They had been busy for so long that none of them noticed when the Shadow Assassin finally regained consciousness.
Though he was still extremely weak, the mere fact that he had awakened meant that his life was no longer in immediate danger.
"You people really couldn't afford to buy a high-tier recovery scroll?" the assassin rasped, his voice faint. He was lying flat on a table, his chest and abdomen wrapped in rough bandages where Aldric had already disinfected the wounds. His right arm remained twisted at an unnatural angle, and the puncture wound in his lower leg was still exposed.
The Shadow Assassin's mind was a storm of unease. The injuries he had suffered were severe—so severe, in fact, that even he wasn't sure he could survive them. But at this point, he had no choice.
In this city, the only one who might still be willing—and able to help him was this Cerysian witcher apprentice, whose interests happened to align with his own.
"Don't move," Aldric warned as he sat back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. "I don't know what kind of technique you used to keep your wounds from bleeding out, but you've only just made it past the critical phase. I only had time to deal with the most severe injuries. You still have six fractured ribs. Conservatively speaking, you won't be walking again for at least three months."
"In the temples, the recovery scrolls you can buy for gold only accelerate the body's natural regeneration," he continued, carefully wiping down his surgical tools one by one and returning them to their proper places. "They drain life force in exchange. With wounds as grave as yours, you might have died halfway through the healing process."
The assassin's eyes followed Aldric's movements, landing on the gleaming bone saw in his hand. He had woken up not long after the "operation" began. Had he not already been gutted open at that moment, Colin would have politely refused such a barbaric treatment.
Even now, shock coursed through him. Most transcendent beings relied on their enhanced vitality to survive grave injuries; more serious cases might receive divine healing magic.
Ordinary people, however, could only rely on crude medical care—enduring permanent disabilities as a result. Since the best and brightest all sought transcendence, the field of traditional medicine in this world was woefully underdeveloped.
If this surgery were made public, it would likely shake the entire field of healing to its core.
As the patient, the Shadow Assassin could feel with terrifying clarity just how intimately his ally understood the human body. Every incision was clean and precise—there wasn't the slightest mistake.
If he hadn't swallowed his organization's secret drug earlier he would've gone into convulsions from the pain the moment he woke up, ruining the procedure instantly. Aldric hadn't even bothered to use anesthesia!
"In my pocket…" the assassin whispered weakly, his breath shallow. "There's a red pill in there. Help me take it out. How long has it been since I arrived here?"
Aldric rummaged through the assassin's clothes until he found a thumb-sized crimson pill, translucent and gleaming. Ignoring the question, he asked curtly, "Explain. What is this? What does it do?"
From the start, Aldric knew this assassin was a blunt, straightforward type. When cornered with no better options, he became surprisingly cooperative.
"This is the antidote to the Coagulation Potion," the assassin explained, forcing the words out. "I need to take it within eight hours or I'll die. The Coagulation Potion is a secret medicine issued by the Shadow Organization. It turns your blood into a gel-like substance for a short time and numbs the body's senses. We use it for long infiltration missions or, like now, to escape when we're seriously wounded."
He swallowed painfully, every breath stabbing through his chest. "I took it about an hour and a half before reaching you. I'm starting to feel pain again, which means time's almost up. If you don't want to watch me turn into a human statue right before your eyes, then give me that damn pill!"
Gone was the assassin's usual poise. Confronted with death, Colin abandoned all pretense of elegance. His breathing quickened, aggravating his wounds until his entire body trembled in agony.
Aldric stopped questioning him and shoved the pill into his mouth. The female warrior standing nearby handed him a cup of water. Aldric gripped the assassin's jaw and forced him to swallow it down.
The water went down the wrong way, triggering a violent coughing fit. The sudden strain burst open several of the freshly bandaged wounds, and dark blood quickly seeped through the gauze.
When the assassin saw his exposed wounds begin to bleed freely again, he actually exhaled in relief and slumped back onto the table. "Listen, friend… I know you want to understand what kind of trouble I've brought on myself. Don't worry—I covered my tracks. No one will find out where I am for now. I'll tell you everything… but first, stop the bleeding before I die of blood loss."
With those final words, Colin lost consciousness again.
It was fortunate this was a world suffused with supernatural power—otherwise, with only Aldric's and Vittoria's limited medical means, the Shadow Assassin would have been a corpse already.
At Aldric's instruction, the warrior secretly went to the black market and bought two high-grade healing potions for a steep price—two hundred gold coins.
For now, the Shadow Assassin's life was no longer in danger. No one knew that Aldric had hidden him in his own quarters—not even his mentor, nor the dwarf owner of the place, Gloin.
The only complication was that when the female warrior went out early that morning to make her purchase, the dwarf Gloin happened to see her leaving Aldric's room.
From that moment on, all the dwarves in the hall regarded Aldric with odd looks, making him briefly wonder if they had discovered he was hiding an assassin.
Setting those minor issues aside, later that noon, Aldric met with his teacher again at the Boar's Head Tavern. From him, he learned that Antoine had finally realized his private vault had been robbed the previous night.
Even more bizarre, a note signed by the Shadow Assassin had been deliberately left behind inside the vault. Enraged, Antoine nearly threw his back out during his furious outburst.
True to his word, the Shadow Assassin had lived up to his reputation. To make the theft appear authentic, he even revealed his true identity right in front of Antoine and his guards before slipping into the shadows to flee.
Unfortunately for him, fate had other plans. On duty that night was a paladin of Luminor, the Lord of Radiance, who immediately exposed him with a blinding holy light spell.
Two extraordinary fighters—whose presence by Antoine's side had gone completely unnoticed until then joined forces and severely wounded the assassin. But in the end, he still managed to escape by the skin of his teeth.
Hearing his teacher recount the entire incident, Aldric couldn't help but admire the assassin's nerve. That man had pulled it off beautifully.
As for Antoine, the fact that he'd quietly hired two transcendents as personal bodyguards meant he was now much more formidable than before. If Aldric wanted to "shear some wool" from him again, he'd have to plan much more carefully from now on.
(End of Chapter)