Inside the Medical Bay that had once been the domain of the Mad Doctor, he, himself was suspended in between two trinkets that were making him float in the air.
The Medical Bay had been segregated into two halves, and one of those was being used for this purpose. A Hero was present here at all times, and although the identity of the Hero kept changing, one thing was common - each and every one of these individuals were aloof, and they did not like to talk to anyone from the sect. Instead, they would just stand there, imposingly, while the rest of those attending to the Mad Doctor would try to ignore them.
Kate was the head healer in charge of taking care of the Mad Doctor, and although she had remained in this post for the entire time since the man had been injured, those under her kept changing.
Perhaps, the reason for this was that no one was really interested in cleaning out the bodily fluids excreted by a body that was healing constantly, and in the grueling job of continuously applying ointments that had to be applied by hand while changing the bandages.
To add on to this, there was the state of the Mad Doctor, which was something that could cause nightmares. Even those who saw death daily and spent a lot of their lives going through training that would leave them in pretty horrible states would flinch at this sight, and as for those who worked for her, it was worse as they would have to see it every damn day.
There was also one last thing - the Head had asked the Heroes to watch those under her because of the incident before. Hence, the feeling of someone staring at your back and almost bearing down on your shoulders, physically, for the entire day, was pretty damn tiring.
She had tried a lot of things - increasing the pay, giving other benefits, but none of them had worked. In the end, she had decided that there were enough sect members who would be enticed by the fee, itself, and it would be fine even if they kept rotating, as there were always enough poor people in the Sect of Hedon.
Today, she was expecting three new 'newbs', as she called them, even though the term was not preferred by those who were only doing this for the money.
As they finally entered, she said, "Listen, and follow each of my instructions carefully. If you make even one mistake, the pay will be canceled. Got it?"
All three of them nodded, but the next moment, sweat appeared on their brows as the Hero had just placed his attention on them.
Kate even suspected that he was doing it on purpose, as she was pretty sure that it shouldn't be the case that all those who were being watched by Heroes would feel as if they were carrying bags of heavy dirt on their backs.
"Get used to that. It is simply the weight of the gaze of our esteemed Hero, who will be watching your every move."
All three of them glanced at the Hero, who was a man in a dark cloak leaning on a wall at the end of the large open room they were in as she said this.
Wait… Was she imagining things, or had one of them been just a bit slow on the uptake? For a moment, she had thought that she had seen the Warrior right in front of her glance at the Hero a second later than the others, almost as if he had realized that that was what he should be doing as a lowly Warrior in front of someone as powerful as Hero.
No, she must have been imagining things.
Putting it out of her mind, she began leading them towards the center of the room, where the Mad Doctor's body was floating.
All three sets of their eyes had already fixed on him, as it was truly a sight that lived up to its hype.
His expression was fixed into one of pain, and he was only wearing undergarments. Typically, this would have drawn attention to the coiled muscles that the present on his shoulders and legs, but instead, everyone could only stare at the large gaping hole that was present where his stomach should be.
As they got closer, more and more details became clear to them, which made each of them get more and more uncomfortable expression of the faces, and this was something that Kate always kept an eye on as it was amusing to watch.
The hole in the middle of his chest was half the size of a man's waist, but the most disconcerting thing was that when one got closer, they would be able to see that parts of the liver, heart, and intestines that were visible were slowly squirming, almost as if they had…a life of their own.
As they kept watching, they were soon able to notice that they were actually slowly growing, and as soon as this realization appeared on the faces of all three of the newbs, Kate spoke up.
"When the Mad Doctor was first admitted here, that hole was double the size. There was only a sliver of skin holding together the two parts of his body. The man was a genius in his field - somehow, he managed to engrave a healing formation onto himself, which was probably by mutilating his own flesh to form the designs of the formation. This enabled it to kick into effect as soon as he suffered extensive damage, which allowed him to survive, and which is still continuing to heal him even while he is in a coma. Such are the wonders of the art of healing. Anyone who finishes three stints in this job is eligible to ask me for an apprenticeship, so think on that when you go for your next mission. Healers are sought after no matter which part of the continent they are in, so don't miss this opportunity to gain a skill that will make you coveted by each and every organization on Angaria."
Kate always waited for this moment of awe to give this 'business pitch', as she could never have too few apprentices. She could charge them quite a lot, while teaching them a few bits and pieces, and she found nothing wrong in this system as that was how she had learned.
Of course, those who were truly talented would be directly mentored by a senior healer, but that rarely happened.
All three of the newcomers had slightly amazed expressions on their faces as they heard this, as it really was incredible that someone could survive a wound of this extent.
Loving the mysterious atmosphere that she always created around herself whenever she said these things, Kate was about to walk forward, which was when a loud sound interrupted her.
