Chapter 99: Notice

David lay half-reclined on the bed while the doctor beside him used a treatment device to mend the two damaged areas of bone and muscle.

Even so, he could not help but marvel at the medicine of this era. His injuries were not fatal, but a piercing wound that had gone clean through from front to back would have been severe in any life.

Yet within barely half an hour after Lieutenant Eaton had brought him to this military hospital, most of his injuries had already healed.

Of course, the restorative medicine consumed by such a treatment device was not cheap by any means; ordinary people could not possibly afford medical care like this.

In a military hospital, however, all of it was covered by the army, so David need not worry about the expense.

“Mr. David, your wounds must not get wet today, and you must not practice martial training. By tomorrow, you’ll be fully recovered,” the doctor said respectfully.

Although Lieutenant Eaton had left after bringing David here, because he had urgent matters to attend to in the city’s defenses, he had still instructed the doctors to spare no expense and use the finest medicine on David.

In truth, even if Eaton had said nothing, the doctors would have done the same.

Everyone in the city defense corps already knew what had happened that day, and they knew of David’s heroic actions in the south of the city.

Soldiers stationed in a war zone have an instinctive reverence for heroes.

So whenever the doctors spoke to David, they did so with utmost deference.

“Thank you, Doctor,” David said softly, moving his left shoulder a little. The pain was truly gone now, leaving only a faint stiffness, something he could sense only because his bodily awareness had already reached nearly the level of a true armored warrior.

“Mr. David, there’s no need to thank me. You saved Peran City; it is my honor to serve you,” the doctor said repeatedly, shaking his head.

“Doctor, may I go back now?” David asked quickly. He felt that his right leg was fine as well, and he was growing weary of the doctors’ and nurses’ reverent manner.

“Of course. Your injuries are no longer a problem. You may leave the hospital at any time,” the doctor replied with a smile.

David nodded, climbed down from the bed, and left the treatment room.

No sooner had he stepped outside than he saw Hans, Bertha, and little Eddy, accompanied by a young nurse.

“Brother!” As lively as ever, little Eddy ran toward him the moment he saw him.

David swept the child into his arms.

“David, be careful with your wound!” Hans said at once, concern in his voice.

“Father, I’m already healed,” David replied as he lifted little Eddy high into the air, making the child giggle without end.

“Good, then. I’m proud of you,” Hans said with a smile. As he spoke, he took Eddy from David and handed the child to Bertha.

Hans could not forget the envy in Lieutenant Eaton’s voice when he had spoken to him that day. It was not envy of his title, but envy that he had such a fine son.

When Hans learned of David’s achievements, he too had been stunned beyond words.

Though the result had not been achieved out in the wilderness, and though the city defenses had provided heavy weapons to assist, it was still far harder to obtain such a feat here than to achieve the equivalent in the wild.

This was Peran City, after all, a small city. Without powerful allies at hand, to accomplish something like this was nothing short of a miracle.

Especially that parasitic brain worm. Even back on the battlefront, it had been a nightmare for ordinary armored warriors.

“Father, I only did what I could,” David said, shaking his head.

He did not feel particularly proud of what he had done. Perhaps there had been some pride in the midst of battle, but once the war was over and he was faced with the corpses strewn across the ground, he understood that he had simply been a little luckier than others. Compared with the dead, what he had done truly meant little.

“David, go back and rest well. If you need psychological counseling, you must tell me at once. Don’t hide it,” Hans said, patting David lightly on the shoulder with a smile.

“Father, do you have time to take me back?” David asked after a moment’s thought.

Hans froze. David had never made such a request before; he had always been too independent, never needing his help.

But Hans quickly understood. David wanted to speak with him in private.

“All right,” Hans said with a smile and a nod. Then he turned to Bertha. “Take Eddy home first. I’ll see David off.”

“Be careful on the way,” Bertha said softly.

