NOVEL WEB Arc#1 Chapter 5: A Loud Lie
'I'M BACK, BABY...!' Ken couldn't help but inwardly pump his fists. 'I really thought I was a goner there...'
He took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling and basking in the joy of being alive. The fit he had before passing out was the worst he had ever had; it wouldn't have been weird if he had died right there.
But here he was, still alive.
After the initial joy of surviving, Ken now remembered that he was still strapped to his bed. It was incredibly uncomfortable. He really hoped to be freed ASAP.
"Is anyone there?" Ken tried to call out, but he could only manage to do so with a soft, raspy, and barely perceptible voice,
'Damn. If it's this bad, I wonder how long I was out this time...'
Fortunately, there were two maids in the room with him. These were the maids assigned to him even before he had passed out. They were sitting on stools placed in their own respective corners of the room.
"... Huh?"
"Eh?"
Initially, The two maids were confused about the source of the noise.
The room was normally very quiet; aside from the beeping of the various medical apparatuses, there were no other sounds. Furthermore, seeing as the room had good soundproofing, noises from outside were rarely, if ever, heard from inside. So a voice suddenly speaking out, despite its hoarseness, could be heard immediately. The maid found it hard to associate it with the room's patient at first, but one of them realized it eventually and ran up to the bed while exclaiming.
"Y-young master!?"
"You're awake!"
"Ah. Good, it's you two." Ken let out a sigh of relief, glad that he wasn't alone in the room. "Quickly get these things off me...and please get me some water too."
The two were shocked at first, but they quickly snapped out of it and started unbinding Ken's body.
After that was done, Ken asked for their help so that he could sit up, then quickly drank the water they provided.
"Wooh. Good stuff." Ken put down the water bottle and cleared his throat. His previously dry throat was crying out in happiness.
The water tasted better than anything he had ever drunk. He didn't know how long that opinion would last though.
"So, how long was I asleep?"
He had fallen into a comatose-like state numerous times in the past. He didn't really keep track, but he thought it should be more than ten times, at least. Most of them would only last for about a week — two weeks if they were particularly bad. The longest coma had lasted for a month. However, since this was the worst fit of illness he had ever experienced, Ken predicted that the coma that followed would not have been shorter than a month.
"Uhmm... About six months, sir." One of the maids answered, shocking Ken to his core. "Ah, sir... Shouldn't we inform the hospital that you've awoken?"
'S-six months...? Goddamn.'
Ken was still dazed, but he agreed that the hospital needed to be informed. He nodded towards the maid that spoke. "Yeah, you go do that."
"Yes!" The maid answered, then turned and ran towards the door, evidently excited by Ken's recovery.
"Is Kyouka okay?" Ken glanced uneasily at the other maid watching over him, worried that Kyouka still blamed herself for his illness and the fit.
"Ah, madam Kyouka? Yes, she is okay. She comes and visits every two or three days. There are times that she even stays and sleeps here for a few days."
"Ah. Good." Ken sighed inwardly in relief. With the most important questions in his mind answered, he thought it was about time to take stock of his own condition.
His eyes still felt a bit heavy and itchy with crust. The joints of his bones felt like rusted metal. Finally, his muscles were heavy, as if they were made of lead.
But Ken was used to all of this. These things were normal fare when one woke up from a coma. So he moved on to other things.
'I don't think I have any memory loss either...'
Ken could still remember everything that happened, and why he fell into a coma.
He remembered that because of his selfish desire to go outside, he had cajoled Kyouka into helping him. They chatted a bit outside, while Ken breathed in the fresh air he had missed for such a long time. Then as they were coming back from the little trip, Ken's illness suddenly flared up. It was the worst it had ever been, and he thought he would die, but somewhere at the back of his head, a strange feeling told him that it wasn't his time just yet.
As long as he didn't actually wake up between that time and now, he could say that his memory had no problems.
'In fact, my memory is a little too good. I even dreamed about something that happened thirteen years ago...'
He could still remember everything vividly, too.
'Well... whatever.'
Shrugging off the weirdness, Ken stretched his neck and flexed his fingers. That was when he started noticing things about his body that were strange.
'Why don't I feel any side effects...?'
