Chapiter 3 - part 2 : Bond

The first thing he noticed was the sterile smell of antiseptic, cold and sharp. Fluorescent lights hummed above, and a beeping monitor tracked each shallow breath he took.
He tried to move, but the weight of bandages and bruises pinned him to the bed. Confusion clouded his mind. His last memory was the darkness.
“Where…?” he whispered, his throat dry.
A nurse bustled in, clipboard in hand, noticing he was awake.“Finally,” she said, a note of relief in her voice. “You were hit by a truck. You’re lucky to be alive. Don’t try to move too much yet.”
He swallowed hard, memories crashing down. His heart sank.
From the corner of the room, the faint humming of medical equipment seemed to echo louder than usual. He closed his eyes and felt it a pulse, different from the steady thrum of his heart. Not human. Not hospital. Something deeper, older, waiting.
He opened his eyes again, staring at the ceiling. Something was looking at him. Something beyond this world.
And as he drifted back into a half-conscious state, a strange warmth spread through his chest.
Before he could process it, the hospital door clicked and three faces appeared
Kazuo, his childhood friend, was the first to reach him. Mid-twenties, lanky, with glasses sliding down his nose. Kazuo had stayed single, always focused on his small tech startup, but he worried constantly about everyone else especially him. “Dude, you scared the hell out of us,” Kazuo said, adjusting his messenger bag. “I thought you were… gone.”
Mariko, his friend since university, approached next. She had matured into a sharp, confident woman with a messy bun and a permanent laptop tucked under her arm. Mariko had a complicated love life, recently broken up with a colleague who had been unfaithful and she often relied on him to vent. She hugged him quickly. “Don’t ever do that again, you idiot,” she scolded softly, hiding worry in her laughter.
Finally, Tomo, the easygoing bartender he used to confide in, came up behind them. Broad-shouldered, with a permanent mischievous grin, he had recently started dating a kind woman from his bar, but always made time for his friends. “Man, hospital gowns don’t suit you,” Tomo joked, punching him lightly on the shoulder.
For a moment, the memories of his life before the accident came rushing back, a pang of regret hit him. His life had been ordinary, full of small victories and heartbreaks.
They walked together, Kazuo fussing over him, Mariko teasing, Tomo joking, all of them pulling him back into the rhythm of the world he had left behind. And yet, beneath the laughter, he felt a pull—a lingering echo of the strange pulse from the hospital, a reminder that his story wasn’t finished.---
“Hey… what’s my name?” he asked.
The three of them froze.
“Your name? Oh my god… you have amnesia!” screamed Mariko
The boy lowered his head and smiled faintly. “It’s not real, right?”
He died and ended up in another world where he is a delivery guy. When he looked at his friends, his eyes widened, their faces, blurred.
“Stop messing with me ! ”
The hospital room vanished, he raised his head and stared at the creature who was now in front of him. It was less frightening but still impressive.
“Why me?”
The beast didn’t answer. It only stared back at him.
---
The boy stirred, eyelids heavy as though weighted by chains. When his eyes opened again, he was no longer at the tower’s steps, or in the fake hospital, no longer surrounded by chaos or the presence of the mana hound. Instead, he found himself in a circular chamber with its walls carved from smooth black stone that shimmered faintly with runes.
He tried to lean against the wall but felt a slight jolt.
The air was still, too still, as if the room itself waited.
Around him, 3 figures sat elevated on a crescent-shaped platform. Robes of varying colors marked their roles: crimson for the Enforcers, gold for the Council, and silver for the Researchers. They were the higher-ups, the ones who rarely revealed themselves to new arrivals.
Yet here they were, gazes fixed on him.
The eldest, a woman with hair like bleached ivory, leaned forward. Her eyes did not blink.“Do you understand what has happened?” she asked, her voice calm but edged with the weight of judgment.
The boy could not answer his throat was dry, his mind reeling.
A spotlight fell on Tessa appeared “The mana hound should have devoured him. Yet it did not. Instead…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze flicked toward the shadows behind the boy.
There, curled like a protective guardian, the mana hound rested. Its once-maddened eyes were calm, glowing faintly as it breathed in rhythm with him. The chamber stirred with whispers.
“That beast… it’s bonded.”
“Impossible. They cannot be tamed, only slain.”
“Unless…”
“Unless he is a catalyst" said Mr Ashton once the light fell on him.
The two men looked at him as if he were crazy, while the woman began to smile.
“Did you smoke before coming?” the man in silver spat, disbelief in his voice. He had grown weary of his young apprentice’s constant foolishness.
The crimson-robed Enforcer rose, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor. “Boy. Speak. Did you summon it? Did you use forbidden art?”
The boy shook his head weakly, confusion written on his face. He hadn’t summoned anything. He hadn’t even fought back. And yet the beast had chosen him.
The ivory-haired woman raised her hand, “ calm down Amos, perhaps our new friend doesn’t know yet. Perhaps he isn’t even aware of what lies within him.” Her piercing gaze locked on the glowing mark that pulsed faintly on his chest a brand that had not been there before.
The chamber grew heavier, as though the weight of destiny itself pressed down on him.
“You are no ordinary courier,” she said softly. “And from this day forward, your path is no longer your own. The beast has claimed you… but so have we.”