Chapter 62: A Limp and a Sunrise
Getting out of the infirmary was the easy part. Nobody had the energy or the will to physically restrain a screaming, half-crazed lunatic who was apparently too stupid to die. Staggering through the streets of Torak, however, was a fresh new hell.
The high-grade potion had put me back together, but it felt like a sloppy job done by a drunk blacksmith. Every step sent a jarring shock up my spine, a constant reminder that my ribs had recently been gravel and were now just precariously balanced kindling. My left leg, which had taken the brunt of my crash-landing with Freya, burned with a deep, muscular agony that made me list to the side like a sinking ship. This wasn't a walk; it was a controlled, agonizing fall in the general direction of north.
The city was a ghost town, but one that had been thoroughly vandalized by a pack of rabid godzillas. The cheerful, merchant-filled streets I'd seen just a day ago were gone. Overturned carts were splintered into kindling. Shop fronts were gaping, dark wounds, their contents spilled across the cobblestones. Here and there, dark, viscous patches stained the ground, some beast blood, some human. The air still carried the acrid tang of smoke and something fouler, a meaty, rotten smell that hinted at the cleanup happening just out of sight.
A group of volunteers, their faces smudged with soot and exhaustion, hurried past me, carrying a stretcher laden with crudely bundled arrows. A squad of city guards, their armor dented and their movements slow with fatigue, marched in the opposite direction, their eyes hollow. We were all ghosts in this ruined city, just going through the motions.
I had to stop, leaning against the shattered remains of a stone fountain, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. The sun was up, maybe an hour past dawn. Its light was weak and watery, doing little to warm the chill in my bones or illuminate the devastation properly. It just made everything look tired.
38:11:42... 41... 40...
A full day. A full, fucking thirty-two-hour day. Even after a month in this shithole, my Earth-bound brain still couldn't wrap itself around the longer days. Back home, a bad day was twenty-four hours. Here, you got a bonus eight hours of pure, unadulterated misery for free. It was like the universe itself was a sadistic bastard who enjoyed watching us suffer for longer. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but no. Every time the sun hung in the sky for what felt like an eternity, a little part of me just wanted to scream, "Alright, we get it! You're committed! Now wrap it up!"
Pushing off the fountain, I continued my pathetic shuffle. My destination was clear. All the activity, all the grim-faced people, were flowing towards one place: the massive, scarred silhouette of the north wall. The City Lord's mansion loomed in the center of the city, a silent, fortified mountain where I knew the civilians were huddled. Safe. The thought was a bitter pill. Everyone else got to hide in the center. I got to limp towards the giant hole in the perimeter. My life was a fucking joke.
The closer I got, the more evident the night's battle became. The neat, funneling barricades I remembered were now just piles of splintered wood and twisted metal. The air grew thicker with the stench of death and ozone. The sounds changed, too. The distant, chaotic roar of a full-scale siege was gone, replaced by the sharper, more sporadic sounds of clean-up: shouted orders, the occasional clash of steel, and the final, dying shrieks of isolated beasts.
I passed a team of adventurers systematically piling beast carcasses onto a cart. One of them, a woman with a massive axe, gave me a long, incredulous look as I limped by. I probably looked like death warmed over, which, to be fair, was a significant improvement from how I'd felt twenty minutes ago.
"Hey, you! You're supposed to be in the infirmary!" a guardsman yelled from a makeshift checkpoint.
"Just taking a stroll," I grunted, not even breaking my hobbling stride. "Doctor's orders. Said I needed more… screaming and existential dread in my life."
He stared, mouth agape, as I shuffled past him. Authority figures lose a lot of their power when you're clearly too stupid and broken to care about consequences.
Finally, I reached the base of the inner rampart, the last line of defense before the main wall itself. The scale of the destruction was breathtaking. A whole section of the wall was just… gone, replaced by a mountainous slope of rubble and melted stone. It was the spot where Freya's earth pillar had launched us. It felt like a lifetime ago.
