"Thank you," Kaiden nodded, happy with the words of his doctor.
"You're welcome. Other patients are waiting for me, so I'll take my leave. See you around, Blood Knight." Elysia said her goodbyes, accompanied by a playful wink.
"Blood Knight?" He asked dumbfoundedly, but Elysia only smiled slyly while she and her armed entourage left his room, leaving behind three teary-eyed girls who each jumped at him with a potent mixture of joy and relief. Now that the doctor had left the room, they could embrace him to their heart's content.
"Kai!! You Dummy!" Aria cried. Based on her tone, she was grateful for him standing up to defend her honor but also strongly reprimanded him for taking such a stupid risk at the same time.
"Our handsome knight in shining armor..." Nyx decreed proudly as she lay a big, loving smooch on his forehead. "Thank you."
"There's nothing to thank me for. I just did what I felt was right."
"Hehe! Even now, he is spouting this nonsense! You gave us a real fright, you know?" Luna giggled while holding his hand tightly to her chest.
"How long was I out?"
"A day," They replied together in sync.
"... Based on your disheveled hair and dark bags under your eyes, is it fair to assume you stayed here with me all this time?"
"Of course."
Kaiden sighed at their determined replies. He could guess going home didn't even occur in their minds. To be fair, he would've done the same if their places were switched, and he would be lying if he said that this gesture of theirs didn't warm his heart.
"What about your siblings, Aria?"
"I called the babysitter, but honestly, they're big kids. I might not do it next time."
"Do they know?"
She grimaced at his question. Although they were not national celebrities or anything like that, the videos of her shouting her love for Kaiden had spread far, so surely someone would recognize her and show it to her siblings. From that point, it wouldn't take them much research to realize she was an adult actress.
"Not yet... I'll have a talk with them sometime."
"You have to do it soon. If you don't tell them, their classmates will. It's better if they receive the news from you."
"I know..." Aria shook her head, letting her trademark beautiful, cheery smile replace her grimace. "Let's drop this stressful topic; instead, tell us how you feel!"
Kaiden smiled at her adorable antics before replying, "Better by the second. Can you give me a rundown of what happened?"
"Sure! You silenced the arena with your victory; you were amazing!" Aria began the recounting but pouted with puffed-out cheeks when she was interrupted by an enthusiastic Luna who continued the tale.
"Both of you were teleported to safety due to your lives being at risk, and despite winning, you were in a more critical condition than the scumbag! I heard he'd already left the hospital."
It was Nyx's turn to take the mantle of speaking, eliciting a scoff from the purple-haired beauty. "We were lucky that Lady Elysia was the healer on sight. An awakened Duel can go ahead as long as an A-tier healer-type awakened is available. If it wasn't an S-tier in this case, you might've suffered lifelong crippling injuries."
Despite the Awakened Associations' best efforts to safeguard the awakened humans, Awakened Duels were still risky. No deaths ever occurred thus far, but some combatants were forced into early retirement as a result of sustaining injuries during such an event.
"Yeah. This might've been a bit reckless on my part..." Kaiden chuckled wryly when he saw the gaze of three women who were ready to beat him up due to his words. They each inhaled and exhaled a few times to calm themselves.
"Moving on, you're a small celebrity now! I checked not long ago, and the most viewed recording of your fight already crossed a million views!" Nyx squealed excitedly while shoving her phone into his face, where a Yout*be video and its views stared back at him.
"Becky sends her regards. She came to visit you a few hours ago, but you were out cold, so she asked me to tell you that she is so sorry for treating you as she did," Aria added cheerily.
Kaiden didn't remember David's ex-girlfriend treating him badly. Becky had nothing to apologize for, in his opinion.
"What about our awakened content?" Kaiden asked. He could check it himself, and he would do so soon enough, but he wanted to hear it from his happy, excited lovers. He significantly preferred seeing their adorable gazes and hearing their cheery voices over the systemic interface's cold information panel showing him what he'd missed.
"It's doing pretty good. Sadly, most views from the fight didn't seem to translate very well, but I think our ranking up the system is not far! Our Insta page received over twenty thousand followers while our awakened page got ten thousand."
They were complete nobodies before this, so Kaiden was amazed at this wonderful news. He couldn't even wrap his mind around such high numbers. Tens of thousands of people were now following them... The successor of the Heavenly Demon couldn't help but have his heart beat a bit faster out of excitement.
"Let's upload a picture to let them know Kai is okay!" Aria chirped. "A lot of girls wrote you wishes of betterment, Kai. Your fangirl statistic might be doing very well right now."
"Fangirls? Why?" Kaiden asked with a dumbfounded expression. He understood his victory over an A-tier awakened was an astounding feat, but he didn't see the correlation as to how that would translate to getting many fangirls.
All three of them looked at him as if he were the dumbest person in the world.
"Dude..." Luna deadpanned.
Aria continued in a much gentler tone, "Kai, you just defended our honor as if you were a chivalrous knight straight from a romance novel! Do you know how many girls have dreams of a handsome man like you standing up to protect them? It was the sweetest gesture a man could make for his lovers. I found it so romantic I still get butterflies in my stomach when I think back to what happened!"
"That's not all!" Nyx continued excitedly. "Why do you think Elysia called you Blood Knight? The way you looked, sounded, and acted was so damn badass! Your blood-red eyes and the way you bled so much onto the scumbag earned you this title. A lot of people call you as the doctor did."
"I see. Now that you mention it, I guess what I did was rather epic..." Kaiden said while scratching his chin. 'I'm the Blood Knight because I'm ready to bleed to protect my girls. I like it,' He thought inwardly.
"Humble bragging is not cool..." Luna grumbled cutely before leaning in and lovingly kissing his cheek.
"Let's take the picture for the fans," Nyx decreed. "Kai, are you good to sit up?"
"Let's check," he replied and easily sat up. Kaiden couldn't help but be amazed at Elysia's displayed body restoration prowess. He was shot, thrown to the ground, and even outright impaled on a mana spear, and 24 hours later, he was good to go. If he was a bit higher level and thus had more Vitality, he likely wouldn't even need any time in the hospital after getting her treatment.
"Chaos gremlin, can you take the throne?" Nyx asked slyly.
"..." Luna did not reply until realization dawned on her a few seconds later. "... You wouldn't happen to be talking to me, right?"