Reborn Healer Chapter 20

Fireball lvl 0 -> lvl 1

In retrospect, I probably should have just used Heat Ray.

Okay, maybe not. Heat Ray had mostly proven to be a surprisingly useful utility spell, but I had never really gotten good lethality out of it.

Then again, using the lower-tier spell wouldn’t have set the entire building across the street on fire.

No wonder the spellbook had said not to use this indoors. This was my first time actually using my Adept-class Fireball in combat, and it proved exactly as deadly as promised. I’d stabbed the armored guy enough times that I could guess he would stay unconscious due to blood loss before pooling all the mana I could manage into an oversized Fireball.

I was dizzy enough now that I had to hug the wall, the toll of using too much mana too quickly setting in, but I was pretty sure I was doing better than the other guy.

The entire facade of the building had collapsed, and what was left of it was now on fire.

Some years ago, I had made a goal to minimize death when it came to fighting people, but even then I had recognized that sometimes, I had to choose between them or me. When it came down to it, I was going to fight for my second chance at life.

The archer in the building across from me was probably dead. The armored man at my feet was bleeding out and would perish without medical attention. Behind me, I was pretty sure Mizuki had gone and cut off her opponent’s arm, though I wasn’t sure with how hazy I was feeling. At the very least, the other woman was on the ground screaming and clutching at something bloody, and the back room and front room were now one room because Mizuki and the woman who’d been on the roof had seen fit to smash through the dividing wall.

Also, the wooden building on the other side was in fact on fire.

This wasn’t the worst I had overstressed my mana, fortunately. Thanks to the mana batteries and associated techniques I’d learned, I was only a bit past my limits instead of far past them. I would recover soon enough.

I stumbled outwards, using the Beginner-tier Inferior Body Scan to check on the armored man. His condition was rapidly getting worse, so I tossed him a Mend Wounds for the time being. It definitely wasn’t going to be enough for the time being, but I wasn’t going to waste any more valuable resources on him when there were bigger problems.

Consciousness fuzzing in and out, I stumbled over his unmoving body and out into the street. People were coming back out of their house and stores now, spurred on by the loud noise and presumably realizing that the active danger was over.

Well, there was another danger now.

“Mizuki!” I called out, turning and walking backwards, relying on my warrior core to keep me steady. “I dropped it, um. My toolkit. Mana batteries. They look like crystals wrapped around bracelets?”

“This place is kind of a mess, but… ah. One second.” Mizuki sounded a lot better than I felt, which I supposed was a good thing.

I grimaced at the sound of her rummaging through very broken-sounding glass and wood. This was going to be a bitch to repair.

“This?” she asked, jogging up to me with one of my Initiate-tier batteries. I mostly relied on three or four heavy-duty Adept-tier ones these days, but I kept backups when I came here in case I needed to heal a mass casualty event—or, I supposed, continue using magic after I exhausted myself using Adept-tier magic.

My head started clearing a little as I got closer, but it still ached enough that I relied on the battery for my spells. The fire was spreading scarily quickly, and the heat was enough that I felt like I was cooking just halfway across the street, which was definitely bad news given that most of this street was wooden.

My first cast of Create Water sent a stream of a few dozen gallons of water spraying into the midst of a blazing inferno, which didn’t do much.

Right. Through the brain fog, I vaguely remembered some videos I’d watched about firefighting way back when. Over a decade ago, now. Funny how random trivia could stick around.

I needed to smother the flame and prevent new flammable material from catching. With that in mind, I started using the Create Waters on the perimeter. That was one benefit of the building collapsing. It wasn’t directly connected to anything, which made taming the fire easier.

Once I was satisfied enough that it wasn’t going to spread any further, I sat down, head still spinning. My mana battery was mostly dry now, and I needed a break before I started figuring anything out. And then I needed to talk to Vallis.

“Help!” someone cried. “My cousin! He was—he was in that building! Has anyone seen him!?”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

I didn’t have time to verify whether or not what they were saying was true or not. If there was even a chance that there was actually someone innocent in there, it fell on me to try to get them out. I hadn’t even considered the possibility before throwing Adept-tier explosive in there.

Rising to my feet with a groan, I took a step towards the heat.

My head spun. Not enough rest. I had recovered a tiny bit of mana, maybe enough for a few more spells. Whether it would be enough for me to safely get in and out, I didn’t know, but I was a healer. I could always put myself back together afterward.

One foot in front of the other, I told myself, trying to force my body to cooperate.

A hand rested on my shoulder. I blinked slowly. I was really out of it. Sixth Sense should have at least given me some impression that someone was about to make contact with me, but it either wasn’t active or I was too foggy to pay attention to it.

