Published at 7th of February 2023 10:58 am

Chapter 163: The Return Of Emily

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"Well, whose fault is that?" Ruslan snapped as they stepped into the building, clearly hinting at the fact that he blamed Arthur for his situation.

"Your fathers," Arthur declared, ignoring the fact Ruslan had raised his voice at him, "It's not your fault, it's not my fault, it's not even my father's fault, although I'm sure he amplified the situation somewhat... The blame rests entirely on your father."

Ruslan went silent once more, and he remained silent until they reached the infirmary. Once they entered the room, Arthur announced their presence by calling out to Emily.

"Hey Arthur, long time no see. I'll be with you in a second," Emily said with an upbeat tone, she seemed to be hiding behind a folding privacy screen tending to another patient, "I was really hoping this would be the year you didn't show up wounded on the first day."

"It's somewhat impressive how accident-prone you can be. Although I do wish you would stop getting hurt." Emily rambled while most likely pressing ice down on an injury of another patient, or at least that's what Arthur assumed based on the small mutterings of the patient claiming something was cold. "So what was it this time? Soccer ball, baseball, tennis racket?"

"The tennis racket only happened once," Arthur exclaimed. "No, I'm actually not injured this time around, I'm just the transport."

Arthur watched as Emily appeared from behind the screen with a surprised look on her face.

"The curse is broken!" She exclaimed in a tone that expressed that she was clearly joking. Her attention then snapped to the grumpy individual Arthur was lugging around, "Ruslan, this is an uncommon sight. What can I do for you?"

"Sprained ankle, he landed on a dodgeball and rolled it," Arthur explained before Ruslan could even open his mouth.

"Ouch, that's not fun. Alright, bring him over to a bed, get him off of that foot," Emily ordered.

Arthur helped Ruslan onto one of the beds before turning to find that Emily seemed to have vanished out the room, only to return a few moments later with another makeshift ice pack.

"They should just get me an ice machine at this rate," Emily sighed out loud. "Four injuries today, and we haven't even made it to lunch."

"Maybe I'll be the fifth," Arthur joked.

"Don't even joke about that, I'm getting tired of raiding the staff room for ice cubes and tea towels." Emily sighed. "The next patient is getting an ice cube in a scrunched up ball of paper towels."

Arthur couldn't help but chuckle in response as he watched her tend to Ruslan's injuries.

Before he could even think of going back to class, Emily turned to him and started making conversation.

"I'm glad to see you're well," She said, "And it seems as though you've been working out, you're looking much healthier."

"Yeah, I've been taking care of myself lately," Arthur nodded. He chose not to mention that the only reason he started working out was to get an advantage in a video game.

"So how has life been treating you?" Arthur asked, "Any progress with Doctor Hudson?"

Arthur's comment instantly brought a blush to Emily's face.

"It's... Well... I'm working on it." She muttered silently, she seemed restless now, but couldn't move because she was busy holding ice to Ruslan's ankle.

Arthur's attention glanced over at Ruslan, who was just laying there listening to the two, he seemed to have a complaint but kept silent while the two talked.

"We haven't been able to spend much time together lately... Something about a critical patient," Emily muttered, which made Arthur immediately think of the woman that Anna called Mallory, the one who was still in a coma due to the reactor explosion.

"But, good news," Emily perked up again, "Your father invited me to work alongside Martin at the laboratory."

"Oh wow, that's great news," Arthur said with a hint of joy. "And you'll be happy to hear that father is surprisingly accepting of office romance."

Once again, Arthur's comment had caused Emily to brighten up like a tomato and go silent.

"Are you going to take the job?" Arthur asked.

"I will be, I'll be starting next year," She responded.

Arthur was happy to hear this. Emily was much too kind to be rotting away at a high school.

Ruslan finally couldn't take it and interrupted the conversation, saying that the ice was stinging his foot.

"Oh dear, I apologise," Emily spoke up, quickly pulling the ice away. "If you felt discomfort, you should have spoken up earlier."

