Chapter 3: (1)
“It’s okay, kid. I once caught an orc with my bare hands back in the day!” Jeff exclaimed, raising his arm and flexing his muscles.
The young man, Kaiyan, breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness you’re not hurt. Thank you so much.”
“Forget about it. Let’s take a look at that wound of yours.”
Kaiyan winced as Jeff lifted his shoddy armor to reveal a deep gash on his left leg, blood flowing freely from the wound.
Jeff’s expression showed surprise as he saw the extent of the injury. He quickly tore a strip of cloth from his own clothing and wrapped it tightly around Kaiyan’s leg. “We need to get you to a cleric for treatment. Let’s go to the infirmary.”
Kaiyan hesitated, “I can go by myself. You’re still in good shape, and I don’t want to be a burden.”
The vast plain was currently the site of a fierce battle between humans and monsters. He couldn’t let Jeff suffer more losses because of him. While some had joined the war for a special reason like Kaiyan, many others, like Jeff, had joined for money.
“But I can’t let you leave on your own,” Jeff replied. “I’ll feel better if I know you’re getting proper treatment.”
“I’m fine, really. Besides, I caught ten goblins today,” Kaiyan said with a grin.
Jeff tousled Kaiyan’s hair roughly, leaving it in a mess. “This guy! You need to be careful out there!”
Despite his concern, Kaiyan smiled and urged Jeff to go. “Don’t worry about me. You should go back and join the fight.”
“Okay, but take this before I go. It’s a much better weapon than the wooden spear they give us,” Jeff said, handing Kaiyan a steel sword that he had taken from a dead goblin.
Kaiyan hesitated, knowing that all spoils of war belonged to the alliance. If he was caught with it, there would be severe consequences.
But Jeff insisted. “Don’t worry about it. You need it more than I do.”
As Kaiyan hesitated to take the sword, Jeff forcefully handed it over to him.
“It’s okay. Bryan and I were on the same side in the war. Unlike the regular soldiers, his belongings rightfully belong to me, not the Allied forces. Who would dare to object if I give my property to you?”
“Oh, then thank you. Jeff, thank you.”
Grateful for the weapon, which was quite desirable for an iron sword, Kaiyan accepted it.
Upon examining the sword more closely, Kaiyan noticed the initials of Bryan inscribed on the pommel at the end of the handle. He had heard that since most of the swords used by commoners look similar, they often wrote their initials like this.
“Iron sword… thank you, Bryan.”
After closing his eyes for a moment, he expressed his gratitude to Bryan.
He had just realized that it was difficult to face monsters properly with the wooden spear. Therefore, he needed a good weapon to supplement his insufficient strength, and this iron sword was more than enough to do that.
“Well then, see you later, Kaiyan.”
Jeff left with a bitter expression on his face, heading to hunt monsters. He probably intended to hunt down an orc that was deeper on the battlefield. He was skilled enough to do so, unlike him.
“Oh, right! The Storage.”
As Kaiyan tried to leave the battlefield with his injured body, he noticed a square box floating in his vision again.
It was a magical situation where the box was floating alone in mid-air.
“What is this… and what was that strange feeling earlier?”
As curiosity filled his mind, Kaiyan touched the box with his hand.
[A beginner’s help book, the lowest-grade recovery potion (5), quest reward box (F).]
As information about the items stored in the square box flowed naturally into his mind, he thought to himself, “Am I really going crazy…? Haha.”
It seemed ridiculous to doubt himself after he accepted reality before, but it was truly absurd.
“Well, recovery potions are one thing, but…”
Kaiyan knew too well what a recovery potion was, even as a commoner.
Recovery potions were divided into those made by magicians and those made by priests, and they shared the commonality of being extremely expensive. Even for a commoner, a potion was a rare item to see in their lifetime.
But was such a potion stored in this Storage thing?
“A fantasy must be believable to be convincing. Even for a moment, I believed it…”
As our Kaiyan looked around, he couldn’t see the priest who had treated him yesterday. He had hoped to find the priest nearby, but unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen.
Realizing he had no other choice, Kaiyan decided to wait for another priest to provide treatment.
“There are too many people here,” he muttered to himself.
He briefly considered leaving, but his leg was still bothering him, and staying put seemed like the better option.
Kaiyan sighed, realizing that he might have to stay here for several days.
“Yesterday was lucky,” he thought to himself.
Kaiyan looked around, noticing that no one seemed to care about the blood-stained rags that littered the ground. The occasional bloodstain made him wonder if one of the soldiers had died from excessive bleeding. It was a chaotic place.
Kaiyan knew he would have to wait at least three days before receiving treatment.
“If there really is a healing potion here… no, this is just a hallucination,” Kaiyan thought, as he stared at a floating box in the distance.
He briefly entertained the idea that the box might be real but quickly dismissed it as a pointless thought. If the box was real, surely someone else would have noticed it and said something about it. The fact that no one else was reacting to it made it clear that it was just a hallucination.
” … If you’re real, show me the healing potion,” Kaiyan said aloud.
Perhaps it was because he had been lying in bed for so long, but he felt like it was worth a try. Suddenly, a voice asked him if he wanted the lowest-level healing potion.
Kaiyan was startled but answered yes. Almost immediately, he felt something in his left hand. When he looked down, he saw a small glass bottle containing a red liquid.
He had never actually seen a healing potion before, but the one in his hand looked exactly like the one he had heard about in stories.
Kaiyan wondered if someone was playing a trick on him, but when he looked around, he saw that no one else had a bottle like his.
Kaiyan was taken aback by what he saw. “Is that real? This is a real potion…”
He almost spoke the words aloud in surprise, but managed to catch himself in time and hastily covered his mouth with his hand.
Then, gulping down his saliva, he quickly hid the potion under the blanket.
“If this is really a potion, I can’t let anyone else know about it,” he thought to himself.
This was a hospital ward overflowing with patients. What if someone found out that he had a potion? They would probably swarm him like a pack of wolves.
And above all, there was a very high chance of being suspected.
A potion was too valuable an item for an ordinary commoner to carry around.
“Is it real? What if this strange liquid is not a potion?” Kaiyan pondered for a moment before closing his mouth and carefully pouring the potion onto the wound on his leg. When the red liquid touched the wound, he let out a small gasp of relief as the pain began to subside.