After waking up from a coma, he'd normally experience anything from intense vertigo to delayed muscle response. There were others, but those two symptoms were always there to welcome him back from his forced slumber.
'Did they suddenly get lucky and invent some kind of wonder drug?' Ken thought, but he shook his head after a moment. The likelihood of that being true was low. He didn't mean to insult the people working in the labs, but some things just weren't possible.
Ken had to take various drugs to cope with his illness.
His will to endure was a huge factor in his survival; however, it could only take him so far. All the meds he took were made precisely by the labs that worked under their family. They were hired by his father to keep producing new medicines after all the medicine available in the market stopped working on Ken. These labs were full of extremely skilled and talented people from around the world, and they definitely lived up to their name; they consistently produced results.
Every few weeks or so, the lab even gave Ken new types of pills — pills that they tailor-made for him.
The side effects he usually felt came from these drugs.
There were no problems when he was awake, since the researchers could ask him questions and monitor his condition accurately. They would offer him smaller doses, and gradually increase it from there so that they could make it as effective as possible while reducing discomfort and unwanted side effects. Furthermore, they would have had more time to perform various tests with the medicine before they even let Ken try it.
There was never any risk and very little discomfort.
But when he was in a coma, the researchers couldn't ask him any questions, and he naturally couldn't answer any of theirs.
With no other choice, they had to feed Ken drugs that had the dosage he needed, without being able to adjust it properly. Furthermore, since new drugs seemed to stop being effective on Ken faster than usual whenever he was in a coma, they had to produce new recipes much faster as well.
And because they were in such a rush, they performed only the minimum amount of tests — just to make sure that the medicine didn't have any chance to outright kill him — then sent it to him right away. They had no choice after all. They needed to keep Ken alive, so the dosage had to be what they were sure would save him.
In any case, Ken was thankful to those people. If it weren't for those researchers, the illness would have killed his body before the pain killed his mind.
He had absolute confidence in their abilities to keep him alive, but there were just things that they wouldn't be able to do. Creating a suitable set of drugs for him that had absolutely no side effects was just impossible, especially since he had been in a coma for six months; his consumption of new recipes must have been staggering.
'Those skinny bastards probably worked like crazy these past few months...'
Ken pondered about the hardships the people working in the lab must have endured to keep him alive. He couldn't help but feel incredibly moved. Even though they were just doing their jobs, Ken knew that they wouldn't have been able to do their jobs so well if they didn't care about him at all. They had poured their blood, sweat, and tears into the medicine they produced for him.
'I'll have to thank them somehow.'
The fact that there were no side effects wasn't even the strangest of the things Ken noticed about himself.
'The pain...' Ken started punching out with his right arm vigorously. Then started rapidly bobbing his head. He tried all sorts of other movements, all with a serious look on his face. 'There's no more pain.'
Despite the disappearance of the constant agony that plagued him, Ken didn't look happy at all. He seemed to have come to a conclusion about something as a stern look appeared on his face.
'Two... no, maybe three days...?'
Ken silently looked at his body and made calculations in his mind with a serious expression. Soon, a tired sigh escaped his lips.
'That's not a whole lot of time...'
"Young master!? What's happening!? Are you okay!?" The maid who had stayed with Ken shouted worriedly. She ran up to Ken's side, anxious that his illness was flaring up again.
"Oh, my bad. Don't worry. I was just trying out a bunch of stuff to make sure of something." Ken smiled wryly at the panicking maid, trying his best to assure her that he was indeed not having a seizure.
Just as he finished calming her down, doctors and nurses burst through his hospital room. He could even see his usually stoic bodyguards taking a peek.
'Ah. Let's take care of things here first.' Ken decided.
The expression on his face changed to the one he always wore. His eyes turned kinder, and his lips formed a smile.
"It's a miracle!" Exclaimed Dr. Harold Murphy. "A miracle, I say!"
"Yes, doctor. It really is!" Ken said while laughing.
They were currently sitting on the couch in Ken's hospital room. Kagami Ken was famous amongst the hospital's staff. His background aside, he had been in this hospital for thirteen years!
Ken came here as a boy, then became a man here as well. Polite, well-mannered, and always did as the doctors and nurses told — the doctors and nurses couldn't ask for more. He even gave out presents to the staff from time to time.
