Reborn Healer Chapter 40

I was happy to see that Flare was alive. From our brief bout during the earlier phase of the exam, I could tell that she was competent without being arrogant, and with her bright blue hair and double wand setup, she was easily recognizable enough for me to pick her out of a crowd.

She was looking at me like I’d grown a second head, though. Maybe it was the whole being significantly more competent than she’d thought I was from said bout, or maybe it was the killing business. Two of her companions definitely didn’t seem used to it. They were on the verge of emptying their stomachs either through their mouth or asshole, from the looks of their emotions.

As to the last one…

“Trip,” I ordered, looking directly at the only warrior of Flare’s group.

Well, I wasn’t even sure if he was in her group. I vaguely recalled seeing him in the group of loners back when we’d started, and he was pretty distinctly a warrior where the rest of Flare’s group were all mages, herself included.

Either way, he’d been pretty good at fighting, having cleaved through two members of this Grancrest ambush on his own, but I’d clocked him as a problem from the start. He’d immediately looked at Mizuki like he’d just struck paydirt, and he’d been an open book throughout.

Whoever had put the reward on Mizuki’s head must have offered a generous amount, because I had recognized the naked avarice in his emotion soup easily. Maybe he had some way to tell that Mizuki had a box, but given the events of the day so far, I was pretty confident as to what he was going to try to pull.

Sure enough, here he was trying to sweep his axe at her legs. He’d used some kind of skill to hide his presence from skills like my Danger Sense, but this guy hadn’t managed to escape my notice.

With how easy it was to break down his feelings, it was easy to take him off guard. He thought he was going to have an easy, undetected paycheck. All I had to do to mess with that was to break that illusion.

Nightmare’s Call lvl 0 -> 1 

His mind was hardier than Terrence’s had been, so he didn’t fall flat on his face, but he didn’t finish his axe swing, stumbling over his own feet.

I took advantage of that, casting a Dash to get into his space and aiming to knock his axe away. Rather than just take that, though, energy burst through his body and he made space between me and him.

I stumbled myself, accidentally putting weight on my useless leg. It took all my focus to keep myself standing.

“The fuck are you doing, Victor?” Flare hissed, pointing both of her wands at the axe wielder. “Are you one of them?”

“‘Course not,” Victor replied gruffly. “Do you know the price on this girl’s head? You could do us all a favor and work together to bring her in. There’s enough there that split four ways, we’d still have enough to buy a Northside house apiece.”

Flare looked to him, then to Mizuki, then finally to me. I tensed, ready for her to attack, but my Danger Sense never flared even as she walked towards Victor, extending a hand.

Was the skill not working? Did she also have a subterfuge skill like the lone wolf?

As Victor lowered his guard to accept her ostensible allyship, Flare flicked her wrists so quickly I barely caught the movement, wands appearing in both hands. She made contact with his plate armor.

“Forge Metal!”

Victor’s armor melted into him.

Even I had to wince at that. While I’d gotten used to all kinds of nasty injuries, up to and including similar accidents were molten metal had made contact with flesh, I’d never witnessed something like this. The armor cooked him alive in moments, fusing with and tearing through his skin. His scream was inhuman, but it cut off quickly when Flare cast a second spell that blasted him in the mouth.

The applicant sank down, red-hot metal cooling with contact to air and fusing what had been a human body to the ground.

“Uh, thanks?” I said, eyeing Flare warily.

“He was going to try to kill or capture you,” the mage said. “It’s fortunate that he happened to be amongst the casualties of the battle. Aster and Valerian, get yourselves together. We need to report this to the regional commander. We lost four of our own to a Grancrest attack.”

“B-but you k-killed Victor,” one of the useless Northside mages who’d done nothing during the fight said. “Not—“

“No shit, dumbass,” I cut in. “But do you want to be explaining why we had to deal with one of our own applicants? If the guild already knows there are people after her, they will. I don’t want to explain why we have a Federation applicant’s blood on our hands.”

