Lifestealer: Cursed Healer [A LITRPG Isekai Survival]

Symon let out a rattling sigh as he stared at the white ceiling of his hospital room. By now, he could trace every line and contour, every bit of grout between every tiled piece. He figured that he'd perfectly remember it in its entirety until the day he died.

Which was apparently supposed to be a few months from now, if he was lucky.

He shifted slightly in his bed, the finely crocheted blanket his mother had made digging into his sensitive skin like needles. He didn't have the heart to tell her how uncomfortable it was, but really, there wasn't much in his life that wasn't painful. It was one of the downsides of dying.

That's what the doctors had said, at least. He'd overheard them talking to his parents, telling them that his prognosis "wasn't good" and that "we don't know how he's still kicking."

He liked that about them — the medical staff at the hospital, that is — their casual, almost humorous attitude towards death. Others would have called it unprofessional, but he liked that they didn't mince words. Besides, his young mind knew he would get better anyway. You couldn't save lives if you were dead, so he couldn't die yet.

It was as simple as that.

The window next to his bed portrayed a quaint park. It even had a little pond in it: when he'd first arrived here, and had been strong enough to still move around, he'd enjoyed feeding the ducks there. Their little quacks were cute, and he'd even seen the tiny ducklings following behind their mother. Or father. He wasn't really sure how duck parenting worked.

Recently, he'd begun to be envious of the birds. It was hard to be freer than them, while it was hard to be more trapped than Symon. Even his own body was a prison. Sometimes, he would dream of growing wings and flying away. When he woke up, he would always wonder where it was he was flying to.

He sighed once more, the sterile, antiseptic scent of the hospital entering his nose. Thankfully, all the beeping of the medical machines had stopped. One of the nurses and been kind enough to lower the volume on them.

After lying like that for some time, he grew bored. Pain and discomfort could only distract someone for so long.

"I think… I want to see the duckies again," he whispered to himself. The little red button next to his bed that would summon a caretaker called to him. The one assigned to him currently was a matronly woman called Martha, and he knew she was fond of him. She'd once said he reminded her of her grandson.

She wouldn't mind being called on for something like that, but he still shook his head slowly. Even that motion sent the world spinning around him, but when it finally calmed down, his mind was still made up.

Symon strained with all his might. His body was weak, pathetic, and useless, but his mind was like iron. He would be battered down, beaten, and abused, but he'd never give up. His muscles complained wildly with even the slightest of movements, but…

He. Would. Not. Give. Up.

Slowly, his hand raised from his side. The weight of the whole world, the entirety of his short life, pressed down on him.

Barely, inch by inch, his hand approached the railing of his bed. Feverish fingers wrapped around the cool metal, and, for a moment, he simply basked in the cool relief. He gasped weak air into weak lungs, then used his weak muscles to pull himself across the bed.

He slid across the sheets like a worm. The crocheted blanket may as well have been sandpaper, but he gritted his teeth and dragged himself all the way to the edge all the same.

Symon paused there, looking down at the vast distance to the floor, where his wheelchair sat. A normal kid wouldn't have given even a single thought to stepping down off the bed, but a normal kid didn't need a wheelchair just to move around, either.

Really, he wasn't even supposed to be out of his bed, not even if someone where there pushing the chair. No one would be by for some time, though, not unless he called for someone. The months of repetition had drilled their schedule into his brain. Besides, he knew he could do this himself.

It was very important that he got another look at the ducks. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but some small part of his mind trusted the predictions of the doctors over his own feelings. They were smart men and women, and they had no reason to lie, but the rest of him still knew they were wrong.

Even still… he wanted to look outside again and see life. Just in case something bad did happen. Not that it would. The doctors were wrong.

He did his best to lower himself into his wheelchair, but his muscles were like jelly. So were his bones, for that matter. He flopped inelegantly onto the cushioned seat, landing slumped backwards, with his legs dragging on the ground.

At least he'd gotten on.

He took another minute to gather his breath before painstakingly clawing his way upright. When that was complete, he had to make the journey to the window. While he would have preferred to physically go to the park, he wasn't stupid.

For one, a nurse or doctor would see him and bring him back to his room, even if he begged for another visit. They could be quite strict when it came to matters of health. At least they would help him back to his bed: he wasn't sure how he could make it back up there under his own power. It was a lot easier to give in to gravity's pull than to resist it, after all.

Secondly, he had to admit the hundreds of metres he'd need to travel through the hospital and over the rough stone path outside was outside his current abilities. Even the few metres to the window would be difficult enough.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He still made it, though it left his arms feeling like they'd been injected with molten lava.

Pressing his face to the window, he breathed a laboured sigh of relief. It caused the glass to fog up, which made him chuckle. How ironic, he thought, that the side effect of all that effort would block his view.

He calmed his breathing and waited for the fogginess to fade. When it did, it revealed the park in all its glory.

It was a sunny day with only a few clouds, so a few couples, families, and lonesome joggers were out enjoying the scenery. "Hello, Sun," he whispered.

The gentle breeze seemed to make all the trees dance. The big one next to the pond looked like it was waving at him with its massive boughs. He tried to return the gesture, but he'd already extracted every tiny bit of effort from his arms. "Hello, Mr. Tree," he instead said with a smile, though the motion made his teeth hurt.

Under the shade of the central tree, he saw a procession of little ducklings following behind their parent. They weren't quite as little as the last time he'd seen them, though.

"Hello, duckies," he said, his soft voice cracking as he watched them slowly paddle around the pond.

