Reborn as a Hated Noble Family, We Start an Industrial Revolution-Chapter 79: Moment in the Cave (Anatomy of a Secret)
Outskirts of The Silent City – A Natural Cavern. Night – 20:00 PM.
The sky over the dead city was weeping.
A torrential downpour lashed against the metallic ruins of the Silent City, the heavy droplets drumming a rhythmic, discordant beat against the steel trunks and asphalt streets. The rain served a dual purpose tonight: it washed away the copper-scented blood spilled during the afternoon’s skirmish, and it masked the tracks of the two fugitives who had vanished into the jagged landscape.
Hidden behind a dense thicket of rusted, vine-like wires on the city’s edge was a small, dry cavern. A faint, flickering glow emanated from deep within its throat. It wasn’t the crackling orange of a campfire—smoke would be a death sentence in a forest teeming with sensitive predators—but rather the steady, amber radiance of a miniature Magitech Crystal Lamp. It was a high-end device from Sudrath Tech, designed by Rianor to be both silent and odorless. Its light cast long, dancing shadows against the damp, limestone walls of the cave.
"Sshhh... Argh! Dammit!"
Professor Arvid leaned heavily against the cold cave wall. His face was the color of bleached bone, and beads of cold sweat matted his hair to his forehead. His white shirt hung open, discarded from his left shoulder to reveal a jagged, angry gunshot wound.
The musket ball had only grazed him, carving a five-centimeter trench through the meat of his shoulder. It hadn’t shattered the bone, but it had torn through muscle and dermis with a violent heat. Dark blood continued to seep from the wound, staining his pale skin and the floor beneath him.
Sitting cross-legged before him was Rhea Sudrath, known to the world tonight only as Red. She was currently holding the tip of a surgical needle over a small lighter flame, her expression one of focused, clinical coldness. Her hood was down, revealing her short black hair, damp with rain and sweat, sticking to her neck in messy clumps.
"Stay still," Rhea said, her voice dropping into a low, commanding register. "I didn’t pack any local anesthetics. All I have is high-proof rubbing alcohol. This is going to burn like the fires of the abyss. If you scream, every monster within three miles will know exactly where to find dinner." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
"From a strictly... technical standpoint..." Arvid gasped, his breathing shallow and broken. "...the human scream usually peaks at a frequency of three thousand Hertz. Given the current atmospheric density and the acoustic dampening of the heavy rain outside, the sound would likely be muffled within a ten-meter radius. The statistical probability of attracting a high-tier predator is actually quite low..."
"Shut up," Rhea interrupted, her tone sharp.
Without a word of warning, she tilted a bottle of medical alcohol over the open wound.
CESS.
"HHHHNNNGGGG!!!"
Arvid’s entire body went rigid. He clamped his jaw shut so hard his teeth groaned, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his own knees. His body convulsed with the shock of the stinging liquid, and tears of pure, involuntary reflex welled in the corners of his eyes behind his cracked glasses. It felt as if a branding iron were being pressed into his living flesh.
"Breathe, Bookworm. Just breathe," Rhea ordered. Her voice softened, if only by a fraction of a percent. She began dabbing away the excess blood with a sterile gauze pad, her movements surprisingly efficient.
"I-It hurts..." Arvid hissed through his teeth, his voice a strained whisper.
"I know. I’ve been stabbed in the gut before. This is a paper cut compared to that. You’re lucky it was just a graze."
Rhea picked up the needle and the black surgical thread she always carried in her tactical belt. In her line of work, knowing how to stitch oneself back together was just as important as knowing how to take someone else apart.
"I’m going to start the sutures now. Five stitches. Do not move. If you twitch and the needle goes crooked, the scar will be hideous."
Arvid stared at the silver needle with wide-eyed horror.
"Wait... just a moment... Red..."
"What now?"
"Distract me," Arvid pleaded, his fingers digging into his thighs. "Talk to me. Or just let me talk. I need a cognitive distraction to bypass the nociceptive signals traveling to the thalamus of my brain. I need to flood my neural pathways with something other than pain."
Rhea let out a long, weary sigh. "Fine. What do you want to talk about? Go ahead. Rant."
She drove the first stitch through the skin.
"ARGH! Okay! Okay! History!" Arvid began to babble at a frantic pace, his eyes squeezed shut.
