District 42-Chapter 165: Hard worker

Casper was following Astrid through the section led by her. He still wasn’t believing too much that she got stuck at that laboratory for 3 entire weeks and didn’t even realize that this time passed.

"Well, when someone is as focused as her, then it’s no surprise if you think about it a little bit. But, still, although I like to be among these people, it’s flabbergasting to see how much of a distance there is between us... I mean, I didn’t even question about how many times she slept during these three weeks and I am pretty sure that the total amount of hours of rest might have been 8 or so..."

Actually, 8 hours in three weeks was even a high gamble for Casper. He even felt like underestimating her a little bit, but his mind wouldn’t afford him to believe in something so outrageous like that. It was beyond the possible to have less sleep than that.

Now that the soldier was giving a good look at Astrid, he noticed that her small body seemed to be even smaller now. She was more skinny than before.

Astrid was the type of woman that you would mistake for a teenager if you didn’t know her well. Her body was small, her hair a bit shorter than the line of the shoulders, and her voice wasn’t totally matured as well.

"But, now, it is different, to be honest. I knew before that she just lived with protein bars and other snacks, but her weight seemed to be almost ok. Her current body, though... I bet that she has malnutrition, one even worse than she had before by the way." He thought, kind of concerned about her health, but not knowing how to proceed. Casper knew that it would be rude of him to be intromissive in her life, and she was a grown adult that didn’t need anyone caring for her like she was a baby or something.

In the end, the soldier decided to brush it off and just follow her. Probably she would begin to eat again once she finished the project she was working on, or even before this if her body started to punish her hard.

They arrived at some part of that section that was entirely turned to the application of their crafts. It was just like a surgery room.

There, they would put to test their prostheses and another mechanism that would serve to boost the human body.

The White warrior had visited that place once. It was pretty cool, and he could even see some procedures being made to put on those prostheses. Nonetheless, that room wasn’t the same anymore. It was adapted to another sort of procedure for sure. Casper just didn’t know what kind of thing they were making in that place, but if his first guess was right, then the man would have a heart attack for how surprised he would be.

"Ok, I need to show this to you." Astrid got near a metallic table. It had a lot of blankets on top of it, and under these blankets, Casper could identify a human body.

It wasn’t dead, though. Their breath was clearly heard by the soldier.

The scientist picked the blanket and slowly took it off from there, revealing a man, still wearing his mask. He was with the typical clothes of citizens from District 42. He had tanned skin, a body that seemed to be very weak, and some wrinkles gave a hint of his actual age, as well as his light blond hair that was gaining traces of gray.

"This man is middle-aged. He was a Ridire before but needed to retire due to some problems, however, he is still considered a Jarl, and has a lot of influence here. This procedure was made on him with his permission."

Casper got near that old man, looking into his open, but distant, eyes.

"He is under so many blankets because our most efficient sedative, that also helps to maintain the patient alive even if something goes wrong with the procedure, has a collateral effect that reduces highly the body temperature and also makes the patient aloof for a day or two."

The soldier looked back and forth to Astrid and then to the old man, barely believing that he could see it in such perfect timing.

"Hey, does it means that he was operated on yesterday or the day before?"

She nodded to his question.

"Yes. It is recent. Anyway, in short, this man had serious issues in his heart, and he ended up having a massive heart attack, nearly dying. We knew that it would happen at some point, so before this event, we questioned him if he wanted to participate in the project we were working on since it could save his life and contribute to science. So, after the heart attack happened, we could make it on time to the lab, we even called some people from the Second Lab to help us..."

While she was talking, Casper noticed that she ended up starting to work on something on the side. That woman was the real example of a workaholic. Wherever she went, she found something to do.

"Well, the procedure succeeded as you can see." She waited for Casper to take his own conclusions about everything. For some reason, she liked to see the soldier reasoning, that’s why she did it on purpose sometimes. But it was a secret of her.

"Ok, I don’t need to be a genius to guess that the heart you were working on... Is now beating on his chest!?"

Astrid giggled, nodding energetically, but without looking aside her work.

"That’s... amazing... I didn’t know that you could go through it so fast..."

"Hehe, never underestimate my hard work." She smiled behind the mask.

Casper pondered a bit about those words.

"Yeah... Hard work, huh...? I think that’s a good thing..." He glanced at her. "What makes you work so much on something like you do?"

"Hmm? I don’t know. I just do what I want to do. And when I do what I want, I put effort into it."

"And what do you want to do?"

She stopped to work for a little while, thinking, then answered quickly:

"I want to do amazing things, like an artificial heart, that can help people... I mean, life would be boring without this, so hard work for me is fun."

The way she put that matter in her quote was really interesting for Casper.

The soldier remembered his times in the army. He couldn’t even measure in words how much he had worked inside that organization, how much he effort to get things done and to be the best at what he liked.

At some point, it was even harmful to his body and sanity, but he kept going further and further until he could reach a high level. His life was resumed in the army, and nearly nothing more.

"At the time, I thought that it was just a way to kill the time fast, to worn myself out the max I could, to do something just because. When I left the army, I thought I was free, I felt even relieved. Once I stepped into my apartment that day and thought about all the things I left behind, it was just like a lot of weight had fallen out of my shoulders..." Casper was in deep thought, and even let Astrid aside for a moment.

Since the woman was kind of busy with her own things, she didn’t bother that he didn’t continue the subject.

"However... in the end, my life lost its sense when I left the army. The Yanke Forces were my most solid base, and I pushed it aside, so I didn’t felt relieved, I felt that I had no ground to step. I wasn’t feeling secure anymore... My lifestyle was resumed entirely in being a soldier, and if Casper wasn’t one, then he wasn’t anything...

"Even now that I arrived at this district. I could have had avoided a lot of trouble. Could have turned a blind eye to a lot of things. I involved myself in issues that had nothing to do with me... I put myself in danger for no reason at all, it was even naive, imprudent! That was only because... because I felt that sense of duty again. The will to protect people and fulfill my objectives, my mission..."

Casper was looking back at his behavior since he woke up in that world. Even indirectly, he triggered a lot of things to happen that put him into dangerous situations. He wasn’t just always trying to survive, but to find something in that district, to investigate its flaws...

"I wanted all this while to pursue the truth about everything that’s happening because I saw a lot of people around me suffering and being prevented to live their lives freely, in a government that just abuse them, with a rebel group that messes with everything... and, among all of this, I am the only one... the only one that can change everything..."