The first thing that Alex saw when he opened his eyes was a little white bun sleeping peacefully on his chest.
Seeing Dim Dim sleep made Alex smile faintly. However, as if sensing that the young man was awake, the Dim Sum God yawned before opening its eyes.
"Good morning, Dim Dim," Alex said.
Dim Dim was still half asleep, so a few seconds passed before it realized that Alex was already awake.
"Dim Dim!" Dim Dim also greeted Alex, but instead of saying good morning, it said good evening instead.
The young man then glanced at the window and noticed that the light from outside was nearly orange, which meant that the sun was slowly descending below the horizon.
Alex then propped himself into a seating position and noticed that he was in an unfamiliar place.
The next thing he noticed were his hands.
They were covered in bandages. He blinked.
Seeing his confusion, Dim Dim took out a mirror from its dimensional storage and placed it before him to help him understand that his hands weren’t the only parts of him that were bandaged.
When the young man saw that even his face was covered, a feeling of anxiety crept over him.
A quick check and he noticed that not only was he wearing patient attire instead of his own clothes, but that his entire body was bandaged like a mummy.
"Excuse me for a bit, Dim Dim," Alex said as he took off his patient’s clothes with the intention of removing the bandages all over him.
But he didn’t need to do that manually. The moment he wished to remove the bandages, the bandages started to unravel themselves on their own.
In the first place, the bandages were magical. Since they had fulfilled their purpose, they removed themselves from Alex’s body.
A moment later, a young man was stark naked. He began examining his body to see why the nurses had practically mummified him.
He even asked Dim Dim to take out a full-length mirror—the Dim Sum God happily complied—so that he could see his back.
But while the young man was in the middle of inspecting his body, the door of the room opened, and four ladies came in.
Lin, Rin, Lavinia, and Vaan entered the room, still in conversation.
Since Alex had been in a comatose state all this time, they didn’t bother to knock and just entered the room like usual.
But what greeted them was not an unconscious Alex on the bed, but an Alex—who was very much awake—standing in the middle of the room before a huge mirror while wearing his birthday suit.
As if on cue, the two teenagers’ gazes all moved to Alex’s lower body, where an energetic Little Alex greeted them.
"Oh my..." Vaan cupped his cheeks and blushed after seeing how lively Little Alex was.
Lavinia’s expression remained calm, but her face was quickly turning beet red.
She forced herself to raise her gaze, but Alex’s lean and toned body was a temptation too!
Lavinia liked strong men and Alex’s well-trained body was not merely eye candy but a sumptuous feast for her eyes.
The twin nurses were the only ones who didn’t seem bothered by Alex’s nudity.
"You’re finally awake," Lin said as she approached Alex, who immediately covered Little Alex.
"What are you doing?" Rin asked in amusement. "My sister and I already saw it when we bandaged your body. So, what’s the point of hiding? Unhand it so we can start your examination."
"Like hell I would!" Alex replied. "Get out, while I get dressed!"
"Men are supposed to be brave and bold," Lin stated. "Why are you being so wishy-washy? Um, what is that on your neck? A hickey?"
Lavinia and Vaan, who had politely looked away, whipped their heads back when they heard those words.
The two walked closer to Alex, who had shifted his gaze back to the mirror.
His eyes widened in surprise. The small bruise was on the exact spot that Noelle had kissed him in his dream!
"H-How..." Due to his surprise, Alex nearly forgot that there were four ladies in the room with him. He reached to touch the bruise on his neck to see if it was real or not and inadvertently left Little Alex exposed.
However, Little Alex remained unadmired.
Lavinia and Vaan were now more interested in checking the hickey on Alex’s neck instead of looking at other places.
"Did any other people enter the room while I was sleeping, Dim Dim?" Alex asked the Dim Sum God, while still looking at his reflection.
Dim Dim shook its head. "Dim."
As Dim Dim had very rarely left Alex’s side during his coma, it would know if someone had tried to take advantage of him when he was in a defenseless state.
Moreover, since he had been almost-fully covered in bandages, it would’ve been nearly impossible to leave such a mark on his neck, unless it had been done forcefully.
"So, maybe... this isn’t really a dream, you know?"
Those were the words that Noelle had told him before the collapse of his dream world.
’But how?’ Alex’s face turned solemn after the memories of the young lady surfaced inside his head. ’Was that really a dream?’
Alex found it hard to believe that a young lady from Earth could somehow end up in Arcana just to give him a love bite.
Besides, with Dim Dim watching over him, it would know if a stranger had entered his room.
Even without Dim Dim, that also would have been a very hard thing to accomplish.
The Headmaster had placed Alex in a subspace that was under his control.
No one, except for the people that he approved of, would be able to enter Alex’s room.
Professor Rowan knew that there were spies and followers of the Demon Worshipers inside the academy.
After what had happened in the Mistral Weave Forest, he wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to assassinate Alex while he was unconscious.
To prevent that from happening, the Headmaster had placed several layers of protection inside and outside the young man’s room to keep him safe.
Lin and Rin were the only ones aware of the Headmaster’s preparations. They too found it weird that someone had managed to give Alex a hickey in a place that was supposed to be the safest in the academy at this point in time.
The young man only broke out of his daze when he sensed something cold touch his back and chest.
The twin nurses, both wearing stethoscopes, were listening to the young man’s heartbeat and breathing in order to check if there were any abnormalities inside his body.
"Heart rate is normal," Lin said.
"Lungs and breathing are normal too," Rin reported.
The two nurses then used their magical abilities to further scan and check Alex’s body, even asking him to stop moving so that they could do their job.
Alex sighed and obeyed, except that he continued shielding Little Alex with his hands.
"Hey, do you want me to remove this hickey on your neck?" Lin asked, pointing at the small bruise on Alex’s neck.
"No," Alex replied before he could even stop himself.
He still didn’t know how it was possible. But if this was proof of his connection with Noelle, he wanted to keep it with him a little longer.
"Are you sure?" Rin inquired.
"Yes," Alex answered. This time, he was able to answer calmly.
Seeing that he looked like he really didn’t want the bruise to be healed quickly, Lin and Rin let the matter rest and informed him that he was now well enough to leave the infirmary.
As if remembering their duties, the two nurses dragged Lavinia and Vaan outside so that Alex could change.
When he was finally alone, the young man sighed and sat on the bed to lightly pat Dim Dim’s head.
"Dim Dim, is it possible for someone on Earth to leave a mark on me here in Arcana?" Alex inquired.
Dim Dim was the encyclopedia of the world of Arcana, so it knew what was possible and what wasn’t.
The Dim Sum God didn’t even need to think about it and firmly shook its head.
"Then, do you have any idea how this happened?"
The Dim Sum God shook its head once more because it really had no idea where Alex’s hickey came from.
In the end, Alex was left with a nagging feeling at the back of his head that what he had experienced might have been a special kind of dream.
A dream where his soul had traveled between the border of two worlds, allowing some sort of phenomenon to happen.
Alex knew that this sounded far-fetched, but he couldn’t think of another explanation for this miracle Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs Novᴇ(l)Fɪre .ɴᴇt
After getting dressed, the young man left his room and was escorted back to the Ironheart Dormitory by Lavinia and Vaan, who couldn’t help but give the visible mark on his neck side-long glances.