There were certainly a few people who were somewhat prejudiced against him, saying that he was just deceiving them all, however, Dr. Harold Murphy wasn't one of those people. He actually liked Ken quite a lot and thought he was an amazing young man for enduring so much at such a young age.
The old doctor really admired his spirit.
'There's hope for this world's gods after all!'
Dr. Murphy treated his work as his wife, so he had no children or grandchildren. Ken, who he had watched grow up, was the closest thing he had to a grandson.
So when Dr. Murphy heard that Ken had awakened, he rushed over here with excitement, not noticing that there were others who had done the same. His happiness grew even more when Ken began to tell him that the pain he suffered had disappeared entirely. Ken even started doing jumping jacks right in front of him.
Jumping jacks, of all things!
Dr. Murphy had seen a lot of people die in this hospital. Some were due to old age, which he could do nothing about.
But he had seen children die from various terminal illnesses as well.
Seeing those children who should have had infinite potential die before they even hit puberty made Dr. Murphy think that gods really didn't exist. If there was one, then they were either an evil god or an indifferent one. Naturally, he believed most "miracles" were just coincidences or unexplained phenomena.
But look at him now!
Dr. Murphy had been one of the doctors who'd been in charge of Ken since he came here. He had seen the boy's suffering. He knew a lot of what Ken had to go through, and how absolutely baffling his condition was.
Kagami Ken suffered from chronic pain all over his body, which was so bad he couldn't fall asleep unless it was due to medication or exhaustion. For some reason he became immune to medicine after a few weeks, so the Kagami Family had to procure new recipes which were tailor-made for Ken. This pain intensified whenever he moved his body.
Not only that, but for some reason, his organs would also start showing signs of failure from time to time.
Even after he had multiple organ transplants, the new organs would do the same. His old organs would all be completely fine once they were taken out of him. They had transplanted his old organs into another patient who couldn't find an organ donor in time, and that person was walking around just fine!
There had never been an illness such as this, so the doctors had truly been stumped with Ken's treatment.
And now that incomprehensible illness had somehow been cured!
What could it possibly be, if not a miracle!?
Six months ago, when Ken fell into a coma, Dr. Murphy had truly feared for the worst. But not only did Ken wake up from it, he even had his illness cured. Dr. Murphy truly could not contain his excitement.
"Doctor, please calm down. Why do you seem happier than I am?" Ken smiled wryly at the old doctor.
"Haha! Well now, you can't blame me." Dr. Murphy chuckled. He looked at Ken like a grandfather his son as he spoke with sincerity. His eyes — which he thought had dried up from all the painful things he'd ever seen — were threatening to spill over with tears. "I really am glad. So glad."
Gazing at the white-haired old doctor in front of him, who was so sincerely happy for him that he was almost in tears, caused a pained look to momentarily flash in Ken's eyes. However, he quickly hid it away and gave the various Hospital staff around him a look. "Thank you. Thank you to everyone who's here as well as those who aren't."
Ken stood up straight and bowed deeply to the hospital staff. "Thank you. I wouldn't have made it to this age without everyone's help. I will carry this gratitude for the rest of this life, and into the next."
Hearing Ken's sincere thanks, Dr. Murphy couldn't seem to hold it in anymore, he started weeping, his hand covering his eyes. The various hospital staff in the room all felt moved by it as well, some of them burst into tears of happiness.
Ken then bowed deeply towards the two maids, as well as the guards who were watching him and the staff converse while standing by the door. "You guys too. I am truly grateful."
"N-no young master... Please raise your head! we were just doing our jobs!" One of the maids hastily tried to raise Ken's head.
"Yes! You don't have to bow to someone like us..." The other maid shyly agreed.
""It has been an honor!!"" The two bodyguards outside just saluted as they yelled out. Their movements were so crisp and in sync, one would think they practiced this.
Ken raised his head, and then looked at every single one of the people in the room. Everyone was looking at him, happy that he'd woken up and glad that he was cured. Ken basked in their caring gazes, moved that he had so many people who were concerned for him.
And then he lied to them all.
"I'm cured!" Ken exclaimed loudly, as if it would change his lies into truth.
Last Edited: July 27, 2023