Chapter 243: Awakening
No one knew how much time had passed.
Perhaps only an instant.
Perhaps a very long while.
The first sensation to return was... touch.
Something beneath her back was a little hard, but not painfully so. Its surface seemed to be covered in some kind of rough fabric. What lay over her body was very thin, almost weightless, yet it kept out the cold from outside.
Then came the smell.
A complicated scent rushed into her nose—one that was not particularly pleasant, yet strangely reassuring. There was the strong, bitter smell of medicinal herbs, the stale dusty scent of old canvas and wood shut up in an enclosed space, and a faint trace of something like disinfectant, covering up the sulfur and scorched stench that had lingered before.
At last, hearing and sight slowly returned.
The ringing in her ears gradually faded. Outside, there were some... regular sounds?
The light clink of metal armor plates brushing together. Low voices speaking too softly to make out. And farther away, short, sharp shouts like commands, followed by neat, orderly responses.
Her eyelids felt as heavy as lead. Lillian had to struggle with all her strength just to force them open a crack.
Her vision was blurred. Unsteady. Layered with overlapping shadows.
She blinked with effort, then blinked again and again, until at last the scene before her slowly settled into focus.
A deep-brown, heavy canvas ceiling.
A simple square magic-crystal lamp hung at the center, steadily giving off a warm yellow glow. Beneath her was a gray-green blanket with rough woven texture, and through it she could feel the hard wooden board of the bed underneath.
A... tent?
She lay there blankly, her mind feeling rusted and unable to turn.
Several more seconds passed before the fragments of memory came crashing back all at once—
The barren mountain! The cold wind! The trembling! The humming! The horrific tearing and spinning! The white light!
She suddenly drew in a breath and was immediately thrown into coughing by the strong herbal smell. The coughing pulled at every muscle in her body. They ached, but it was no longer that dreadful emptiness that had reached into her bones before. Bracing herself on her arms, she slowly sat up. As she moved, she lowered her head to look at herself.
The filthy, tattered academy uniform that had been so ruined it was barely recognizable was gone. In its place, she now wore clean linen clothes—a shirt and trousers, both somewhat too large.
Panicked, she rolled up her sleeves, then tugged up her trouser legs.
The wounds on her arms and calves—the cuts, burns, scrapes, shallow and deep alike...
All of them were gone.
Her skin was smooth and clean. Only in a very few places did there remain the faintest traces of pale pink new flesh, so light they were almost impossible to see. She moved her hands and feet a little. Though her body still felt heavy with fatigue, as though she had just run an endless race, that powerless sense of being on the verge of falling apart had vanished. Strength was slowly returning to her limbs.
Healing magic?
And powerful healing magic at that.
She had really... come out? She had truly escaped that cursed place?
“My lady!”
A hoarse cry sounded from beside her.
Lillian turned and saw Rex sitting up from a cot nearby, staring wide-eyed at her, then lowering his head to look at the clean clothes on his own body. Shock and bewilderment warred across his face. He moved one shoulder, then reached out to touch his forearm, which had been badly swollen before. Now it was smooth and flat, with only the faintest trace of bruising left.
“The wounds... healed?” His voice sounded strange, almost floating. Then he yanked open his collar and peered inside. Even the ugly red burn mark across his chest where the flames had licked him was gone. His skin was smooth, only a little flushed, as though it had merely been scrubbed too hard in a bath.
“So are mine.”
Lillian heard her own voice come out dry and stiff.
She rolled up her sleeve to show her arm, then tugged up her trouser leg. The scrapes, the burns, the cuts made by rubble and dead branches... all of them had vanished.
Her skin was spotless. Only here and there remained a nearly invisible touch of pale pink. When she ran a hand over it, it felt smooth, with no pain and no itching. That bone-deep exhaustion and soreness had mostly faded as well. She was still tired, still heavy with fatigue, but at least her body obeyed her again.
It was not a dream. They had really escaped. And someone had healed them.
The two of them simply stared at one another for a while. For a time, the tent was so quiet that only the faint noises of the camp outside and their uneven breathing could be heard.
“Where’s Vera?” Lillian suddenly remembered and quickly turned to look around. The tent was not large. Apart from the two camp beds they had occupied, there was no sign of Vera.
Rex immediately swept his gaze around the tent as well, frowning. “She wasn’t put here with us?”
Apparently not. Only the two of them were in this tent.
The tiny spark of relief that had only just begun to rise in Lillian’s heart at seeing her wounds healed was immediately smothered by fresh unease.
Where had Vera gone? How badly was she hurt? Had she been healed too? Or...
She shook her head, forcing herself not to think the worst. The most urgent thing now was to figure out what was happening.
“Let’s go outside and see,” Lillian said, throwing off the thin blanket and stepping barefoot onto the cold, rough wooden floor.
The boards were solid beneath her feet. She went to the tent flap, drew in a deep breath, and lifted the heavy canvas curtain.
Bright afternoon sunlight stabbed in at once, making her squint.
Before her stretched rows upon rows of neat gray tents, like a field of silent mushrooms.
Knights in shining breastplates and swords at their hips patrolled between them with regular, powerful steps, their eyes sweeping the surroundings as sharply as hawks.
From farther away came the shouts of people training, the crisp clash of weapons, and the sound of commands being given.
It was a completely different world from the scorching, chaotic ruin full of death they had only just escaped.
Rex came out after her and stopped beside her, his tall, sturdy body like a wall. He too was visibly shaken by the sight before them, and instinctively straightened his back, his eyes scanning the area with wary caution.
“This is the camp we came from,” Rex said.
“We... really made it back.” Lillian’s voice was almost a whisper. At last, the enormous stone that had been hanging over her heart seemed to crash down into place. The impact made her knees feel weak, and at the same time made her want to cry.
She blinked hard and forced the wetness back.
“We need to find Vera first, and then figure out what happened with Ryan and the others,” she said, steadying herself.
The two of them were just about to stop someone at random and ask, when a young soldier carrying a large wooden crate happened to pass by. The box looked heavy, and he was breathing a little hard under its weight.
“Excuse me, sir,” Lillian said, doing her best to make her voice sound polite and harmless as she stopped him. “Among the people brought back with us, there was another girl, a little taller than me, with gray-green eyes. She may have been injured too. Do you know where she is? And our other companions who were still unconscious...”
The young soldier stopped and looked the two of them over. His gaze lingered on their clean but obviously ill-fitting clothes, then on the traces of soot still not fully washed from Lillian’s face and the stubble on Rex’s jaw. A look of sudden realization crossed his face.
“Oh! So you’re the ones—the young heroes who came back out of the ruins this time?” There was clear respect in his voice, and even a little excitement. “I just heard the medical team talking about you. They said they rescued several extraordinary academy students who actually managed to fully explore the toughest ruin of the year! That’s incredible!”
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