And there, standing on that very slope, directing a team of soldiers with a calm, weary authority, was Freya.
Her silver armor was a lost cause, caked in so much dried blood and black gore it was almost a uniform grey. Her hair was a wild, tangled mess, and a fresh, angry cut marred her cheek. But she was standing. She was alive. She was breathing.
A wave of something so powerful it almost buckled my knees hit me. It wasn't relief. It was heavier than that. It was the sheer, terrifying weight of the debt I was carrying. Seeing her there, whole and alive, was a physical confirmation that my insane, suicidal gamble had paid off. The System hadn't zapped me out of existence. For now.
I must have made a sound, or maybe she just felt the weight of my stare. She turned her head, her sharp eyes scanning the area before they landed on me.
Her brow furrowed. Not in anger, not in relief. In pure, unadulterated confusion. She looked me up and down, taking in my hobbling stance, my pained expression, the way I was clutching my side.
Then, she just shook her head slowly, a single, exasperated motion that said more than any speech ever could.
"You," she said, her voice flat with exhaustion. "Are the most stubborn bastard I have ever met."
Her words hung in the air between us, mingling with the dust and the stink of death. A laugh, dry and painful, rattled in my chest. "Stubborn? Lady, you have no idea. You try having a timer for your own execution ticking in your vision and see how casually you take a nap."
I took another limping step forward, my body screaming in protest with every movement. "But hey, look at that. You're vertical. Breathing. Not currently being chewed on by something with too many teeth. That's what I call a successful morning."
Freya watched me, her expression unreadable. The exhaustion was etched into her face, but her eyes were still sharp, probing. "Why?" she asked, her voice low. "Why is my being 'vertical' so important to you? You, who walked away from a village full of people. You, who told the Iron Fangs to their faces you weren't a hero. You don't seem the type to develop a sudden, fatal case of chivalry."
I leaned against a chunk of fallen masonry, grateful for the support. "I told you already. It's the debt. Rorden saved my life in that cave against the Goblin Chief. I'm just... balancing the scales."
A flash of something, impatience, anger, grief, crossed her features. "I'm not buying that. You didn't even know his name until you heard me arguing with my father. You didn't know he was my fiancé. So don't stand there, looking like death reheated, and tell me you're doing this for a man you met once. That's a story you tell to make yourself feel better, not the truth."
She had me there. It was a flimsy story, held together by desperation and half-truths. But the real truth, the System, the missions, the instant death penalty, was a one-way ticket to being labeled a raving lunatic or, worse, some kind of demon.
So I just smiled. It was a weak, tired thing, but it was all I had. "Believe what you want, Freya. Call it a debt, call it a personality disorder, call it a weird fetish for watching women in armor boss people around. The reason doesn't change the result, does it? You're alive. I'm... mostly alive. Let's call it a win."
I pushed off the stone, giving her a two-fingered salute that made my shoulder blade feel like it was cracking. "Don't worry. I'm not here to get in your way. I just needed to see it for myself. I'll be the quiet, pathetic-looking guy in the back, admiring your leadership from a safe distance."
I didn't wait for her reply. Turning, I began my slow, agonizing hobble towards a relatively secure-looking spot,a raised platform where a ballista had once been, now just a ring of stone that gave a decent view of the cleanup operation. Every step was a fresh adventure in pain, but it was a manageable pain. The potion was holding.
I found a spot to sit, my back against the cold stone, and let out a long, shuddering breath. I watched Freya. She had already turned back to her work, barking orders, pointing, her voice cutting through the morning air. She was a force of nature, even covered in filth and exhaustion.
And she was alive.
For now, with the sun climbing higher in this impossibly long day, that was enough. It had to be. The timer in my vision continued its relentless countdown, a silent drumbeat to my own personal purgatory.
38:08:15... 14... 13...
I settled in to watch the show.
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