Chapter 80: Lost Truth
Chapter 80: Lost Truth
Alex woke with a gasp, his body jerking upright before his mind had fully caught up with where he was.
The room tilted, spun, and then slowly righted itself. He was in the infirmary. The same one from before. The stone walls, the shelves of clay pots, the single oil lamp still burning low on the table.
His chest heaved as he dragged in air, his hands braced against the rough wool of the cot.
He heard a sound beside him. A stirring. Then, before he could turn, Oseka was on him.
"You’re finally up!" Oseka’s voice cracked with relief as he threw his arms around Alex, nearly knocking him back onto the bed. "You’re finally, finally up!"
Alex grunted, too weak to push him off. The embrace was warm and desperate and smelled of stale sweat and worry. Oseka had been here a long time.
The door creaked open. Gaius stepped through, a clay pestle in one hand and a mortar in the other, grinding something that smelled bitter and medicinal. His eyes found the scene—Oseka draped over Alex like a mourning relative at a funeral—and his expression darkened.
"Get off him, you oaf," Gaius growled, swatting Oseka across the back with the pestle.
Oseka yelped and finally released him, stumbling back onto the stool he’d been sleeping on. "I was just—"
"You were just smothering him half to death. Idiot." Gaius set the mortar and pestle down on the table and turned to Alex. "How are you feeling, son?" His eyes swept over Alex’s body—the bandages wrapped around his ribs and shoulder, the pallor of his skin, the shadows under his eyes. He looked even paler than usual, if that was possible. Like something that had been left too long in the dark.
"Alive," Alex answered. It was the only word that fit.
Gaius grunted, not quite satisfied. "That’s more than you deserve after that stunt."
"I thought he was going to die," Oseka blurted out, his voice still shaky. "Gaius told us to prepare for anything, even the worst, and I just.. I couldn’t—" His eyes were wet again, and he wiped at them furiously with the back of his hand.
Gaius slapped the back of his head. "Will you bloody shut up? He just woke up. Don’t finish the job the poison couldn’t."
Oseka pouted, rubbing the back of his head, but he fell silent.
Alex looked at them—Gaius glowering, Oseka sulking—and felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It wasn’t a full smile. He didn’t have the strength for that. But it was something.
"How long have I been out?"
The question landed like a stone in still water. Oseka and Gaius exchanged a look. Something in the room shifted, grew heavier.
"Two weeks," Oseka said quietly. "Give or take."
Alex stared at him. Two weeks.
He’d been gone for two weeks. The void had felt like hours. The entity had felt like an eternity. But the world had continued without him, and now he was back, and everything was different.
Before he could process it, the door swung open again.
Ignatius filled the doorway, his dark tunic immaculate, his face breaking into a rare, genuine smile. "Albius! My champion. You’re finally up." He crossed the room in three strides and placed his hands on Alex’s shoulders, his grip warm and steady. His eyes moved over Alex the way Gaius’s had—checking, assessing, searching for any sign that the worst had been averted.
"I never doubted for a second you would come back to us," Ignatius said. He glanced at Gaius, and something passed between them, unspoken. Then he turned back to Alex, his grin widening. "You’ve made me proud, son. You’ve made Rome proud. Champion of champions."
Alex didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t used to this version of Ignatius—warm, open, almost paternal. He managed a weak smile.
Gaius cleared his throat. "He’s only just regained consciousness. Let the boy rest. Now, everyone out. I need to examine him."
Oseka opened his mouth to protest. Gaius silenced him with a single glare.
Ignatius gave Alex’s shoulder a final squeeze. "Welcome back, Albius." Then he turned and walked out, his footsteps echoing down the corridor. Oseka followed, casting one last look over his shoulder before the door closed behind him.
The room fell quiet.
---
The door had barely clicked shut behind Gaius when the silence settled in again.
It was a heavy silence, the kind that came after a storm, when the world was still catching its breath.
The oil lamp on the table guttered, its flame a fragile thing, casting long, wavering shadows across the stone walls. The air still smelled of vinegar and wine and the bitter tang of theriac, the scent of medicine and desperation that had soaked into the room over the past two weeks.
Alex lay back on the cot, staring at the ceiling, his body heavy and weak.
He turned his head toward the corner of his vision, where the system UI pulsed faintly. He willed it into full view. The familiar blue glow filled his sight, and he began to scroll through the notifications.
[Daily task missed: -10 points]
[Daily task missed: -10 points]
[Daily task missed: -10 points]
The list went on. Fourteen days of missed tasks, each one carrying its own small punishment. The deductions stacked up, a quiet, relentless accounting of his absence. The system had been watching him while he was gone. It had been counting, and it had been waiting.
He didn’t care about the points. Not anymore. He scrolled past them without a second thought, his gaze moving to the top of the list.
There it was. The mission prompt. The one that mattered.
[Mission Prompt]
[Goal: Upgrade to Level 10.]
[Required Points: 100,000.]
[Current Points: 20/10,000.]
The same words from the void. The same impossible number. The same cold, absolute demand.
"The truth," Alex muttered under his breath. His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "You want me to earn the truth."
The system didn’t respond. It never did when he needed it to speak.
He closed the notification and let the UI fade back into the dark. The room was quiet again. The lamp flickered and the shadows moved.
And then he remembered.
"The scroll."
Gaius had dropped it at his feet in the holding cell.
Alex had picked it up. He had held it. He had looked at the faded ink, the charred edges, the words he couldn’t read.
He had dropped it beside him on the straw bed. And then the Numidian’s final, spiteful act had dragged him toward the Pool of Death, and he had forgotten everything else.
Now, lying in the infirmary, he scanned the room with his eyes. The cot. The table. The shelves of clay pots and bundles of herbs. The stool where Oseka had been sleeping. The floor, swept clean. There was no scroll. No scrap of charred parchment. No sign that it had ever been here.
"Fuck." The word came out flat and tired.
He had held the truth in his hands. He had carried it. And now it was gone.
The lamp guttered again, and Alex closed his eyes. The weight of the mission prompt was still there, pressing against the back of his mind like a stone. The truth was out there somewhere. But the one piece of it he had held was lost, and he didn’t know if he’d ever find it again.