Reborn Healer Chapter 39

Mizuki spat out the chunk of flesh she’d bitten out of Terrence’s neck. The bloody mess splattered onto the ground beside her. She’d gotten something like half a mouthful of Grancrest adventurer in that one bite.

I rushed to his side, casting Body Scan to confirm just how properly fucked he was before I pumped a healing spell into him.

As a healer, I had grown very proficient at dealing with a number of conditions. Illnesses and infectious diseases were the hardest by far and often not treatable with healing magic alone, typically requiring assistance from potions and ointments created with magical material. Broken bones and the like were very common, and I’d gotten good at those as well, but the field in which I had by far the most experience was direct trauma from blunt and sharp objects alike. Lacerations and acid burns were the most common issues I had to deal with at the clinic.

Other healers at my level might have failed to manage Terrence’s issue. A severed artery, especially a violently cut one, would typically lead to him bleeding out in minutes. The carotid was particularly bad. I’d only seen a patient for it once, and she’d clearly bled out en route. I hadn’t been able to bring her back.

With immediate pressure and healing magic, though, I could at least stem it enough to keep him from joining his demons in hell. He was still slipping fast, but constant effort could at least keep him alive in critical condition longer than a handful of seconds. 

“What are you doing?” I hissed at Mizuki.

She tilted her head quizzically, unawrae or uncaring of the fact that she looked like a horror movie final girl, her face splattered in someone else’s blood. “Eliminating a threat. Also, replenishing my supply. Blood skills aren’t free.”

“You just murdered someone in cold blood!” I knelt down, pressing a bloody hand to Terrence’s throat. No pulse. I had to pump his blood for him, using patterns of revitalizing energy to push it through his body. “I guess it hasn’t progressed into murder yet, but that damn well counts as attempted.”

“Murder?” Mizuki wiped her mouth with the back of the hand. Predictably, it came away red. “He was trying to kill us.”

“And then we knocked him unconscious,” I said. “I can keep him unconscious with my Anesthesia spell.”

“Awfully merciful of you,” she said. “I don’t get it. You’ve definitely killed before. You killed two city guards not too long ago.”

“During combat,” I countered. “I’m a healer before I’m a fighter. In parts of the world, we swear to do no harm, you know?”

I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. I knew of other healer groups as well as a Church of the Healer, but the latter had no presence in Liaren and their practices were walled off to everyone outside their own initiates. What I was actually referring to, of course, was the Hippocratic Oath, entirely an Earth concept. It sounded natural enough that it could fit in here, though.

“You haven’t sworn to do that, clearly,” Mizuki said. “I, however, swore a binding vow to myself that I would keep fighting to keep myself alive no matter what it took. Anesthesia is an Adept-tier spell, correct? How long could you hold that?”

“Decently.”

“Right up until you ran into another one of the ambushers,” she said. “Or until we hit a monster. Either way, it wears off eventually. His guild finds him. He tells him who we are, what we can do, and what our weaknesses are. They adapt, and we can’t because we don’t know what they’re going to change. The next time they find us, we lose, and it’s not close. They take me to do whatever it is they want with me, and you die.”

“That’s extrapolating a bit far, but I see the point,” I conceded.

“I get that you think it’s wrong to execute someone you can take prisoner,” Mizuki continued, “but we can’t take him prisoner. Stop thinking like a backwoods healer and start considering your situation like the fighter you are.”

I had considered it briefly, but her delivery made me reconsider it myself. I’d already decided to make my peace with accidentally killing my enemies during a battle if it meant protecting myself and those who mattered to me. Doing it after the fact felt different to me, but did the end result actually change? Whether I killed someone with a spear thrust that went too hard or did so after I’d knocked them out with a spell, they still ended up dead.

How would I have felt if that impact earlier had killed Terrence? I tried to simulate it mentally, imagining the demon flying away in retreat after realizing its summoner had cracked his skull open in the water.

That would have been convenient. I would have recognized the same issues that Mizuki had. We didn’t have the strength or logistic power to drag a prisoner with us, and everyone else from Grancrest was presumably still active.

“Yeah,” I ceded. “It’s just a hangup.”

“It’s natural.” Mizuki kicked Terrence in the side as if to confirm that he wasn’t waking up. “Killing instinct is learned, not given by birthright. Excluding the Aiken, of course.”

“Right. Of course.” Idly, I wondered how closely related Locke was to the demons we’d just fought. “I guess we should get rid of this guy, then.”

“I agree. Would you like to do the honors?”

I could see what she was going for here, building up my ability to make hard decisions when necessary in battle, but I didn’t think I really needed it.

I swiped my spear in a single, smooth motion, splitting Terrence’s head from his body. The blood I’d restored to his body sprayed outward neatly, avoiding staining Mizuki any further.

