Reborn Healer Chapter 9

One would think that having the experience of fighting a rabid wolf while substantially younger and weaker would have prepared me for a bear.

Not at all.

I’d never exactly been a fighter on Earth. The most I’d seen of grizzly bears were National Geographic documentaries and, on a single occasion, one at the San Diego Zoo.

This thing in front of me was not a grizzly bear. It might have had some common ancestor, but it was way larger than anything I’d ever seen in a zoo. Maybe that was partially because my viewpoint was just significantly different from what it had been as an adult on Earth, but I was pretty sure this thing was the size of a pickup truck.

Its fur was pitch black, which I was also pretty sure wasn’t normal. It made sense to blend in with the shadows in the forest, whose thick foliage blocked enough sunlight to make the afternoon sun look like twilight, but I’d never seen a bear this dark before.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said. “Locke, I am going to kill you.”

Assuming I didn’t get killed first, that was.

At least it didn’t seem like it was that hostile. It wasn’t rushing at me, at least. Then again, it was also something like ten times my size. Maybe it just liked playing with its prey.

How was I supposed to deal with a bear again? Make myself big and back away slowly? I didn’t know if those rules applied when this wasn’t a species of bear that existed in California and when I was three and a half feet tall.

I called up the incantation for Firebolt, but I reconsidered even as the mana formed. The bear looked and sounded angry, but it hadn’t made any sudden movements towards me yet. I had no faith in the ability of my weak Beginner-tier spell to knock down a killing machine this big in a single blow. Odds were good that I would just piss it off.

I continued backing off, deciding to switch tactics. If I could guide the bear away from me, I could maybe just retreat to the edge of the forest and leave. That would count as a technical fail, sure, but I didn’t particularly give a shit about what a twelve-year-old mage thought about my ability to cast magic when his idea of a “lesson” was to almost literally throw me to the wolves.

It was approaching with more speed now, though, so I started casting, making as little sudden movement as I could.

Swift Step and Augment Perception were my spells of choice. I didn’t plan on trying to fight this bear hand-to-hand—even with strength enhancing spells, that was a fool’s errand.

Keeping both a Beginner and Initiate-tier spell active at the same time was difficult, but I’d spent a lot of time practicing. My steps grew lighter, mana shifting within my body to reinforce my speed. At Beginner tier, Swift Step didn’t actually increase my speed that much, but it made maintaining a speed just north of a jog much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Augment Perception was the real gem of my buff-type spells. It carried some overlap with Internal Harmony and Reactive Instinct, my warrior skills, but it was a little more flexible, usable when I was in no danger at all and better for trying to scope out an area before a fight began. I also knew from training that a combination of both the spell and the skills stacked, giving me a level of perception greater than even an Initiate-tier spell should have granted.

Adrenaline started flowing into me as the bear realized I was doing something and moved.

Instinct snapped into place, and I moved too. Danger was coming, so I got myself out of the way, my mind and body working in perfect sync. I hit the ground at a run, taking two steps up a tree trunk and jumping off of it, narrowly avoiding a swipe from the bear.

The training Aria had put me through was paying off. Even with buff spells and warrior instinct active, I wouldn’t have been able to do something nearly as acrobatic as that a year ago.

Reactive Instinct lvl 8 -> 9

I evaded another swipe, then another. For once, I could appreciate having pebbles get thrown at me. Better to get hit by a hundred of those than a single one of the bear’s deadly claws. Warnings flared in my mind every time it got near, and I reacted with fluid, trained movements.

Still, the bear was faster than me and stronger than me. Though I made good use of the environment, bobbing and weaving around and partially up the thick, dense trees and kicking dead leaves up in the thing’s face as frequently as I could, the bear actually lived in this place. It was deceptively fast for its size.

I started throwing up other spells when I could spare the mana—mostly just instances of Barrier to obstruct it. I couldn’t hold them for very long, though, and the bear just barreled straight through the forcefields, using raw power to muscle through my magical defenses.

With the erratic game of cat and mouse we were playing, I soon realized that we weren’t heading for the exit of the forest anymore. The bear’s attacks were starting to get more energetic, too. Each time it missed, its claws gouged long, deep tracks into the tree trunks.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

I was starting to run out of mana. Even though I had steadily expanded the amount available to me, running away while using two concentration spells, one of which was Initiate-tier, as well as ad hoc casting forcefields was draining me fast. So far, through a combination of my warrior and mage cores, I had been able to keep myself alive and unharmed, but that wasn’t likely to last for long.

It was inevitable—as focused I was on my own movements, I missed a step in my spellcasting, and Swift Step dropped. I didn’t stumble thanks to my hyper-awareness of my own body, but I slowed enough for the bear to catch me in the leg. Pain flared, and I tumbled into a roll, alarms screaming in my head.

The pain was surprisingly muted. Didn’t that mean I’d been hit deep?

I cast Basic Heal, my Initiate-tier spell. It was a heavy investment of mana, but using up all my magic was better than getting eviscerated. By the time I got out of my roll, I was able to get right back up and start sprinting again. My speed wasn’t quite as good now, though, my boosting spell no longer active. I had to rely much more on my instinct and my harmony with my body to keep myself from getting hit. 

Internal Harmony lvl 6 -> 7

Even then, every call was much closer. Wind brushed my skin when the claws came close, and I felt cloth tear a number of times.

The faint, weirdly familiar sound of another animal’s cry nearly broke my concentration again, which would have been devastating. With my margins as narrow as they were, I couldn’t afford to slip up once.

Fortunately, the bear reacted to that cry too, stopping and… not quite growling. Crying out? I didn’t know what the sound it made was supposed to be called, just that it sounded pained. Mournful, almost.

