Chapter 207: Stone Cold Actor
Thankfully, coming from a modern, technologically advanced Earth had its perks. Uhtred had read some medical articles here and there and watched enough documentaries on pre-integration Earth to understand the basics of amnesia.
He knew that even in severe cases of trauma-induced amnesia, a person’s core identity, like their name, was often one of the few things that remained intact, even if the surrounding context was completely wiped out.
"...Uhtred," he muttered slowly, his voice raspy and dry.
He kept his ears sharp, listening carefully as the scenario’s built-in translation mechanism seamlessly converted his spoken name into "Jor-than" for the people in the room.
Dr. Mo didn’t say a word. His sharp, dark eyes bored into Uhtred’s face, searching for the slightest tremor of a lie.
But Uhtred was a stone-cold actor. He played the role of a confused out-of-it amnesiac without any trouble.
When the clan doctor asked questions about recent events, Uhtred put on a strained, pained expression, squinting his eyes as if trying to force his foggy brain to remember, before shaking his head in quiet frustration.
Where basic details were concerned — things that Jor-than would obviously know and that wouldn’t harm Uhtred to admit — he answered calmly.
By the time the examination ended, he had painted a flawless picture of a warrior whose mind had locked away specific memories to protect itself from the trauma of dying on the battlefield.
Dr. Mo finally stepped back, wiping his hands on a cloth. He gestured for Nayu An to follow him toward the doorway.
They kept their voices low, but Uhtred was still able to hear most of it from his bed.
"Is it true, Dr. Mo?" Nayu An asked, her voice trembling slightly. "Has he truly lost his memories?"
"Regrettably, yes, Young Mistress," Dr. Mo replied softly. "I heard that his heart stopped for more than a minute on the battlefield. I think this is just his body’s way to try and protect him from harm until he recovers. The shock of experiencing what was basically death was too much for his mind."
Nayu An looked visibly shaken. "So... what does this mean? Can we still proceed with the betrothal?"
"Well, I think that will have to wait for a while, young mistress. For now, he needs to recover and slowly remember on his own..."
The old doctor shifted slightly on his feet.
Nayu An’s shoulders dropped. "And how long do you think that will take?"
"Uhh... That... Well, that depends on him, but it could be months, it could be a year, it could even take up to two years," the old doctor sighed. "These things, young mistress, they are unpredictable. It is a wound of the mind, not of the flesh. Those are harder to treat with medicine..."
"I see..." Nayu An murmured quietly. "Thank you, Dr. Mo. You may go."
The old doctor bowed deeply and quietly retreated down the corridor.
Nayu An remained standing by the door for several seconds, her back turned to the bed. Uhtred watched her intently, though he couldn’t see her face.
When she finally turned around, her expression was filled with deep, heartbreaking sorrow. She walked back to his bed with slow, hesitant steps, kneeling down once more.
She took his hand in both of hers, resting her cheek against the mattress as she looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.
"You are going to be alright, Uhtred," she whispered softly. "It breaks my heart to see you like this, and it hurts even more that we must delay our union... But I will wait. I don’t care how long it takes. I will wait for you to heal so we can finally be together."
Yeah... She definitely wants to kill me.
Uhtred continued staring down at her blankly. There was no doubt in his mind now. He was certain that Nayu An didn’t just have bad intentions, she was trying to kill him.
He could not explain why, but his gut instincts, honed through months of life-and-death battles, were screaming at him.
The moment he re-categorized her from a threat he was suspicious of, to an enemy actively trying to kill him, his perception of all her actions changed.
A person putting on a fake act for a secret scheme wouldn’t just take an amnesia claim at face value. She would test it. She would probe to see if he had truly lost his memories, or if he was faking it.
I’m guessing her next move will be—
Before Uhtred could finish his thought, he suddenly felt an intense wave of malice and danger surge from behind him.
He was propped up against the wooden bedrest, making an attack from behind physically impossible under normal circumstances. However, that was exactly what Nayu An was banking on. Most people would never expect a threat to come from a solid wall behind their heads.
You’re too slow. Uhtred smirked internally.
From the moment he categorized her as a threat to his life, he had readied himself already. He didn’t react in the slightest, despite feeling an immense sense of danger from behind him and even from his side. His eyes never flickered, his pulse never shook, his act never wavered.
Nayu An had disguised her probe as affection. She clasped Uhtred’s hand within both palms, but if one looked carefully, they would notice that her hands were placed directly on his pulse to detect any slight tremble or change.
She continued to smile at him, but her eyes were like an eagle’s, trained on his micro-expressions as something materialized behind him and rushed for his neck, only stopping mere inches away.
It was a trap designed to force a reflex reaction.
Uhtred kept his body completely limp. His eyes remained dull and vacant, looking straight at her as if the lethal aura hovering behind him didn’t exist at all.
After five long, agonizing seconds, the cold pressure behind his head dissolved into thin air.
Nayu An’s smile brightened naturally. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, satisfied with the test.
"Get some rest," she whispered softly, standing up. "I will come back to check on you tomorrow."
She turned and glided gracefully out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
However, the fact that she left the room didn’t mean Uhtred relaxed. He continued to maintain his act, though internally he was already analyzing and planning out again.
From now on, I have to assume I’m being watched at all times. If she can pull out whatever that was from behind me, then I have to assume the powers in this world are extremely tricky.
Still, though, the main thing is that I’ve bought myself some time. Whatever she was planning for me isn’t going to happen for a while.
Nayu’s conversation with Dr. Mo proved one critical fact: whatever she had planned for him needed him to be in a fully healthy state, both physically and mentally. Assuming it didn’t, she could simply have gone ahead with the betrothal.
Is it some ritual or something...?
That was the most probable conclusion Uhtred had come to. However, he didn’t really care.
Right now, the next thing was to find a way to get the hell out of this clan and get to finding out the main task and completing it. For that, he needed information — more information than what the memories of a simple nobody warrior would provide.
I need to find my way to the library...