小嫂子的味道

On a wooden bench at the end of the room there sat a boy with rugged clothes. He…was Zero. Dressed in the academy uniform with torn edges, the shirt had no arms and a huge part of the pants was missing too. On top of that, he was covered in bandages, lots of bandages. His hair was dirty, mixed with mud and dust, and was growing unevenly. There were cuts and scratches on his face, along with the dirt that washed it over.

When Anya entered the room, he looked to the side after the sound of the door opening. He stared at her, stopping the conversation he was having with Ryfin, who sat on a chair in front of Zero. Ryfin too peeked in Anya's direction, but no one said anything. Silence prevailed over the room.

Zero passes a calm, warm, and reassuring smile as she stood there, totally motionless. Not an inch of her body had moved since the time her gaze fell upon Zero.

She was stunned down to her very core, and it was only reasonable. The person she'd thought had died was now in front of her, breathing and as alive as anything could be. It wasn't like she was unhappy by the fact that he was alive, but the sheer revelation of it has left her as a statue made of stone.

"I'm…back," said Zero, in a weak and trembling voice. "Sorry to make you worry."

There was no reply, she just stood there and stared into his eyes. Eventually, Zero got to his feet, slowly and carefully. He rose and took a couple of steps toward Anya. From the outside, it looked as if taking one step required the strength to take a thousand for him.

He reached out his hand, the smile on his face not fading as he got closer. But…the time was up. There's a limit to how much you can overuse your body and put stress on it without giving it the time to rest. If you keep increasing the pressure again and again without taking a rest, only one of these two things will happen.

Either you will surpass the limits and ascend to a realm above what could be called a human—which is only possible when you're the protagonist of a story—or the other option will happen. You will break. The latter was the case with Zero.

Darkness shrouded the corner of his eyes, his feet stumbled upon themselves. His field of vision grew darker before it was completely black. He tripped, and fell, but didn't fall on the floor.

He was close enough, and before he could smack his head on the floor, Anya came forward and held him in a gentle embrace. Zero's hands dropped to the side as he lost consciousness and had no sense of self remaining inside him. He went limp like a corpse.

Ellyn and Ryfin were also taken aback by this, however, Anya was different.

"You idiot…what took you so long," she breathed, tears welling up in her eyes

***

My head was heavy, so heavy. If you haven't been in a situation where you didn't sleep for almost a whole week and worked continuously, straining your body to its max, if you haven't been in a situation like that then I can't explain to you how I'm feeling right now. And if you have, then I do not need to explain it.

My entire body stung, almost like someone was injecting needles into every part of my flesh. My breathing was rough, and uneven, like an animal about to die. My throat was dry and itchy, it hurt even to draw in a breath.

I opened my eyes, and it took a good while before the blurriness went away. Then I saw the ceiling, a ceiling I was familiar with. It was the ceiling of my room in the dorms.

At first, I thought of nothing, my brain wasn't able to function as it should. Then I forced it and got a sense of my surroundings. What I got was that I was lying on the bed in my dorm room. There was a white blanket I was wearing—that was not mine, by the way—and I was dressed in night clothing I was not familiar with.

I turned my head to the side and saw Anya. She was sitting on a wooden chair beside the bed and just happened to be staring at me when I looked at her. At first, there was silence. I thought about breaking it but then my consciousness wavered, and I fell into a deep slumber, yet again.

'...'

I regained myself back vividly as my consciousness returned. I don't know how much time had passed since then, but by this time the pain in my body had dulled a bit.

I turned my head to the side and Anya was still there, and just happened to be staring in my direction when I looked at her. I was about to say something, but then I stopped.

Not because I blacked out again, but because I realized that she wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were open, and she was awake, but right now, she was not here. Her eyes were hollow, staring into nothingness.

Her clothes were also different from what she was wearing the last time I saw her. It was a loose cardigan with the academy blazer on it, right now she was in proper clothes.

"How much time has passed?" I asked, finally breaking the silence that felt like an eternity. My throat was still dry and ached as I spoke.

Probably with my question and voice she snapped back to reality because as soon as she heard me, her eyes widened and then contracted to their normal shape. She shivered a bit but was fine a moment afterward.

"How much time—cough, cough!!" I went and repeated my question just in case she hadn't heard me, but ended up coughing midway due to the dryness in my throat.

She quickly reached out to the bottle that rested on the desk, and poured some water into a glass, however instead of passing it to me, she brought it close to my mouth. I parted my lips, she put the edge of the glass carefully on them. In the end, I drank the water, but not in the most comfortable way.

Can't help it really, I'm not used to drinking like this.

"Three days," she said, tapping the glass of water back on the best after I was done drinking. "You woke up yesterday but fell asleep a moment later," she added.

I got quite a good amount of sleep. Needless to say, I was in a mild state of coma. At least, that's the best explanation I have right now. I was overworking my body for days and knew that this would happen if I tried to rest even for a second. That's why I was stuck in an endless cycle of not sleeping until I got here.

"That's some sleep right there," I mumbled as I forced my hand on the bed and sat up straight, my back leaning on the wall behind me.

I rolled my eyes around the room and searched for Req. I had forced her to go back into the sword form when I entered the gates of the academy, and have kept it with me. If Ellyn had done her job right, then it should be somewhere in this room.

'There it is, okay,' I was relieved internally as I saw the Requiem sword. It was leaning against the wall in one of the corners.

All that was left was my transaction card—the only thing I'd made Ellyn bring out from the academy for me.

I put my right hand inside my underwear, I was still covering myself with the blanket, so Anya wasn't able to see. I moved my hand around and searched, but it wasn't there…my transaction card.

'Ah, so that's how it is…' this was a problem.

"Who changed my clothes?" I appealed as I turned in Anya's direction.

"The medical staff did it when they were treating your wounds," she replied, dully.

My troubles won't it, will they? But it's my fault. Now I'm realizing how stupid of an idea it was to hide the transaction card inside my underwear and take it out when I'm alone. Tch! I can't believe I thought it might just work. It was a stupid idea, a very stupid idea. Hell, not even a drunk person would think of something like that.

No, maybe they will—but hey that's not the point here! The point is...that I'm in serious trouble.