10. Recovery.

The squad regroups inside the lobby as Leon stumbles past them and sits down in a chair. Ignoring the discussions of the nearby soldiers, he pulls the first aid kit out of his backpack and tends to his wounds.

He carefully wraps a bandage around his head to cover the claw marks on the left side of his face. The bandage immediately absorbs all the blood and clings tightly to his face.

"I'm telling you we should retreat while we're still alive!"

"We can't go back empty handed! We came here for medical supplies but we only managed to get one backpacks worth!"

"Thomas we have to go! Our artifact holder is wounded and we've lost all of our men!

Leon's eyes grow heavier until he finally passes out from blood loss.

.....

Leon slowly tries to open his eyes but it's very bright and it takes him a bit to adjust. He sees a white ceiling with Florescent lights hanging above him.

Something is obscuring his vision. He tries to sit up and is successful. His arms are wrapped in bandages. He finally gets a good look around. He's in a makeshift hospital sitting in a bed.

He touches his face and finds that his left eye and cheek are wrapped up and that's why his vision is blocked.

He immediately grabs his chest searching for his necklace. Thankfully it's still there, but all his other belongings are missing. Even the bow.

He swings his feet off the bed and stands up. He feels the pain of all the deep claw marks all over his body.

"That thing really got me good." Leon says to himself.

Before he is able to go anywhere a nurse walks inside and sees him standing next to the bed.

"Ah, sir you can be up right now! You need to rest. You were severely wounded." She says while sitting him back down.

Leon ended up spending three days in the settlements hospital. Apparently after he passed out the rest of his squad carried him and fought off the zombies at the same time while retreating back to the truck.

They made it back without anymore incidents. The others only had minor injuries and Leon was the worst.

When he asked about the bow artifact the general explained that it didn't belong to Leon. The military has a claim on all artifacts gained on missions and they ended up giving it to Thomas as a reward for his accomplishments.

Leon was pissed to say the least. The only thing he got after almost dying was another pouch of tokens.

This general seems to think that as long as he holds all the power and influence he will be able to keep everyone under his control. He'll soon regret making Leon his enemy.

It's been a while since he has been to his new home. Three days went by with him being unconscious for one day and the mission lasted for two.

Walking through the streets of the settlement he is still wearing his ripped and bloody clothes. Aside from a few odd looks nobody paid him any mind.

Opening the door to his room, Alexis is sitting in the floor in front of the TV watching one of the kids movies they bought at the market. She hears the door open and sprints over giving him a big hug.

"Leon! Your back!"

"Ouch.... yeah I'm back." Leon chuckles.

"They said you got hurt.... Are you okay?" She asks while looking at all the bandages wrapped on his body.

"Hey don't worry about me. I'm fine, your big brother is strong you know."

She smiles with tears in the corner of her eyes. "Um, where's spike?"

Since Leon is spikes summoner, he is only able to keep spike out when conscious and has enough mana. So when Leon passed out earlier it forcibly un-summoned spike.

"Oh right." Leon says while pulling his necklace from his shirt and summoning the skeletal wolf once again.

WHOOSH!

CLACK CLACK!

He runs over happy to see Leon is okay. Leon pets the bone dog to reassure him. Once everyone calms down, Alexis goes back to her movie with spike. Leon walks into the bathroom to change his bandages.

Most of his injuries are not that bad and should only leave a scar at most. Except for his eye that is. Before leaving the hospital earlier the nurse had explained that the gash marks on his face were deep and would leave scarring but should heal over time.

But his eye was almost clawed completely in half. Unfortunately his sight is not able to be recovered in his left eye due to that.

Leon blames himself, he got overconfident. Living on his own at the outskirts of town fighting the few zombies that showed up there made him complacent, made him feel invincible. But he's not. That was made very clear to him after this incident.

Thankfully he still has his right eye, and even though the military took the bow artifact, they didn't take the core of the creature. He also has a stock pile of many cores he obtained from normal zombies whenever possible.

After carefully removing the bandages on his body and replacing them with fresh ones. He started to do the same for his face. He slowly removed the gauze on his face and got a good look at his wound.

