Axel could feel each moment that it took to go the castle and down to Johnny. Luckly Johnny had something to quickly relive the pain, though the injury would still remain.
"I've used healing magic on him the best I can, and I've put the healing glyphs on him, there's no more I can do. He has to rest and recover," Johnny explained.
"Understood," the captain replied, "May I speak to them?" he then asked.
"As long as he's up to it," Johnny answered.
Johnny led the captain to where Axel was laying down on a stretcher, his upper body was in a cast, and his arm were strung up.
"Evening Captain," Axel greeted.
"Evening scout," the captain said standing next to Axel.
Looking next to Axel, the captain saw a plate and fork.
"Lettuce brought me down some food considering I can't walk by myself," Axel told the captain, "And luckily my beetle scales weren't loss in the fight," he said taking out a small bottle of beetle scales from his coat with a smile.
"That's good," the captain commented.
"So what do you want, I know you're not just here for food," Axel asked.
"I am here to inform you of your failing," the captain said, "You should not have taken that blow for me, as your captain I should have been the one to go down first," he said.
Hearing this Axel began to laugh a bit.
"You're a horrible actor captain, I've seen children do better," Axel said.
"Are you implying that I am happy about you being hurt?" the captain asked.
"No, you're not acting now, you were acting while fighting that house demon," Axel replied, "I could see it in your buckling knees, in the way you moved your arms, you were still injured," he explained.
The captain responded with nothing, he knew that he was caught.
"Say I'm wrong, lie to my face, do it!" Axel taunted.
"While you are not wrong, it isn't your duty to protect me, it is my job to protect you," the captain said, "Now there will be no punishment due to your injury's, however this will not happen again," he ordered.
"Understood Captain," Axel replied.
It was then when Johnny came into the room.
"Can your captain help you back to your room? If you can walk, you can leave room for another scout," Johnny asked.
'Oh yes, my room'
"I couldn't ask you to do that captain," Axel said, "I'll just sit here till I can walk up by myself.
"Well, you're leaving here today," Johnny said, "I don't have much room down here and you're not the only scout who's gotten injured," he explained.
'I can't ask Johnny, there's only one other I that could know'
"Call Grape, they'll take me back," Axel asked.
"I'll get on that," the captain said leaving the basement.
"Your captain is a good man," Johnny said.
"Trust me I know," Axel remarked.
"There was another scout who he always visited," Johnny said while picking up a few things, "Every time anything would happen to him, your captain would be down here to check up on him, it was very annoying," Johnny remarked.
"Do you know what they called themselves?" Axel asked.
"Cherry, though I haven't seen him down here for a long time," Johnny answered.
"Interesting, now when will I be ready to get back into missions?" Axel asked.
"Around four weeks, that's with constant healing and plenty of rest," Johnny answered.
"That's fun," Axel murmured.
———————————————————————
Grape held Axel's shoulder up as they slowly made their way across the castle.
"So, what number room do you stay in?" Grape asked.
"Don't know, I just go by the 'Not Available' sign on it," Axel replied.
"You stay in that room? Why?" Grape asked.
Axel gave a side eye to Grape, not saying a thing.
"I get it, you have secrets, I'll stop," Grape said with a laugh.
Getting to the door, Grape opened it up and they both slipped into the room without any of the other scout noticing.
"You live like this?" Grape commented seeing Axel's room.
The room was much more cleaned up than it first was, but the leaky roof and the bed frame was still broken, and it still smelled.
"You get used to it," Axel said, flopping onto his bed.
"I would say you're lucky, but this smell," Grape said holding their nose under their mask.
"Oh yeah, you forget about it after a while," Axel said taking his mask off and tossing onto his chair.
"Honestly? It's kind of nice in here," Grape said, "One of the few places in the castle that no one go looking in," they said.
"I know," Axel said flipping onto his back.
For a moment, Grape sighed and took of their mask.
"Has anyone tried to knock on your door before?" she said putting her mask down.
"Nope," Axel replied "Can you pass me my notebook?" he asked.
"Of course," Grape said throwing those items over, "I'm guessing that you don't want anyone else to know about your secret room?" she rhetorically asked.
"Course not, and I know you know that I know you won't tell anyone," Axel answered, "Because I know you're a traitor," he said flaunting his information.
"Kind of right," Grape said putting back on her mask, "Even if you didn't know one of my secrets, I would have still kept yours," she said turning to leave.
"Why?" Axel asked.
"Because," Grape said leaving the room, "I like being kind," she said before leaving.
After Grape left, Axel began to think.
'Could I have been stronger?'
He looked to the glyphs, and he knew that his biggest weakness was needing to have a spell prepared and needing to take out something for the spell to be activated on.
In that moment, Axel thought of the worst, yet best, thing he could do. Graft the glyph pattern into his skin. If they were on his skin, he could activate them without pulling a piece of paper out, and if the glyph impacted his skin, the skin could heal!
Axel lifted his arm near his face and looked at it.
And after thinking of that, Axel immediately threw the idea to the back of his mind. First, he didn't know enough about glyphs to say for sure if having them on his skin would activate them when he thought about them.
He couldn't forget that the glyphs degrade whatever material it's on, and Axel didn't particularly want to see his skin degrade. As well, Axel wasn't sure if just his skin would degrade or if the rest of him would degrade too.
No, he was desperate, but not that desperate.
At least, not yet.