After John dropped off the medical supplies, he left the room. Raymond came by during that time to ask Caius if he needed a doctor. Caius declined.

  And so, only Caius, Kiki, and Hilda remained in the private room.

  Kiki was covered in blood, but it was mostly from the Bloody Creatures.

  Her body was weak and trembling, mostly due to the adrenaline crash that followed the intense ordeal. It wasn’t anything serious—just some exhaustion that would go away with rest.

  Caius tried to lay her on the sofa, but her arms remained tightly wrapped around his neck.

  “If you keep holding on to me like this, how am I supposed to treat my wounds?” Caius said gently.

  Only then did Kiki sniffle and reluctantly let go.

  But Caius didn’t immediately start cleaning his own wounds. Instead, he gestured for Hilda to use water magic to rinse Kiki down and check for any injuries.

  Once he confirmed Kiki was completely unharmed, Caius nodded and began treating himself.

  This time, the injuries were rather serious—especially the overlapping claw marks on his chest. The deepest of them went down to the bone.

  Fortunately, his powerful regenerative ability had already stopped the bleeding. What he needed now was to clean the wounds, disinfect them, and stitch up the more severe ones.

  Stitches would accelerate the healing process.

  Without stitching, he’d have to wait five to six days for new flesh to grow back. With it, two to three days would be enough. He couldn’t let these injuries hinder his next move.

  “Need help?” Hilda asked.

  “Rinse me off. I’ll have Kiki do the rest,” Caius replied, glancing toward Kiki.

  Hearing that, Kiki quickly leaned in, her face full of hope.

  She wanted to do something—anything—to help Caius.

  “Do you know how to stitch wounds?” Caius asked.

  Kiki shook her head, her eyes wide and attentive.

  “I’ll teach you,” Caius said.

  He let Hilda rinse his body with water magic, then took out a vial of disinfectant and poured it directly onto his chest. The liquid immediately started to bubble as it reacted with the wounds.

  The disinfectant in this world was just as stingy as alcohol—designed to suppress various toxins, including Blood Poison.

  The downside? It hurt like hell.

  Caius’s chest rose and fell sharply, but his expression remained stoic. This moved Hilda slightly.

  “It doesn’t hurt?” she asked.

  “Oh, it hurts. I’m dying inside,” Caius grinned through clenched teeth.

  “Then why do you look so calm?” Hilda was genuinely surprised.

  “Because I’m a real man,” Caius said solemnly.

  Hilda couldn’t help but laugh. His ability to joke meant he wasn’t in too bad a shape.

  Given his constitution, he didn’t need overly delicate treatment.

  Only the deep wounds needed stitching.

  “Here, take this.” Caius handed her the curved suture needle and pointed to the edge of one of the gashes as he demonstrated. “You go in here, then out there, loop the thread like this...and pull. Got it?”

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  “W-Will it hurt?” Kiki asked hesitantly, watching the sharp needle pierce the flesh. Her hands trembled slightly, eyes filled with distress.

  “Depends on your technique. If you don’t hear me hiss through my teeth, it means it’s not that bad,” Caius replied.

  “Alright, your turn.”

  After demonstrating a few more times, Caius lay back on the sofa, giving Kiki full control.

  Kiki knelt beside him, carefully aligning the needle to the wound and pushing it through.

  “Bit more force. My skin’s pretty tough,” Caius instructed.

  “O-Okay... Tell me if it hurts, alright?” she murmured.

  “Mmhm,” Caius nodded.

  And so, Kiki began stitching. Slowly and carefully, she moved the needle through his skin.

  Under Caius’s gentle corrections and guidance, she gradually grew more proficient.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked again.

  “No,” Caius lied smoothly.

  Of course it hurt. But he could take it.

  Right now, the little catgirl was clearly shaken—emotionally devastated.

  She likely saw herself as dead weight, a burden, maybe even considered quitting the team to avoid holding him back.

  And that? That was something Caius absolutely couldn’t allow.

  So, he guided her.

