Waking up in a hospital bed in, what I assumed to be, an infirmary, I couldn't help but feel strangely happy seeing the worried faces sitting around the bed.
"James! You're awake!"
Sarah was the first to take the lead, somehow ignoring the fact that she had been acting like an innocent teenage girl around me before. Putting her hand on the bed while leaning forward, she couldn't contain her worry.
"How are you feeling? Does your back hurt? What happened?"
In an instant, the happy feeling was replaced with annoyance at how intense the girl was, assaulting me with a flurry of questions before I had even managed to open my mouth for the first time. Even Sophie had an incredibly complicated face as she was scanning my body, now clad in a white gown.
Forcing myself to smile, I tried my best to suck the drama from the air, "I'm fine. My body is just a bit weak, for anyone else it would just be a scratch. So don't worry about it."
Although my words seemed to take the edge off, it wasn't enough to calm Sarah down completely. Fortunately, before she could continue her frantic act of making sure I was okay, Sophie intervened. Unfortunately, she managed to make the situation even worse.
"Why did you fight the boss on your own? You could have either fought with your party or called for Ms. Turner to save you. There was no reason for you to fight on your own."
It was rich hearing the dragon woman talk about not having to face something by yourself, having watched her trying to catch the giant staff of a skeleton monster on her own. Even more funny was the fact that she appeared to desperately try and not call me an idiot.
Still, she had a point. There was truly no apparent reason for me to challenge the werewolf on my own. It was all based on a feeling, a feeling that told me I could win. And if I had a chance at winning, why shouldn't I try everything I could before giving up?
There weren't a lot of things I truly cared about in my life, but for some reason, I truly cared about showing that shitty dog his place. So I did. Sadly, this wasn't something I could tell the three people around me without making them question my sanity.
"There was no real reason. I just did it because it felt right."
The giant woman gave up on getting a good answer out of me, knowing that it wasn't exactly the time or the place for interrogation. "Haaa... Fine. I'm happy that you are okay, at least. However..."
Just as she was about to go on and tell me off like a true mother, the real savior of this story stepped in, illuminating the room with his shining smile, "Sophie, stop. He just woke up, let him rest for a bit. Sarah, you too. Now, let's leave him alone to recuperate. We can talk to him later."
I could almost feel a tear forming in my eye, looking at the sight of Arthur completely taking control of the situation and making sure they would let me rest. In the end, there were two pouting women who didn't have any words to refute him, having gotten trumped by someone they would likely call 'an idiot'.
As they stood up and got ready to leave the room, Sarah made sure to give me some last words of worry, "Make sure to tell someone if it gets worse... Okay?"
In response, I just smiled and nodded, waving my hand as they walked out of the room.
*Bak!*
"Holy fuck! That hurts!"
As soon as they closed the door, I let my repressed emotions surface, the pain engulfing my entire body, although the focus was on my back. Letting my body crunch up like a shrimp, I gritted my teeth at the insane pain that was raging in my body.
It was so incredibly bizarre. I had no problems enduring the pain of absorbing the mana from a dungeon, but the pain from an attack by the werewolf was unbearable.
So what was the difference? Was the pain from absorbing the mana, not physical? And if so, what was it? Unfortunately for me, my smart watch buzzed, showing that I had gotten a text from Sophie, interrupting my thoughts.
[Do you want me to take care of Bobby while you are bedridden?]
'Shit...'
I forgot about Bobby, the wolf that didn't actually exist. How was I supposed to explain this?
'Let's just pretend to be asleep while I think about it...'
****
[Sophie's Pov]
"Now, Sarah. Tell me what happened."
Sitting at the small table in my apartment, I was finally going to get to know what had exactly gone down during the dive. The girl had said that she didn't want to talk to me before James woke up, wanting to make sure he was alright.
Nervously swirling the cup of tea in front of her with a teaspoon, Sarah had a hard time looking directly at my face. After a couple of seconds, she finally began to tell me the story, steadying her mind.
"So, to begin with, James had already decided prior to our dive that he was going to go on his own, without telling us the reason. Even though Sebastian seemed a bit angry with his decision, no one of us tried to stop him."
That did sound like something James would do, going on his own to make sure no one would find out about his Skills. Even I hadn't actually seen the skills that came with his Manual, with the exception of his teleportation ability. The only Skills he had used in the Monastery were either just pure elemental manipulation or Elemental Skills.
"So, you split up as soon as you began your dive then?"
The cute girl just nodded her head, continuing her explanation, "Yeah. So after that, I have no idea what he was doing. However, when we made it to the cave where the boss was supposed to be, it was empty. After that, a huge explosion rang out in the forest, so we hurriedly made our way there."
"And that's where you found James?"
Suddenly, her face turned sad, as if just remembering the state they found him in made her relive what happened. "Yes... He was lying on the ground. Not moving at all. And then, when I tried to save him... Sebastian..."
Her words got caught in her throat, the girl hesitating to tell me what the purple-haired man had done. In the end, I just let out a gentle smile to show her it was fine. "Sebastian did what?"
Sarah took a deep breath, once again composing herself as she looked at me with resolute eyes. "Sebastian wouldn't let me, stopping me from calling for help as he told me we wouldn't stop the dive until we had killed the boss. At this point, we still didn't know that James had already killed it."
'What the fuck...'
How insane was that? Being so caught up in clearing an artificial dungeon to even disregard the safety of his classmate? Was he truly that insane, or was there something else that urged him to carry those priorities?
No matter what, I could feel an intense rage start to build up in my soul. 'How dare someone put something of mine at risk?! Wait.. what...'
"Sophie, are you okay?"
My thoughts had gotten weird again, as the rage inside of me was based on a very possessive emotion towards the ones I regarded as friends, going as far as to regard them as my own things. 'Is this also part of being a dragon? Being possessive?'
It kind of made sense, weren't dragons famous for collecting gold and jewelry just for the sake of it? Still, it was a very dangerous emotion, a line of thinking that I truly didn't want to inhabit my inner self. 'Maybe it's...'
"Sophie! Can you hear me?!"
An exasperated girl was standing up, her hands firmly planted on the table between us as she leaned forward and yelled in order to wake me up. "Oh, sorry! Just lost in thought... So anyway, what were you saying?"
Slowly sitting back down, she looked at me skeptically, not entirely believing I was just simply 'lost in thought'. "Haaa... So anyway, after Trisha showed us the head of the werewolf, proving that James had somehow killed it, Sebastian's attitude just switched. In just a second, he was calm and composed again."
Was it a case of cyclothymia, where he just had inherent rapid mood swings? No, in that case, it would have surfaced a long time ago. So what was it? I truly couldn't tell. The one thing I could tell was that I was pissed, furious at two different men for both acting insane, with one grabbing a much larger portion of my anger.
****
[3rd person Pov]
"Hohoho! It seems like he is developing nicely! Good, good! Now, all he needs is a trigger, something to make him fall off the edge after starting to feel comfortable around his 'friends'."
Mr. Laufeyson spent his days like he most often did nowadays, hiding in the outer layer of the mortal world, keeping a watchful eye on the mortal he wanted to obtain. After thousands of years, he had finally found his one chance at gaining what he truly sought after, to get back what he had been unjustly deprived of.
"Just wait, Gaia... This time, I will be the one to win..."