This should be the most peaceful sleep Bologue has ever had in his life, as if an angel was watching over him in his dreams. There was no fatigue, nor any so-called headache. It was like waking up from a warm pool, and an unfamiliar ceiling greeted his eyes when he opened them.
Hmm... alright, this ceiling seems a bit wrong.
Bologue sat up alertly from the hospital bed and looked around. He was in a hospital room, wearing a white and blue striped hospital gown.
The ceiling was several ters high, and one side of the wall was a large floor-to-ceiling window made entirely of glass. The soft sunlight easily filled the room, casting a golden glow on the tiled floor.
Outside the window was a grassy lawn, with patients sitting on benches basking in the sun. Beyond the green fields rose a forest, with lush branches extending to the edge of the horizon, enveloped in a hazy mist among the mountains.
Wait a minute? Where is this?
Opus is a city filled with smog and gloom, full of cold steel and gray concrete. Such a verdant environnt could only be seen inside so greenhouses.
Is this not Opus?
Bologue felt sothing was amiss and tried hard to recall his mories before arriving here. He rembered the stone bridge during the storm and his life-and-death struggle with Sandbox.
In his mory, he had hamred Sandbox alive to death and then talked with Palr about what happened next.
Yes, they were planning to go to the Undying Club for a drink. Bologue felt that this great revenge could be a reason to celebrate.
So... why is he here? Alcohol poisoning?
No matter how hard Bologue tried to rember, his mory remained blank. He thought he might truly have alcohol poisoning, with a hangover causing him to lose the mory of that period.
Snoring sounds ca from the hospital bed next to him. Bologue pulled back the curtain, and a familiar figure was holding a blanket and sleeping soundly, even scratching his butt in his sleep.
"Wake up! Palr!"
Bologue slapped Palr awake from his sleep. This unlucky fellow had no idea what had happened and sat up with a start like a leaping carp.
His body awoke, but his consciousness lagged a few steps behind. He sat there, confused for a while before realizing and shouting out.
"Ah!"
Palr covered his face and scread.
"Stop shouting, where is this? What’s going on?" Bologue grabbed Palr’s shoulders and shook him vigorously.
Palr gradually ca to his senses and looked at Bologue, screaming again.
"Doctor! He’s awake!"
...
Through Palr’s long-winded yet exaggerated recounting, Bologue roughly understood what was going on.
"Wow, you were really cool when you said we’d go have a drink together, but before you could finish being cool, you passed out. If it weren’t for my quick reflexes, you would have fallen into the abyss." Palr said regretfully, not sure if he regretted Bologue’s fainting or not being able to have a drink.
"According to our subsequent examination of your body, to be precise, you were not just unconscious at the ti but dead. Of course, this probably didn’t make much difference to you, just a continuous interruption of mory." The woman next to the bed explained to Bologue, holding a dical record book.
Bologue observed the woman. She was the "doctor" Palr had called for. She wore a dical cap, with a few strands of black hair falling from its edge, a mask covering her face, and a loose white coat concealing her body.
"Ether depletion, massive blood loss, several fatal injuries, multiple fractures, and countless external wounds..."
Looking at the words written above, the doctor had to marvel at the resilience of the undead. Any one of these injuries could have killed an ordinary person, yet they were all combined on one person, and this guy just slept for two days and bounced back.
"According to the information provided by the Field Operations Departnt, the injury that affected you the most was ether depletion, which directly caused your ’Blessing’ to activate sluggishly."
"For this reason, we placed you in a high-concentration ether environnt, allowing you to absorb ether by yourself to undergo resurrection."
"Did this take two days?"
Bologue didn’t expect ether depletion to have such a big impact on himself, actually prolonging the resurrection ti.
This world is filled with ether; it’s everywhere. Even ordinary people will accumulate a certain amount of ether in their bodies over ti.
Previously, Bologue could quickly undergo resurrection because he was not a Condenser and had no way to mobilize the limited ether within him, and all this ether was used to activate the ’Blessing.’
In his fight with Sandbox, Bologue not only exhausted his own ether but also squandered the Soul Shards he had accumulated. No wonder his resurrection was so slow.
"No, actually, you revived in a few hours; you just remained in a coma. We observed you for quite so ti; all the data was within normal range... you might have just been too tired, so tired that you fell asleep."
"Slept for a whole two days without moving, like you were dead." Palr interjected.
"Too... tired?"
Bologue was a bit surprised; he didn’t expect it to be due to sothing like this.
But upon feeling it carefully, Bologue indeed felt much lighter, not just physically exhausted but ntally weary as well. He only now realized that his mind was more relaxed than ever, like a bunch of soft cotton floating in the air.
After all this ti, the tension he carried could finally relax.
"So, where is this?" Bologue recalled the important matter of his whereabouts.
"Border Sanatorium."
The doctor began to introduce, just like a salesperson, as if the next step was to ask Bologue whether to purchase insurance.
