It was chaos.
Alexia was crying because I had hit her.
"Hic! D-Don’t you know how to treat a noble lady?!" she managed between hiccups, her voice wobbling.
Michael was crying because I was alive.
"No, really! I’m so glad you’re alive!" he wailed, trying to go for another crushing hug that I fended off with a well-placed foot to his sternum.
But he didn’t relent. Sohow, through so sheer emotional persistence, he managed to grab hold of my ankle and started to weep onto my toe.
"Eww— get off!" I shrieked in pure disgust, thrashing against the mattress of saplings.
"I thought I’d have to live with your death!" he sobbed. His face was a ss of genuine relief and snot and tears. "I was already writing your eulogy in my head! It was going to be so poetic, Sam! I ntioned your ’complex’ personality and your ’misunderstood’ heart!"
..plex personality and misunderstood heart?
Was this fucker seriously planning to indirectly call a jerk at my own funeral?!
anwhile, Alexia was nursing the spot on her forehead where I’d smacked her, rubbing it with exaggerated care like she was inspecting for damage on so delicate thing.
Then, without warning, she slamd into my ribs from the side, trapping in a tight embrace that was dangerously close to a bear hug.
"You asshole! You absolute brute!" she shouted into my chest. "Do you have any idea how many hours I spent flooding my Essence into that Ring to heal you while you were unconscious? Do you know how fucking exhausting that was?! And this is the thanks I get? You hit !?"
Then she started sobbing again.
But this ti, like, really sobbing.
She completely broke down while telling how terrified she’d been so that I would never wake up from my coma, how she kept thinking I was already dead, and a whole lot of emotional nonsense.
So now I was basically dealing with two crybabies.
Now I could’ve continued struggling to shove them off... but for so reason, when I felt them clinging to so tightly, crying into like they were genuinely scared for , my remaining hand just went limp.
I let out a long sigh. My voice was still raspy. My throat felt drier than sandpaper dragged across a desert.
At last, my head simply thumped back against the rough wooden bed fra. I didn’t hug them back — mostly because I only had one arm — but I did stop trying to kick them away.
And so we lay there on that ridiculously uncomfortable bed for a long while, sniffling and snuffling and just too tired.
•••
Before I could properly pry them off, the others began storming into the room one after another.
And one after another, they also started body-slamming into like this was so kind of underground WWE match.
It was a coordinated aerial assault of friendship, and it would’ve been so hilarious if I hadn’t been their landing strip.
Vince and Ray were first. Both of them looked disheveled and visibly worn out. Ray was even missing a hand — not an entire arm like , but the bandage wrapped around his wrist was thick and round enough to look like a poorly wrapped dumpling.
That still didn’t stop him from launching himself onto my midsection like a cannonball.
Vince made a joke about how I did a good job killing a god, but next ti I should aim to do better so I wouldn’t give him and everyone else a collective heart attack.
I didn’t know how I was still being lectured for saving everyone?
Then Lily barged in.
She was practically limping... maybe even hunching a little. Her movents were stiff, and every step she took looked like it hurt.
But when she saw , the relief in her eyes was unmistakable beneath the shimr of tears.
She crouched down right there on the floor for a full minute, hands pressed over her face. I was about to say sothing—
But my voice broke into a wheeze when she suddenly got up and all but elbow-dropped straight in the gut.
"OOF—!"
The air didn’t just leave my lungs. It quite literally fled.
"You absolute, utter, brainless, narcissistic idiot!" she shouted though her voice trembled as it might crack at any second. "I specifically told you not to do anything stupid!"
Then she joined the group hug.
...No, seriously. Why was I being lectured for saving everyone?!
Just then, I spotted Juliana in my peripheral vision.
She had appeared again and was now calmly using Ray’s phone to record the entire scene, a devious grin stretching across her face.
Okay, she was definitely going to pull so kind of shenanigans with that clip.
There was no doubt about it.
...But I didn’t care.
It felt kind of nice, nicer than I thought it would to be surrounded by people who were so worried about .
Maybe this... was what it felt like to have friends?
I-I an, I wasn’t calling them friends or anything!
I didn’t even know if they really thought of as a friend. They were probably just being nice because I saved them and all...
But still.
It felt nice.
It felt warm and... and real.
Well, at least until a certain fetid mutt ca sauntering into the room.
The mont I saw Kang Tae-jin, my temper flared.
I circulated what little Essence I could feel in my core and used the full might of my B-rank strength, which wasn’t much in my current state, to burst through the pile of humans on top of so fast that I was on Kang in the very next instant.
Before he even had ti to even blink, I lashed out with my one hand, seized him by the throat, and slamd him into the log wall with violent force.
"Khwaa!" the wolf-boy gasped in shock before starting to tap frantically against my wrist, eyes blown wide. "Wh-What?! What? What did I do?! What did I do?!"
