Chapter 137

Chapter 137

Lilliana spoke sternly, but Damian lowered his eyebrows.

“I’ll tell you the story. But I’m a bit tired right now.”

Lilliana then realized that it was 4 a.m.

“If you’ve also been awake waiting for us, Lilliana, it would be better to talk after getting some sleep.”

As Damian said, Lilliana had also been staying up all night waiting for them, and her eyelids were getting heavy.

“Then let’s talk after we get some sleep. You’ll tell me everything?”

Only after getting Lilliana’s confirmation was Damian able to return to his room.

Back in his room, Damian collapsed onto the bed without even washing up.

He had been quite troubled by the cold sweat trickling down his forehead as Lilliana kept him talking. He touched his right arm and let out a deep breath.

His arm was burning in pain.

‘It’s phantom pain. This arm is a prosthetic; it can’t feel pain. This pain is fake. It’s fake.’

He repeated this to himself, but the pain in his arm showed no signs of subsiding. He found the painkillers he kept on hand and swallowed more than the prescribed dose.

Then, he curled up on the bed, waiting for this agonizing time to pass.

***

Please save us! Please, please save us! We don’t know anything!

We’re civilians! Please spare us!

The village, ravaged by the enemy, was a gruesome sight. People begging for their lives with tears and blood streaming down their faces. The village was filled with traces of a clear massacre of civilians.

Damian gritted his teeth. He hated the enemy.

Why did these people have to suffer? Just because they were citizens of a colony? Because the ones who were supposed to grovel at their feet dared to declare independence against the Empire?

Damian hugged the young girl, covered in blood and barely clinging to life. Or rather, he tried to hug her, until he remembered that he didn’t have a right hand.

***

Asher glared disapprovingly at Damian, who had knocked on his door. Damian, looking even more exhausted than the chronically fatigued Asher, had come to visit before dawn.

“So?”

“Give me back the medicine you took from me.”

“Why?”

He asked, but he already knew the reason. Damian, sweating profusely, pushed Asher aside and barged into his room.

“Hey, you punk! Who said you could just come in?!”

“And while you’re at it, please take a look at my prosthetic arm.”

“Why the prosthetic arm?”

Damian slumped in the chair and buried his face in his hands. His body was trembling slightly. As Asher sat down across from him, Damian held out his right arm.

Asher unscrewed the joint connecting the upper arm to the prosthetic and detached it. He examined it, then, with a frown, hit Damian on the head with the prosthetic.

“Hey! What have you done to this prosthetic arm that’s only two months old?!”

The joint of the prosthetic was slightly twisted. It was natural for some misalignment or looseness to occur in the joints with use, considering it was a delicate mechanical arm.

But as Asher said, this prosthetic was only two months old and had a lot of life left in it. Judging from the marks, it seemed to have received quite a strong impact.

What had he been doing to cause this kind of damage? Asher was twice as furious than usual, both because someone had been rough with his masterpiece and because Damian had been rough with his own body.

“There was… an incident,” Damian said.

Asher hit him on the head again and said, “Take whatever painkillers you have.”

Damian shook his head in refusal.

Seeing his silent defiance, Asher was about to get angry again, but he checked Damian’s forehead and sighed. He had a slight fever.

“Can’t sleep because of the phantom pain?”

Damian nodded, then shook his head at Asher’s question.

“It’s not just the phantom pain. Whenever I close my eyes, I see scenes from the battlefield, and I can’t sleep. At least the previous painkillers had the side effect of inducing drowsiness, so I could forget about the pain and hallucinations and get some sleep.”

Asher silently stared at the trembling Damian for a long time. Finally, he let out a groan, scratched his head, opened a drawer, and handed Damian a bottle of pills.

“Here.”

Damian stared at Asher with vacant eyes, then thanked him and took the bottle. He immediately took out five pills and swallowed them all.

Asher was horrified by the dosage and tried to snatch the bottle from Damian’s hand.

“You idiot! Give me back the pills!”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“Don’t try to get away with a smooth apology when you’re not even reflecting! Just give me back the pills!”

But Damian clutched the bottle tightly in his left hand, refusing to let go. Asher gave up on getting the pills back and instead smacked Damian on the head again.

“Have you seen a psychiatrist?”

Damian shook his head again at Asher’s question, and Asher let out another irritated groan.

“What’s wrong with going to the hospital?! Go to a psychiatrist and get some counseling! And get sleeping pills from them too!”

“I’ll do that if I have time.”

He always answered properly, which made him even more annoying. Asher, seeing Damian’s eyes fluttering with drowsiness, helped him up.

“I’ll fix your prosthetic arm by evening. Go get some sleep. And when you wake up, you’re going to the hospital, okay? You got that? You’re going to the hospital.”

Damian, drowsy from the medication, just nodded without fully understanding what Asher was saying.

After making sure Damian entered his room, Asher returned to his own. He scratched his head, looked down at Damian’s prosthetic arm, and clicked his tongue.

“I’m not one to preach, but…”

Asher was probably the one who understood Damian’s trauma the best in this house, no, among everyone Damian knew.

So when Damian asked for the medication, he was angry, but he also understood why Damian was asking for it, so he couldn’t refuse.

***

When Damian opened his eyes, the clock showed 2 p.m.

“…This is crazy.”

Damian muttered in a self-deprecating voice and then jumped up. He quickly got dressed and left the room.

It was Monday, and Lilliana had morning classes, so he should have woken up by 7:30 at the latest. He had taken the medicine and closed his eyes for a moment, intending to take a short nap, but somehow he had fallen into a deep sleep.

Damian first knocked on Lilliana’s door. But there was no response from inside. So he knocked on Casey’s door. Again, no response.

He couldn’t understand why they hadn’t woken him up when they were both together.

Damian felt a little relieved that Casey was with Lilliana and headed to the living room.

As he went down the stairs, he heard voices chatting in the living room. He could faintly hear Casey and Lilliana.

“So you’re saying there are golems that look exactly like humans? Not just dolls?”

Lilliana asked curiously, and Casey replied, “In some ways, they look even more human than humans.”

Lilliana looked quite intrigued as Casey calmly told her what had happened.

“Their skin, eyes, and hair are all like humans.”

“Then how do you tell the difference between a real human and a golem?”

Casey shook his head at Lilliana’s question.

“Ordinary people can’t. The Dorothy type has a set appearance, so you can tell just by looking, but other golems, you don’t know their faces, so it’s not easy to distinguish them.”

“I see. Well, the crow did look real.”

“But I can tell. The flow of magic power is different.”

“The flow of magic power?”

“Spirits are sensitive to the flow of magic power. That’s how I can tell.”

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