Chapter LXV - Unhealable (part 1)

In the middle of the bedroom, right in the morning.

A communication crystal appeared on a hand, and the hand lifted the crystal to the mouth. The red uncolored lips were opened, and just when the communication crystal turned glowing, a voice came out from the mouth.

"Testing, testing.

Is this thing on? Anybody home?"

I said to the communication crystal that connects me to everyone else on my team. But after waiting a while, there was no answer.

I guess everyone is still asleep.

It's currently quite late in the morning. The first bell rang a few hours ago, and I woke up just a few minutes ago. I thought I overslept, but after knowing the others didn't reply simply made me question whether or not I overslept.

They are in an even deeper dream than I was, I guess.

I did my usual morning routine the past few minutes. Now that I live alone again, I have to do everything all by myself. When I lived with Lyona back in Veldon, she had helped me with a ton of things, like cleaning up or changing the bed's cloth. It's actually a lot easier living with someone, but I liked doing all of these alone.

Discipline is the best policy!

After cleaning up technically my entire room all the way to the smallest inch of a hole, I put on my casual outfit and just decided to have a full day off. I won't be doing any missions today. After all, I just came home from a super long mission after all.

While changing my clothes, I stared at the charred skin for a while. My heart aches really bad just from seeing them opened like this.

Unhealable… unbelievable.

The doctors at the village tried. 

I tried last night. 

But nothing.

And now for my whole life, I will have to live with this. A charred skin, on both my right hand and my left hand, all the way from the palms to a little bit on top of my elbow. My feet also, from the bottom excluding the cute little fingers all the way to a little bit above my knee.

Simply unbelievable.

I put on my long sleeved clothes which I bought a long time ago, and long military pants which I wear all the time. As for my palms, I'm covering it using black gloves that were made out of cloth. My foot was covered by my tall brown adventuring boots, so it's fine.

There is also another wound.

On my forehead.

It's a burn mark, but it's not that big that people could notice it. I covered it with my front hair and tadaa, it's invisible.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and immediately felt slightly pissed. I have seen this face so many times, and yet I still get angry every time I see it.

My right hand moved by itself and touched the mirror. The gloves on my hands were made out of cloth, so it slipped when it touched the glass.

What did I do to deserve this...?

I closed my eyes and removed all the negativity from my mind. My heart aches like crazy, but as long as people don't find out, everything is fine.

Right... even when the world is tearing me down, I will be just fine. 

After all, I am me.

By the time I opened my eyes, the usual arrogant smile on my face returned.

"Let's go collect the money."

Seeing the arrogant grin, I felt so much better. This face may seem like a disaster to me, but seeing a grin like that simply works like a reassurance for me.

Despite being in another body, I am still me. Never forget that.

I left the mirror, and continued with my business. I left the inn after a little bit of extra preparations.

Since it is way past the first bell, that means the sun was already far out above our heads. Seeing how the sun was up, I was expecting the extreme heat, like the one I felt at Veldon. Turns out it's actually not that hot, at least not when compared to Veldon.

Veldon was a city next to the sea, so it makes sense if it's hot as hell during midday. Back in Veldon, I had to think twice if I wanted to go out without an umbrella, or even wearing a thick set of clothes during the day.

But here, I'm wearing a sweater-like long sleeved shirt, and I'm pretty much feeling okay. I'm so glad Mazino wasn't that hot. Though it is a little bit close to the desert in the east, it was still far-far away.

After saying hi to the sun, I continued my march towards the Office.

Oh yeah. 

The inn lady was actually worried last night when she saw me wearing a ton of bandages on both my legs and my arm, but she was too afraid to ask. And just now, seeing me covering both of those parts using clothes, she apologized and wished me healthy.

Looks like she knew. But these will not be 'healthy' any time soon, will it?

I ignored that thought and continued walking. After a while, I arrived in front of the Office.

The Office is just as crowded as I remembered. No, it's actually more crowded. There's a lot of new faces here that I did not recognize. 

Well, I disappeared for like a whole month. A lot of new adventurers must have registered at that time, and a bunch of them seemed to be present today.

What day is it? Is it the weekend?

I marched towards the receptionist desk on the right side of the line, ignoring the line completely. The adventurers who were lining up stared at me as I walked past them next to the line. I don't even have to see, and I already know what they are asking. 

They are probably asking questions like 'Why is this weird girl with casual clothes cutting the line?' or something.

By the time I arrive on the desk, I see Keila who is chatting with a group of adventurers. She was too busy and must have thought I'm one of those annoying adventurers who skipped the line, because she completely ignores me.

So I knocked on the window.

"Yes, yes. Hold on."

So I was right. 

She turned her back and grabbed some paper files from under her right desk.

She must have a lot going on. I just stood by and took a deep breath, ignoring all the heavy gazes behind me from the adventurers who lined up.

Keila finally gave the adventurer their mission scroll and turned her gaze at me. Our eyes were locked to one another, and I waved my hand at her.

But she is completely frozen. 

She suddenly jumped from her seat, trampling every item on top of the table on her right. Everyone, including me, were very surprised seeing her this scared.

Her face is cute, though. Too bad she is much older than me.

"R-R-R-Rize?!"

"Hello! I'm not dead."

Keila quickly rushed and searched for something under the desk. Then she took it out and passed it to me.

It's a letter.

"A letter?"

Keila nodded.

Everyone on the line seemed to be curious as to what's going on, even though they wanted to get to the receptionist as quickly as possible.

I opened the letter and read the content. While reading, my head tilted around as a grin slowly formed on my face.

'This is a letter sent by the captain of the Mazino's secret force sent to Veldonia for a mission, Captain Margen.

The reason for sending this letter to you, the Master of Adventurer's Office, is to inform you about the missing adventurer named "Masked Man".

He/She went missing for nearly a week, and we haven't heard about them ever since… since the sun's collapse.

It's possible that He/She has died due to the incident, but I really hoped not.

That is all for the letter. I apologize for not being able to be any help…

To her.'

That final line… I crushed the paper immediately.

Everyone else seemed to be curious as to what the content is about, but it's not for the public to see. I gave the mashed paper back to Keila.

"A-Are you... Okay?"

Keila asked me. I simply waved my hand… very quickly.

"It's fine, it's fine. Everything's fine. Right? Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong. Right?"

I said with a mad grin on my face, scaring everyone seeing it.

That damned captain... He didn't mention anything about this...

Seeing me being this confused, Keila let out a sigh. She turned towards the stairs, and I knew what she was about to say.

"You should... see the master. He is upstairs."

"I was planning to do that. Thank you, Keila."

I nodded at her and let myself up. Keila explained to everyone that I was an adventurer with an absolutely problematic mission, and the Office is trying their best to help me.

Well, she's not wrong. At least not in most parts.