Chapter 102: A Father’s Embrace

[Ding!]

[You have failed to overturn the fate of the village!]

[This failure has caused a disturbance in the fate of the world!]

[Failure Compensation Activated!]

[Calculating the value of the failure...]

[Compensating with a suitable reward...]

[Compensating the damage taken to the village by upgrading it to Tier-3 Territory...]

Suddenly, an earthquake began to occur, the whole place shaking violently, not just the hospital room where Neo sat, but the entire territory surrounding it. The broken ground trembled like a frying pan set over open fire, flattening giant boulders down into nothing more than scattered pebbles. New structures began rising straight out of the earth beneath, and a golden light swept over the entire territory in a single, overwhelming wave, covering everything in warm radiance, forcing Neo to shield his eyes with both hands just to keep from being blinded.

After nearly five full minutes passed, Neo finally lowered his hands, taking in his surroundings as his vision slowly adjusted to focus properly.

Once his sight returned fully, the first thing his gaze landed on was the very hospital room he was sitting in.

The bed felt far more comfortable and noticeably larger than before, and it wasn’t only the bed that had changed. The ceiling looked entirely different now, the fan above him spinning faster and smoother than it had earlier, the entire interior of the room transformed into something far more advanced and standardized. It wasn’t the kind of luxury meant to flaunt wealth, but a kind of quiet, practical decency, filled with facilities that clearly hadn’t existed there before.

Suddenly, the door to the room swung open without so much as a knock, and a nurse stepped inside, her expression caught somewhere between exhaustion and duty, until her eyes landed on his upright, awake figure, and they lit up instantly.

"Oh! Wait, you’re already awake, Savior?! Just wait, I’ll go notify the others!"

"Pardon?"

Before he could even finish the single word, she had already spun on her heel and dashed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her, clearly intent on spreading the news as quickly as her legs could carry her.

"Wait a second. Are they not even shocked about the sudden upgrade to the village? And what exactly changed outside the hospital? Now I’m actually curious."

Neo pushed himself upright and pulled the saline strip free from his arm without much waiting for the doctor, then made his way out of the hospital room, descending the stairs, circling down floor after floor in a stairwell that seemed to have no proper end.

After what felt like a solid minute of walking, he finally reached the ground floor, where the bustling energy of elves going about their business filled the open space, and he made his way toward the entrance of the hospital itself.

The moment he stepped outside, the entire surviving community of the settlement stood gathered there, packed densely into the open square, every pair of eyes immediately locking onto him the second he appeared in the doorway.

The crowd erupted into cheers.

Neo stood frozen for a moment, completely out of place, swallowing whatever words had been forming on his tongue as overwhelming awkwardness crashed over him all at once. This was, without question, his first time being applauded by an entire crowd like this, and he had absolutely no idea how to handle it gracefully. He scratched the back of his head, forcing a small, stiff smile, which only seemed to make the cheering grow louder.

’Sigh. I feel like digging a hole and burying myself inside it. I need to get out of here as fast as possible.’

Just as he was mentally mapping out the quickest escape route, a hand suddenly pressed down firmly on his shoulder from behind, startling him enough that he instinctively twisted free of the grip, spinning around ready to face whoever had come up on him, his own hand already closing around the stranger’s wrist.

As he caught the man’s hand and looked up properly at his face, something unusually familiar settled over him, impossible as it felt to see that particular face standing in the middle of the Desolate Land. Neo’s hands trembled slightly, his grip loosening on its own, his eyes widening as though his mind couldn’t decide whether what he was seeing was real, or just another illusion, another dream he hadn’t yet woken from.

"Did you finally wake up, Neo? I was debating whether to just carry you home asleep, or let you rest a bit longer first."

The moment that familiar voice reached him, his eyes began to moisten, his whole body trembling slightly. He threw himself forward without a second thought, wrapping his arms tightly around the man standing in front of him, who was none other than Cassian Draven, Duke of the Draven dukedom, infamous across the empire under the title ’Demon of the Battlefield’ himself.

Neo clung to him tightly, as though letting go might somehow make him vanish again, tears spilling freely down his cheeks despite his best efforts to hold them back. When Cassian’s hand began stroking gently along his back, whatever dam had still been holding firm finally broke apart completely, and he let it all flow out.

"Are you alright?" Cassian asked quietly.

"Hmph..."

"Then, do you want to head home now, or stay here a few more days?"

Neo pulled back just enough to land a weak, half-hearted punch against his father’s chest, though the impact barely registered at all, nowhere near strong enough to even disturb Cassian’s breathing.

"Look at you, my little Neo. You’ve gotten much stronger since the last time I saw you. My, how you’ve grown..."

Neo wiped his tears with his sleeve and looked up at his father with a determined expression.

"Just you wait! I’ll get so strong that even you’ll be scared of me!"

Cassian laughed and patted his head. "Haha! Keep dreaming, little one. No matter how strong you become, there’s only one person in this world who can truly scare me."

Neo tilted his head. "Mom? Is it because she threatens to withhold your morning kisses?"

Cassian’s eyes went wide with shock, a deep flush of red climbing rapidly up to the tips of his ears.

"W-what are you even talking about—?"

"Oh, nothing. Just remembered some random dream from when I was little. Nothing important. Hehe..."

Before Cassian could manage any kind of proper response, a figure stepped forward out of the surrounding crowd, making her way toward them with slow, deliberate steps. It was Diana, though Neo barely recognized her at first glance. She looked entirely different from the woman he remembered, her expression darkened, her eyes hollow and rimmed with the faint, dried tracks of tears already shed.

She stopped in front of him and spoke quietly.

"Thank you for saving the village."

Neo simply nodded, saying nothing in return, though something uneasy settled low in his stomach the moment he caught the particular weight sitting underneath her tone.

She looked at him directly, her gaze steady despite the clear exhaustion behind it.

"Senya asked me to pass along her last wish to you."