“I don’t,” the same mage said, gradually growing more confident. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, Aster,” Flare said, rolling her eyes. “I noticed. And that means you did nothing to stop it, either, which makes you complicit. Just say that the Grancrest squad killed him in the crossfire. Lionel?”

“Looked like he got hit by a Grancrest spell to me,” the last guy said, sounding more than a bit queasy. “Yep.”

“Great. Then we understand each other.” Flare turned deadened eyes on us. “We’re even.”

“Sure,” I said, shrugging. “I appreciate the assist.”

“We have vacancies in our group now,” she said. “You can formally join us. I have the elven silver box, and I can declare up to six others as part of our passing group. We should return to the surface before any of them can show up.”

“I agree with surfacing,” Mizuki said, “but you don’t need to worry about adding us to the group. We have the truesteel.”

Flare raised her eyebrows. “I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. Did you encounter the same resistance?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I noticed you keep looking at my leg.”

“Forgive me,” she said, not sounding very sorry. “Is it a defect you were born with?”

“Nope. Got it about half an hour ago in an ambush much like this one, except there was only one guy and a bunch of demons he summoned. He’s gone, but he left me a parting gift.”

“There’s multiple?” Flare asked.

“Yes. From what he said, I believe there’s an ambush in place for every box.”

The blue-haired mage clicked her tongue. “That’s not good.”

“We were on our way out, actually,” Mizuki said. “Just noticed a pretty big spike of activity from here by chance. Didn’t want to chance battling more than we had to, especially with Ren injured.”

“I concur with your assessment.” Flare nodded as if to reassure herself. “Even if we are not in the same group formally, would you like to pool resources and abilities so we can survive?”

“Definitely down for that,” I replied, bending down while using the lifeline to support me so I could grab Victor’s axe. It was too heavy for me to use, but the quality was decent. “Anyone want this?”

“Not a fan of axes myself,” Mizuki said. “They’re heavy and unwieldy.”

“How can you joke about this?” the mage Flare had called Aster said. “A man just died in front of you, and you disrespect his corpse like this?”

“Please do something useful before you ask after morality,” I said. “Alright, unless you want this, Flare, I’m leaving this here. Anyone?”

She shook her head. “Aster. Lionel. Let’s get moving. We’re making it out of here alive.”

Flare led the pathway from there on, relying on Lionel to navigate. He was a dedicated reconnaissance mage, and even if he was reasonably upset about all the death he’d seen in the last hour or so, he still did his job pretty well. According to his observations, we were far away enough from the other boxes that we weren’t going to pass any of their locations on our way out unless we deviated from the optimal path.

We did run into people, though. Lionel spotted people well before even Mizuki or I could, his spells clearly designed specifically for scouting, and we did go out of our way to find them when we were sure they were applicants. 

We first ran into a lost pair to whom Flare explained the situation around the boxes to. They were more than happy to join her group, bulking them out to five people.

The next group we ran into was a trio. They weren’t a pre-made group, and one of them even looked to be Southside judging from his drab clothing. Two of them were supporting their third, who seemed to have broken a leg and was struggling to move.

“Thank the heavens you’re here,” one of them said before we could even introduce ourselves. “Do you know a safe way out? Nicholas can’t walk, and we were hoping…”

“We’re on our way out,” Flare said. “You’re welcome to follow us, but you need to keep up. We can’t afford to waste time. There are human hostiles in the examination area.”

Way to calm them down, I thought. If they hadn’t been panicked before, they sure were now.

“Hold on a second,” I said, limping over towards them. “I’m apprenticed to a doctor. Let me help you.”

“Oh,” the same girl who’d spoken earlier said. “You’re that kid everyone was talking about. Is your leg okay?”

Now that I didn’t need to project an image of power to anyone in order to better leverage Nightmare’s Call, I was fully limping, no longer managing my weight to make it look like I could stand on my useless right leg.