While I was pretty sure that he was dead now, I really didn’t want to risk any particularly powerful healers getting to him, so I batted the head into the river.

“Did you really have to do all that?” Mizuki asked. “I get the idea, and I appreciate you seeing reason, but wow.”

“Did you have to bite his fucking throat out?” I asked. “What are you, a vampire?”

“Vampire? Is that a local term for the Ketsken?”

I remembered that term. They were similar to the vampire myths I recalled from Earth, though mostly just in the blood-sucking and hard-to-kill-with-a-vulnerability departments, but since they were a demon race, they hadn’t been seen north of the demon islands in deep south Tarn.

“You could convince me you were one of those,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew blood magic.”

“It’s in my blood,” she said, snorting at her own bad joke. “It’s not banned here, as far as I know, but it’s very distinctive. I’d rather it not get out that I can use these skills.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Let’s get your face cleaned off and get the hell out of here.”

“Please. Oh, one second. Do you just want to go to the surface or try and prevent the other ambushes from happening?”

“Surface,” I decided immediately. “I’m hurt beyond my ability to heal, and you’re the target. If we run into someone, I think we should fight, but getting the regional commander to send the guild in proper would be a better idea.”

Mizuki nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

#

Flare knew somewhere in her heart of hearts that this was that little brat’s fault.

She’d been annoyed enough that someone’s little brother had received special treatment on exam day, and that had only doubled when he’d actually ended up taking the test. Even if he had some power to him, he shouldn’t have been here. 

In her duel against him, Flare had realized he reminded him of herself last year. She hadn’t taken the guild tests seriously, assuming she’d just get in somewhere by coasting on her talent, and things had gone poorly. She’d worked at casting until her fingers bled and her eyes couldn’t focus anymore.

This kid didn’t know anything about what it meant to suffer for success, and she’d proved that. Even then, she had still gotten the feeling that his presence was tainting the exams.

The Grancrest assholes who’d popped through the barrier definitely weren’t affiliated with that Red kid, but Flare wanted to blame them on him anyway. Being angry was better than being panicked, after all.

Her situation was not good. Flare had found a group of prospective guild members prior to the test and cut deals with them, and she’d entered the final phase of the exam with a full squad of six. Along the way, with her scout Robert having found a good path to a box with elven silver in it, she’d managed to convince one of the lone wolves to join her party and give them more muscle.

Of those seven, four were now alive. Robert had been the first one to die, split in two at the waist by an invisible wire that had shot out of the ground once he’d picked up the box. Another had died in the mad scramble afterwards in which Flare had managed to grab the box and get everyone to cover inside a trench not far from where it had been, narrowly dodging the hail of magical arrows that had come shortly after.

The third member of her group had died trying to ascertain where the enemies were. The answer, as it turned out, was the exact direction where they’d come from. Flare and the remaining members of her squadron were half-buried under rock now, using the natural cover of a low wall on one side and the border of the exam zone on the other to keep themselves from getting hit. There was a hole there that they had all silently agreed to keep blocked, assuming that their assailants had come from beyond the boundary.

As far as Flare could tell, the plain that they’d ended up on had enough hiding spots for five or six Adept-tier mages and archers to set up and bombard whoever got to the box.

This had been a trap, clear as day. Flare suspected that it had been meant to capture the boy, given how much of today had revolved around him, but they seemed perfectly happy to kill other prospective Federation members.

Flare had managed to knock out or kill one of them so far, but the others had gotten much more defensive afterwards. This left them in a sort of stalemate where Flare and her group couldn’t leave their trench for fear of being shot down and the enemy didn’t want to advance for the same reason.

Grancrest backup was likelier to come before anything from the Federation, though. She was pretty sure this movement hadn’t been communicated to the test proctors.

For the time being, she was stuck waiting, hoping that they would make a mistake before she did. The tunnel back was on the opposite side of the cavern, almost directly behind the Grancrest group. Retreat was impossible without getting past the ambushers, but they were more than content to sit there.

“We’re going to fucking die here,” said Victor, the lone wolf she’d picked up.

“Shut up,” she grit out, massaging her leg where falling rocks had bruised it heavily. “Once one of them fucks up, we’re charging them. We’ll be fine if we can make it back to the healers fast enough.”

“Small comfort that is,” he snarled. “Who do you think is going to lead that charge? The rest of you piss-drinkers are mages. You might make it out if we do that, but I’m not.”

Flare was too tired of having this argument to have it again.

“Wait,” Lionel, one of the other recon-specialty mages said. “I hear people coming. We might get our window soon.”

If Flare strained, she could make out words as well. Two voices, vaguely coming from the direction of the tunnel she wanted to reach so badly.

“…bad idea.” A woman’s. Unfamiliar.

“Hey, you were the one who said we should go and help if we saw someone in trouble. I feel like this is a pretty good opportunity to.”