"They're cute, aren't they?" asked a woman's voice from behind him. He jumped — or really, twitched — in surprise, but he calmed down quickly. He recognised the voice.

"Hi, Miss Martha. I missed the baby ducks," he said innocently.

She smiled down at him, the wrinkles around her eyes scrunching up as she did. "I'm sure you did, little Sy. How about we take you back to bed, hmm? A growing boy like you needs lots of rest."

Symon remained silent for a minute as he watched the ducks for a little longer. They paddled off into some reeds, disappearing from his view. "Okay, you're right. Sorry, Miss Martha."

She smiled at him again. She did that a lot. "It's okay, little Sy. It must get boring being in bed so much. Maybe we can bring you some boo—" she begun before suddenly pausing, her smile drooping down. This time, when the wrinkles around her eyes scrunched up, there was something else in there. "Are you feeling alright?"

Symon frowned. Was he? All his muscles, his bones, and his skin hurt. He was pretty sure that was everything humans were made of, but he wasn't a doctor or a nurse yet.

"Just normal," he said with an attempted shrug.

She leaned down closer, quickly putting the stethoscope in her ears as she did so.

Symon thought that was strange. Nurses here didn't usually have one of those.

Her smile flattened out as she pressed the stethoscope's end to his chest, then it dipped even further into a frown as the moment stretched on. He couldn't feel the metal against his skin. That was strange, too.

Something bad had to be going on — Miss Martha never frowned.

"I'm just going to move your gown to check something, Sy," the nurse said.

Symon was silent, though he tried to help by wriggling a bit as she pulled the shirt off. The thin fabric scratched at his skin, but he didn't complain. Before he could ask what was going on, he paused. He could see a problem.

A wide circle was missing in the middle of his chest, leading all the way through him. Those little baby ducklings could have paddled right through him without touching the edges. Red tears leaked from the wound, but there wasn't as much blood as he'd been expecting.

"Oh," he said. "That's bad."

"Yes, it is, little Sy. That's why you need to <Wake up.>"

Symon let out a wordless groan as his eyelids dragged their way across his dry eyes. "Ugh, Miss Ma—" he began before breaking out into a coughing fit.

He looked down at the hand that had gone to cover his mouth. It was far too big, and the arm it was attached too was too long. Suddenly, his current situation hit him, and the strange cobwebs of the dream burned their way out of his mind.

<Stay still, damnit! You're still all fucked up!> Keelgrave shouted at him.

Symon groaned again, before thinking better of it and switching to mental communication. "What the hell happened? How am I still alive?"

He looked down at his body, and… yeah, he was fucked up. His shirt was completely destroyed, exposing a large, bowl shaped depression in his chest. It was like someone had gone in with a massive ice cream scoop and pulled out a big chunk of him. The exit wound had sealed over, at least, and the fact that he could lean forward like this meant his spine must have healed. He could wiggle his toes, too, though they felt a bit numb.

Symon quickly completed his self diagnostics. He wasn't paralysed, his lungs seemed to be working fineish — he could see one expanding and contracting, and his ribs had begun to regrow where they'd been obliterated in his front. He'd run out of vitality, so they looked a bit like teeth where they'd starting growing into the open space of his chest cavity.

The open space gave him a great view of his internals, which highlighted one critical problem: his heart wasn't all there.

He blinked a few times as he stared at it. It had obviously begun to regrow, but his Anatomy emphasised that it was more of a hollow, half open sphere of meat, a bit like a deflated basketball with the bottom cut off. Not at all able to pump blood. Even still, he was alive, and fresh blood still dribbled from the wound. There was quite a large puddle of it on the floor, he realised.

It had also begun to dry.

"Uh, buddy, I really need an explanation. What the fuck happened? How long have I been lying here?"

He shouldn't be alive at all, even with his healing. He'd obviously run out of vitality some time ago, and Bleeding Resistance could only do so much when your heart didn't work. It would have caused more problems than a simple loss of blood would. Plus, the fact that he could see his lung was a similarly bad sign. The attack had been off center, so his right lung was mostly fine, but the left one was exposed. You couldn't play around with sucking chest wounds.

<Well…> Keelgrave started. <I'm not really sure. Actually, I haven't got a clue. That was definitely a slave collar, so I'm not sure why he left. He did, though, then the elf came back and dragged you through the pollen, and your magic drained the roses to keep you alive.>

Symon stared at the caved in part of his chest. "Why am I out of vitality, then? There were enough roses left for me to heal something like this a hundred times over."

<Yeah, but not enough time. Those Praetorian horses go damned fast, at least outside of a forest like this, so she must have brought you here before they showed up.>

"And where is here meant to be? Aren't they just going to find us again?"

<You really need me to spell it out for you, kid? Just look around.>

Symon did so for the first time. In his defence, he had a lot on his mind.

He was in small, seemingly natural cave. A few sconces were set into the walls, though instead of flames, they emitted slowly pulsing light from crystals on their tops. A tunnel stretched on in front of him, rapidly twisting and winding out of view.

The wall behind him had an archway made of roughly stacked loose stones. There was nothing behind it, only the cave wall.

The one to his right was covered in carvings and cave paintings, but his attention was drawn to glowing letters inset on the leftmost wall.

[You have entered the Dungeon: Shattered Palace of Crystal.

Recommended Level: 40-50.

Escape Condition: Expunge Durnemeth, Architect of Crystal.

Escape Condition: Submit to Durnemeth, Architect of Crystal.]