"Nola…?"
"It's me. Hey! Don't tell me you don't recognize me, do you? That's not right. You hurt your leg, not your head! Did the fever fry your brain? This is bad! No, I need to go get someone, quick!"
Paige Summers watched, dumbfounded, as the woman shot out the door like a gust of wind. She never even had a chance to say "No" or "You don't have to."
A moment later, Nola returned, practically dragging a young man with her.
The man was gentle and scholarly in appearance, with a mild temperament. He didn't seem the least bit annoyed by her rough treatment; instead, he looked over at Paige Summers with concern.
"You're awake. How are you feeling?"
Paige Summers breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, he hadn't listened to Nola and immediately questioned her sanity. She gave a small nod. "Okay. I just have no strength, and my leg hurts a little."
Nola cut in, "What do you mean, okay? She didn't even recognize me just now! Could her brain be fried?!"
'You're the one with a fried brain!' Paige Summers felt utterly exasperated.
But she could tell Nola was less concerned about her condition and more interested in getting a better look at the young doctor. Look at her—she wasn't even glancing at Paige. Her eyes were completely fixed on his handsome, scholarly face!
The man chuckled. "That's not it. Her mind is perfectly clear."
Paige Summers finally relaxed. 'Got to give props to someone who gets it!'
The man turned to her and continued, "The lack of strength is a side effect of exhaustion. You'll need to rest properly for a while, or it could cause damage to your body. The most serious issue, however, is your leg…" Seeing Paige Summers get a little nervous, he reassured her, "Don't be afraid. Thanks to timely treatment, the broken bone is setting quite well. It's just that the physical therapy afterward will be very difficult. You need to be mentally prepared."
'Thank goodness…'
She let out a huge sigh of relief. As long as she could recover, anything was manageable; she wasn't afraid of a little hardship. After all, if she ended up crippled in an era like this, she'd seriously have to consider whether dying would be a happier alternative!
Seeing that she was mostly fine, the man prepared to leave. "I'm Quentin Sutton, a doctor at the Citadel," he said before he went. "I'm in charge of your injuries. If you feel unwell at any point, just have someone come find me."
As his face disappeared from view, Nola trudged back dejectedly after seeing him out. Paige Summers was still in a daze.
"Hey, Sue!"
"Huh?"
Nola's eyes gleamed as she stared at her, sitting on the edge of the bed with her arms crossed. "I saw Dr. Sutton first. You're not thinking of trying to steal him from me, are you?!"
"Steal him? No, no, no. I mean, are we in the Citadel right now?"
"Yep." At the mention of this, Nola immediately dropped her act and leaned in with a grin. "Actually, it's all thanks to you that we're living in the Citadel! I thought I'd have to struggle for at least another ten years before I'd ever get to see what the Inner City looked like, haha! Oh, right, you don't know yet, do you? I heard you had a real brush with death. One second later and that Mutant Beast would have torn you to shreds, but then the Young City Lord showed up. Like a god descending from the heavens, he swept away all the monsters and played out a classic 'hero saves the damsel' scene right there. He saved you from the jaws of the Mutant Beast, killing it on the spot! You can probably guess what happened next…"
'The Citadel, the Young City Lord, moving in… I'd rather spend my whole life not guessing any of it!' Tears streamed down Paige Summers's face internally. 'Haven't I already tried so hard to avoid this part of the plot? Why, after I went so far out of my way, is fate still following the original novel's trajectory?'
'Next, am I going to have to face the female lead? And then, no matter how I resist, will I be fed to a Mutant Beast and die in the prime of my life, just as it was written in the book?'
'I really want to cry!'
'She could feel the profound malice of this world!'
'Is reality trying to tell me that even with a new soul in this body, I still can't escape the final ending?'
"…Hey, are you even listening?" Nola, who had been in the middle of her exciting story, sensed her distraction and asked, annoyed.
Paige Summers replied weakly, "I spaced out. Sorry. I'm just… too surprised."
Hearing that, Nola immediately nodded in agreement. "That makes sense. I was pretty much the same when I first found out who they were. Not to mention the Young City Lord even offered to bring you back to the Citadel himself."
"Is that so…" Paige Summers's voice grew even weaker. 'The male lead… I really want to stay far away from him.' 'But frankly,' she thought, 'I probably owe him a huge debt, right? Saving my life and my leg… Ugh, what a headache!' "By the way, what happened to… Quentin Carter?"
Nola froze for a moment, and her expression darkened. "He's dead… Back then, after killing the Mutant Beasts outside, Brother Mills and the others were about to go in and save you, but three more showed up and blocked our way. We were all running low on our superpowers and thought we were going to die there. But the Young City Lord happened to be passing by with his men, and we barely made it out alive. When we entered the woods, we saw the Young City Lord had killed the Mutant Beast and was pulling you out of a fissure in the ground. Quentin Carter was already gone by then…"
'Is that what happened? I don't think so.'
Paige Summers carefully recalled the situation. If that dark figure before she passed out was the Young City Lord, then Quentin Carter should still have been alive at that point. 'It seems he did something.'
She pressed her lips together.
Nola just assumed she was grieving for Quentin Carter and offered some self-deprecating comfort. "Don't overthink it. Just focus on getting better. For people like us, every time we leave the city, we're putting our lives on the line. Life and death are just part of the deal."
Paige Summers, of course, didn't bother to explain. Instead, she asked, "Is Jayden Yeats okay?"
The words had barely left her mouth when a steady knock sounded at the door.