  Let her do something useful. Let her feel needed. If she felt she had a role, she wouldn’t leave.

  In truth, Caius didn’t really view her as a powerful assassin.

  Her role in his eyes leaned more toward a personal assistant... or maybe a cute secretary?

  For day-to-day errands, she was always quick, efficient, and cheerful.

  It was simple: Caius handled the big stuff, and Kiki handled the small things.

  And those little things she did often lifted Caius’s mood in a way nothing else could.

  Especially lighting his cigarette.

  He loved that.

  So no way in hell was he letting her leave.

  Caius had a lot of injuries. Eight major wounds needed extensive stitching—each requiring forty to fifty stitches. The remaining dozen or so still needed at least ten to twenty each.

  Kiki did her best to keep her hands steady, sewing each wound slowly, carefully.

  But somewhere along the way, her tears began to fall.

  Caius, resting his head on one arm, looked up at her and reached out with his big hand to gently touch her cheek.

  “Why are you crying? I’m the one who’s hurt, not you.”

  “I’m sorry, Big Guy…” Kiki said as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her hands didn’t stop moving, still sewing with care.

  “I’m just… so useless. I don’t think I can keep going on adventures with you…”

  “No way,” Caius replied instantly.

  “But I’m so weak…”

  “So what? If you’re weak, train. If you think you’re dragging me down, train even harder.”

  “If one setback is all it takes to make you give up, then what’s the point of all the pain I’m going through?”

  “Also, that dagger—I’m making three for you. One at base cost, that’s 200,000 coins. Three is 600,000. You owe me 600,000 now.”

  “Not to mention I’ve saved your life twice. That’s two lifetimes’ worth of debt.”

  “You’re stuck with me this life and the next, working for me. Got it?”

  He grinned like a rogue as he said it, making Hilda quietly shake her head with a smile.

  But the catgirl?

  She nodded furiously, tears still falling.

  “Mhm! Mhm!”

  The truth was, Kiki didn’t need comforting—at least not in the traditional sense.

  If she was truly fragile, no amount of kind words would help.

  But did she really want to leave?

  That wasn’t it. She wanted to stay—she loved being with Caius. But precisely because of that, she feared dragging him down. She feared that he might find her a burden.

  But Caius’s words told her plainly—

  Stop overthinking. You're staying, no question.

  That alone was enough to dispel the little Catgirl’s thoughts of leaving. And once that idea was gone, her mind would naturally turn to more important things: how to help Caius, how to make herself useful, how to truly become someone who could support him.

  It was a form of encouragement, delivered in Caius’s own, roundabout way.

  His overbearing insistence—

  That was exactly what she needed.

  As long as Caius didn’t reject her, she would never leave.

  The stitching operation lasted two full hours. Caius endured hundreds of stitches, but in the end, the wound was finally closed.

  The Catgirl wasn’t exactly a professional, but Caius didn’t need her to be. As long as the wound was sealed, that was enough. In just two or three days, he’d be back to normal.

  The fish-gut suture thread would gradually dissolve with his metabolism and be expelled naturally—no need for any suture removal.

  “Not bad! That scar’s gonna look pretty damn good!” Caius chuckled, nodding with satisfaction.

  “Scars are a good thing?” Hilda leaned in beside him, speaking softly, worried that her words might upset the little Catgirl.

  But Caius just grinned. “You don’t get it—scars are a mercenary’s badge of honor.”

  “See all these scars?” he said proudly, spreading his arms wide to show them off. “Kept every single one on purpose!”

  Hilda looked at him in mild shock. At the moment, Caius was shirtless, and while the scars were faint, there were a lot of them—dozens in total, new and old crisscrossing one another.

  What surprised her the most was this:

  Caius had scars only on the front of his body. His back was practically unmarked.

  Scars were a mercenary’s badge of honor.

  And front-facing scars?

  Those were the true mark of a warrior’s pride.

  In that moment, when she looked at Caius, there was something new in Hilda’s eyes—

  A glimmer of admiration.

  A quiet respect.