“No,” I said. “Would you mind stepping away from Nicholas so I can help deal with his issue?”

“Of course,” she said, gently setting him down. “Aren’t you a little young to be here?”

“Aren’t you a little old to not be critically thinking?” I replied. “They made an exception for me.”

“I was just asking,” she said, sounding hurt.

I ignored her, getting down on my functional knee next to the prone applicant and casting a Body Scan. Apart from the part of his shin bone sticking out through his skin, he’d also suffered some minor internal bleeding that would only worsen with time. There was some very, very minor poisoning in there, so little that I suspected…

“Were you drinking last night?” I asked.

“Huh? Yeah. How’d you know?” Nicholas asked, eyes partially glazed over. He seemed to be experiencing some degree of shock, but he was lucid enough to talk. “Doctor’s apprentice, you said? Why join a guild?”

“Everyone has their reasons,” I said. “This is going to hurt a bit. Would you prefer to be sedated?”

“Sedated? Nah, I can take it.”

I shrugged. Your funeral.

Nicholas had nothing he could use, so I tore off a strip of my charred shirt sleeve for him to bite. It was going to need a replacement later anyway.

There was a specialized spell for resetting bone, but it needed it to actually be connected. As such, the surgical operation I ended up enacting amounted roughly to cutting his leg further open and shoving the bone back in with as much precision I could manage. 

Predictably, that involved a lot of pain. I cast the Initiate-tier Reset Bone as quickly and smoothly as I could, years of practice ensuring that the process made the patient suffered as little as possible.

Nicholas was a good sport about it, but I saw the strain in his face as he bit straight through the cloth I’d given him. I didn’t know any pain-reduction spells, and while I did usually give patients a local anesthetic for this, I hadn’t brought any of my herbs with me.

Now that I was Adept, I would have done things differently since I could now hold concentration on Anesthesia while also using other healing spells, but Nicholas had expressly requested not to.

I hit him with a regular Basic Heal spell too. The damage within him was light enough that the Initiate-tier magic was enough to deal with all of it with a deft enough hand.

Within a few minutes, Nicholas was good as new. He got to his feet, spitting out the remnants of the cloth I’d given him and inspecting his limbs as if he’d just gotten this body.

“Sleeping gods, you’re good at this,” he said. “Why didn’t you sign up for the healer system?”

“I don’t plan on being a guild healer,” I replied honestly.

“So you are a healer,” Flare said. “I was wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I can’t believe you signed up as a combat mage.”

That got a whole bunch of eyes on me.

“Yeah, what of it?” I said nonchalantly. “Flare kicked my ass during the earlier part of the examination. I don’t have an affinity for fire.”

Judging from the shocked silence, few of them had been expecting me to confirm her words.

“Stop staring at him,” Mizuki said, annoyed. “Let’s keep moving.”

We kept moving, picking up two more applicants along the way for a total of twelve people in our makeshift group. Nobody tried to make fun of me now, though there were still a lot of questions about my age and my leg.

Fortunately, our combined mega-group was large enough that we scared off most monsters that might have tried to take a pass at us. Anything that did attack us was summarily executed by a combination of attacks. Though some members of our group were a bit shell-shocked and unused to real combat, everyone that had made it this far was at least baseline competent.

Thanks to Lionel’s direction, it took a lot less time to get out than it had to enter.

The surface was as serene and undisturbed as it had been when we’d left. I’d half-expected some kind of reception for us, but it looked like we had to bring our boxes all the way back.

Flare broke out into a dead sprint the moment we hit fresh air, the other people she’d decided to consider part of her group struggling to catch up with her.

Mizuki and I moved a good bit more slowly, much to the happiness of the group who was sticking with us. Flare was presumably going to report to Sebastian and whoever else was managing this.

One way or another, we were finally done with the exam and I was one step closer to the information I needed.

#

“That is quite concerning,” Sebastian said.

He’d listened to the young mage’s crisp, concise explanation for what had occurred in the World Dungeon. Credit to her, she had emerged faster than his predictions had followed.

