--
Cedric wasn't surprised to wake up in the hospital. He did rember barely holding onto his consciousness to tell the complete and final translation he heard. After that, he fainted.
"Oh, good. You're awake."
Cedric shifted his gaze to the person who spoke to him.
There, standing by the side of his bed, was sobody who greatly resembled a human. It was a lady with long blonde hair, reaching her waist. She had sharp ears, bright green eyes, and small protrusions on her forehead, like tiny horns. Scales could be seen on her chest and forearms too; also, she had claws instead of hands and legs.
"Hello, Lady Crestwood. How long have I been unconscious?" Cedric pushed his body upright on the bed, carefully, so as to not piss off the strict dic looking after him.
"Around eight hours," she replied. "You gave quite a scare back there, Dawnbringer. I would really appreciate it if you stopped forcing yourself like that again. How can you be a doctor yourself and not know when to quit when things get dangerous? Seriously?"
Lady Crestwood was a colleague that he t in his work as a dic.
She's from the Wise Dragon Clan, which in itself was aweso since Cedric never thought he'd et one in person. He rembered being surprised upon learning this. He didn't expect dragons to take on this familiar form. What's even more surprising is that she apparently volunteered to be here.
As one of the best dics here, Lady Crestwood wields great authority here. She's strict and hard to please. She doesn't accept any less than a great job from those working under her. She's not soone that Cedric would willingly offend.
"Well, since you're there, you must've heard the translation. It sounded too important to be delayed," Cedric reasoned out, smiling wryly as he explained. "Besides, I knew that, at best, I'd just lose consciousness. It's a calculated risk, and I wasn't in any real danger."
"Besides, don't we have you?" Cedric teased. "I'm sure that you wouldn't let death capture that easily. You'd tell it to fuck off instead."
"Hmph! Sweet-tongued brat!" Lady Crestwood scolded light-heartedly.
Cedric managed to let out a few chuckles before his expression turned somber. He then asked:
"What happened after I passed out? I hope the camp is still intact."
"It is, don't worry." Crestwood rolled her eyes at him. "But... your last translation shook all of us to the core. Especially the bigwigs hiding behind the scenes."
"I heard that they've been scampering to compile more records to confirm everything and make more sense of the things they learned from you."
"That said, if there's one thing for sure, it's that they all believe you now."
Lady Crestwood then raised a brow, inspecting Cedric's face closely, before saying: Your journey continues with empire
"Who would've known that you have the 'All Speak' latent ability..."
"Huh? 'All Speak'? What's that?" Cedric asked curiously.
"If you have ever wondered how you could understand any language, even without any prior knowledge of it, and/or hearing it for the first ti, it's because of that."
" 'All Speak' is an innate divine ability to comprehend everything that falls under the category of a 'Language'."
"In the alliance as a whole, only a handful of people are born with this ability. The majority of them are born from 'The Six.'. We never expected that you'd have it too. Yours are even better than them, in fact."
Lady Crestwood's voice sounded pleasantly surprised and helpless at the sa ti.
Cedric was stunned to hear her explanation. This was the first ti he heard about 'All Speak.'. Even with his extensive research on all things about the alliance, he wasn't exposed to this secret before. That's why he's surprised to hear about it.
With this information, though, everything finally makes sense; how he was able to understand any language he hears for the first ti effortlessly as if he had a built-in translator in his brain.
He used to shrug this off, thinking that it wasn't anything special. But it seems that he was wrong. It was a big deal. It's just too rare, even for the alliance's standards; that's why he hasn't heard about it before.
"...wait, my 'All Speak' is better than others'?" Cedric asked, sounding a little incredulous.
"You aren't the first one to understand the language of the Void," Lady Crestwood explained. "The history of the Border Patrol Guardians is rich. We just don't kill Void Creatures on sight. We have been studying their behaviors for a very long ti already."
"The idea that they might possess so level of intelligence isn't a new thing to us. It's just kept as a private matter to prevent soldiers from running away here. You know how badly we need people."
Lady Crestwood wore a wry smile as she explained this. It's sothing that Cedric understood and sympathizes with.
"There have been people who reported understanding words and phrases uttered by Void Creatures." She continued, "There had been many before you; so were frauds, and others were the real deal."
"It's because of these people that a specific branch was created at every guardian camp. It's called the 'Occult Decoding Team.'. Their purpose is, well, to research the language of the void and make sense of it. It is created to, hopefully, aid us in preparing against the assault of the void and help save more lives."
"A handful from that team was with us during your showcase," Lady Crestwood revealed. "And unlike us, they're raving about you from the very mont you accurately guessed the mating call."
Cedric didn't miss the implied tease in Lady Crestwood's words. Upon recalling this, Cedric felt sha oozing from the depths of his body.
It's embarrassing, truly, but what's done is done.
"That was on purpose, by the way," Lady Crestwood explained, trying to save him from the embarrassnt. "It was done like that to filter out the frauds from the real ones. But of course, it's foolproof. It is very specific, though, and the fact that you accurately described it as is made them believe your claims right away."
"And as you continued with your translation, so of them even showed signs of madness. I'm sure that they couldn't wait to take you into their fold. They looked at you as if you're so sort of a ssiah, or sothing."
"Uh oh, am I going to be forced into a cult, then?"
"Probably." She shrugged. "Anyways, during your translation, I could hear them making breakthroughs on their research right then and there. It's debatable whether it's sothing to be celebrated or not, but h, I really don't care."
"One thing's for sure, though. You understand the voices much better than they could. And they all have 'All Speak' too."
"But the real reason why I said that yours is much better than theirs was because I heard them saying that none of them managed to translate the complete ssage of the final clip. Those who tried experienced horrible things, far more dangerous than you bleeding from your orifices and fainting afterwards."
"You should've seen how they were madly torn after you fainted." Lady Crestwood looked as if she was reminiscing about sothing funny. "They raised a ruckus. They were torn between ensuring your safety and returning to their laboratories to delve into their research after hearing all of that from you."
"So even wanted to smack you awake to demand more answers. If it wasn't for the head researcher of the team stopping them, you would've most likely woken up in their building instead of here."
Cedric shivered a bit. Everything that he heard from her made him a bit regretful about being too honest about his skills. Because by doing this, he unknowingly poked the hornet's nest, and he probably wouldn't know peace again after this.
Unfortunately, the deed was done. He was too eager, and it's too late for him to change anything. All he could do was face what's about to co.
"Well, don't be too gloomy." She patted his back. "It's not all bad. The Occult Decoding Team is rich; joining them wasn't so bad. Besides, who knows? Maybe you'd fit right in?"
"Anyways, I've extended your stay here to two weeks. That's all the help I can do. If I were you, I'd take advantage of that because your days are about to be really hectic once you're out of here."
"You can play it off... pretend that you're weak in front of other people except and then gradually beco better as days pass. Or, you can not do that and do things your way. Up to you, though. Just give a heads-up. Later, I have to do so rounds."
After saying this, Lady Crestwood stepped out of the room, giving him ti to think for himself.
And while he sincerely doubted that they'd be fooling them, he'd still take the offer. A vacation is a vacation, even though he's spending it inside a hospital room.
He could afford to take it easy for so ti, but afterwards, he couldn't escape. So, he might as well take advantage of whatever ti he has left before he's eventually caught up in the storm.
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