Chapter 41: Two Days Gone
Jin woke up on the carriage seat with a headache like a landslide and a taste of metal in his mouth and his body full of someone else’s knowledge.
"He’s awake!" Gus’s face appeared above him, frantic.
"Young master! You fell unconscious all of a sudden! Sir Gareth checked your breathing twice. He didn’t say anything, but he looked so serious and said not to disturb you. And Merta said if a man sleeps more than a day, someone should either pay a healer or dig a grave. She says things like that. I don’t think she meant it—"
"Gus."
"-and the boy ate all three meals yesterday. All three. I counted. He even sat closer to the fire. Only one stone closer, but still-"
"Gus."
"Yes, young master?"
"Please shut up for a moment."
Gus went quite at once, he was well practiced at it.
Jin opened his eyes.
The ceiling was wood, not sky, and it was swaying. He realized he was still inside the carriage. He was lying across the bench of the merchant’s carriage with a blanket over him, and Gus sat opposite with his knees drawn up, looking relieved and guilty at the same time - like a boy who had been told to keep watch over something and had decided the best way to do that was to talk to it without stopping.
"How long was I out?"
"Two days, young master. And most of a night before that. Sir Gareth said not to move you. He said your breathing was steady and your color was good, and that men sometimes sleep after - after whatever that was." Gus swallowed. "What was it?"
’A glitching system stuffing nine generations of sword art into my head like grain into a goose,’ Jin thought. ’That’s what it was.’
The last thing he remembered was the system message, and he faintly remembered the feeling of something enormous being pushed into his head, where the space was far too small for it. Everything after was just white - nothing at all.
’Menu.’
[ NARRATIVE UPDATING PROTOCOL SYSTEM ]
[ Main Menu ]
[ ▸ Status ]
[ ▸ Skills ]
[ ▸ Narrative Quests ]
[ ▸ ─────── (Locked) ]
[ ▸ ─────── (Locked) ]
[ ▸ Narrative Relevance: 0.25% ]
The Menu hadn’t changed much from when he had seen it for the first time - the only change was his narrative relevance, which was at 0.25% now.
He opened the unread messages to see what he had missed.
[ Notice: Forced integration complete. ]
[ Gannon Family Swordsmanship: F → E ]
[ Integration Method: Direct inscription of technique memory. ]
[ Side Effects: Prolonged unconsciousness. We apologize for the inconvenience. ]
’Yeah, thanks for the warning,’ Jin looked at the messages sarcastically. But one thing in that caught its attention.
’We? Who is ’we’?’
The system had referred to itself as ’we’ when apologising - Jin didn’t get who it was referring to. But knowing that he won’t get any answers, he filled it as something he would be concerned about in the future and opened the skills tab as that was what he was concerned about.
«« Skills »»
« Gannon Family Swordsmanship [★★★★★★] - E (0%) »
« Appraisal [★★★★★] - F (21%) »
« Alcohol Tolerance [★★★] - A (0%) »
« Noble Etiquette [★★] - C (2%) »
« Horsemanship [★★] - E (45%) »
He looked at his skills, quite happily - the main change was the proficiency of Gannon Family Swordsmanship, which had increased to E from F.
When he thought of it, new information was popping up in his head, which he wasn’t even aware of. It was something unexplainable - as if someone had pushed the knowledge about something particular into your head, when previously you had no idea what it was.
Jin wanted to explore it a bit further.
But first, he sat up slowly, bracing for his body to ache all over as he had slept for two whole days.
But the pain didn’t come.
That was the first strange thing. His back should have been aching after two days on a wooden bench. Instead, his body felt full of vitality. It was as if someone had gone through a cluttered room while he slept and put everything back where it belonged.
He raised his right hand and closed it around an imaginary hilt.
The grip formed correctly, loose at the top and firm at the bottom.
Sir Gareth had tried to teach him exactly that, and now his hand simply did it, without being told.
’Oh,’ Jin thought.
He stared at his own hand for a while as the carriage rocked and Gus watched him with huge eyes, wondering if the young master had hit his head.
Then he did something he had never thought he would do.
He smiled at the thought of training.
"Sir Gareth," he called out, peeking out of the carriage, looking at the old knight riding forward.
"Young master, you are awake? How do you feel?"
The old knight slowed down his horse’s pace, coming face-to-face with him.
"Better than I should," Jin said honestly. "My body feels light. There is no headache or stiffness. I feel like I slept well after so much time."
Sir Gareth’s eyes went over him once, top to bottom.
"Two days is a long sleep, young master. What happened to you?"
There were many answers Jin could give. But most of them involved words like "system" and "forced integration," and all of those would result in him being called crazy or with priests examining his head.
So instead, Jin decided to do what he does best.
"I think it was enlightenment."
A Lie, of course.
But Gareth was no fool. His expression didn’t change despite Jin’s words- however, Jin could sense him thinking about a great many things.
"That is a heavy word to use lightly, young master," the knight said.
Gaining Enlightenment was no small matter.
It is said that geniuses, when faced with a wall, sometimes gain a sudden flash of knowledge that helps them grow to higher realms, but Sir Gareth, for some reason, couldn’t bring himself to trust Jin’s word.
"I’m not using it lightly. I was thinking about the sword when it happened." That was true to some extent, in a manner of speaking, since he thought of wielding the sword when the system announced the skill proficiency as the reward.
"Something settled into place. I can feel the difference. I’d like to test it when. Can we stop here for the day?"
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