“You have done well, Flare,” he continued. “You and your group will be welcomed into the Federation with open arms.”

“With respect, sir,” Flare said, projecting more sureness in her words than Sebastian knew she felt. “Grancrest…”

“Of course,” the regional commander replied warmly, holding up a hand.

A flex of mana sent a silent order out to dozens and dozens of Federation adventurers, many of whom had been ostensibly selected as proctors this year.

The skillset to be an exam proctor and that of an adventurer did not quite overlap. There was a reason this year’s exams had been so haphazard and slapdash. Sebastian had been planning this day for quite some time now.

Flare started, realizing that the other proctors who’d been in the end zone of the exam had stood to attention and started running off without another word.

“I have alerted the Federation adventurers in this area,” he said. “Please do take a seat, Flare. Your group as well. You must be tired. Does anyone require healing?”

“Thank you for the offer, sir,” Flare said, “But no. One of the other applicants was a healer. He helped.”

Sebastian frowned. “A healer took part in the dungeon section of the examination?”

“He wasn’t just a healer,” Flare said. “I challenged him as a combat mage, which he lacks proficiency in, but he also seemed to be a talented warrior. He should be leading the next group to come if you would like to question him yourself, sir.”

“I might do just that,” he replied. “Please feel free to return through the gates to headquarters so that staff can process you while we handle this issue here.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll inform the group.”

The second group was still a bit of a ways away, but Sebastian didn’t just excel in divination. If he focused, he could see well into the dungeon, and had done so a few times to confirm in specific locations that everything was proceeding as planned. Finding the next batch of survivors was child’s play.

At the forefront of this group was the girl carrying the truesteel reward box and the one who this entire operation had been planned around. Sebastian had tasted change on the wind with respect to new arrivals to the city some time ago, specifically centered around an incident that had wound up with a private clinic in the Southside going up in flames and three city guard dead. 

With how volatile this new age was proving to be, he had stayed on top of everything that might bear fruit, and this had paid off. He’d found so many possible futures where he would finally be able to spread the Federation across this pivotal city.

It was no secret that other guilds in this town detested the Federation, most of all Grancrest. A large part of their leadership had formerly been part of the Southern Star Guild, which had collapsed when Sebastian had taken over the Liaren branch of the Federation and substantially spread their influence. Grancrest had been looking for an excuse to knock the Federation down a peg since.

Sebastian had wanted to crush them before they could do real harm, but thanks to Grancrest’s alliances, that had been impossible. Aggressing would have put them in a turf war against half of Liaren and invoke allies from beyond the city to join.

So he’d seized on an opportunity. There was a certain girl currently carrying truesteel in a storage ring who had been deemed important by the city for some reason. Through strategic information leaks as well as “accidental” breaches of their own defenses, Sebastian had baited Grancrest into mounting an assault on the Federation examinations that would be viewed severely enough that Grancrest’s alliances would fracture when the Federation came for reprisal.

The cost was negligible. Even if they had taken out everyone, missing one year’s worth of adventurers would not have done permanent damage to the Federation’s ability to hold frontier territory. Evidently, there was a hardier crop than usual.

The girl was proving to be more interesting than ever, though. Sebastian’s abilities let him divine more about a person the more information he already had about them. The more he learned about Mizuki, the more he realized she would be a pivotal figure indeed.

There was just one problem. At this point, he should have been able to predict short-term outcomes with ease when his plans were working, which they were. He had assumed that she would fight and get injured, ultimately making it out roughly thirty-five minutes from now.

But she was untouched and early, and he couldn’t figure out why.

That was until he saw the boy next to her. The twelve-year-old currently walking on one leg and a spear, the one who must have been the multi-faceted mage-warrior that Flare had been speaking of. The same boy who still presented nothing to his powers but a dark, infinite void.

Ren Kane.

Sebastian schooled his face as Ren and Mizuki’s group approached.

He needed more plans.