“You did a lot better than I thought you would,” Mizuki said. “I almost might call it good work. Stay outside. I still need your strength.”

I stalled in my track, thoughts slowly connecting as the white-haired girl stormed forward into the blazing wreckage across from us.

She wasn’t telling me to stay behind because I couldn’t do this. The building was on fire. Whoever was inside was going to need healing.

The building collapsed further after Mizuki disappeared into it. Judging from the odd sound of her whip-sword cracking followed by the hard impact of a sword against wood, that was her doing.

Black smoke billowed as the fire progressed, hanging just above the ground. I coughed, bringing my shirt up to my mouth so I could breath through it.

Before long, Mizuki’s silhouetted form appeared again, now dragging two dark shapes with her. Unlike me and the other gawkers who’d emerged to see what all the chaos was about, she seemed wholly unbothered by the choking smoke and scorching heat. Hell, she was walking upright. Wasn’t there some stat that said most deaths in fires were caused by smoke inhalation? It was a wonder she didn’t even flinch.

She was actually actively on fire as she emerged, but it wasn’t burning her the same way it had the last person I’d nearly killed with my spells. In fact, it seemed to bother her so little that she dragged both bodies almost all the way to the clinic before she finally hit the ground and rolled, putting the fire out and kicking up a cloud of dust with it.

Both of the bodies she’d dragged out were in much worse shape than her. One of them was nearly unrecognizable as human. Charred armor had fused with flesh, most of which was burnt black now. A good chunk of his chest was missing, and strips of fabric clung to his back, embers still burning where he had once had slung a quiver. I’d nailed the archer head-on. If he wasn’t already dead, he would be soon, and my healing expertise was almost certainly not enough to handle him.

If it even was a him, that was. The face was too disfigured and smeared with blood, ash, and soot to tell.

The other person was in considerably better condition, but that wasn’t saying much. He was at least recognizably a man, but he’d suffered pretty severe burns across much of his body. Judging from the remnants of his clothing, most of which seemed to have been burned into his skin, hadn’t been a man of means before this.

Someone was screaming. The same guy who’d asked about this man earlier, I presumed. I flicked my eyes sideways, scanning the crowd.

Stop getting distracted, I told myself. You have a job to do.

It was harder to pull on Flowing Harmony when I was out of combat, but I forced the state of calm anyway, driving my body with pinpoint precision.

First order of business: treating the burns. Just sending raw healing energy into people was wasteful. I’d learned over the years that real medical practices did apply—bad healers were the ones who would just stick you with some healing potion and tell you to not do anything till you were better.

I didn’t have time, mana, or mental energy for grace, so I just cast Create Water on top of him. The cool fluid it generated would help a little when it came to the burns.

“Help me get him to the clinic,” I said to Mizuki. “Leave the other guys. I need my tools.”

“On it.” As gently as she could, which still looked painfully rough, she dragged the burnt man further. It was a mercy that he was unconscious for this.

The clinic was also a mess, but unlike the building across the street, it was salvageable. Mizuki and the attacker on the roof had knocked over most of the shelves while they’d been fighting, but it had been quick enough that it hadn’t resulted in total structural failure.

Speaking of failure, the same woman Mizuki had been fighting was still here, moaning in pain in the front room where she’d been thrown through a wall. I briefly confirmed that she had indeed lost an arm and also that she was unlikely to try fighting again before telling Mizuki to set the burn victim down.

“Batteries.”

I wondered for a moment if the headstrong girl who refused to believe I could possibly be a proper doctor would have the kind of personality to take to an order so direct and snappy, but she moved without a word, sifting through the wreckage and finding the spare mana batteries I’d brought.

From there, I brought the burned man back from the brink. 

“Nightrose powder. Purple-black vial. Right shelf.”

After a half minute spent searching through the fallen shelf, Mizuki blew air through her teeth. “I think it’s broken.”

“Then just liferoot. Should be nearby.”

I didn’t have enough mana to manage a full Adept-tier Heal, but well-placed Basic Heals combined with application of the magical herbs that Iryn and I had spent bountiful afternoons plucking in the Ayasi forest were enough.

It was a good thing that we’d gotten him when we had. Any longer and the spells and skill level required to restore him might have been beyond my reach. As it was, it was a tricky thing, but after burning through four Initiate-tier mana batteries, the burned man opened his eyes, sucking in a rattled breath.

“W-wha—“ he coughed, seizing as he did.

“Shh,” I said. “Try not to move. You’re recovering from some pretty severe burns and a concussion.”

I’d found the latter while probing his body for injuries. That one didn’t seem to have come from the building falling on him. At a guess, the archer had hit him pretty hard before all of this had gone down.

Crunching footsteps alerted me to the presence of another person. From a glance, I assumed it was the burned man’s cousin.

