The Max Level Hero Strikes Back!

he sense of exhaustion was eroding my whole body.
The rough but strangely cozy blanket was also tempting me never to leave the bed.

To be exact, I didn’t even have the strength to lift a finger.
After lying for a while, my vision slowly began to adjust.
My focus was blurry, so I wasn’t sure if my eyesight had returned completely yet, but I thought this was okay.

“Umm…”

When I struggled to speak, a raspy voice came out.
It was a muffled sound, but it was clear.
Even though I came back after a thousand years, I still had a clear memory of it, so I smiled bitterly.

“Ah…Ahhhh.
Ahhhhhh~”

When I started to make a voice as if I were practicing vocalization, my cracked voice began to change slowly as if it were adjusting.

“Ahhhh.”

I repeated that for a while.
Now that I was able to pronounce words properly, a familiar but slightly different voice came to my ears.
They said my voice sounded mellow, but honestly, it was just a plain voice that didn’t sound too bad.

“Restore.”

One more try.
There was no significant change this time as well.
However, I wasn’t feeling impatient.
Since I was tortured under the guise of training for a thousand years, I had experienced all kinds of situations.
Of course, I had experienced this situation before.

“Hia once said that when a person falls into a coma, you slowly lose your muscles, and it was the same for mana and divine power.’

I was the only person who called Hippocrates, the God of medicine, ‘Hia.’ What could I do? She asked me to call her that.
If it was unfair for them, then one should try and befriend her.

Hia taught me medicine with her unique ability and let me treat numerous patients.
Among them, there were definitely patients in my current situation.
The solution was…

‘Time.’

It wasn’t good to restore muscles that had been damaged due to a lack of nutrition in a short time.
Eating in a hurry would make you sick.
I had to build up physical strength so I could move my own body.
Fortunately, the IV stuck in my arm was providing me with some nutrition.
You could possibly starve to death if someone didn’t come to feed you when you couldn’t even move.

Such a situation wasn’t welcoming for me either.
When I thought of it, I felt relaxed and smiled.
I laid down comfortably, smirked, and began to focus on flicking my fingers.
I think they say that rehabilitation training starts from your fingers.
Now I just wanted to be immersed in the fact that I had come back.

* * *

No one came into that quiet room for days.
No, it would be very rare for anyone to enter this palace, where I was located.
Even if someone did come in, it would’ve been one or two maids in charge of my nutritional supplements.
I think it was like that before I fell into a coma and went to the Hall, so it seemed unlikely that it had changed.

When I reached out a shaky hand and looked at the wooden calendar, I saw the time [Baldis Calendar year 278].
I had been shot by an arrow during a hunting competition held in the year 272.
I immediately arrived at the Hall of Heroes that time, so it had been about six years since then.

If so, it meant that I was sixteen now.
By the standards of this continent, it also meant that I was at the age of adulthood.
The thousand years I spent in the Hall of Heroes were only six years here.
Was it because time ran differently? Or was there some other reason? Whatever it may be, it was a familiar phenomenon that time was indeed different.

If one left Earth and went to space right now, time would still be different.
However, of course, this wasn’t Earth.
This was a different dimension from Earth called the Tionis Continent, and this was my hometown during my second life.
It was a hell of a place, but it was a place where people lived.

“I shouldn’t be laying down for too long.”

I started to concentrate slowly with my eyes closed even though I was mumbling.
Except for the time when I was doing my rehabilitation training, this is what I usually did.
It was hard to lift a finger at first, but thanks to my constant effort, I was able even to raise my upper body after a few days.
Of course, the difficulties leading up to the process proved to be beyond explanation.

Just because I was used to pain didn’t mean that this was easy for me.

“Restore.”

I closed my eyes and focused, lifting the white energy that was asleep in my body.

Divine power.

In the words of the saint Daphne, my divine power couldn’t reach those who were naturally born with it.
However, nobody would be able to reach my level, given my proficiency.
Even those famous popes or saints.
That meant that I was short of power.

In Daphne’s case, she was a hero who would remain in history since she had to learn how to harness her God-given powers by herself.
The reason I acquired as much power as I had was due to her hard teachings.
Of course, it was natural that nobody could reach my powers, as most people build their divine power slowly by praying.
Divine power was just another form of power.
It was impossible to build it up quickly just by praying.

In fact, that woman with a bad personality rarely praised God when she taught me.
Tsk, tsk.
And they call her a full-fledged saint.

…

She probably trained me to use divine power so she could get me to clean the entire hall.
I calmly tried to use the divine power, but there was nothing happening.

“Stop being so stubborn.”