Chapter 106 - 105: He Won’t Die Anytime Soon

Rick Kaye held his breath, staring unblinkingly at the little girl’s small fists as they pounded away rhythmically. With every touch of her little fists, a sharp pain shot through his right leg. But the moment she lifted her hands, the pain vanished, and the leg returned to its numb, rigid state, as if the sensation had been nothing but a hallucination.

Afraid of tiring the little girl out, Rick forced his emotions down and spoke in the gentlest tone he could muster. "Pounding my leg hurts a little. How about you stop pounding and just rub it instead? That might feel better."

"Really? I’ll try that then!" Rose said earnestly, switching from pounding to a gentle stroke.

Her tiny palms wandered over Rick’s lower legs. Wherever she touched, his left leg felt as soothingly warm as soaking in a hot spring, while his right leg flared with bursts of sharp pain. Rick was so agitated that his body began to tremble slightly. He wondered, "Is this... the real reason Doctor Jenkins sent me to Seven Steele House to recover?"

Doctor Jenkins’s actual thoughts? Not at all!

He merely wanted to use Rick’s recovery at Seven Steele House as a legitimate excuse to come over and freeload meals every day. Of course, his reasoning was also practical—staying at Seven Steele House was indeed much safer than staying by his side. Most importantly, he was a grown man; what did he know about taking care of people?

But Rick’s situation required absolute secrecy, meaning he couldn’t dare hire a caretaker and would have to handle everything himself. Having lived as the young master of the Jenkins Family for over twenty years, he would rather die than wait on a severely injured patient. It was better to just let Sev Steele take care of Rick. At worst, he would just pay her a higher fee.

Rick watched the little girl earnestly stroking his legs. Her small hands stretched out as far as they could reach before pulling back again. He felt like he was exploiting child labor, but he couldn’t bear to part with the sharp pain she brought him. Rather than death, he was far more terrified of being permanently paralyzed in bed, living every day devoid of dignity.

A fierce battle waged within him. He thought, "My little apprentice is tired and should rest. But maybe she can rub it for just a little longer. Just a little while longer!"

Over ten minutes later, her biological clock finally kicked in. Rose’s eyelids grew heavy, her little head nodded, and she eventually fell asleep, slumped directly over Rick’s leg.

It took a tremendous amount of effort for Rick to use his only functional arm to scoop the little girl up by the waist and pull her up to lie down beside him. After carefully tucking her in, he looked at the soft, chubby little child next to him with a complex expression.

When the Head of the Stone Family had treated him earlier, he had lingered on the edge of consciousness and could still feel his body. At that time, half of his body was stiff, numb, and completely devoid of sensation. The other half suffered unspeakably from the residual clash of the Two-headed Lizard’s ice and fire abilities.

However, this four-year-old child’s Power Level was clearly only at the Second Tier, yet her Ability far exceeded any Healing Ability he was familiar with. It was brimming with boundless vitality. He even suspected that if a Mutant Beast were to devour her flesh and blood, it would undoubtedly advance in Level on the spot.

This conjecture sent waves of chills through his heart, and cold sweat seeped from his back. Her adoptive mother, Sev Steele, was an ordinary person and surely wouldn’t notice the child’s anomaly. Even Jared Jenkins would likely only scratch the surface, considering he had never absorbed Rose’s Ability.

He thought, "No, I have to keep this secret strictly guarded. Otherwise, the little girl will definitely be snatched away by some major faction, locked up forever, and treated as their guinea pig." But in order to protect her, he first had to stay alive and regain his Ability.

In this moment, a fierce desire to survive sprouted within Rick. Stimulated by these extreme emotions, faint, minute purple electrical arcs began to emerge from the exhausted Thunder Power within his body. Ability users above the Fifth Tier all possessed the ability to look inward at their own bodies, and he could clearly sense these tiny arcs. His Ability was beginning to recover, even if only by a fraction. This at least proved that he wasn’t going to die anytime soon.

Sev Steele woke up from her sleep and found a message notification on her watch. Tapping it open, she saw that it was actually a pickup slip.

"Your goods have been dispatched. Please proceed to Row 6, Number 36 in Sector A within three days to collect your items. Overdue collections will incur a storage fee of 100 points per day."

Looking at such a baffling pickup slip, Sev just wanted to let out a string of curses. For a moment, she was a bit confused, wondering if this was some scammer’s trick or if she had actually ordered something.

After lying in bed in a daze for quite a while, she finally remembered. On her third day in this world, she had gone to Virenswood to chop bamboo and unexpectedly stumbled upon a fierce battle between Silvy’s Mom and a Mutant Coral Snake. In a moment of softheartedness, she had helped cut open the snake’s belly to deliver its young. Silvy’s Mom had entrusted her baby to Sev on her deathbed, allowing Sev to score the Mutant Coral Snake’s corpse as an unexpected windfall. After paying Doctor Jenkins ten thousand points as a service fee, he had finally helped her commission two custom-made Snake Tooth Daggers.

On the pickup slip sent by the other party at the time, it had seemingly stated that the items would be ready in ten days. Sev counted the days on her fingers and realized she had already been in this world for twelve days. By that calculation, their delivery date was actually a day early.

Daggers were life-saving weapons for a Scavenger. She immediately grew excited, bolting upright and scrambling out of bed to wash up quickly before changing into her most expensive new clothes. Well, they couldn’t really be called brand-new anymore, considering she had worn this outfit for two days, leaving a few scuff marks on it. Today, Sev specifically braided her hair into a Russian braid, tying it off with a black hair tie adorned with a Rose Pendant. This was a cheap hair accessory the original owner of her body had bought for 5 points, and it was also the only piece of jewelry she had left behind.

There was still quite a bit of the steamed hazel mushroom milk custard left over from last night. She reheated it in the steamer, brought a bowl over to Rick, and then called the children to the table to eat.

Hearing her say she was going to pick up the daggers, a glimmer of longing flashed through Firestone’s eyes, but it was quickly extinguished. He wasn’t old enough to go out scavenging yet, so his mother definitely wouldn’t give him a dagger.

Sev took in the boy’s expression perfectly. She remembered how her second son had been feeling down lately because he wasn’t good at weaving cushions, often hiding alone in the yard to chop wood. Smiling, she looked at him and said, "Firestone, would you like to come with me to pick up the daggers?"

Firestone immediately revealed a look of pleasant surprise. "Really? I can go with you?"

"Yes, really," Sev nodded.

"I’d love to! I’d love to!" Firestone nodded eagerly.

"Go change into your new clothes, then come with me," Sev said.

Firestone instantly leaped up from the dining table and sprinted to the bedroom. He dug through his trunk to find the complimentary outfit he had received and changed into it, not forgetting to use his mother’s comb to tidy up his messy short hair.

Sev looked over her freshly spruced-up second son. The navy blue crewneck t-shirt paired with grayish-black casual trousers was an ordinary style, but it made him look much more energetic, seemingly elevating his good looks by quite a bit. Sev nodded in satisfaction and said, "Not bad, not bad at all. My son has such good natural features that even a casual outfit makes him look devastatingly handsome!"

Firestone immediately blushed a deep red, keeping his head down as he followed closely behind her out the door.

Zephyr watched him leave with a face full of envy. He thought, "Mom already took my older brother to the supermarket before, and now she’s taking my second brother to pick up the daggers. Sigh! When will it be my turn!"