He breathed out a sigh of relief seeing that my patient was breathing. “Thank the heavens.”

“Actually, you should probably be thanking me,” I interjected. “The heavens had nothing do to with this.”

Maybe they had, but I had yet to see one of this world’s gods. Until then, I was claiming the glory for all my accomplishments, thank you very much.

The stranger looked a bit taken aback by that, but he nodded. “Thank you, Ren.”

“You know who I am?”

“Of course I do. Vallis’ kid. You got me for a broken arm once.”

“Huh.” I didn’t remember his face, but he also wasn’t very memorable. “Well, we cut most of the extraneous clothing off, but you’re going to need to help him take care of himself as he finishes the rest of the healing process naturally.”

Certain people had a lower tolerance for healing magic, especially those in lower tiers. I wasn’t sure where the burned man’s limit was, but I figured it was better safe than sorry. He was stable now, breathing, and conscious. I still had a few healing spells that were yet to burn themselves out inside of him, and those alongside the various concotions I’d fed or dosed him with would serve to get him back to health.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the non-burnt cousin said. “He was drunk and we dared him to go in as a joke, I didn’t think—“

“Twenty silver,” I interrupted brusquely. “You can thank me by paying his fee.”

“Oh, of course. Right away.”

After healing the burned man and ushering him off, I felt more at equilibrium than I had earlier. The spells I’d been using to heal had been easier to manage than the Adept-tier ones I had thrown out left and right during the fight, and my passive mana regeneration had caught up, restoring me back to the point where I didn’t want to hurl after every step.

My Sixth Sense and Empathic Insight triggered at the same time, alerting me to the presence of one living being inside the mess that had been my clinic.

I picked my net up from the ground and tossed it, aiming right at the spot emitting an urge to pounce. It landed on an overturned shelf, seemingly hitting nothing, but I passed mana into the item anyway.

One of the many functions it had, I’d learned, was to manifest an invisible forcefield in the holes of the net, truly trapping whatever it happened to catch.

The metal worm that had been in Mizuki’s bloodstream crashed right into that forcefield and fell back down into the broken mess of wood and crushed herbs.

“Thought I’d forget about you, bastard?” I muttered with a small hint of glee. The toolkit I’d trapped it under had been kicked aside during the fight, but that thing had been way too interesting to forget about even amidst the chaos.

I sighed, surveying the damage around us. This was going to take a lot more than a few hundred silver to fix. I was reasonably sure that we had the resources to put it back together, but this was going to be a lot of time involving focused work that I didn’t need right now.

Fixing the clinic was going to take away from a whole bunch of questions I needed answered. I had made no progress on answering who Neferi Whitefall was, nor did I have any clue as to why I had received a system message about her death and its cause. Now, I had even more questions, all of them compounding with the fact that the incidents were happening so close to each other.

Why had security stepped up in Liaren? Why were there new guards, and why had three of them come after Mizuki? On the topic of Mizuki, who was she?

Some of these questions were a lot easier to address than others. The answer for one of them, in fact, was walking away from the clinic right now. I hadn’t even noticed her leaving.

“Hey!” I shouted, but she was already out of earshot.

I raced to catch up. It wasn’t hard to pick Mizuki out of the crowd. While a ton of people had stepped into the street, they parted for the bloody whip-sword wielding teenager who moved like there was nobody around her at all.

She wasn’t actively running away, so I caught up to her quickly enough.

“Hey,” I repeated, reaching out to catch her by the arm.

She twisted on a dime, pushing my hand away with three fingers as her other hand prepared her weapon. Our eyes met, and she relaxed, shoulders sagging.

“You should announce yourself by your name.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Away. The last thing I need is to be associated with more trouble.”

Honestly, that was a smart move. I might have done the same in her shoes. The one problem was that I was in fact in my shoes, and I had a ton of unanswered questions.

“You owe me,” I said, blurting out the first words that came to mind.

Mizuki tilted her head. “Do I?”

“Saved your life, helped you fight those fuckers off,” I said. “Surely that counts for something.”

She snorted. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to use language like that?”

I shrugged. “They also told me to not get into fights.”

Mizuki chuckled at that. “So? What do you want?”

“A question or two,” I said. Before she could reply, I held a hand up. “I know. You said you came here because you didn’t want questions, but I think the situation’s evolved. Beides, I’m curious now, and I figure you’d rather have the questions asked to you than the city guard.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s curiosity and a desire to not get my clinic blown up a second time.”

Mizuki mulled that over, then shrugged. “Fair enough. Just not back there. Is there anywhere quiet around here we can speak?”

I pumped a fist mentally. Finally. Answers.

“I know a place,” I said.