Arthur watched as she wrapped the tea towel around the ice two more times before reapplying it. He shrugged that detail off as slightly uncharacteristic of her until he noticed Emily giving him a sneaky wink, indicating that she had done it on purpose.

'I didn't know she had a mean streak.' Arthur thought to himself.

He was aware why she had done so, Emily was one of the most knowledgeable people in school in regards to Ruslan's mistreatment of Arthur, and it seemed her method of satiating her dissatisfaction was through petty but harmless actions like this.

'So much for the Hippocratic Oath.' Arthur internally sighed.

"Alright, I should be getting back to class," Arthur announced, "I'll see you later."

"That better not be as a patient," Emily retorted as Arthur slipped out of the room.

By the time Arthur had made it back to the gym, the class was coming to an end. And he noticed that Rowan was surrounded by a group of his classmates.

From snippets of conversation that he could hear from a distance, it seemed the class had somehow found out that Rowan was a beta tester for New Genesis.

Rowan seemed overwhelmed, as did Holly, who also had people talking to her. But Quinn was standing around with his chest puffed, so Arthur immediately knew it was his fault the situation turned out this way.

The beta test wasn't a secret, nobody was forced to sign a confidentiality clause or anything, rather the developers wanted people to talk about the game. It was just inconvenient being the centre of attention when not much information was public, as you were relentlessly hounded with questions.

"Like a pack of hyenas," Arthur muttered out loud before chucking.

People quickly turned to stare at Arthur after noticing him approach, it seemed people were quite curious about him.

A couple of questions were thrown around, most seemed to be curious if Arthur was Merlin, as the two looked rather similar. And since he wasn't too fussed with hiding it, he just responded with a simple "yes".

"Is it true you forced a girl to eat a wolf corpse?" Another student asked, which caused Arthur's gaze to lock on to Rowan, who had escaped the crowd and was now running around picking up dodgeballs.

The bell had rung, signalling to everyone that class was over and that lunch break had started. Seeing as they weren't getting any more answers out of Arthur, the crowd started making their way out of the gym.

"Of all the things to bring up," Arthur sighed to himself before walking over to his friends. "How'd that happen?"

"Someone overheard us talking about the game, and it sort of spiralled out of control," Holly sighed, "Although is it true you made a little girl eat a wolf corpse?"

"To be fair, she's older than both of us," Arthur tried defending himself, "And I didn't make her, I just suggested it."

After saying goodbye to Rowan, the group went out and started having their lunch. And for the rest of the day, besides the whispers, stares and occasional questions, the day flew past without much issue.

Donovan picked Arthur up at the end of the day.

"Did you get into another fight?" Donovan asked with a playful tone.

"Nope, but I did put a kid in the infirmary," Arthur responded with a half-truth, "Technically."

Arthur had to explain his poor attempt at a joke to a very confused Donovan, but thankfully he caught on rather quickly.

He was eventually dropped off at home, and after his usual routine, he went to bed. The next four days flew by without anything interesting happening, Ruslan didn't seem to come to school for two days, but on the third day, he found him studying in the library.

'What on earth has happened to this man in only a couple of months,' Arthur thought to himself, 'I wasn't aware that Ruslan even knew what studying was.'

He noticed that Ruslan had been limping around with his leg in an ankle brace, so he was spending less time with his usual group who usually played soccer over lunch break.

Eventually, the week had ended, and it was finally time for Arthur to jump back into the game. For some reason, the week felt much longer than it was, so Arthur was feeling rather excited to hop back into the game.

There was a large group outside of the facility, and it seemed even a couple of people from group three were standing around waiting, even though it would be a while before they were allowed in.

Arthur saw a few familiar faces in the crowd, one of them being the roleplayer group. Although it seemed Liam and Alvira weren't present at the moment, it was just Rowan and Mason around talking with Maria. It seemed Acai hadn't arrived yet either.

Arthur approached the group, and as he slipped through the crowd, he saw Kyle standing around in the distance speaking with his own group.

"Hey guys," Arthur greeted his friends as he approached.

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