"I think he's finally waking up, Dad!" A girl shouted out through the window of her parents' bedroom, hoping that her parent had heard her.
Her father quickly abandoned what he was doing and ran towards the front door. The news had gotten him white excited, not wasting anymore time he rushed towards the door and headed into his home. Just from looking at the teenager, it was clear that he was indeed regaining consiousness. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties as he slightly staggered as he walked, although that had nothing to do with old age.
The man slowed down his stride and stopped just in front of the bed. He clasped his hands together as he was getting ready to cast a magic spell. From the palm of his hands, a gray white mist began to form, it began to circulate and move towards the body of the teenager. Magic had become quite a useful tool in the medical department. The spell he had casted was meant to help speed up his recovery, though it took quite a lot of magic power and it was one of the more difficult magic spells to learn as an adept magic user.
He then turned around to face his daughter, telling her that the boy would soon recover. "His health is finally improving."
Upon hearing the words, the girl felt relieved and hugged her father.
"I didn't want to just leave him in the forest to die. I felt like we needed to do something to help him out."
A tear began to roll down from the corner of her eye. Seeing this, her father began to hug her tightly. A couple minutes later, and Kieran had finally regained consiousness.
"Where am I?" He asked as he raised his upper body off the bed. "Who are you people?"
The two people immediately walked towards the bed, interested in seeing the current health condition of the boy. The girl leaned her body forward to check up on his wounds.
As she activated her magic power, she began to search his body for any impurities that might have escaped her dad's healing magic. When she was done casting the spell, she began to back away and showed a soft smile on her face.
Once the girl had backed away far enough, Kieran could see tears streaming down the man's eyes.
"We didn't want to just leave you out there to die."
"Yeah, we couldn't bear to see someone so young die out there in the dead of night."
Hearing this, Kieran began to stand up as she shifted his body towards the left side of the bed. Unfortunately, a lot of his injuries had yet to heal, particularly the ones he had sustained while dodging that woman's arrows from the adrenaline rush he had gotten. Instead of forcing himself onto his feet, he let his body lay flat on the bed.
"Shit. My body's too weak to even move…"
He was lucky that there was someone else in the forest at the time who happened to have stumbled upon his unconscious body. He assumed most would just ignore him and carry on with their business, but these two decided otherwise. He had seen people who had chosen to ignore those who were in desperate need of immediate assistance. However, such people were few and far between from where he came from.
He wasn't planning on leeching on these people for long, he closed his eyes and soon drifted into a deep slumber. As the girl and her father watched him fall asleep, he decided that it was time he headed back outside to continue with his work while the girl would continue with her household chores. They we're both glad that the boy was still alive, thankful to the goddess for preserving him long enough for them to find him. However, the fact that they had a soft spot for helping strangers didn't mean they were wealthy folks. Hector was almost at the bottom of the social heirarchy in his home village and he didn't even want to be a part of the never ending cycle of people who hoard values away for the poor and keep them to themselves. High-class of society wouldn't welcome him anyway. He was considered far beneath them.
When the day finally came to an end, the girl eventually prepared dinner for all three of them to enjoy. Living alone with her dad, she didn't have to bother about making a large meal, though this time she had to make a small exception for their patient. Dinner was served in the dining room while Kieran had received his while he was still lying in bed.
The dinner was an assortment of processed wheat and vegetable soup filled with meat, something he hadn't eaten in the while back when he was in Mistwood Village. On the table behind his bed was a bowl of warm water for washing his hands and also a cup of water to drink when parched.
He began to eat his dinner, the hunger that overcame him forced him to finish his dinner in a matter of a couple minutes. Despite this he was still not satisfied. He could hear the sound of his stomach grumbling. He hadn't eaten anything in almost a day now, he was quite surprised that the stress of everything so far hadn't given him stomach pains, considering the fact that he had nearly lost his life out there and now he had no idea where he currently was. He wished to continue his journey to find a way to become a powerful wizard, but for now he would just have to be patient and fully recover first. Meanwhile, he could hear the sounds of laughter coming from downstairs.
"You're a sly one, Sidney," the man said, laughing to himself.
He then began to tell his daughter about his experiences while he was out hunting during the time they had decided to split ways in the forest.
"I heard that beast coming but I didn't think that that woman was nearby as well. She got to it before I could." She replied as she gulp down a glass of water, but there was more to her story.
Continuing, she told her father more about what transpired. Hearing her explanation, the man slammed his fist against the table.