As they left the military hospital, everyone they passed, whether soldier or medical staff, looked at David with respect.

“David, how does it feel to be a hero?” Hans asked with a smile once they were in the hovercar.

“I’m not used to it,” David said with a wry shake of his head.

“Haha, you’ll get used to it,” Hans said, laughing like a man who had been there before.

“Father, take me to my hideout,” David said quietly when he noticed the route Hans had set.

Hans glanced at him and, with a tap of his finger, selected the location of the new house David had recently bought a little farther away.

The hovercar rose into the air. Given Hans’s rank, his vehicle was permitted to fly openly in the sky, so the journey was very swift.

David opened the gate to the courtyard, and the two of them went inside.

“David, I never expected you to like this style,” Hans said with an amused laugh when he saw that the courtyard had been arranged entirely in military fashion.

“It was Jim’s idea. The rebuilding here hardly cost me any credits at all,” David explained with a smile.

It was obvious Hans liked the arrangement. Though he had left the barracks behind, everything about the military had long since been carved into his bones.

That became even clearer once they entered the two-story house. The place was utterly, one hundred percent military in style, because David had given no instructions at all, and the city defense engineering team had simply used barracks structures as the blueprint.

“Father, please sit down first. I’ll be right back,” David said, having the intelligent housekeeper bring Hans a glass of water. Water was all there was here.

Hans nodded.

David did not enter the basement through the enormous courtyard entrance. Instead, he used a concealed passage inside the house and, after a strict security check, reached the basement.

He took out the pendant, had the shadow attendant open the shell of the Fire Beacon, and retrieved five bottles of Ageless Holy Water before returning to the ground-floor hall.

“This is...” Hans stared at the five bottles in David’s hands, utterly disbelieving.

Clearly he recognized what they were, but he could not believe David could actually produce Ageless Holy Water.

“Father, can these five bottles of Ageless Holy Water restore your body?” David asked with a smile, pushing the bottles toward him.

“David, where did this Ageless Holy Water come from?” Hans was not at all overjoyed. No one in Peran City knew better than he did where Ageless Holy Water came from, and he did not want his son to go down a dark path for the sake of his body.

“Father, I’ll explain everything to you,” David said, seeing Hans’s concern. He then told him how he had discovered he was being followed, and how, through Officer Bob, he had learned that Amos, the security chief of the Starmere Hotel, was the tracker.

Then, through Amos, he had discovered the meeting between Mr. Stett and Trainer Jeremy, and had arranged surveillance in advance.

After that, he had sniped Trainer Jeremy and found the Ageless Holy Water on his body.

Though he kept many of his own secrets to himself, the general course of events was told without concealment.

“David, you should have told me earlier. You’re still a child. You shouldn’t have to shoulder something like this,” Hans said in a low voice, looking at him.

“Father, since this involved Mr. Stett, I thought it best to investigate first before telling you,” David explained softly.

“After something happened to you, I suspected Stett as well and sent people to investigate. But even several professional police officers were not as capable as you, my son,” Hans said, then glanced at David. He naturally understood that David must have left some things out, but that did not matter.

“I also understand what you’re worried about. Your Aunt Bertha does not have such complicated thoughts. When I came back from the battlefield all those years ago, after your mother and I separated, I was suffering terribly from trauma. Every night I dreamed only of the battlefield. During that time, it was the simple kindness of Bertha—her comfort, her encouragement—that helped me out of that nightmare.

“Stett is Stett, Bertha is Bertha. Let the matter of Stett’s death end here,” Hans said, revealing for the first time in David’s presence the feelings he held for Bertha.

In truth, whether it was Hans or the military, after David had used the long-range sniper cannon to kill three terrifying second-tier insect creatures, they would all have guessed that Mr. Stett’s death by that same long-range sniper cannon was inevitably connected to David.

But with the contribution David had already made to the military and to Peran City, no one would pursue it now—and even if they did, they would find nothing.