Three deep claw marks ran down the left side of his face. Thankfully even though it will scar, it doesn't look too bad. At the least it kind of makes him look like one of those grizzly survival guys from movies with long scars on their faces.

Once he replaced the bandage, he left the bathroom to make some food for Alexis. For the past few days she's been eating nothing but junk food and cup noodles. It's the only thing she can make reliably.

He pulls out a cutting board and a knife and goes to town on some vegetables and meat, making a stir fry.

He makes Alexis and himself a plate before calling her over to the table where they scarf down the delicious food with vigor.

Even though it's only been three days, when the only thing you eat is dried meat and preserved foods, a good home cooked meal goes a long way.

The general said he could take a couple days off to rest and heal up his wounds. It's going to take him a while to get used to only seeing out of only one eye.

With the tokens the military gave him for completing his mission and compensation for the bow, he now has quite a lot of money. He's not sure how much it translates to normal currency but it's enough to last them several months on just this much alone.

He and Alexis decide to browse the market the next day. They hadn't found anything really interesting the first time they visited but the shops and items change so frequently that there's a good chance to find something new this time.

Alexis is holding on to Leon's hand as they walk around to the different stalls to check out what they're selling. Most of the stalls are too tall for Alexis to see over so he pulls her up into his arms and carries her around while they shop.

Leon would never have expected to be practically raising a kid. But here he is taking care of this girl he's grown so attached to. Alexis has also grown fond of him and the two get along really well.

He's not sure if it's because the apocalypse or maybe it's just her bit she is very mature for her age. She doesn't get into any trouble or do anything she's not supposed too. She's relatively low maintenance if he's being honest.

Browsing through the stalls yields little results. Finally they come across a building with an open sign on the door. Curious, Leon walks inside with Alexis still in his arms.

Apparently, this place is an equipment store. They have things like backpacks, satchels, clothes, armor, and even some weird gadgets gets he's never seen before.

"Leon what's that?" Alexis asks while pointing to a gauntlet hanging on a display on the wall.

They walk over to get a closer look and see that it's actually a wrist mounted grappling hook. With this he would be able to climb up tall buildings with ease and avoid the zombie filled streets.

When he looks at the price though his heart aches. It will take a good chunk of their tokens. Why is this so expensive?

"That's one of my best works right there." A lady says from behind the counter. She must be the shop owner.

"I understand it's a good piece of equipment but why so expensive?" he asks.

"It's not just made of normal materials." She says and walks over to pull the gauntlet down from the wall. She flips it over and points to 3 marble sized cores embedded into the underside of the gauntlet.

"These are cores from those zombies. With my artifact I'm able to slot these cores into equipment to enhance them. Although using E rank cores is rather weak, it's still better than normal equipment." She explains.

"You have an artifact like that?" Leon asks in amazement.

"Indeed I do." The shop owner says with a proud look. It costed her an arm and a leg to obtain such a treasure so of course she will be proud.

"Can I ask you something?"

The shop owner looks at him curiously. "Of course."

"Let's say someone was able to get a higher rank core. Would you be able to slot it into some gear for a fee?"

She thinks for a moment before replying. "Yes, I should be able to do that but it won't be cheap. It takes a while to slot the equipment with my artifact and that's time I won't be making things for my shop so..."

"That's fine." Leon says while setting Alexis down and rummaging through his backpack. He then pulls out the highest rank cores he has. He holds up three D rank cores he got from the special enemies like the one in the hospital.

The shop owners eyes go wide when she's sees the cores. "How in the world did you manage that!"

"It almost cost me my life to get those." He says while pointing at his face.

"Ah....i see."

"So how much will it cost?"

"Hmm, let's see. Considering the time and effort and I also have to supply the mana...." She mumbles to herself.

She writes something down on a slip of paper on her desk and slides it to Leon.

After reading the note, he can feel his pockets burning. This really is going to be expensive. Oh well, it's something he needs to survive. Plus he will make more money working for the military so its no big deal.

He pulls out a pouch of tokens and hands it to the shop keeper.

"My name is Diane by the way."

"I'm Leon. This is Alexis." He says while holding up the little girl.

"Hi Alexis! It's nice to meet you."

"Hello..." Alexis says shyly while hiding her face against Leon's shoulder.

"Cute...." Diane mumbles to herself.