Reincarnator Returns: Second Shot

Now that he could sit without his spine crumpling forwards, Eren found it appropriate to finally wander the pallid walls of the hospital.

Fetching the wheelchair was easy enough. Getting on it, on the other hand, came at the cost of tasting the sterile flooring with his teeth. Hospital staffmen had to carry him to his seat like a fragile princess.

”Are you from Pacifica?” Nieve asked him.

Eren couldn’t see her face. She was pushing his wheelchair from behind as they passed the busy hospital hallway. Gurneys littered it. Patients and doctors and nurses walked briskly by, ignoring them. His seat trembled as they passed through the tiled floor.

”What?”

She continued forward. ”Were you from Pacifica?” Her tone was matter-of-factly, as if he’d understand it the second time.

Pacifica was a tropical country somewhere on the other side of the world. Nice beaches and seldom portal spawns. At least, that’s what the TV travel vlog said yesterday. But aside from that, he knew nothing about the territory or its people or why Nieve mistook him for being a local there.

”What makes you say that?”

He could feel her shrug from behind. ”I don’t know. I hear that Pacificians only have Psions in their brain. Some say that they bash their heads with coconuts till it bleeds because they think it’ll let Psion into their minds.”

She stopped as Eren turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing. ”Are you saying I’m stupid?”

”I’m saying it’s stupid to like suffering,” she said. ”You must like it, right? It would explain why you’re insisting on sitting up all on your own without support. Why you didn’t want anyone to push your wheelchair... you like getting hurt.”

Despite that little falling accident this morning, coupled with his trembling biceps each time he tried to push his wheelchair, he still demanded to ’wheel’ around unsupervised.

He’d fully presented himself as a masochist in Nieve’s mind.

Do I like suffering?

The answer was: he had to. The [Masochist’s Dream] required him to cherish pain. It was the only requirement.

In the eyes of the world, of Ræzoň, even of Nieve, he must act like a masochist, seeking out pain as if it gave him pleasure. The better they were convinced, the better the results.

The proof came in the form of tiny mosquito-like bites in his skin. Prickly though it was, the invisible Ræzoň in the environment nourished his malnourished body. And it was only possible because the world itself began to believe his preference for pain.

”I’ve lived half of my life in dreams,” he said. ”Pain... pain reminds me that I’m alive. That I’m not stuck in a place where I couldn’t do anything but ponder and stand on the sidelines.”

He went silent after that. Nieve noticed the sensitive topic and silently continued the hospital tour.

She wheeled him to the different hospital departments, acquainted him with her nurse friends, and even showed him around the cafeteria.

His mood was subdued throughout, deep in thought, in memories, of regrets, of dreams broken and love lost.

Those were just nightmares, he reminded himself. It would do him no good lingering on pessimistic visions of his home.

But he couldn’t help it.

Perhaps Nieve was right. Perhaps he did like suffering.

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The days turned routine soon after.

Mornings immediately after he woke up, he’d continue strengthening his upper and lower body. The thorny touch of Ræzoň became the only motivating factor for his continued self-inflicted torture.

By midday, he was hauled around the hospital by Nieve or one of the nurses.

Coma boy. Wincing wheelie. Those were just a few of the nicknames he’d been affectionately called as he familiarized himself with his fellow patients.

Throughout his daily ’walk’, he’d made sure to leave an impression to anyone he came across. Make them think he liked the pain, that he actually appreciated the agonizing rehab.

In return, Ræzoň supplemented what nutrition and medicine could not.

By the third day, he was able to push himself off the bed and into the wheelchair without tasting the sterile flooring.

By the fourth day, he was pushing his wheelchair on his own.

By the fifth day, he ended up finishing that romance drama on the TV. News and entertainment became the only break he had during nights.

And finally, a week after his coma, he’d found the strength to set himself upright and stand on his own two feet. He needed a crutch to keep himself steady, but he was able to stand, much to the surprise of Dr. Reid.

”Your muscle density has grown incredibly high,” she said, passing her fiery hand on his legs. Its green, tendril-like flames overpowered the lights in the room.

She passed her Ræzoň-infused hands on his body multiple times, examining it. And yet, the result remained the same. His recovery had skipped past multiple levels, and was now primed to advance to the fourth stage of his rehabilitation—months ahead of schedule.

Her brows furrowed as she tried to reconcile reality to the theory of medicine in her mind. Nothing natural explained this. The only other possibility was through Psions.

”I checked his talent. Only 5-stars on both Upper and Lower body,” she said to the doctors hanging around the door. His anomalous recovery gathered quite the audience.

The assortment of doctors from different fields offered their explanation on the matter. A muscle-flora worm in his stomach. Spontaneous bodily vigor caused by the elusive cartman moss. Most of those theories were immediately rejected. Others were unfounded. And none came close to the truth.

In the end, Dr. Reid had to summon the Psionic Talent Assessor machine to retest his potential. An 8-star talent or higher could explain his enhanced recovery.

”We did notice that the filament on the bulbs were worn down,” she said, with a hint of excitement.

However, the result remained the same. Eren had average talent on both accounts. Five bulbs out of ten.

Eventually, the doctors gave up trying to unravel the mystery of his enhanced recovery. Eren Grayson would hereby be recorded amongst one of the many strange, unexplainable cases of Psion anomalies.

They had a tendency to defy the laws of physics. Eren must have been the recipient of their arbitrary generosity.

There was no other explanation. All he’d done throughout the week was strain his body till he reached muscle overload. He was forthright with his everyday exercise.

Normally, this would only dampen his recovery. But in his case, it heightened his progress.

It was supernatural.

Their conclusions, although wrong, were sound and reasonable. If Eren had done the same thing he did this week, but with the sole exception of not visiting his Mind Palace and not absorbing the Martial Manual, then the results would be as they expected: he’d still be bed-ridden.

The mere knowledge of the [Masochist’s Dream] allowed his body to recover supernaturally. It was the intent in his mind that allowed Ræzoň to gather for his needs.

It was much the same as with sports. For decades, people would think that there was a limit to human ability, a skill threshold no human could pass.

But then, someone breaks that record. They do the impossible. And then soon after that, more athletes would break that record and the task they deemed impossible would now become a common feat with most top athletes.

The mere knowledge that it can be done broke a lot of barriers.

It was the most literal application of ’knowledge is power’. And Eren had all the knowledge he needed in his mind.