Reincarnator Returns: Second Shot

”Heishtå!” Eren cursed.

The pain came in pulses. As if a hateful thorn had somehow gotten inside his veins and now ravaged through his arms.

Pushing himself upright had proven to be a painful endeavor. His muscles provided no purchase, for he had none. Just skin and bones and fragile ligaments.

Knowing the Martial Manual and actually doing it were two completely different things entirely.

Turn pain into pleasure. That was the Masochist’s Dream. But even a 10-star talent in the mind couldn’t do that as easily as flicking a switch.

Eren was no stranger to pain. Living as a mortal in a land of cultivators gave way to some perilous situations, even in the relatively peaceful land in the Palace of Wisdom. Despite being named as a scholarly sect, his home was a breeding ground for conflict.

But most of the pain he felt there was caused by external factors. Holding a thorn-bound book. Petting a draconic juvenile with the tendency to bite. Or even the occasional drunkard cultivator wanting a practice dummy.

This was different. Self-inflicted pain. It required total insanity. To be so perverse in one’s life that self-preservation was a limit to be broken, not a saving net.

Live the way as a masochist would. He had no other choice but to comply if he wanted to recover his body.

He reminded himself that this pain was a privilege. He was lucky to even start this training regimen, when he previously could not.

He spent the rest of the sleepless night embracing the hurt until finally, the morning came.

The hospital hummed with activity. Beyond his room, nurses flitted past, gossiping and laughing and teasing.

Mundane topics bubbled out their mouths. Which patient looked handsome, which attending doctor was a terror to work with. Eren realized they were having a conversation for distraction. To forget that monsters still marched the ground beyond these four walls.

At about 7 am, Nieve came into his room for his scheduled breakfast.

He was sitting upright, trembling hands on the railing. The white gown he wore was drenched in sweat, turning the pure white color into a greyish skin tone.

Nieve started. ”Oh my!” She hurried to his side and cranked the axle near his feet. The upper part of his bed began to incline, supporting his vulnerable back. ”What are you doing?! You want your body to be even more messed up?”

Relief washed over his face. Nieve thought it came from the bed now supporting his back.

But in truth, this reprieve came from the prickly feeling now bubbling through his body.

That was Ræzon, lending their powers to his body, alleviating his pain, strengthening his body. The Martial Manual finally worked. The universe acknowledged his efforts!

It felt like tiny needles stinging his skin, piercing all the way through his muscles and bones. But instead of hurting, it instead scratched an itch he could have never alleviated by himself. He was being healed!

The effectiveness of the Martial Manual was as much of a reprieve as the actual relief in his body.

One never really knew whether Athan’s scrolls were a work of masterpiece or a masterscam. His Master had a propensity for expressing his creativity by creating Martial Manuals and Ascension Arts based on ridiculous ideas. Most of them were terrible. For a second there, he thought that the [Masochist’s Dream] was one of them.

Thankfully, it seemed genuine. The tremors in his body stopped. His hands found better grip on the railings. Strength came where it previously did not.

Now, he sat upright even without support.

And as long as he continued to push his body to its limits, Ræzon would create a miracle. It’d make a coma patient walk.

Nieve took a second, assessing him and the sudden change in his body language. Uncanny strength and stability came from his fragile frame. ”You’re sitting.”

”I am now.”

”You shouldn’t be able to sit yet.”

”I’m sorry for ruining your expectations.” Even his voice was recovering.

Nieve frowned, full of admonishment. ”Dr. Reid told you to rest for a few days before doing anything too stressful. Your body shouldn’t even be able to sit upright yet.”

She checked his charts. Monitored his heart rhythms. Tried to find anything to explain this anomaly. She couldn’t. In the end, she attributed his fast recovery to the surprising resilience of the human body.

”Still... you shouldn’t be overexerting yourself.”

He gestured to the TV. ”I wanted to watch something but I couldn’t find the remote.”

Not really a lie. He needed to watch television.

For one, he needed something to distract him from the pain of self-inflicted torture.

And second, the true heartbeat of society most often revealed itself in how people spent their idle time. What’s considered fun. What’s considered popular. What distracted people during sleepless nights.

These things were pivotal if he wanted to reintegrate back into this world.

And hopefully, he’d find some clues in the process.

Unfortunately, the TV remote was nowhere to be found. Hidden, Eren guessed, rather than missing. But Nieve would know where it was.

”You can’t believe how boring it was being in a coma,” he drawled.

It elicited a light laugh from his nurse. But his charm wasn’t enough to make her relent. ”Just... follow what Dr. Reid told you. I’ll get in trouble.”

And there it was. A chance.

”Dr. Reid seemed nice,” he said. A general statement. Inviting Nieve to interject with her opinions.

”At times,” she muttered. ”But not lately. She’s wound up. Stricter than ever. And we’d called her the resident terror long before the uptick in portals in our district.

You’d think that she’d give us more leeway with how understaffed we are. But no. It’s like she wants to see me struggle.”

Even with the evident resentment in her voice, Eren saw that look in her eyes.

Gosh. It’s like he was looking in a mirror.

It was the look of desperate approval.

Nieve was in the phase of her life where the approval of her seniors was make or break for her career.

She had fallen into the amateur trap of thinking that Dr. Reid’s approval was all that mattered in the world. That it would somehow... make her better.

He’d been that way before. He thought reading all those books, practicing all those medicinal journals, memorizing the entire Immortal Library, would somehow fix his crippledness. His master certainly made it seem so.

It wouldn’t be until a few seconds before his second death did he realize Athan was lying.

”I’m sure she knows you’re competent,” he said, pushing his thoughts aside.

”No.” She laughed self-deprecatingly. ”I can’t even place a needle properly. I wish my Psion talent had something to do with needles like you.”

He smiled. ”I never said that was because of Psions.”

Lies began weaving out of his mouth. He told her that a distant family member taught him how to do that when he was a kid. He painted a story where the flying needle technique was an acquireable skill.

”Are you just bragging about how talented you are?”

He laughed for real. ”Quite the contrary. My mas—family member was the best teacher in the world. He could make the most complex idea look simple even to a dimwit like me.”

Nieve turned silent. Considering. Debating. Hesitating. Until finally... she bought it.

”Can... can you teach me?”

Hook, line, and sinker.