Turning around, she saw that one of the three, who was coincidentally the one in whom she had seen that strangeness before, had knocked over the table on which the tools that she used to guide the regeneration of the Mad Doctor were placed.
A sharp scalpel the had been specially refined for cutting the thick skin of Fighters flew in the direction of the Mad Doctor, and even as Kate lunged forward with panic to stop it, the Hero at the end of the room, who had been calmly leaning onto the wall, suddenly stood up and brought his gaze to bear upon the scene where everything was happening.
Before the scalpel could reach the Mad Doctor, it melted into a metallic puddle and fell onto the floor.
After shooting a look of contempt at the newb who was on the floor, the Hero went back to leaning casually, and the pressure they felt resumed.
Meanwhile, Kate heaved a sigh of relief and bowed to the Hero before turning her gaze on the newb, who had just picked himself.
"Didn't you see the description that said that only those with able and steady hands should be the ones to apply for this job?"
She asked this, fuming, but the innocent reply from the newb made her blink, blankly, as she didn't know how she was supposed to respond.
"I'm sorry, Miss, my hands are able and steady, but… I can be a little clumsy. I thought that it was okay, because it wasn't mentioned that it was something that should stop someone from picking this job…"
As he said this, even the other two stared at him, and at the end of the room, the Hero actually… barked out a laugh.
Kate felt her face burning as she realized that he was right: the requirement had been about the hands, not about the person.
Still, she had always been one to readily accept her mistakes, so, still keeping her eyes on this guy, she took out a communication trinket and said, "Modify the listing for those who are coming to take care of the Doctor to make it reflect that they should also not be clumsy."
As he heard this, the newb looked down, but Kate turned around and said, "You're already here, so let's get this over with. Just try not to let anything else fall, or I swear I'll add a compensation that will cut deeep into your pay."
Without waiting for a reply, she stormed forward and began to demonstrate how one was supposed to remove the bandages that were present over the other parts of the Mad Doctor's body, and to remove and replace the bags which were holding his bodily excretions.
The latter would thankfully be done with magic, but the former was difficult.
However, although it looked like he was paying attention, the newb who had just caused trouble was actually… smirking, on the inside.
Of course, this was Daneel, who had entered with the plan to see exactly how the security level of this place was, and also to see whether he could find out at least a bit about the psyche of the Mad Doctor.
He had already planned out everything that had happened so far, and its objective had been to check on how attentive the Hero was. Sadly, it appeared that there would be no chance whatsoever of him weakening the Mad Doctor somehow, as the security really was just a bit too tight.
Hence, his first objective had already been completed, and Daneel was now mainly focused on finishing the second one - all he needed to do was touch the Mad Doctor for at least a moment, and he would get his chance when it was his turn to change the bandages anyway.
Yet, to his irritation, it turned out the Daneel's clumsy actions had made the woman in charge decide that he would not be assigned this duty. Daneel grumbled on the inside as everything had been going to plan till now, but there was no way that he could have accounted for the consciousness of this woman.
Maybe he should have chosen other ways to check the security, but what was done was done.
Thankfully, he got a chance soon. Because the duty ran on for the entire day, and because the bandages needed to be constantly changed as there was too much blood that kept being absorbed by them in the process of regeneration which was apparently the waste blood being processed by the remaining organs, Kate finally had no option but to give him the duty as the others had already started to get careless.
This happened when one did the same thing over and over again, and she couldn't fault them for it, so she asked the guy whom she now disliked a lot to do it, while keeping a watch over him like a hawk.
Thankfully, he hadn't been bluffing - he had steady hands, and when he was done, she nodded with approval.
As Daneel finished the duty and went to stand at the end of the room, though, his mind was in turmoil as there was an image that he had just gleaned from the Mad Doctor's consciousness that spelled a lot of trouble.
It was the same blank world which he had entered when Daneel had used the Consciousness link with Percy, and there were small lights which were static because it had only been for a moment. Yet, that was enough for him and the system to zoom in and see the details.
Most of those lights involved torturing multiple people - one of them was him, in the form that he had used to kill the Mad Doctor's sons, another was Percy, and yet another was Daneel, himself.
Yet the most disconcerting thing was actually one single light that had caught his attention and wasn't letting go.
It was a very familiar place, with sprawling streets and a magnificent domed Palace in the center which was flanked by two areas where two of the most famous institutions in Angaria had existed until recently, when they had been moved outside.
It was Lanthanor.
And it was in the process of being destroyed.
Once again, the image was in the first person, so the system had to use a reflection that happened to be present in the view of the one who was doing the act in a pool of water that was on the ground.
It was the Mad Doctor, and it looked like he was laughing hysterically, as if what he was doing was giving him the kind ultimate satisfaction and joy that one could only dream of, and hope to obtain.