"That damn witch thinks she can just waltz into out territory and steal one of our kills and leave scot-free? In that case, she has another thing coming to her. We'll get her back for this one day."
Kieran could hear every word they were saying - A woman who had stepped into their territory and stole their kill. He began to think back to his time back in the forest, he remembered that there were a group of people who wanted to snatch the kill for themselves. They later ran away after the huntress shot an arrow at one of them, thus she had the kill all to herself in the end.
Lying on the bed, he turned around and tried to fall asleep once again, ignoring the rest of the discussion between father and daughter. He wasn't interested in the rest of their conversation and just wanted to get some rest.
Upon closing his eyes, he quickly drifted to sleep.
"His injuries should have healed considerably by now after that spell I casted. When he wakes up, tell him to meet me downstairs."
He heard the voice of the man as his eyes slowly fluttered open. His body felt less sore than it was the previous day. He could feel his hands with much less difficulty and even the scratch marks on his right arms had nearly vanished.
With a new found strength in his body, he immediately rose his body from the bed and faced the other two people in the room. Of course, they were both excited that his health had improved drastically, the old man had used quite a large amount of his magic power to cast another healing spell to further speed up his recovery. His magic powers were nearly drained, and as for magic potions, well, they had run out of them a long time ago.
Every magic user, no matter what grade they belong to are all prone to magic fatigue if they overexert themselves beyond their limitations. Magic fatigue is not typically dangerous, but it can be if one experiences it over and over again repeatedly within a short period of time.
When a magician is running low on magic power or is experiencing magic fatigue, a magic potion is consumed to replenish their magic ability. These potions are specially made using magical plants. They began to appear ever since magic was first introduced into the world and almost immediately, doctors and physicians discovered their invaluable use as a means of replenishing magic. Even so, magic potions are highly-valued and cost a lot in the business world depending on their grade and quality.
Obviously enough, there were co-operative societies out in the world that specialized in manufacturing counterfeit magic powers which only either produce half of the expected effect, or are simply just poisonous to magic users. Only those who had a keen sense of observation and knew enough about magic potions could tell between the real and the fake brands.
It was something that separated the people of society into the clever and the foolish. Desire for strength is a good thing but it could also derive people to make foolish choices.
Hector didn't have the means to purchase even the lowest-grade magic potion from the local stalls. Back when he still had some magic potions, he was forced to use them all during a fight between the people of Sunhaven and Stormridge Outpost that he ended up getting involved in. He couldn't just stand back and watch his fellow villagers get killed in the conflict.
'I need to rest and recover my magic,' he thought to himself.
He told Kieran to meet him downstairs, and after that, he left the bedroom. Kieran moved his body and placed his feet against the floor as they wobblee uncontrollably after being bedridden for over a day now. He noticed that his eyesight was a bit woozy, but thought that it might just be a side effect of the poison from the beast.
"Thanks for everything. I don't know where I'd be now if you two didn't decide to help me out," he said as he clasoed both his hands together and got on to his knees. He was truly grateful for the way they had treated him so far.
However, he didn't feel like he deserved such kindness, remembering what he had done to the people of his village in the past.
He then leaned his body forward and placed his forehead against the floor.
"I am forever grateful to you and your father."
After a while, he raised his head up from the floor and got back up to his feet, noticing that the girl looked quite puzzled by the way he acted. As a way to clear her confusion, he smiled and waved his hand at her.
The both of them then walked downstairs with Kieran in front of her, and once he made it down to the living room, he was told to take a seat.
Kieran's body couldn't stop shaking as he sat down. Numerous thoughts were running in his mind as to what the old man wanted to say to him.
"What do you plan on doing now?"
This question had caught him off guard as he was expecting to hear something else. A few seconds later, he had come up with a good enough response to give the man. Kieran couldn't just ignore the fact that these two people had saved his life. He felt indebted to them. Them taking him in and nursing him back to health was something that very few people would even consider doing. Nevertheless, they had done so with zero regrets.
When he told the man what he wished to do, the man looked quite shocked, almost like he thought the boy was joking. But from the look in his eyes, he knew that Kieran was being serious. The boy wished to become the strongest wizard in the world.
Kieran didn't know how he would begin to make this dream of his a reality, but he knew that was his ultimately goal in life.
"I plan on becoming the world's strongest wizard."
Unable to contain herself anymore, Sidney burst out in a fit of laughter.