When he came to, James was on a bed in an unfamiliar room. His head pounded, and his ribs hurt a lot as well. His left leg and arm were both throbbing. It was almost as bad as listening to Mo's music.
James lifted his head. He seemed to be in a hospital room. James had never needed to be hospitalized before. James looked around in a daze until he saw a pile of his stuff in the corner of the room. He saw his storage bag lying around.
"Shit! Nobody saw what was in there, right?"
James attempted to sit up, but the pain stopped him from getting past 45 degrees.
A nurse came into the room, and told him to lie down and rest, because he was still injured quite badly. The nurse did some checks on James, measuring his temperature and looking at his wounds.
The arrival of the nurse shocked James' brain back into action. Everything came back to him.
He had been on a hike with the group, when the bears showed up. One of the bears ran towards the group but was killed by the blond girl's magic. Then, everybody fainted, and the other grown bear turned into a monster. He'd fought it, and then passed out right when the monster was about to smash him to pieces. Afterwards, he'd had a fever dream in which he occupied another person's body, and saw a battle between demonic beings and angelic knights.
James sat there processing for about half a minute. Then, he asked the nurse,
"Is everyone else okay?"
"Yes, they're all fine. None of them were seriously injured, except you." The nurse smiled at him. "Even though you were the one who fought the bear, the first think you asked about was the safety of others. You're a selfless hero."
The one who had fought the bear? They knew about him fighting the monster? James was surprised for a moment, then shook his head.
"No no no," he thought. "There were two bears. The nurse said bear. The blond girl must have done something, right? She must've been the one who killed the demon bear before it killed me, which meant she was there while everyone else was unconscious."
"Excuse me, could you hand me that bag over there?" James pointed to the storage bag.
"Of course."
When the nurse left the room, he opened the bag. Inside, he found all of his throwing knives. All of his mana potions were gone, but he still had some stamina and strength potions.
"Damn, I'm an idiot. I had potions and I didn't even use them." James scratched his head. "Although, I actually only received one hit. I didn't really get a chance to use them."
James wondered if his reaction was normal. He had almost died, yet he was still quite calm when the thought about it.
James dug a little deeper into his bag and found his knife and his Hermes boots. The next few items, he didn't recognize: a piece of paper, some meat, and some of what appeared to be the hide of a bear.
"Hm? I don't remember putting these in here."
He unfolded the piece of paper and discovered writing on it.
"James – My name is Ayla, the girl you fought the bear monster with. You passed out after I killed the bear monster. While you were unconscious, I helped you drink a few potions and stabilized your condition. Inside your bag, I put in all of your equipment, including your broken armor. I had to leave after the incident. My current situation is a bit sticky, which is also why I didn't leave any way for you to contact me.
I took some of the skin and meat from the monster and put it in your bag. I disposed the rest of the body. I laid a tree on top of the other corpse to make it look like it it had been smashed. I couldn't heal all of your injuries, so they'll probably think that you fought the bear until the tree fell on it.
Also. The monster bear dropped a 4th tier magic stone, which you fed to the bear cub. It went into your dungeon card. I don't know what's going on, but I think it likes you.
Best wishes – Ayla"
James put the piece of paper back into his bag. This note answered a lot of his questions, but at the same time, opened up a whole new can of worms.
The blond girl was called Ayla. She had left after the fight, but after arranging things so that James wouldn't have to explain how he killed a bear. Now, he had to act like he struggled against the bear until a tree fell miraculously on its head.
James felt a headache coming. This was better, but he didn't want to be known as the person who fought a bear heroically while everyone else was passed out.
He looked at the 2nd paragraph. It explained all the items. The Berserker's Beasthide Armor was ripped to pieces and was now useless. James pressed F in his heart.
"Farewell item. Thank you for saving my life."
Then, James reread the 3rd paragraph. This paragraph gave him an even bigger headache.
4th tier! The bear was a 4th tier monster! James felt that this was a bit ridiculous. He was still on the 1st floor of the dungeon, but he had already fought 3rd and 4th tier monsters. He felt as if he was really unlucky.
James didn't even know what to feel about the part about the bear. He had fed the 4th tier magic stone to the bear? He wasn't exactly sad about losing the 4th tier mana stone. It was worth a hundred grand, but since it had never really been in James' grasp, he didn't feel any loss. But, he felt that Ayla was being truthful.
James pulled out his dungeon card.
{James Lu: Dungeon Explorer – Status Monitored
Cleared 1st Floor
Points: 898
STR: 20
DEF: 2
END: 2
AGI: 2
INT: 42
LUK: 27*$!9
Skills: Intermediate Knife Throwing, Monster Taming
Tamed Beasts: Bear Cub
Notes: Reward Pending for Subjugation of Demon Bear on Earth}
A few things jumped out at him. What did "Status Monitored" mean? Are there people watching him? James felt uncomfortable.
Apart from that, he now had skills. Knife throwing made sense to him, but he looked at the word intermediate. Hadn't he skipped beginner? Moving on from that, James saw the Monster Taming skill and the Bear Cub in his status.
"I guess I really did feed it a mana stone."
Finally, he had a reward pending, as a reward for killing the bear. James looked at it again.
"The dungeon doesn't want us to bring this to the outside world, huh. Well, there's no mana on Earth anyways. All the mana would have to come from potions."
James put the blue card back into the pocket of his hospital gown, and sent his storage bag back to the dungeon. He decided he would figure it all out when he was in the dungeon again. Everything seemed to be wrapped up. James thought he was missing something, but he couldn't figure out what it was.
He decided it wasn't worth fussing over. After all, if he forgot, it wasn't important. He was about to relax a bit when the door to his room opened again.
In came his two best friends, Jack and Mo.