obviously had to go alone since he didn't know how the healing card would take effect.

So, along with the healing card which he kept in his system space, he made his way to the hospital. The hospital was located near the center of the city and it was a six-story high building. The building was made entirely of stone and the door was made of black heavy wood.

Pushing the door to enter the hospital, what welcomed him were countless people, mostly Hunters who were hurt after their expedition. Most of the people had scratches, were bleeding or were missing a limb. People in this world didn't come to the hospital for general sickness. They only came when one couldn't deal with their problem or there was an injury which could lead to death.

As he walked through the people waiting in line, he made his way to the fourth floor. This floor was specially made for people like his mother who couldn't take care of themselves for various reasons and needed the care of the employees of the hospital. Since his mother was in artificial sleep, she had to be on this floor.

When he walked on the floor and approached the room of his mother, he noticed the same guards as always. It seemed that the nobles did their very best to stay on his good side as they sent guards to protect his mother day and night. Although it wasn't necessary since the only people who would bother to hurt his mother were the four nobles family. And in the case where the four families were sending guards to protect his mother, he could only tell that this was actually nothing more than a bother.

However, he still appreciated the protection even if he knew the chances of his mother being attacked were quite low. After all, there may be mass murderers in the city who just woke up that day thinking 'I'll go and fuck with the hospital today.'.

Aurus as he walked nodded to the guards who bowed a little bit their heads. At the same time, he could hear some comments from the nearby passers-by.

"Oh? Who is this person, to have so many guards greet him. Also, who are they protecting? That person seems important." Aurus just shook his head hearing those comments, he couldn't stop their gossip. After all, gossiping was the instinct of these people who had nothing else to do.

Aurus pushed the door and entered the single bedroom. The room was completely white and there was a window made of some sort of monster body part which let some heat enter the room. There was a chair next to the bed where Aurus sat down and he looked at the flowers he had brought the last time he had come here. Those roses were still fine as he guessed that someone must have come and given some water to the flowers.

He looked silently at his mother. She was about forty years old, had brown hair like Laia and she was about as tall as Aurus. However, due to the years of being in an artificial sleep thanks to some drugs they developed with a few monsters' saliva and venom, she had lost all of her muscles. It was easy to keep her living. However, the difficulty was to keep her muscles since she couldn't move at all.

Looking around and confirming the room door was closed and there was no one in the room. He took the healing card out of the system storage and looked at the way to use the card.

He crushed the healing card while thinking in his mind about his mother and pointing with his finger at his mother. The card shattered and disappeared into the air in a few moments as a bright white-yellow glow appeared around his mother's body.

Thankfully, while the glow was quite bright, Aurus knew the guards outside of the room wouldn't notice this as it wasn't bright enough. He looked at the bright cocoon which surrounded his mother and he simply waited next to her. He was obviously very excited as he waited for the magic to stop taking effect. He subconsciously didn't doubt the power of the healing card as the system had helped him a lot. Even if he didn't know the reason for its existence or of his transfer, he knew that for the moment it existed to help him.

He continued to wait and half a minute later, the glow slowly disappeared. All of the relaxation that Aurus had which was reflected in his sitting posture disappeared. He stayed at the edge of his chair and he looked without blinking at his mother which he could now slowly see as the glow disappeared. Her body which was previously weak and without any muscles was now a lot better. Her face which was previously white finally had a rosy colour in them and her body was as if she had never been sick and had just slept for a few hours.

As she slowly opened her eyes, Aurus could feel his eyes starting to get wet. He had lived without his mother for a long time and now that she was opening her eyes, he couldn't help it. He knew that she was not the real one but with her having the same characteristic as his own mother and really seeing Laia as his sister, he felt extremely close to his mother.

He got up and approached the bed as he looked at her with tears falling down. He had wished to see and talk to his mother for a long time as he clenched her hand as he looked at her with a smile.

As Aurus got into her field of vision, his mother looked up and saw Aurus who was obviously taller and different from before. However, she could easily recognize him.

"Aurus…." She didn't continue to talk as her eyes glittered with tears and she showed him a gentle smile.

Feeling extremely great despite just waking up after a long time, she got up and hugged Aurus who was still next to her with tears in his eyes. He really couldn't help it. Returning her hug he merely said a few words which convey all of his feelings for the past few years. "I missed you."

These single words, while he was hugging his mother made him feel a sort of love which he thought he had lost a long time ago.

However, at this moment, he realized that he hadn't asked how she was feeling or if she was okay to get up.

"Mom, are you okay? How do you feel? Do you need me to go and get the doctor?" Rapidly, he asked the questions. At the same time, he was ready to support her if she couldn't stay up.

However, his worries were for nothing as she said: "I feel great, it's as if I just woke up after a night of sleep. There is no need to get the doctor for now." She answered Aurus with a smile.

"How are Laia these days? And how old are the both of you now?" She asked with a small frown. She didn't know how long she had been in an artificial sleep. And, they also didn't know if she would eventually wake up.

"Laia is currently 15 years old, she will be 16 in a little less than two months. As for me, I'm 18." He looked at her and said gently.

She had been in an artificial sleep for almost four years now. Laia was almost twelve when she fell ill and he had been 14.

Closing her eyes as a few tears fell down, she said in a choking voice: "It must have been hard." Hearing those words, Aurus looked down and simply answered: "Yeah".

With a deep breath, he smiled lightly and said: "Alright. Let's not keep you waiting any longer. I'll go and get a nurse so that we can get you discharged. If you don't have any problems, they will let you leave right away and you will be able to see Laia later."

Hearing him, she had a smile but said: "I'm afraid it won't be easy. The doctors will want to make some tests on me to know if I am fine. Also, they will want to do some tests on me. You know my sickness isn't curable. I don't even know how I woke up and resolved my sickness."

"Well, you don't worry about a thing, it should be fairly easy to get out of here without being stopped by the doctors and nurses," Aurus replied with a smile as he went to look outside the door, said a few words and came back in the room.

"Alright, there are a few clothes here, we will leave right away." Aurus smiled at her and left the room. His mother couldn't see the tears that came down from his eyes. He had seen her body being cremated in his previous life and in this one, being extremely sick. Seeing her okay really made him happy.