12 – A Pretty Terrible Apology

When Jonny woke up again, his whole body hurt. Not just his legs where he had been injured, but his upper body as well. If he thought he had been sore after the first mana infusion mishap, he was sorely mistaken. Back then, he could still kind of move. Now, even the slightest twitch of his muscles hurt. Even just breathing set his core on fire.

One of the nuns—he couldn’t see which one—was apparently watching over him, and the moment she noticed him awake, she began fussing over him, asking how he was feeling. Jonny could only respond in grunts and single syllable words. Anything more hurt too much.

She asked him if there was anything that was especially worrying, and while Jonny felt like his entire body being in pain counted as “especially worrying”, aside from that, he didn’t notice anything. There was no spot that hurt more than any other spot. He could feel all his extremities. He could follow her finger with his eyes when she held it over his head.

With all that confirmed, she proceeded to feed him. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he smelled the soup, which made his stomach grumble loudly. In a very slow and tedious process, he downed two entire bowls, then promptly drifted back to sleep.

The next time he woke up, the pain was much more manageable. He was able to move around, just a bit, though he had no desire to leave his bed. He could turn his head this time, at least, and when he did, he found Abbess Helen waiting at his bedside.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

“Y–” he started, but his voice cracked because of how dry his mouth was. “Yes.”

“Here,” she said, reaching to the small table beside the bed. “Water.”

He accepted the glass gratefully, bringing it to his lips and letting the cool liquid flow down his throat. He felt hungry again, but when he looked down, he noticed the bed was clean. After a moment, he decided he would rather not think about what had happened to the soup. It was probably better he didn’t know.

“More?” asked Helen, nodding to his empty glass.

“Yes, please.”

She waved a hand, and a pitcher from the table floated up, refilling his glass before floating back down. Jonny watched in awe, only remembering to try using his inner eye to sense the mana at the very end. What he felt was a thin, but steady stream of mana from Abbess Helen’s hand reaching out and wrapping around the pitcher.

Man, I wish I could do that.

He drained his second glass, then watched in jealousy as she refilled it again. This time, he did not drink as quickly, only taking a sip before letting it rest against his sore chest.

“That was a very foolish thing you did,” said Helen the moment he put the glass down.

Ugh, really?

“But you did well,” she continued.

Okay, maybe she’s not so bad.

“You should not have been out there in the first place, but I understand that you were only trying to protect Tommy by fighting the primaboar.”

“Primaboar?”

“The beast you killed.”

“Oh.”

“We’ve patched the hole in the fence that the two of you used to get out, and we will be checking the rest of the yard, reinforcing the fence as needed to ensure this doesn’t happen again. As you now understand, there is a reason we do not let the children into the woods unsupervised. Though there should not have been any primaboars so close. We’ve requested a hunting party to go out and eradicate the rest of the herd. Rest assured, such a thing will not happen again.”

Jonny nodded, unsure what he was supposed to do with this information. It didn’t really affect him, since he had never even wanted to go into the woods in the first place. Not that he was against exploration, but after that encounter, he was even more wary than ever of trying to explore the world in a child’s body. That primaboar thing was smaller than his old dog, and the only reason he survived was because he had mana.

Mana…

He looked down at his hands, suddenly realizing why his upper body was in so much pain. The details of what happened after the battle were fuzzy, but he could remember the fight itself clear as day. He remembered the sensation of the mana empowering him, multiplying his strength far beyond what he should have been capable of. It had felt good, but it was clear he wasn’t quite using it right. He doubted these were the intended consequences of using internal mana techniques.

“If you’re wondering about your injuries, I’ve healed the worst of them,” said Abbess Helen. “Your hands and arms were fractured, and your legs were badly cut. There’s only so much healing magic a body can handle, though, and your body is still young, and was still overwhelmed from handling your own mana. It will be another three days before you will be fully recovered.”

“How long has it been?”

“Four days.”

One week to fully recover from all of that… Damn, magic is cool.

“Your body may still be weak after you recover, though. You severely overused your muscles and tendons. I’ve repaired them, but you’re going to want to reduce your playing while you recover. I don’t want you to reinjure yourself.”

Damn.

“Also, there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

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“Huh? Who?”

“Tommy, I know you’re there.”

Helen looked over at the door as it opened a crack, and Jonny saw Tommy’s eye peering through. After a second or two, it opened the rest of the way, and the other boy shuffled in, nervous and with his head down.

“Tommy had something he wanted to say to you,” said Helen. “He’s spent a lot of time here waiting for you to wake up. Tommy?”

Tommy shuffled his feet again, fiddling with his fingers.

“Um,” he said. “I– uh– Thank you for, uh, saving me. And sorry for going into the woods. I was being stu– a dummy.”

He glanced over at Helen, worried she would have caught that he said “stupid” which was apparently a bad word, at least for kids. Helen didn’t say anything, and instead turned back to Jonny.

As far as apologies went, Tommy’s was pretty terrible, but at the same time, Jonny found he couldn’t really get mad at the kid. Sure, he was kind of annoying, and sure, running out into the forest alone like that was extremely dumb, but he had redeemed himself in the end. Without that well-timed rock, Jonny would have been dead. He might have been an annoying idiot, but he was still a good kid.

And hell, if I haven’t done dumber things…

“It’s fine,” he said. “You saved me too with that rock.”

“W– well, I didn’t really do much,” said Tommy, somewhat embarrassed.