“What do you mean by lost cause?”, questions Michael not fully understanding what the doctor was saying. “He was strong enough to escape from such dangerous battle but the injuries this time around were too grave and he was on the boundary of death when you just brought him here, any later and who knows if he would have still been alive. This goes to show that the battle he fought wasn’t any ordinary kind of battle and the beasts had to be super stronger than him and perhaps you got there at the last moment to help him out if not he did be dead”, explains the doctor thinking that it was Michael whom finished off the beasts who put Andrew into such a situation. “It seemed like he tried to divert the attack of the wolves all unto himself in order to save his fellow warriors and when I got there, he was already unconscious and the wolves were all dead too”, says Michael still not fully understanding what the doctor meant by Andrew being a lost cause.

The doctor’s eyes shine brightly for a moment before becoming dim all over again, “Guess he pushed himself too hard then. Little wonder why he would get to such a state”. “Hey doctor, can you be straightforward for once? What are you trying to say?”, unable to bear it any longer, Michael screams in askance. It seems hard for the doctor to say what he had in mind but he knew that holding it in any longer wouldn’t do him any good either, “The thing is that, he isn’t fit to be a hunter any more”, he pauses waiting for Michael to process the information being laid out for him before continuing, “The injuries he suffered this time around was way beyond his body could accumulate and he also pushed his body way beyond his limits hence there are some tears in his muscles tissues hence it would be unable to accumulate more energy to break through in his fighting powers and as at right now if he wakes up, with the way his state is currently in, he would be just as powerful as an average hunter. As time goes by, his fighting powers would be reduced and he would go from being an average hunter to a average human. Even if by some luck he is able to retain his powers, he won’t be able to go pass his limits no matter how hard he tries to”. The doctor completes everything in one sitting this time around and after being through, lights another cigarette and starts smoking all over again while leaning back on his chair staring at the ceiling. This news came as a shock to Michael, he never imagined such a thing happening and Andrew was still showing lots of room for improvement and developing at a neck breaking speed. He imagined how Andrew would feel if he was told such a thing, he even thought about hiding it from Andrew so as not to put him in a traumatized mood but the next statement from the doctor made him stop that train of thought, “I know you would want to hide this fact from him and hope that more training would bring him back to his peak but more training would bring the opposite effect to him, damaging his muscles the more and wearing out his tissues more quickly which would lead to a faster decrease in his strength. I told you that more training would be irrelevant for his growth not because of the fact that it won’t have any effect but that the negative effect would be greater and it could even lead to his death. He would have grown to be better than before for sure if not for this incident, am sorry for all that happened”. After saying this, the doctor walks out of the room they were in obviously going to rest, it was indeed a long night for him. He left Michael all alone in the office still processing the news and getting gloomy as every second went by. He saw a lot of potential in Andrew after all, and he has indeed invested a lot on Andrew and expected a lot from him. ‘Why did he have to sacrifice himself for the hunters’, Michael complains inwardly. If Andrew had not put himself forward in order to protect the rest of the hunters he would be okay by now and these issues would not have cropped up. Andrew was way more important than hundreds of such warriors put together in his perspective and he should have left them in the start, he could have escaped without doubt, Andrew was like a child which he never had and Andrew has always made him proud although he rarely shows it, Andrew sure was his pride and he boasted of him even towards his fellow hunters and he has said more than enough words in praise of Andrew to the village chief such that the village chief was even beginning to get tired of such stories.

“Damn it all”, Michael roars angrily as he hits the table and the force from his hit destroys the foundation of the table and it ends up crumbling way to the ground scattering the books and everything on top of the table in different directions. One look at this room would make one think that it was raided like the robbers were looking for a specific item and scattered stuffs all over while looking for it. After a long while, Michael is able to calm down a bit and he goes out from the compound being in an absolute depressing mood, if anyone was to anger him at this moment, there would be little wonder if such an idiotic person were to be killed. The warriors on patrol saw Michael and although he was the strongest and most respected hunter in the village, he still had to follow the rules after all but while getting close to him, the light from their torch accentuates the current mood on Michael’s face as he didn’t bother to try to hide it, it was the face of someone of whom was willing to spill blood and any slight discomfort would enable him to raise a storm. The warriors gulped hard and they stood rooted to the spot not daring to move a bit from the spot on which they stood on, not to mention even going up to Michael to remember him about the curfew. Michael walks by towards his apartment without a care in the world, on getting to his apartment he went straight to his bed to sleep. This day has after all been too stressful for him and although he has increased in strength, it was not enough for him to skip his rest. He decides that he would take care of what comes next whenever it comes, after all just thinking of things won’t get them done but would actually add to his stress. ‘When he wakes up, I should bring him back home’, thinks Michael about Andrew briefly before his eyes were shut at the next moment without any prior sign.

He slept peacefully like there was nothing in this world which needed his care or attention and woke up late in the afternoon the next day feeling like an average human whom just had his whole body quenched in a hot spring after which he had a massage and his body was totally relaxed. Guess his new increase in powers did some nice things to his body. ‘Guess he would be awake by now’, Michael pauses in his thought for a moment remembering the situation Andrew was currently in and how he would not be able to become a hunter anymore, ‘I should prepare something for him to lighten his body. He must be pretty famished after the battle and haven’t eaten anything for more than a day now’. Michael decides and without wait, he goes to his kitchen to prepare something nice for Andrew which his body system can be able to process right now.

After preparing the meal, although he is still gloomy, but compared to the previous morning when he was walking down home, he seemed much more better and approachable. There were even some people of whom stopped him on the way and he had to complete the conversation hurriedly before leaving them to their own devices.

He gets to the doctor’s house but he wasn’t around. Some of his assistants were in though taking care of Andrew, he seemed to have woken up but wasn’t able to even sit by himself. The battle this time around had really drained him both mentally and physically. He would need plenty days or maybe even weeks of rest before he would be able to use his body properly. But at this period, he was completely at the mercy of others and needed their help with a lot of stuffs.