"Did you know... that during the Ancient Dynasty era, four hundred years before the Great Calamity... soldiers used giant carnivorous ants to close their wounds?! They would let the ants bite the torn skin, and then they would twist the ant’s body until the head snapped off! The mandibles acted as natural, organic staples!"
Rhea continued to sew with a steady, unflinching hand. One stitch complete.
"Disgusting," Rhea commented, pulling the thread tight.
"It was effective! The formic acid in the ant’s saliva acted as a natural antiseptic!" Arvid continued to chatter, the sweat pouring down his face. "And then... and then there was the technique of Cauterization... searing wounds shut with white-hot iron! It was a favorite method of the Northern Barbarian tribes before General Riven introduced modern field medicine to the frontier!"
Rhea offered a microscopic smile at the mention of her brother’s name.
Two stitches.
"Nghhh... and then... and then..." Arvid was running out of oxygen, the pain mounting with every tug of the thread. "Then there are the legends of the War Goddesses... the Valkyria... they were said to be immune to physical pain because they drank a celestial honey that numbed their mortal senses..."
Rhea paused, looking at Arvid’s face. The man was in absolute agony, his body trembling, yet his mind refused to shut down. He was using his knowledge as a mental shield, a fortress built of facts to withstand a storm of pain.
In that way, he was exactly like her. She used her rage as a shield. He used his intellect.
Three stitches.
"You’re remarkably noisy," Rhea murmured, but she reached up with the edge of her sleeve to gently wipe the sweat from Arvid’s brow. "Almost done. Hold on."
Arvid forced his eyes open. He found himself looking at Rhea from a distance of only a few inches.
The amber glow of the Magitech lamp illuminated the sharp, defined lines of the woman’s face. He saw the strength in her jaw, the absolute focus in her dark eyes, and the way her lips were pressed into a thin line of concentration. There were smears of dried blood on her cheek—blood she had spilled to keep him breathing.
To the rest of the world, Rhea Sudrath might have looked terrifying. A killer. A blunt instrument of war. A woman devoid of grace.
But to Arvid, in this damp, quiet cave...
"Red," Arvid whispered, his voice dropping into a low, raspy tone. His historical babbling ceased instantly.
Rhea looked up, her hand pausing mid-air. "What? Is the pain spiking again?"
"You... you are beautiful."
Rhea’s hand froze. The needle hung suspended in the air.
Silence reclaimed the cave. The only sound was the muffled roar of the rain outside and the frantic beating of two hearts.
"What?" Rhea furrowed her brow, looking genuinely confused. "Are you delirious? Did you lose too much blood?"
Arvid shook his head weakly, his gaze locked onto hers.
"Not ’beautiful’ like a pampered princess sitting in a palace drawing-room. That is boring. That is a facade."
"You are beautiful like... like a storm. Like a blade forged in the center of a volcano. You are lethal, yes... but you are perfect in your purpose."
Arvid offered a sincere, weary smile—the kind of smile that was both awkward and profoundly honest.
"When you fought them earlier... when you carried me through the ruins... I felt like I was witnessing a living painting of a War Goddess. It was... the most magnificent thing I have ever seen in my life."
Rhea went still.
Her heart—the cold, disciplined heart that usually remained steady even while defusing a bomb—suddenly began to hammer against her ribs with a chaotic, thumping rhythm. Dug-dug-dug.
She felt a wave of heat wash over her face. It was intense. Blistering. Far hotter than the alcohol she had poured on Arvid’s wound.
Her entire life, people had called her names: Tomboi. Rough. Barbarian. Scary.
Her former fiancé, Prince Cedric, had broken their engagement because she was "insufficiently feminine" for his tastes. Her mother, Aurelia, was constantly nagging her to wear powder and gowns so she could "look like a lady." No one had ever looked at the blood on her face and the scars on her hands and called it beautiful.
But this Bookworm... he saw the violence in her, the strength in her, and he found it magnificent.
"Y-You..." Rhea’s voice trembled. She quickly looked down, hiding her face as it turned a brilliant shade of crimson.
"Shut up, or I’ll sew your mouth shut too!" she threatened, but there was no weight behind the words. They were a hollow defense for her shattered composure.
Arvid chuckled softly, the sound ending in a grimace of pain. "My apologies. My social filters seem to malfunction when I’m in shock. I tend to be far too honest."
