Ciel blearily opened his eyes before closing them again. There was a wet, warm cloth covering his eyes. He could feel a dull ache throughout his entire body, but… 'damn that was exciting, I want to do it again sometime.'
Perking his ears up, he realized that he wasn't alone. A calm, gentle male voice was talking beside him.
"—is malnourished to begin with and has already lost a lot of blood. He has several broken bones in his arms plus extreme sensitivity to light. He also overused his mana reserve and physical strength, leading to his current state of being unable to move. I'll prescribe some medicine but what he needs most is rest and nutrition. Don't let him bleed again or he'll really die of blood loss. Damn it, I just returned and you guys gave me a half-dead patient to deal with."
Unable to command his body to move, Ciel could turn his eyes towards the noise and use mana sensing to look. At his bedside was a tall man with curly hair. With his back to Ciel, he talked to Jadiel and Lannae who were in front of him.
A strict aura surrounded him as he talked.
"From a glance, he's a frail little boy. But you made him the main diversion? Did you go crazy in the short while I was gone?"
From the bed, Ciel watched the scolding happily until the door to the room creaked open, and Erin peeked in.
The man's aura changed and he smiled gently. "Erin? Are you here to check on your brother?"
Erin nodded blankly, his cheeks holding a faint blush, and his high ponytail swished up and down.
Ciel spoke up, his voice was raspy.
"What time is it?"
Hearing this, the man turned around. His features surprisingly looked like Lanae, but he had an additional pair of silver rimmed glasses.
"You finally woke up? How do you feel?"
"Fine. Can I get something to drink?" His voice made him feel uncomfortable, reminding him of an old man on his deathbed.
The man took a glass of water and carefully poured it into Ciel's mouth as he started speaking:
"Jadiel told me that you're a blood affinity type. It's fine to do small manipulations before withdrawing it back into your body after a while, but you shouldn't do something like that chain of string-explosion manipulation again until you're older and you know you'll be able to guide the blood back into your body. For now, stay in bed."
"Why? Only my arms were hurt." Ciel frowned. He had broken the window with his arms, landed only on his arms before rolling into a squat just so he would be able to wander around afterwards.
Don't tell him his efforts were wasted?
The man didn't reply, and tidied up the bed stand table before standing up and leaving. "You'll live in the medical room for the first week or so. I'm going out to get more herbs."
Damn, his efforts were wasted.
Jadiel and Lannae only moved when the doctor was completely out of sight.
"Kid, aren't you fearless of death huh?" Jadiel waved Lanae and Erin out as he started to twirl his gun in his hand.
"You shouldn't point a gun at a helpless patient." Ciel observed the spinning gun through his mana senses. It was a classic black revolver, the kind easy to carry around. Hearing this, Jadiel stopped spinning it.
"Since you're well enough to say stuff like that, let's have nice talk."
"Do I look well?" Ciel was still lying down with a cloth covering his eyes. Currently, only his mouth could move.
"Nope. But this is a serious matter."
"Speak then."
"You. Do you plan to stay here?"
"I don't have a choice do I?" He was currently immobilized, he couldn't leave even if he wanted to.
Jadiel changed his words.
"When you joined, we didn't have a chance to warn you how dangerous this was. To be honest, we thought you would reject your role in the first mission. So now that you've experienced life with us, if you had a choice, would you stay here?"
Ciel smiled, "I don't have anywhere else to go and I have no close friends or relatives. I'd prefer to stay here than at an orphanage."
Besides, later in the novel, Fatalite became a large organization publicly recognized by Anatol and had a close relationship with all the eastern continent's eves. It was the ideal place to work in because like Ouroborus academy, it didn't discriminate between human and eves. It was also backed up by the king of Anatol AKA the third harem member Dominic.
Such a good and stable workplace, who would refuse?
"Then I have no choice, we'll raise you with Erin. From now on, you both are Fatalite's resident children."
"What crazy bullsh*t are you sprouting?" Ciel couldn't maintain his smile anymore. Raise him? He knew he looked like a little kid but he was a full grown man on the inside.
"Little kids shouldn't be acting like adults. Don't protest. Lilian just checked, you're a nine year old human boy. Don't act so mature at a young age." Jadiel ruffled Ciel's fluffy white hair. His demeanor was completely different from the gun spinning person when they had first met.
'It looks like my act of almost killing myself for his plan gained his trust.' Ciel couldn't even swat Jadiel's hand away because of his broken arms and could only be begrudgingly patted. 'But why couldn't the doctor detect my fairy blood?'
Jadiel didn't know his thoughts as he continued to pat Ciel's head.
"By the way, what's your name?"
"My name is Ciel, I have no family name."
"A commoner then?"
"Yep. Now shoo, don't you have Fatalite work to do?"
"Aren't you being too familiar now?"
"Didn't you say you'd raise me? I don't have to be careful of getting shot now so why would I be cautious?" Ciel shrugged, or tried to. His shoulders only twitched a little before a wave of pain rushed through Ciel's head.
"..." Speechless, Jadiel left. He couldn't keep up with this kid's brain.