The first cry came back, barely audible at the edges of my augmented perception, and I realized why it sounded familiar. It was the same sound pattern the bear itself was making, just a higher pitch.

My first thought was oh, shit, there’s two of them. My second, more thought-out one was oh, shit, it has kids.

Instincts flared again, but this time, it wasn’t for danger. I had grown to trust them more and more, so that was a surprise to me. I had assumed rationally that my options were fight or flight, but I was picking up on something else.

The bear… I turned around to face it, still careful of the distance between us. It was huffing out great deep breaths, the exertion of chasing me through a forest it was actively demolishing having tired it out, but there was something more to that.

My core twisted, and I got the impression that there was more to it. I could almost reach out and feel the bear’s pain like it was mana. 

Could I?

I focused on that sensation, balancing my mage knowledge with my warrior instinct and reaching outwards—not using the mage’s ability to siphon mana from my surroundings through meditation but the warrior one to fit in the world around me.

And I seized upon the thread.

Skill learned: Harmonic Empathy [Beginner]

My heart tightened, the familiar pain of loss twisting through me. Memories of watching a woman who’d mattered to me suffer. Of not being able to do anything as her injuries claimed her life. This sharp, stabbing sensation wasn’t just mine, I realized. It was a skill, connecting me to the bear.

I looked up at it with new eyes.

No wonder it had gotten more frantic. It had something to protect.

“Your, uh, cub,” I said. “It’s hurt?”

The bear looked back at me blankly. Right. Just because I was in another world didn’t mean animals abruptly spoke human languages.

I tried a different approach, leaning on my new skill. If I could reach the bear’s feelings, could I push my own over? Not entirely sure how to approach it, I focused on the new warmth I had started to realize when my parents trained me, provided for me, healed me—when they were there for me.

Harmonic Empathy lvl 0 -> lvl 2

At the same time, I started healing my own scrapes and bruises with Mend Wound, gesturing towards them and showing the bear the fading injuries as I did. I mimed towards it, hoping I could get across the idea that I could do the same for its own.

The bear stopped in its tracks, watching, then settled down on its hind legs.

It’s working, I thought, my mind a delirium of excitement and the indescribable feeling of realizing that I wasn’t going to die.

Step by step, I approached it, my hand carefully in front of me. It didn’t stop me from putting my hand on it and healing it.

“I can do the same for your cub,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t understand me but putting as much feeling into those words as I could.

It trotted forward, looking back at me. I couldn’t understand what it was feeling now—it seemed my skill only applied to the strongest of emotions, which made sense. It did make me think of how powerful this skill could get when it tiered up, but that was a concern for later.

The source of the mournful yowling from earlier wasn’t far from us. The terrain was rockier in some places than others, fewer trees covering the landscape. 

Here, in a dark, dry cave, a pitch-black bear cub about the same size as I was lay prone, its side rising and falling in shuddering, unstable movements.

Even in the low light of the cave, I could see that it had been stabbed in the side. Its fur was matted with dried blood, and a quick use of Body Scan told me that at the very least, organs had been wounded.

I knelt down by its side immediately, its… mother? Father? Whichever it was, it watched me from behind.

“Excuse my bedside manner,” I said, laying a hand on its flanks. The bear’s fur was surprisingly soft, almost like that of a blanket. I didn’t know what Earth bear fur felt like, but surely it wasn’t like this.

Mend Wound wouldn’t be enough for this. I cast Basic Heal, using the bulk of the rest of my mana to do so. The Initiate-tier spell worked quickly, closing up the areas where a sharp weapon must have pierced through it. The cub’s breath stabilized.

Except it wasn’t quite all the way there. There was still a hitch in its breathing, and it still sounded pained when it grunted.

I cast Body Scan again, the use of my mana when I was running so low already making me a touch dizzy.

There was still something in its veins, something I hadn’t noticed before. To my spell, it looked like flecks of dark green swimming through the normal blood vessels.

Poison.

I had infection curing spells, but I hadn’t practiced the ones for poison much. I wasn’t as familiar with how to cast them, mostly just because there wasn’t much poison to actually practice with at home.

The theory wasn’t too different, at least. I laid my hands down and cast Cure Minor Infection, modifying the spell pattern on the fly as I did. Infections and poisons weren’t that different, I was pretty sure—it was the type of foreign agent I had to neutralize that differed.

Modifying spells was harder than just casting them, but I had practiced the fundamentals so much and so frequently that I was able to manage without much trouble.

Slowly, the poison dissipated, combining with my neutralizing mana and dissolving into harmless blood. This time, the cub’s breathing actually did return to normal.

I stumbled as I tried to stand. I’d used too much mana throughout that entire ordeal, and my head was spinning.

The adult bear, at least, no longer seemed to have any problem with me. It licked the side of my face, its tongue rough and bristly, and then nudged its child over, curling around it. I considered that a victory.

“I’m just gonna… sit down for a while,” I muttered to myself, trying and failing to control the dizziness.

I laid down and closed my eyes, trying to meditate instead of succumbing to sleep.

At the edge of my consciousness, my danger sense flared, and I tried to hurry to my feet only to fail as I nearly vomited, my entire world spinning. Something sticky and powerful hit me in the chest and pulled, dragging me across dirt and rock. I scrabbled to hold myself back to no avail, my overuse of mana having burned me out entirely.

The last thing I saw before everything overtook me was eight glowing eyes deeper in the cave and the faintest outline of just as many legs.

Oh, come on, I thought deliriously, my conciousness slipping. I hate spiders.

My head hit the ground a little too hard and I passed out.