In the Name of God - Chapter 35.2
<Remaining time: 00:00:02>
Thud—
The door closed.
<Remaining time: 00:00:01>
My startled gaze caught the system window blinking at the edge of my vision.
<Remaining time: 00:00:00>
This was bad.
As I hesitated and recoiled, a new system window filled my vision.
<Time limit exceeded.> <The Shadow Fragment begins forced synchronization.>
<As a penalty, one of the Seven Major Status Effects will be applied.>
Seven Major Status Effects.
I froze at the unfamiliar words. This time, instead of the usual blue system window, a red screen popped up.
<Status Effect: Sloth> <Extreme headache rapidly impairs bodily functions.>
<Duration: 3 hours>
Before I could even fully read it, a massive pain surged through my head.
“Ugh! Ah, hngh—!”
Normally, I did not make a sound from pain, but this was unbearable.
It felt like my skull was exploding from the inside. Like someone had opened my head and was tearing it apart. Every nerve in my head burned vividly with pain.
‘This hurts insanely!’
It hurt so much that my eyes were already watering. My vision blurred, and my ears felt muffled.
“Ugh, cough!”
Even the headache alone was agonizing, but the synchronization phenomenon made it worse. My chest burned, and dark red blood poured from my mouth. The pain radiated from my hands clutching my head to my entire body, as if I were being beaten.
I wished I could just pass out, but with this kind of pain, even if I briefly lost consciousness, I would wake up immediately.
I could no longer endure it and collapsed onto the floor.
Perhaps due to the excruciating pain severing the connection, Echo, who had been struggling at my side, had disappeared.
Instead, Lee Sunho, who had called himself a stalker, knelt before me.
“See? I told you it would be hard alone.”
Watching me slump and shiver in pain, Lee Sunho spoke with a hint of sympathy. My brain was such a mess that it took a beat or two to process his words.
Lee Sunho carefully lifted me as if handling a fragile infant. Even while carrying me to the bed, he moved cautiously, as if adding any jolt would worsen my pain.
After laying me down on the bed, Lee Sunho also discarded his coat and lay down beside me. If I were fully aware, I might have wondered what he was doing, but I was in too much pain to think like that.
“Just hang on a little longer.”
Lee Sunho whispered softly and hugged me. His strong arms gently enveloped my trembling shoulders, and he stroked my stiff back, which I had tensed to withstand the pain.
His cheek pressed against my fevered forehead. The coolness where he touched seemed to slightly relieve the intense headache.
No, it wasn’t just like that.
‘The headache… is easing?’
It was not a hallucination. Not only the headache but the burning sensation in my chest was also fading.
It was easy to identify where the relief started.
The points where I touched Lee Sunho.
His back, stroked tenderly; his arms hugging my shoulders; his cheek pressed against my head; his chest against mine.
Instinctively, I pressed closer into his embrace. I sought to reduce the pain by clinging to him. In normal circumstances, I would have never done something like this, even in pain.
Due to the penalty, my bodily functions were sharply impaired, so there was a limit to how much I could move on my own.
Fortunately, Lee Sunho seemed to understand.
He held me carefully and kindly, as if handling a very delicate infant. My chest, ribs, and stomach were in contact with his body. His solid thighs pressed against my legs. The arm holding my shoulder rose slightly to support my small nape with one hand.
The more parts of me that touched him, the more the pain subsided compared to before.
Only then did I realize what Lee Sunho meant by saying he ‘came to help.’
This was literally…
‘A human painkiller.’
I had likely discovered one of Lee Sunho’s multiple abilities.
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