"Ugh."
A wave of retching rose and fell through the hospital corridor, drawing sidelong looks from everyone passing by.
The sound came from a group of burly men in suits. They were built like bulls, yet now they were huddled together in embarrassment, dry-heaving as if they had just staggered off a spinning ride.
The contrast was so ridiculous that even the old janitor shook his head in disdain.
"How embarrassing."
Mixed in among them, the President forced himself to stand upright, deeply grateful that he had brought a group of bodyguards.
Not to guard against Tver and the others, but to block his nationally famous face.
As the president of a country, of course he could not let himself be brought alone by wizards to a hospital in New York.
But out of trust in Tver, he had brought only the smallest possible team with him to "enjoy" the wonders of magic.
Yes, that was exactly how he had described it to his elite security detail and assistant.
As a result, all of them had been made sick by the strange sensation of experiencing Apparition for the first time.
"Mr. President, I have to say, being stuffed into a toothpaste tube and squeezed back out feels even worse than flying a fighter jet," one bodyguard said helplessly.
"And those wizards said we'd be fine once we got used to it…"
The President straightened his somewhat rumpled suit and wiped the corner of his mouth. Only after confirming that no embarrassing trace remained did he force a standard smile onto his pale face and walk into the ward beside them.
Several green-robed wizards who looked like doctors stood around the bed, quietly discussing something. Tver stood behind them with Bulstrode, asking questions from time to time, while Babajide looked at the person lying on the bed with a face full of relief.
"This must be Mr. Cruz Theron!"
The President strode forward enthusiastically and reached out to shake his hand. Or rather, he tried to.
Cruz's body was covered in dense, tiny wounds. He looked as if he had been torn apart, leaving almost nowhere for anyone to touch.
"Er, didn't you say more than a hundred wounds? There must be fifty on his arms alone!" the President asked in shock.
One Healer raised her eyes slightly and glanced at him calmly.
"More than a hundred refers to wounds severe enough to be fatal. Compared with those, these are only insignificant minor injuries."
Tver looked with amusement at the President, whose mouth had fallen open in astonishment.
Cruz might look full of energy now, but in truth, his injuries were far more serious than Tver had imagined.
Splinching from Apparition was not simple cutting. It meant part of the body had been left behind at the original location.
In other words, all these wounds, large and small, had been caused by missing flesh and blood beneath them.
So simply stopping the bleeding was no longer enough to treat injuries this severe. What he and the Healers were discussing was precisely how to replace the missing flesh and blood.
In the wizarding world, such treatment was troublesome, but it did exist.
Only…
Tver looked sadly at Cruz's left arm hidden beneath the blanket. A section of the forearm was clearly missing.
This kind of injury was similar to Moody's foot and eye. Unless the severed limb could be found in time, even the most skilled Healer could not restore it.
And that severed limb had clearly vanished along with the plane.
"This is already the best possible outcome."
Seeing the sorrowful expressions on Tver and the others, Cruz spoke brightly despite his lingering weakness.
"Do any of you understand the value of Apparating with more than two hundred people? I've at least set a world record here. No one will ever break it!"
He proudly lifted his left arm, only for the movement to pull at his wounds and make him grimace in pain.
The Healer who had spoken earlier clearly held a special position. Without any politeness, she shoved a bottle of potion into Cruz's mouth.
"If your body hadn't been strong enough, if your magical power hadn't been abundant enough, if your spellcasting technique hadn't been skilled enough, and if you hadn't had Lady Luck's blessing, you would have died the instant you Apparated if even one of those four conditions had been missing!"
"Heh, but I was lucky enough to survive, wasn't I? And I saved more than two hundred people. That's an enormous win!" Cruz did not dare disobey and obediently swallowed the potion, which tasted extremely strange.
After drinking it, he grinned at the Healer. "Besides, Lady Luck's blessing can't compare to yours."
Whether because he lacked tact or was simply too impatient, the President made his presence known in a very loud voice.
"That's right. Mr. Cruz saved more than two hundred lives and arrested a vicious criminal. He is an outstanding, er, wizard worthy of the gratitude of every citizen of the United States!"
"This may be a little rude, but I still have to ask…" Cruz frowned slightly in displeasure.
"Who are you?"
The President visibly froze in awkwardness for a second, but it quickly disappeared.
"I am the current President of the United States. I came here specially to express my gratitude to you on behalf of all those you saved."
"Mr. President." The dedicated assistant appeared at the door again. "The people rescued from the plane would like to come in and thank Mr. Cruz."
"Let them in quickly." Ignoring the pain in his body, Cruz sat up excitedly. "I should be the one thanking them!"
Seeing everyone's confusion, he quickly explained, "In that situation, I had no way to control where the Apparition would take us, so I could only bring everyone to a deserted mountain range."
"But they didn't give up on saving me. Instead, one after another, they took turns carrying me to a farm. Then they used that, I think it was a car, to take me to a hospital. And it just happened to be a hospital with a wizard in it."
"Otherwise, I would have lost too much blood and never woken up again, and…"
Thinking back to that life-or-death moment, even the openhearted Cruz felt a lingering fear and took the Healer's hand.
"I never would have seen you again."
Sensing that the atmosphere in the ward was gradually turning strange, and remembering that the passengers who had narrowly survived would soon arrive, Tver quickly coughed twice.
"We'll leave this place to Mr. Cruz. I believe the President still has some matters he wishes to discuss with Mr. Babajide."
His thoughts having been called out, the President paused. Seeing everyone looking at him, he had no choice but to nod helplessly.
"That's right. We won't disturb Mr. Cruz's rest."
He had still been planning to remain here and put on a show, preferably taking a photo or two to boost his reputation.
He had not expected Tver to expose that little thought directly.
"There's an empty ward next door. Do you need me to prepare…"
"No need," Tver interrupted the assistant. "We have very little to discuss."
"Isn't that right, Mr. President?"
This time, the initiative was in his hands.