***
A week later, Ciel finally moved out of the medical area. Interestingly enough, injuries treated by magic potions healed much faster than his previous world. The symptoms of overusing magic and his blood loss were completely healed.
After leaving, Ciel was strictly told by Lilian not to use blood magic often. This was mainly because everyone agreed that he was beckoning an early death by 'recklessly losing blood'.
To this, Ciel could only stay silent—the evidence was present from the medical report given by Lilian and could not be refuted. He didn't know how the doctor had done it, but the times he had frequently used blood magic during his time in the tower were all estimated and written down in that report. Minus his fairy bloodline, everything about his body was clearly recorded.
The thing was, they were very accurate.
But technically, he wasn't to be blamed, he could manipulate his blood into thin but durable strings that could pick up books in high places and heavy things he couldn't pick up himself, so why wouldn't he do it?
In this world, the manipulation of mana was called magic. Magic depended on two things, a mage's rank and mental power. In simple terms, a mage's rank was how much mana a person could use and was proportional to the intensity of the result while mental power was the proficiency in controlling mana and affected how well the mage executed the magic.
Ciel's cultivation may be low, but his mental power was decent, which was probably because of his past life. As a result, his blood magic was decent, even with his low mana reserve. But his strength wasn't much, which was why he could only cause some chaos during the mission.
It was because of his proficiency that he was fine as long as he returned the blood back to its place back in the tower. When he was acting as a diversion, he didn't have enough time to bring his blood back into his body, so that time was a special case.
He had also overestimated his current body's fitness, and the sudden chase strained his small body which, unsurprisingly, also had anemia. That was the main reason why he had to lie in bed for a week. Normally, overusing his mana reserve would only lead to unconsciousness.
The moment Ciel got out of the medical area, he dyed his hair pitch black, like Erin's hair. This gave him another scolding from Lilian which came in from one ear and out the other.
At that time, his only thought was that Lilian's diagnosis on his eye sensitivity was a good thing which allowed him to keep the blindfold on at all times in the daytime, or his identity would've been exposed.
His cheap father's love for Ciel's mother had even spread to the overseas Anatol. Everyone knew that the deceased empress had hair as white as snow and sapphire eyes as blue as the sky.
Whether they knew about the small child that was shut away at birth, Ciel had no idea, but it was best to be cautious since the people of Acyuta knew. Besides, white hair was really too eye-catching.
Now walking around aimlessly, he noted the silence. The rescued eves were on their way home, so most of the group was escorting them.
'I wonder if Jadiel really knows that cheetah kid with the flower pattern on his head.'
They had left the second day Ciel had awakened, leaving only Lilian and Jadiel behind. Even Erin had left with them, insisting to help. Apparently, he didn't feel comfortable staying safe at the base, especially when his 'little brother' had gotten injured.
When Ciel heard this, he almost laughed himself into opening his wounds again. As a newly born eve, it was a surprise the adults had let Erin go.
He selectively ignored the fact that in terms of physical appearance, Erin was much taller and stronger than his own short and thin figure.
However, his small kitten-like stature also wasn't his fault. The servants he had never seen before had only given him one meal a day, so it wasn't a surprise that his growth was stunted. As a nine year old boy, he looked as fragile and as small as a 5 year old girl. Of course, a large part of it was his long hair and pale skin from staying in the tower where there had been no sunlight for who knows how long.
Bored of the stillness, Ciel went back to bother Lilian, who was organizing herbs. Lilian, feeling an intense gaze even though Ciel was wearing a blindfold, looked at him.
"Weren't you going to look around?"
Ciel yawned: "I was there when they bought and inspected the place. It's more interesting to look at your plants."
Lilian looked at the blindfolded little boy sitting backwards on the chair, his chin resting on the back of it with both his bandaged arms hung motionlessly by his sides. His legs were too short to touch the ground so they hovered above it. He had a harmless smile on his face, negating the mysterious air his blindfold gave him. It was hard to imagine the boy Jadiel and the rest of the group had described—the one who exploded a room full of people with his own blood, although no one was harmed except for acquiring a mild fear of blood.
"Want to learn?"
"No thanks. My hands are like this so I can't play with cards, I'm only here because your plants are the least boring thing here. Or am I allowed to go outside?" Ciel grinned.
"Not after you went and dyed your hair the day you were discharged. Injured people should stay inside, not to mention your eyes." Lilian seemed to remember something, "By the way, how come you move around without your eyes?"
"I thought you guys were never going to ask that. Do you want to know?" Ciel tilted his head innocently.
Lilian nodded.
"I won't tell you~" Ciel teased.
"Are you that bored?" Lilian shook off the strange feeling of being treated like a child by a child.
Ciel nodded as Jadiel walked in, knocking on the door. His single green eye focused on Ciel.
"Weren't you taking a walk?"
"I'm bored. Let's go to more auctions." Ciel stated. His intentions were clear—he wanted to do something similar to the previous mission.
With his head starting to ache, Jadiel began to wonder if this human boy was self destructive.