Chapter 73: Seven Days of Hell

Summer stopped chewing for a second, then she raised her eyebrows. "I thought you let him die."

"Well, Summer," Saddie said, sounding almost offended by the idea, "I’d say dying is way too easy for someone like him!"

Summer slowly lowered the skewer in her hand. "What did you do to him?"

Saddie immediately laughed on the other end of the call. "Nothing too crazy."

Summer did not say anything for a few moments, and the uncomfortable silence immediately made Saddie say, "Fine, fine! I’ll tell you!"

Summer finally took another bite of her food and waited. "I treated him first and made sure he didn’t die from his injuries," Saddie said. "Then I handed him over to the military."

Summer let out a slow sigh. "That’s it? Nothing else?"

It was probably the right thing to do in a situation like this. Still, Summer could not help feeling a little disappointed.

A small part of her had honestly hoped Saddie had done something to him before handing him over.

Saddie seemed to hear the disappointment in Summer’s voice. "Oh, don’t sound so disappointed," she said casually. "I said I kept him alive. I never said I fixed everything."

Summer’s interest immediately came back. "What does that mean?"

There was a short silence on the other end. Then Saddie answered in an almost cheerful voice, "Well, his injuries were pretty bad when I found him. I treated everything that could kill him, stopped the bleeding, and made sure he was stable."

Summer waited for the next sentence. "And?"

Saddie gave a small laugh. "But I may have been a little less careful with the parts that weren’t necessary for survival."

Summer could already imagine the smile on Saddie’s face.

"He won’t be able to use his legs properly anymore," Saddie continued. "And there’s also a very good chance that a certain other part of his body won’t work again."

Summer remained completely silent, but it didn’t take her more than a few seconds to understand exactly what Saddie meant.

She could not contain her happiness anymore and smiled. "That’s good to hear."

Summer took another bite of her food before suddenly remembering something. "By the way, I promised Julie that I would pay her if she helped with the injured people, but I haven’t given her the money yet. Do you have her contact?"

"Oh, don’t worry about that!" Saddie replied quickly. "I already covered it."

Summer blinked several times. "You did?"

"Yep. At least now she’ll have enough money to get by at the academy."

Summer finally let out a relieved breath. "That’s good."

Before she could say anything else, Saddie continued, "Actually, I’m planning to ask her to go to an E-Rank Polluted Zone with me next week. I want to help her make her livestream debut."

Saddie added, "If you want to come with us, you can join too."

Summer thought about it for a moment. "I’ll let you know next week."

"No problem!" Saddie replied brightly.

They stayed on the phone for more than an hour.

Some of the things they talked about were serious, but most of it was completely unserious, like the comments from their livestreams or the ridiculous fanart people had made of Summer and the brothers.

Unfortunately, some of those fanarts were drawn in terrifyingly high quality.

They only stopped talking when Summer started to feel sleepy and Saddie suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to buy groceries for dinner.

"Alright, talk to you later. See you!" Saddie said before ending the call.

Summer stretched both arms above her head. Strangely, she did not feel tired at all. Instead, she felt kind of happy.

It had been a while since she had a female friend she could casually talk to like this.

Maybe she really should join Saddie and Julie next week.

"Do you want more barbecue?" Ilya’s voice suddenly came from behind her, making Summer jump slightly.

She turned around and only then realized how long she had been sitting by the lake. She had basically ignored both Ilya and Archer for more than an hour.

"I’m sorry for suddenly leaving you two," Summer said as she jumped down from the large rock.

Ilya only chuckled. "It’s alright. I’m glad you’re making friends."

He held out a fresh plate of food to her. "Let’s continue eating inside. It’s getting chilly out here. Archer is making hot chocolate in the kitchen too."

Summer looked at the plate, then back at him. Hot chocolate sounded very good right now.

And just like that, Summer spent the rest of the night feeling warm and comfortable inside the cabin.

Unfortunately, that peaceful feeling did not last very long because the next few days were completely different.

Ilya trained her body like he was trying to drag her through hell and force her to crawl back out on her own.

On the second day, he told her to run. That was it, just run for hours.

It sounded simple at first. Unfortunately, running through a forest was nothing like running on a flat road.

The ground was uneven, roots were everywhere, and even the smallest rocks somehow seemed determined to trip her.

On the third day, the running became shorter, but the training became much worse.

Ilya made her climb trees, jump over fallen logs, crawl under low branches, and balance on narrow rocks near the lake.

Archer joined them that day and seemed like he wanted to ask Ilya to tone down the training a little, but Summer immediately said, "It’s fine. My body won’t become stronger if you keep spoiling me."

After all, the only thing Summer wanted was to have a body that could keep up with her fighting skills.

By the fourth day, Summer’s entire body was sore. Unfortunately, that was also the morning Archer had to leave.

He received a message before breakfast and spent several minutes reading it with a frown before finally putting his terminal away. "They already gave me a mission."

"That’s too bad," Summer said with a sigh. "Do you need a little guiding before you go?"

Archer wanted to say yes, but then he realized that Summer still had a lot of training ahead of her.

"I’m still alright," Archer said. "Good luck with your training."