The others rushed in imdiately, peeling away from him in panic. They must have thought I was delirious, because they began explaining to who he was, reminding that he was an ally.
"Sam, he’s Kang!" Vince shouted. "Kang! I know he looks dirty and ugly and feral right now, but he’s not a beast!"
"I know who he is!" I snapped, still being restrained, still glaring at the white-haired young man who was now collapsed on his knees, panting and stroking the reddening skin where my hand had been around his throat. "This overgrown, flea-bitten dog left there!"
"...Sorry, what?" Alexia scowled.
So did Kang. "I did what?!"
"Don’t play ignorant!" I turned to Alexia, seething. "He did! He left while I was dying! He took the Ring of Healing and turned around and just left!"
Alexia grabbed her head with both hands. "Yes, he left... to bring the Ring to !"
I opened my mouth to argue. Stopped and closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again and frowned deeply.
Then I turned back to Kang.
He sohow looked even more confused than before.
"Wait, you were alive then?" His face scrunched as he brushed his chest and stood back up. "There was this whole big-ass spike jamd through your chest! Your breathing had stopped and I couldn’t hear your heartbeat, so I assud you were dead!"
He pointed toward Juliana, whom I suddenly realized was standing far too close to , one arm pressed against my bare chest as if to keep back.
Kang continued after coughing a few tis. "After getting Lady Alexia to a safe distance, I went to check on everyone else. All of them were in terrible condition, but thankfully I found Julia conscious. She pointed toward where your fight was happening... not that she needed to, since the shockwaves and thunder coming from the shore were shaking the entire canyon. She also told about the artifacts I needed to retrieve in case you had won."
I glanced down at Juliana. She nodded.
That... made sense. I did inform her about the artifacts I wanted her to collect if I wasn’t in a condition to do so myself.
After that, Kang told he had contemplated coming to assist in my battle. But then the sounds of fighting stopped, and he decided it would be better to take Alexia with him instead.
That choice would prove invaluable later.
Because when he carried her to the shore and searched for where I was, he found in what he believed was my dead state.
In that mont, he made the decision to bring the Ring to Alexia (fun fact, I was later told that he quite literally went down on one knee to put it on her finger like a total simp! Haha, loser!) so she could begin the bonding process.
Then he hoisted her onto his back and swam toward the ice islet where I lay. She used that ti, and a little extra, to complete the bonding.
Since her Soul Rank was higher than Kang’s, he believed it was safer to risk letting her bind with the Ring.
Which, again, turned out to be an invaluable decision.
Because the Ring of Healing was a Soulbound artifact, its effectiveness depended heavily on the user’s soul. A C-ranker like him would have only been able to nd shallow scratches, not close fatal wounds.
"So I literally swam through silver brine and icy chunks to reach you!" Kang threw his hands up. "Then I had to drag her across a collapsing glacier! And this is the thanks I get?! You choking ?! Again?!"
"Wait..." Ray blinked like sothing very scandalous was revealed. "Again?"
"No, for real! It was so weird when Kang suddenly shoved the Ring onto my finger and started screaming about ’Samael being a corpse’!" Alexia muttered, then raised her hands as well. "But really, are all Theosbanes incapable of thanking people properly, or is it just you?!"
I had nothing to say.
I looked at Kang. He looked back, his pale blue eyes were still wary and defensive. He looked exhausted, like soone who had sprinted through hell and then been scolded for not running fast enough.
"Oh," I said. My voice ca out small.
The silence stretched. My hand, still poised for another throat-slam, slowly dropped to my side.
I felt... well, I felt like a massive prick. Which was a familiar feeling, sure, but usually I at least had enough shalessness to justify myself.
It was then, right at that exact mont Kang noticed that flicker of guilt in my eyes, that his expression changed.
"Wait a second..." he said, a knowing grin creeping onto his face. "Wait a fucking second. Did you... did you think I left your noble ass there to die?!"
"...Whaaaaa— pfft! No, of course not!" I waved a hand like the idea was absurd.
But the asshole didn’t let it go.
"No! No, you did! Haaa! You really did!" he burst into laughter. "Oh no~! Was the strong and mighty Theosbane scared this lowly mutt wouldn’t co back for him? Was the strong and mighty Theosbane about to cry?"
My glare sharpened. He actually batted his lashes at in response.
Fine. I decided to bite back.
"Well," I cleared my throat, looking anywhere but at him, "I suppose... given the circumstances... and your limited intellectual capacity as a canine... it was a reasonable tactical decision. Barely."
It worked.
"HUH?! Barely?!" Kang threw his hands up again. "I saved your life, you narcissistic one-ard freak!"
"And I saved yours! We’re even!"
Juliana let out a soft huff, which was her version of a laugh, and finally lowered Ray’s phone.
Ray himself, however, was focused on sothing far more important. "I’m sorry. Can we go back to how Kang just admitted Sam had already choked him once before this?"
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