After staring intensely at the Baron, Aren fainted.
He was clearly in no condition to continue standing, so his body simply gave in to exhaustion and injuries. Only one soldier was needed to transport Aren to the medical area of the camp.
Aren didn't move all night.
In the medical area, only the apothecary attended, a thin man with a gray beard, who worked in silence. His hands smelled of resin, cheap alcohol and dried plants. He was careful not out of compassion, but out of habit. He had seen too many bodies pass by that table to hurt for another.
The assistant—the young woman with dark braids and deep circles under her eyes—held his head while he cleaned the wound on his eyebrow.
Unfortunately it was the entire staff of the Baron's medical area, since he was just that, a Baron. There was not enough purchasing power to hire a saint or even an apprentice, much less was it going to be possible with the constant guerrillas around the territory, adding to that that the Baron was in the sights of the other nobles.
"Tighten the fabric tighter," the apothecary said without raising his voice.
She obeyed.
Aren exhaled, harshly. The body reacted to pain even unconsciously.
The apothecary frowned as he saw an old scar tear from the effort.
"Too many for someone so young," he murmured. "Either he has had very bad luck… or no one has ever wanted him."
The assistant remained silent.
It wasn't the kind of world where those things were questioned.
The apothecary finally stood up straight, his back creaking like old wood.
"If he survives it will be because death has more urgent things to do."
The young woman looked at him for a second.
"So…do you think he will die?"
The apothecary shrugged.
"He's a recruit. Dying is within the paycheck."
They covered his body with a blanket that smelled of smoke and cheap medicine.
The camp roared in the distance: screams, metal, boots, orders. In here, only Aren's irregular breathing remained… and the soft crackling of firewood.
In his mind, the line broke through as always.
[Physical condition: deteriorated]
[Recorded pain: high]
[Repair in progress]
[Recovery speed: minimum]
[Repair level: minimum]
Hours passed.
The apothecary checked it again around dawn. He stopped. He frowned.
The eyebrow wound… had closed more than expected.
Not completely, but more. It wasn't normal.
He didn't say anything. The dead did not pay. Neither do the living.
He just adjusted the bandages.
In Aren's mind, the line came back:
[Repair level: minimum → low]
[Adaptive progress: negligible]
[Observation: The subject continues breathing. Curious.]
His breathing stabilized. His body was still in pieces, but he was not sinking.
The assistant watched him silently as he squeezed water onto his chapped lips.
"You're stubborn," he murmured, not waiting for a response. "That… or too miserable to die."
Aren didn't hear or maybe he did, but his consciousness floated away, hanging by a thin thread between the pain and the cold.
The apothecary turned off the lamps one by one.
Outside, the snowless winter continued to advance.
Meanwhile, Sir Corvin visited the medical area to check Aren's condition, who seemed to be unable to get up for a while, especially with his body visibly weak. Of course, he had improved but he was still undoubtedly weak compared to a normal person.
There wasn't much that could be done either, he was still fourteen years old and underdeveloped due to his life in the alleys. Thanks to the camp he could begin to develop a little and even more with training but now his weak body had to go through some difficulties thanks to the discarding of new recruits.
Sir Corvin didn't have much to say after seeing Aren's condition, he thought that he probably wouldn't last long even with the Apothecary's care but at least it didn't seem as bad for his weak body as it seemed a while ago.
His wounds had already stopped bleeding but they still couldn't close, that would take time, but it didn't seem like a problem either since Aren was breathing calmly or maybe his breathing had simply become weak.
Apparently his tasks and training would have to be temporarily suspended while he fought with his weak condition to improve. Fortunately his opponent did not break any bones or anything like that, even so his weak body was compromised in that condition.
His condition improved abnormally, not in a way that he could start training immediately but in his condition it was already a miracle that he woke up.
Still, the most he could do was complain, most of his muscles were torn, assuming he had muscles with how skeletal he looked was a compliment to his current condition.
Body still visibly malnourished...partially, cracked ribs, wounds not yet closed, weak bones, weak immune system and who knows what other surprises. Fortunately they had suspended his training temporarily, otherwise he would really die if he continued this.
"With a demon, I can't even relieve myself with any privacy…" He muttered to himself as he enjoyed the little privacy he could get in his current condition.
The days passed and the hell that Aren experienced in the medical area was extremely embarrassing and to say the least a little chaotic. For his good or bad luck, time passed so slowly that it seemed like he spent months embarrassing himself.
The only good thing about the place was that the food was a little better, just a little but enough for his rare healing ability to do its thing and get him out of that place that seemed both a paradise and a hell.
