Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 43: Rescue

Still, the arrival of the military relit the flames of hope that had about to die out giving them the rush of strength they needed to pull through.

Kieran and the rest of them in the forefront of the formation didn’t really share the same relief though, they were just trying their best not to die.

’Huh?’

Kieran thought when his swing hit nothing but empty space which made him snap out of the subconscious state that he had fallen into a long time ago.

Looking around, all he could see was the splattered blood and body parts of the beats around them.

To the side, he the blonde-haired recruit and the rest were sitting on the floor looking completely exhausted while Jake although still standing was leaning heavily on his sword, his back moving up and down heavily indication his fatigue.

He wandered how he was still on his two feet.

"It’s over!"

Kiernan muttered, the realization finally hitting him, before he fell on his back, completely exhausted. He had almost fainted several times towards the end of the battle.

Closing his eyes to focus on regaining any little amount of strength he could, Kieran soon felt his body being lifted up which caused his eyes to snap open, his weak arms pointing his pistol to the face in front of him.

Although the battle was over, he was body and mind were still in a state of alertness, a beast that hadn’t been killed properly could just spawn and kill him with a single hit.

Fortunately, that wasn’t what happened. He had been lifted by one of the members of the Emergency Treatment Department of the camp. They had also put the rest on stretchers and were carrying them away to get treatment.

"Sorry"

Kieran said, having understood the situation. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"It’s ok," the soldier with a smile said, letting go of Kieran’s hand that he had caught the moment he aimed the weapon at him.

He adjusted Kieran on the stretcher and pushed the ends a little causing the stretcher to levitate along the path to a tent that had been set up. The moment he saw the roof of the tent, Kieran’s body lost its tension and his mind slowly left its state of alertness and without much notice a gas mask was placed on his face and he fell into a deep sleep.

...

"Ughh!"

Kieran groaned, slowly opening his eyes to be greeted with a familiar white ceiling and beeping sound, with the unpleasant sensation of his body hurting in places he still didn’t believe was possible. It was starting to feel like a deja vu, like he was back to after the combat test when his body had been wrecked. Back then he spent a whole week here in the infirmary.

Having been in this position before, he didn’t try to turn or raise his body knowing the type of pain he was going to be met with if he did.

"Ahh!"

A pained groan sounded from his side making him frown and he turned his head to its direction to see the blonde-haired recruit that had saved him during the battle. It appeared that he had just woken up and was familiarizing himself to the environment and pain of having his muscles felling like they had been ripped to shreds along with the feeling of having that pain multiplied when you tried to move.

He must have been unable to fully appreciate the pain, because he pretty much gave up and stayed put after his first attempts.

"You’re awake, I see!"

A familiar voice was heard on his other side and he turned to see Jake who was completely bandaged from head to toe and despite his horrible look was sitting up, his eyes still full of vigor.

’Monster!’

Kieran thought, for the first time accepting the fact that Jake just wasn’t normal before ignoring him and placing his head back on the pillow, staring at the white ceiling while losing himself in his world of thoughts. It appeared that just four of them were in the room including the recruit that wore glasses.

When Kieran glanced in his direction, directly opposite him, he was completely still so he assumed that he was still asleep.

Kieran quickly fell back to sleep but was awoken by the sound of the door opening to see a doctor coming in. It was the same average looking man with a crazy look in his eyes. The moment he stepped in, he walked towards Kieran and picked up a report at the side of the bed to read out his list of injuries.

"Hmmm...that’s bad...." He muttered to himself

"Several muscles that shouldn’t even be activated, torn. Multiple fractured and broken bones... ahhh!" He gave up on reading the rest of the list and looked at Kieran like he was a fool.

"Your injuries this time are much more worse than the previous time and even your body’s high recovery rate won’t get you get you out of here in a week," he said.

The last time, all Kieran had fought was a single beast, this time what he fought was a horde of them. Some of them being at the same level or even higher than the beasts he had fought during the combat test.

The doctor dropped the report back and did some checkups on Kieran before moving on to read out and inspect the injuries of the rest and once he started, Kieran felt more than grateful for his abnormally strong body upon hearing the injuries of the others.

The injuries of the rest were several times worse than his, and they were expected to spend at least a month in the infirmary before then could return.

More than that, he got a clearer view on what kind of a monster Jake was. His injured was the heaviest among all of them and despite that, he was moving and acting like he was only afflicted with light injuries.

Even the doctor was left gob smacked when he heard Jake tell him that most of his injuries had healed and the doctor of course didn’t believe it until he checked himself.

’Him too? What is it that I don’t know?’ Kieran thought when he heard Jake say out loud something that by normal human standards was completely abnormal and yet all he noticed was that despite the total look of shock on the doctor’s face and the rest of those in the room, they weren’t surprised., it was as if, if his rate of healing had been slightly lesser that what it was, they wouldn’t be shocked.

Their behavior obviously showed that it was normal to them and that they knew something that Kiernan didn’t know. The feeling of being the dark was starting to eat at Kiernan.

’Could that explain the abnormal things that have been happening to me?’

Kieran thought. It felt like he had finally found something that could give him an idea of what was happening to him.

Still deep in thought, he started at Jake who only met his questioning gaze calm believe giving a small smile and turning away.

’He knows! Does Ruby know too?" Kieran thought.

Ruby and Jake were the only ones who had seen him when he had lost control and they had never said anything then, he was going to need to have a—

"What were you thinking?" A question was shot at him from his side, ending his train of thoughts.

"Hmm?" He tiled his head slightly, looking at the blonde that asked him the strange question.

"You almost died back there when you were lost in thought. What were you doing, are you crazy?" He asked again, making Kiernan frown at his rude questions.

He appreciated him saving him, but that didn’t give him any hold over him, so he just ignored him, placing his head back on the pillow.

"Fuck you! You must be the reason why William died. You bastard!" The blonde cursed loudly bringing a heavy atmosphere to the room.

Not all of them knew that one of them was dead, Kieran already expected his death. He would be surprised if he managed to survive, scratch that! After what he had just noticed, if his suspicions were on point, it wouldn’t be too strange if he actually survived that battle, but the blonde’s words already proved that he was dead.

"You caused this shit! You knew something was down there, didn’t you? But you didn’t say anything!" The blonde continued with more emotion than before.

"Don’t go pointing fingers now! I doubt any of you would have believed him even if he told you that he saw something. He did tell us to leave unless we were after our deaths and everyone except me chose the paths to their deaths." Jake said to the blonde.

"Who the fuck do you think you are to talk to me like I’m a child?! Just because you are number one doesn’t mean–"

"Cut it!" The recruit with the glasses interrupted him.

"Our first and biggest mistake was not reporting and backing out immediately we saw the Kretas thinking we could at least get a closer look was stupid. We basically knew nothing of the features of that fortress." He said bringing silence back into the room.

Meanwhile, Kieran continued to stare at Jake with a serious expression and Jake seeing his look heaved a small sigh, he already understood Kieran’s stare.

’You have some answers to give!’