Chapter 253: The Price of Golden Acorns

On a midsummer night, brilliant stars studded the black vault of heaven. Moonlight spilled down like water. The breeze murmured as it passed over the wide plain, and from the grass and treetops came the low rustling cries of crickets, toads, and cicadas.

At times in the night, pairs of ghost-green eyes wandered through the dark.

“Mm...”

“You’re awake?”

“Letho, how long was I out?” Roy struggled upright. He was sitting on a crude pallet made of bundled grass, beside a campfire.

His Griffin armor had been removed, and white bandages were wrapped around the right side of his chest and abdomen.

Letho sat nearby, tossing dry sticks into the fire now and then. The Orin brothers and the master-apprentice pair, Flavius and Karl, lay quietly across from them.

“Close to ten hours. It’s almost dawn now.” Letho took a rabbit leg from the spit, golden-brown and fragrant, and handed it over. “Eat. You need a great deal of nourishment if you’re going to recover.”

“My wound ... how bad is it really?” Roy tried to move his waist and neck, only to tug at the injury. At once that familiar stabbing pain surged back.

He glanced at his Status Panel. His HP had risen to forty percent, but the glaring Severely Injured state still stood out.

“One broken rib, but it didn’t shift and didn’t damage the liver. Your luck held.”

“And while you were out, we already treated the wound properly. You’ll likely need a month to recover. So for that time, you will stay put and behave. Remember this, no intense activity of any kind, including swordsmanship training.”

“A month?” Roy bit into the roast meat with a long face. “If I can’t move for that long, won’t my bones rust solid?”

He glanced at the Template. He was not far from leveling up. Before reaching the Barony, perhaps with Griffin’s help, he could still gain enough XP to shake off this miserable state.

“Count yourself fortunate, kid. A normal man would need at least three months, and surviving a battle like that at all is no small thing.” Letho lifted a brow. “As for recovering from injuries, you’d best get used to it slowly.”

Roy lightly touched the burn on his left hand, but suddenly had less appetite.

“If you truly find it dull, then train in some other way. Use your head more. Sum up your XP. Rewind the battle in your mind. Try not to carry the same mistakes into the next fight. In a way, that process of correcting errors matters more than the battle itself.” Letho watched the firelight dancing. “It’s tedious, but it keeps you alive.”

Only then did Roy nod.

“Besides, after that fight with the big red-skinned brute this afternoon, you ought to have gained quite a few insights.”

Roy licked the grease from his hand like a cat and perked up again. “Of course. There’s an old saying, isn’t there? What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.”

Their conversation roused the others.

“How are you feeling, Roy? Still hurting?” Orin dropped down beside his younger brother and shook the leather wineskin in his hand with a grin. “Want a couple swallows to ease it off?”

“It’s fine ... I just can’t do anything strenuous for a while.” Roy smelled the harsh liquor and rolled his eyes. “You can keep that for yourself.”

“Are you an idiot?” Kael snatched the wineskin away without ceremony and took a great gulp. “His bones are injured and you want him drinking? You want him laid up for two extra months? And after all this time together, you still can’t tell? The kid doesn’t like your kind of strong spirits at all.”

“You fool. Spirits drive malevolent entities out of wounds and ease the pain as well. Are you really my own brother? How can you not understand my good intentions? And, I warn you, give the drink back. Stop. I beg you, leave me one swallow.”

Watching the brothers start bickering again, the others could not help smiling, though there was a faint trace of envy in it too.

To come through such hard fighting and still keep that easy cheer, perhaps that too was a kind of gift one was born with.