Waking Up

As I open my eyes, I expect to see a white ceiling of a hospital. What I did not expect to see is the cute face of my little sister that is full of drool. She gives me a wide, toothless smile when she sees my eyes open.

"Ga! Bu! Bu! Ga!"

She laughed and patted my face with her tiny hands. I give her a small smile and pat her head.

"Riser!"

I look to the side and see my family sitting not too far away from me. Before I could say anything, my mother had already appeared next to me and took my hand before putting it on her forehead.

"You are awake… You are awake…."

I look at my mother for a second before picking Ravel with my other hand and sitting down on the bed. I look at my little sister and say,

"R-Ravel, our m-mother is sad. W-what should we do?"

I try to talk smoothly, but it looks like my throat is too dry to do it.

"Guga!"

"Right. Group hug."

I take my hand away from my mother and put it around my mother. Ravel and I give her a hug. I can see a huge relief being released from her. I can see a massive weight on her back has been destroyed. I never thought to see her be this distraught.

After a few minutes of hugging each other, my mother got away from me, looked me right in the eyes, and said,

"Riser, never do that again! Never fight a God of War head-on! I will never forgive you if you do that again! I-I don't k-know what h-happen i-if you die."

I give her one last hug when I see another tear coming out of her eyes. Yeah, I'm a little bit too reckless there. I can just run away from the forest, but I know that Ares will do whatever it takes to chase me if I do that. He will injure the other student if I do that.

"Yes, mother. I promise. I will not do something like that again."

"Ga! Ga! Huga!"

"And Ravel will be the one preventing me from doing something stupid, right Ravel?"

"Kyaaaa~"

Hearing Ravel's laughter, our mother couldn't help but smile also. She then wiped her tears away from her eyes.

"How is the other student? Is there anyone that got injured?"

"They are doing fine, Riser. Some of them are still in shock from it, but other than that, there are no more victims that got hospitalized other than you."

"And what about that man?"

"Ares? Oh, you don't need to worry about him, dear. He will never be bothering you anymore."

When I see the grin on her face, I'm afraid to ask what is happening to Ares. That is the smile of a predator that has a satisfying meal.

Before I could ask for something, the door to my room opened up, and coming from the door was the Gremory family. I can see Rias holding a basket full of fruit followed by Sirzechs, Lord, and Lady Gremory.

"Riser, you are awake!"

Rias ran toward me and hugged me tightly. After a minute of hugging, she released me and gave me a bright smile.

"I bring you some fruit! I pick them from our garden!"

"Thank you, Rias."

I smile and give her a head pat.

"Hehehe~ More!"

I give in to her demands and continue to give her a head pat as she climbs onto my bed to sit in my lab. I place Ravel on Rias' lap and continue to pat her head.

"Rias, Riser just woke up. You shouldn't do that."

"I don't really mind, aunty Ven."

"You should not pamper her too much, dear. Our Sirzechs are already doing that."

I can see my brother-in-law looking away from his mother's gaze.

"Anyway, how are you doing, dear?"

"I'm doing fine, aunty. My throat is a little bit dry, but other than that, there is nothing wrong."

"I know I forgot about something!"

I see my mother shout and quickly take a glass of water and give it to me. I slowly drink the water and feel my throat rejuvenate. I drink all the water from the big glass a few seconds later. After drinking all the water, I give the glass back to my mother.

"Thank you, mother."

"Don't mention it, dear. It is my fault for not giving you some water earlier."

"It's okay, mother."

The next person who walks up to me is Sirzechs, who looks at me seriously.

"Riser, I want to say sorry."

"Huh? What for? You did nothing wrong."

"We did not arrive fast enough. If only we arrived there earlier, you would not be here."

"You did nothing wrong, brother. You arrive just in time. If not for you guys, I would be dead as the last thing I see is Ares trying to kill me with his sword. Please don't beat yourself over it. You did nothing wrong."

"Thank you, Riser."

Our conversation was interrupted when the door to my room opened up once again, but this time, it was not a family member but rather a doctor.

"I'm sorry for interrupting your family meeting, my lord, my lady. However, I need to check young master Riser for a moment. I need to check if the Curse will cause a problem for him."

"Curse?"

"Ah, yeah. Your body is filled with curses when you get here. This Curse is a nasty one. It will make your body decay over time. Lucky for you, you are a Phenex. Your bloodline power is able to counter-attack the Curse even when it is in its weakening state."

"Ah."

That sword. I remember how my body felt when something was wrong when that sword hit my body. I don't know what it was then, but now I know it was a curse from Ares' sword.

"Then, if you don't mind?"

"Go ahead, doc."

"Thank you."

The doctor walked toward me, placed some device on my forehead, and cast some sort of scanning spell. After a full minute, the doctor nods his head and says.

"You are clean. Sadly, your body is still too weak. You need to stay here for another day, and you can't do any intense training or activity for the next month. You can go to the academy, but you can't join their exercise for the first two weeks. You also need to eat more meat than usual for the next three days. I will write some medicine that you can take to the nurse on the first floor."

I nod my head and see the doctor write something on his notepad. A second later, he gave the paper to my mother, who read it for a few seconds. After giving my mother the paper, the doctor walked away from my room.

Seeing the doctor walk away, I look at my mother and ask some questions that I wanted to ask earlier.

"Mother, where is my peerage?"

When I ask that, I can see my mother look away from me. What? What does my peerage do? I look at my father, who looks at my mother with amusement.

"Father? Is something wrong?"

"Heh, your peerage decided to give their own punishment."

"What?"

"Let's just say that Medea has a unique idea of a…. Prank. Yeah, let's go with that."

Medea, what have you done?