Casper's eyes were so heavy that he could not find the will to open them. He was not feeling good at all, his body hurt all over and the pain seemed to come in waves. Those symptoms increased every time he tried to open his eyes, so he stayed like that.
Have his eyes shut made him feel as though all the pain in his body would vanish. He did not know if it was because his consciousness was fading bit by bit or because of a psychological matter. However, just having the hope that all that suffering would end just for keeping his eyes closed was very pleasant.
He felt that a warm feeling was spreading through his body. It was something that appeared just some times. According to his count, maybe in an interval of one or two minutes. It was like a gust of hot wind covering the entire length of his body.
After some minutes in that same process, Casper smiled and let out a long and heavy sigh that he was keeping for some time.
"I wish I could remain like this…" He thought, and even his thoughts were a bit dizzy inside his mind as if his brain was not operating at its normal pace.
The time seemed to fly by. The "gusts of hot wind" became more and more frequent. It let Casper with a huge will to sleep and relax. In truth, come to think of it, he remembered to have slept several times before that.
Between each nap, his body felt stronger than before, and painless as well.
"The power of the naps!" He screamed in his mind, celebrating. He himself did not know how that weird thought could end up in his mind, but that was fine.
Everything was fine. As long as the comfortableness continued, he would be fine…
Casper enjoyed that time, almost taking another nap. However, the gust of wind stopped, his feeling of numbness and dizziness also were gone.
He finally could be able to open his eyes slowly. Inside, he was angry because they had stopped that amazing experience.
"I will punch each of them in the face as long as I get out of this Capsule."
Suddenly, more questions appeared in his mind. It took a while for him to notice what he just thought.
"Wait… 'them'? Who are they exactly, and how I know that someone is operating it? What's this Capsule thing?"
Casper realized that he was inside someplace cylinder-shaped. It was very hot and soft inside. He felt as if he was surrounded by foam or pillows.
He was lying down, but his back was not touching anything. He tried to move his arms and legs.
Casper noted that he was emerged in some sort of a thick liquid, almost with the consistency of jelly, and that was warm and left a soft feeling all over his body.
He had a mask on his mouth and could breathe through that mask, which had a pipe connecting to a part of the Capsule. Because of the smell, he knew that he was not breathing just air, but probably some sort of gas with unknown effect.
His mind started to operate normally again, and he remembered that, after having his head covered by those Ridire, they had brought him to some sort of a nursery inside the laboratory. Before he could grasp any details of that place, they put that mask in him and then made him lay down into the capsule.
After this, the capsule started to fill with this liquid, and even before Casper got completely submerged, he started to feel all his body numb. Then he lost consciousness.
At the same time as he started to remember everything, a sound resonated inside and outside the capsule. The liquid started to be sucked by numerous holes in the side of that cylinder. Soon, there was nothing more involving Casper.
He realized that he was just with his underwear. His naked body was not covered in wounds as he thought it would be. If he had not recorded his previous fight, the soldier would not suspect that he fought a while ago.
The capsule was opened, and a blind light entered.
Squinted casper, raising both hands in front of his eyes and turning his head slightly to the side.
After that moment of discomfort, he raised his upper body, sitting there and looking to the sides.
The place he was had its walls in white. The room was filled with the same capsules like the one that Casper was in.
Some nursers were walking back and forth with clipboards in their hands and taking notes whenever they got near of a capsule and looked to a screen on top of it.
Casper noticed that those screens showed a lot of different information about the patient's body, such as heartbeat, amount of oxygen in the body, the percentage of injuries already healed, and so on.
Casper was not the only person that got up from the capsule. There was someone else getting out of one of these next to him.
"Freygar… He is here as well, huh?" He thought, narrowing his eyes and trying to not be noticed so soon.
A nurse came towards him with a towel, and he used it to dry himself and cover the lower part of his body.
"You regenerated as fast as always, didn't you, Frey?" The nurse said, taking notes on her clipboard.
"Yes. The body seems to get used to the HR Capsules and restore quickly each time, although we get tired on the same proportion. You could say that this project is way better than we expected. Exhaustion is a meaningless thing to pay for such efficiency." The Aesir had a more composed and serene voice than Casper had assumed at first. "Probably he got carried away in the battle and acted a bit out of himself… But he seems a very calm and quiet person." The soldier rambled about Freygar's behavior in that fight.
"I agree with you. We just need some more people testing it and reporting daily the results, so we can make sure that it hasn't side effects."
The Aesir just nodded with his head, passing by the nurse and walking between the capsules towards the exit.
He seemed to have had noticed Casper early, or he was aware of his presence there, because Freygar looked at Casper with threatening eyes before exiting.
Casper sustained the look as long as it remained. If Freygar was feeling frustrated about the results of the battle, Casper was even more.
"That scumbag… Let me get out of this thing and I will…" Before he could finish his curse, someone appeared in front of him.
She was the same nurse that was talking with Freygar before.
"Casper, aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's me."
She noted something on her clipboard very quickly.
"You showed no signals of side effects or inefficiency in the HR Capsules. You are 70% recovered, since your shoulder must take more treatment, but the orders were to heal you just enough so you don't die." She read fast the contempt in her clipboard, rarely looking straight to Casper.
"You can't see the wounds on the surface, but the major part is still injured inside, and any reckless action will make it worse."
Casper was hoping that they would do such a thing. They could not lose an advantage on Casper. Sionnach did a protocol very similar before.
"Your shoulder got a bullet inside of it, and the wound was really bad. It will heal, and hopefully, you will not get any sequels. You had a knife tucked in your forearm, and it will take some time to its bone to recover…" She narrowed her eyes for a second. "You had a nearly broken ankle as well… It was on the fight?"
"No, before it."
Casper remembered the impossible maneuver he did in the air. Now that he thought it, he was proud of himself, he felt like an acrobat.
"I thought so… Your ankle got cracked all over, and suffered a hard dislocation as well… It seemed to be a product of effort even after the injury."
"Hmmm, she got sharp eyes… Well, she is a nurse. And the medicine is pretty evolved in this world, probably she has a way to know that my injury isn't normal." He pondered.
"Yeah, you got it. I just could fight because of the exoskeleton I put. After I lost it, I just bore the pain until the end."
She sighed, shaking her head slowly.
"Because of your imprudence, it will last a few weeks to heal, and you will need to have a medical follow-up to avoid sequels."
Casper nodded slightly, knowing that he pushed himself very hard, and also dumbfounded as to why a nurse was taking care so well of him.
"Anyway, go change yourself. Your new clothes will be in that room." She pointed to the same door that Freygar passed. "Some warriors will guide you there, then take you to another place."
Without any other options, Casper got up after she lent to him a towel, then dried himself before exit that place.