Something that he did take advantage of was that he slept almost all day, not because he wanted to, but because the system itself forced his body to enter rest mode. That had never happened even when he was malnourished so Aren took the opportunity to communicate with the system and see what information he got.
Although his body remained motionless, his mind floated in a strange point between sleep and fever. He couldn't open his eyes or move a muscle... but he could think, and that's where the voice came back.
'Are you forcing me to sleep?' He asked in his mind without much hope of getting an answer.
The system's response fell into his mind like a stone into a well.
[The User presents critical wear patterns. Long rest is the only viable action.]
Aren frowned. It took effort. His face still hurt.
"Only viable action...? That's supposed to calm me down?"
Silence.
After:
[Observation: The User continues to complain despite being alive. Fascinating.]
"Yes, well… living hurts, what do you want me to do?" Aren snorted, annoyed.
The system took a moment, as if processing the complaint.
[Pain indicates correct functioning. When you stop feeling it, then worry.]
"That doesn't help."
[Not designed to help.]
Aren blinked.
"Then what the hell are you good for?"
[Record. Monitoring. Adaptation. Status notification. And little else.]
"Is that all?"
[Correct.]
It was so absurd that he almost laughed. Almost, because his chest still hurt too much.
***
With the assistant's help, he managed to sit up enough to drink water. The girl avoided looking directly at him; If he did, he would probably see the mess of new and old scars, the marked bones, the tight skin.
"Slowly," she murmured, because at least she had politeness, not pity, "If you choke, I'm not going to carry your body."
"It wouldn't be the heaviest thing you'd ever carry," Aren half-replied, almost voiceless.
She raised an eyebrow.
The apothecary, from the table, muttered:
"If you have the strength to answer nonsense, you have the strength to live other days."
Aren swallowed water with difficulty. He felt the liquid go down his throat like fire.
"How long… was I asleep?"
"Almost two whole days," the assistant said, "With interruptions in which you just moaned or said stupid things."
"They are the best parts of recruits," the apothecary added without emotion.
Aren buried his head in the threadbare pillow. Two days... asleep? I didn't remember anything. Just fragments. As if he had floated in a black ocean without a surface.
The system intervened again.
[Repair accumulated in the last 48 hours: 23%]
[Forced rest function will remain active as long as the User maintains severe internal damage.]
"Great," Aren murmured. "I can't even wake up when I want to…"
[Correct.]
The cold confirmation made him grit his teeth.
***
In the middle of the afternoon, when the apothecary checked his bandages again, he grunted something under his breath.
"This… moves faster than it should."
The assistant looked at him, "Do you think…?"
"No," he cut off. "It's not magic. If it were magic, it would smell like magic. This is something else."
Aren felt his skin crawl.
"It is not natural," the apothecary continued. "But it's not a miracle either. The strange thing is that his body, although weak, responds too well to rest."
"That's good?"
"It means he won't die. Yet."
Aren swallowed.
The assistant watched him a moment longer, with a mixture of curiosity and caution.
"You're strange," he said. Not as an insult. As a clinical fact.
Aren closed his eyes.
"You're not the first to say it."
[Confirmation: the User has multiple anomalies.]
"Shut up," he murmured, this time quietly but audible.
The assistant looked at him, confused.
"What?"
"Nothing… I talk in my sleep," Aren improvised.
She tilted her head, unconvinced.
***
At night, when the noise of the camp had dwindled to distant murmurs and guard footsteps, Aren tried again to talk to the system.
"Can you… tell me what I am?"
There was silence. After:
[Human.]
"…Are you sure?"
[Until further analysis, yes.]
"Well, I don't feel very human."
[The User has abnormal abilities. He doesn't stop being human. It's just…statistically unlikely.]
Aren let out a tired sigh.
"I don't know if that's good or bad."
[It's no big deal. Just one state. It will change.]
"Will it change…how?"
[Adaptation. Slow process. Current progress: negligible.]
Aren opened his eyes and looked at the makeshift roof of the medical tent. Between the smell of herbs, dried blood and damp fabrics, he felt for the first time that there was something else advancing inside him.
Something small. Invisible. But constant.
Something that was going to change him.
Slowly.
Too slowly to notice it day by day. But fast enough to unsettle anyone who saw him live.
Aren settled down, or tried to, and murmured:
"If I'm going to survive… give me at least a clue."
The system responded one last time before plunging him into another forced sleep:
[Requirement: survive first. Understand later.]
The world turned off.
And Aren fell into darkness again...but this time, it was not the darkness of dying.
It was the darkness of someone who, for the first time, was beginning to heal.