Rhea finished the final two stitches with a frantic speed, her movements slightly clumsy because of her nerves.
"Done. It’s finished. Don’t move."
She snipped the thread and applied a clean pressure bandage over the sutures. She immediately turned her back to him, busying herself with packing her medical kit so he wouldn’t see the flush on her neck.
"Rest," Rhea said, her back still turned. "We have to breach the Central Library tomorrow at dawn."
A heavy silence settled over the cave for several minutes. Arvid struggled into his shirt, his movements slow and pained.
"Red," Arvid called out again. His tone had shifted. It was no longer the voice of a patient, but the voice of a scholar who had finally finished a complex proof. It was sharp. Serious.
"Sleep, Professor," Rhea tried to deflect.
"Your dagger technique," Arvid said, ignoring her.
Rhea stopped moving. Her shoulders tensed.
"A synchronized dual reverse-grip style," Arvid continued, his analytical mind dissecting her performance. "Focusing on the immediate severance of major arteries and tendons to neutralize targets in under three seconds. That isn’t a style practiced by common street mercenaries or even royal knights. That is a tactical military doctrine."
"And the way you move... total noise-efficiency. Combined with the fact that you have access to high-yield smoke pellets that, as far as I know, are manufactured exclusively by one laboratory in the entire Northreach territory."
Rhea closed her eyes. Dammit. He’s too smart for his own good.
"And most importantly..." Arvid pointed toward the daggers Fang and Claw lying on the stone floor.
"That metal. It’s a Black Steel alloy reinforced with Adamantite. A material reserved strictly for the highest-ranking military elite of House Sudrath."
Arvid reached up and adjusted his glasses.
"Black hair. Sharp, predatory eyes. S-Rank combat proficiency. And a nickname, ’Shadow Flash,’ that has appeared in multiple intercepted intelligence reports from the frontier."
"You aren’t ’Red,’ are you?"
Rhea slowly turned around. She stared at Arvid with a gaze that was ice-cold and dangerous. Her hand hovered near the hilt of her blade.
"If you truly know who I am... you should be terrified."
Arvid didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull back. He met her gaze with a calm, steady look.
"Why should I be afraid of the person who just saved my life and meticulously stitched my skin back together?"
Arvid offered a small, knowing smile.
"Goodnight... Lady Rhea Sudrath."
Rhea let out a long, exhausted breath. Her shoulders slumped as she finally released her tension. There was no point in lying to a walking, breathing encyclopedia.
She reached up and pulled the band from her hair, letting the short black locks fall naturally. Her face returned to its true form—the proud, honest, and fierce Rhea.
"Just call me Rhea. ’Lady’ is for girls who wear silk gowns and drink tea with their pinkies out."
"Very well, Rhea," Arvid nodded politely. "But in my professional opinion, you still deserve the title. Perhaps... Lady of War."
Rhea snorted, but a genuine smile—small and sweet—tugged at the corner of her lips. She reached into her pack and tossed a crisp red apple toward Arvid.
TAP. Arvid caught it with his one good hand.
"Eat that. You need the sugar and the nutrients. I don’t want my client dying of anemia tomorrow."
"Thank you." Arvid took a bite of the apple. "It’s sweet."
"Sleep," Rhea commanded. She clicked off the Magitech lamp, plunging the cave into darkness. Only a faint, silver sliver of moonlight reached the mouth of the cavern, reflecting off the falling rain.
Rhea sat by the entrance, hugging her knees as she took the first watch. But tonight, her mind wasn’t focused on the monsters prowling the metallic forest.
Her thoughts were entirely consumed by the thin, fragile man currently curled up in the corner of the cave. She realized something she had never understood before.
The man she had been looking for all these years wasn’t someone who was stronger than her. She didn’t need another Riven. She needed someone who could understand her strength. Someone who didn’t want to change her, but who celebrated the blade she had become.
And this Bookworm... he understood.
"Arvid..." Rhea murmured so softly it was barely a breath.
In the shadows of the cave, Arvid smiled in his sleep—perhaps dreaming of ancient libraries, or perhaps dreaming of the woman who had carried him out of the fire.
That night, amidst the ruins and the rain, a bond was forged that was far stronger than Adamantite steel.