"This institution is located on the outskirts of Opus and is protected by the ’Void Realm,’ so there’s no need to worry about safety here. Our main service targets are the mbers of the Field Operations Departnt, providing you all with treatnt and subsequent care."
The doctor spoke while revealing the insignia on her chest. The insignia’s main design was a top-down cross-section of the human brain, with the left and right hemispheres spread open, connected in the middle by a corpus callosum resembling insect eggs, with two tentacles extending from the top of the egg-like structure...
The shape of the insignia suddenly twisted and blurred in Bologue’s eyes. He startledly realized the elents before him ford a butterfly with outspread wings, the butterfly wings representing the brain hemispheres covered with intricate patterns ford by brain grooves, reminiscent of serpents crawling on the wings.
"By the way, this is also the location belonging to the Order Bureau’s dical Departnt."
"I thought all departnts of the Order Bureau were located within the ’Cultivation Room.’
Bologue looked at the view outside the window. It was a scene that could only be seen in the outskirts of Opus, land not covered by gloom and haze.
"Not all departnts are within the ’Cultivation Room.’ When conducting certain ntal research, we are disrupted by the ’Cultivation Room,’ so we relocated here many years ago."
The doctor continued explaining, but she did not clarify what exactly the interference from the "Cultivation Room" was.
"Our departnt has considerable defensive power and is protected by a large ’Void Realm.’ The ’Void Realm’ enveloping this place is established based on the ’Cultivation Room’ by the Sublimation Furnace Core, so please rest assured.
If you wish to return to the ’Cultivation Room,’ we have a subway underground with a direct route to the ’Cultivation Room,’ which can bring you back in about twenty minutes."
Bologue nodded; he was aware of this.
The building of the ’Cultivation Room’ not only has a main entrance but also connects to the Opus subway network at an underground location, accessible through so "exclusive lines" to quickly reach any area of Opus.
"Any other questions?" The doctor asked finally.
"No... none."
"Alright."
The doctor extended her hand as she introduced her na and identity.
"Rachel Cindy, currently the deputy minister of the dical Departnt. We’ll have many opportunities to interact in the future, Mr. Lazarus."
Probably too relaxed, Bologue did not react instantly; he also extended his hand and shook hands with the woman, her hand was soft with a hint of coldness.
Only when Rachel left the ward did Bologue belatedly realize that the person who had just arrived was a deputy minister.
"What’s wrong with you? Has burgeoning sentint stirred?"
Palr reclined on the bed, looking at Bologue staring at his own palm, and asked with a strange tone.
Bologue directly ignored Palr’s nonsense. "Just a bit surprised that the minister is so young and doesn’t seem very powerful."
Rachel gave Bologue an impression of absolute rationality, paired with her tall stature and long legs, like a walking scalpel.
Wait, a scalpel?
Bologue shook his head hard and then looked at Palr with bewildernt, possibly due to spending a long ti with Palr, his thoughts sotis seed polluted by Palr, with strange adjectives and absurd ideas continuously popping up.
"Why are you looking at like that?"
Palr felt uneasy under Bologue’s serious gaze and imdiately sat upright and even tightened his buttons.
Bologue did not pay Palr any attention, his eyes still fixed on the door, reminiscing about the departing figure.
Co to think of it, the Order Bureau practically gathers all the Extraordinary elites of the Rhine Alliance, and inevitably, so geniuses erge... like Belli.
Just thinking of that woman, Bologue could hear strange laughter echoing in his head, as if the woman were laughing while running circles around him.
As for whether she was powerful, in the entire Order Bureau, except for so departnts requiring field operations, it seed other departnts did not care much about tier positioning.
"By the way, don’t you want to ask about anything?"
Bologue redirected his gaze to Palr, recalling that stormy night when this unlucky individual was dragged onto a pirate ship by him, accompanying him on an inferno journey.
Previously Bologue might have felt a sense of distance from Palr, but when he confidently said to him that they would catch up with the train, Bologue genuinely regarded Palr as a friend, a partner.
"Ask what?" This fool evidently didn’t get Bologue’s aning.
"But," Palr quickly added, "you seem much more cheerful than before after waking up."
Palr tilted his head, scrutinizing Bologue’s appearance and those azure eyes.
"If you were a dour-faced killer before... now it’s just the dour face left."
Before the storm, Bologue’s eyes always concealed gloom and sharpness, as if all evil was hidden in the darkness of his eyes, but now that rolling malice had vanished. At most, Bologue could be considered a cold and aloof guy now.
"Not bad," Palr assessed with crossed arms, "young girls these days seem to appreciate this type."
The atmosphere fell into silence.
In the past, Bologue might have ignored Palr or told him to be serious, but this ti he gently rubbed his forehead and muttered.
"Very popular?"
"Yes, very popular."
The two exchanged a brief glance, and Bologue couldn’t help but laugh, followed by Palr. Both of them laughed heartily without end.
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