Flare narrowed her eyes. That voice… was that the same kid she’d been mentally complaining about?

She poked her head out over the rock wall, a pair of her favorite spotting binoculars held up to her eyes.

To the Adept’s surprise, she didn’t get immediately shot at when she peered over. Judging from the mana spikes she saw through the binoculars, her enemies were still in the same spot—they were just looking a different direction.

From the far tunnel, two figures emerged behind a thick wall of forcefields that Flare had to admit were pretty perfectly layered. Arrows and spells crashed into them immediately, but the layering meant that new defenses could go up behind it, protecting those behind it.

They were translucent enough that she could make out the figures behind them. One of them was a girl Flare hadn’t seen before, a frankly beautiful white-haired whip-wielding warrior maybe a little younger than herself. The other, though…

She recognized Red from their brief duel against each other. Since his partner was clearly a fighter, he had to be the one casting the defensive spells. How was he managing that with no focus?

And why the hell weren’t you doing that during the earlier parts of the exam? Flare thought.

Her attention slipped quickly from that to his legs, though. Both of them showed some sign of having been in a fight, but Red’s gait was off. Through the tears in his pants, Flare realized that the flesh under it was blackened and withered to the point where she definitely would have tried for a field amputation.

He was walking on it. Sure, he was a little off, but Red just kept going like it didn’t even bother him. Had he been like that earlier? No, surely not.

Then another one of his shields dropped and a massive, amateurish Fireball shot straight forth from his hands, and Flare remembered her training.

“Get the fuck up and move!” she ordered, following her own words and jumping over the side of the rock wall.

There was too much open space for them to cross over normally, and she was forced to admit that Victor was probably right. He would have had a terrible time sprinting across this normally, but so much attention was focused on the two at the tunnel that they could seize this opportunity.

As Flare cast one of her preferred newer Adept-tier spells, Miniature Meteors, one of the archers sprinted out from behind hard cover and started running in her direction, clearly terrified for his life.

Startled by the move, she nevertheless fired the spell she’d been preparing. Three molten blobs of conjured stone and magma soared forward at the defenseless archer. He dodged out of the way of the first two, but the third made contact with center mass, melting straight through him. He died screaming.

Their group was upon the makeshift encampment the Grancrest ambushers had set up within moments, and from there they entered the madness of melee combat. Flare provided offense where she could, but she was awful in a melee where differentiating friend from foe was a challenge and any area-of-effect spell could result in her killing all her allies.

There was a good amount of screaming, some aggressive and other pleading. There was also a lot of blood, which she had to avert her eyes from. Killing with fire was neat. Clean. Blades and whips and clubs, magical or not, were anything but.

Her eyes did fall on a peculiar sight. Victor, who appeared to have taken an arrow somewhere important, stumbled back into the hands of Red, who he towered head and shoulders over. The brat, who had registered as a combat mage and had demonstrated some of the most unimpressive ranged combat she’d ever seen, muttered a command word. Moments later, Victor was on his feet again, twirling in combat like nothing had happened.

Had the brat just healed him?

Impossibly, he followed it up by batting away an incoming spell with the spear she’d seen hanging loosely by his side during their test. He dashed forward with a spell, planting that same spear into his attacker’s gut.

Seven hells, why had he registered the way he had?

The girl and Victor were also going to town, each of them excelling in close-quarters combat while the ambushers struggled to distance themselves. Within half a minute, they had slaughtered or knocked out enough of the Grancrest team that Flare could contribute to the remaining melee, taking down defenses and creating openings with pinpoint accuracy and exacting power.

She was the only one of the mages on her team that participated. Aster and Lionel were nearly doubled over, the two of them looking like they were about to be sick. She wanted to curse them out, but there was no time in the heat of battle.

Fucking amateurs.

Compared to them, the brat was a fantastic teammate despite having never trained with her, providing openings and never blocking her sightline to the enemies.

And, she reminded herself, he was doing all of this with one functional leg.

That set the fire inside her burning even brighter. If a prepubescent mage could do all this, she could at least be of use.

They operated without mercy. Flare had always been taught to not take half-measures when her life was at stake, and so she didn’t.

With every successive death, the numbers advantage tipped further in their favor, snowballing into inevitable victory. Within another thirty seconds, they were down to the last enemy, a single mage inside a dome-shaped forcefield hurriedly drawing a ritual circle on the ground.

Flare made to shoot at the shield, fully aware she wouldn’t be able to make it in time on her own, but Red was in her way for the first time. She paused, confused.

The fire mage’s jaw went slack as Red pulled out yet another logic-defying piece of magic, shadowy claws extending forth from his fingers as he leaned in and tore apart an Adept-tier forcefield with his fucking hands.

His female companion leapt through the gap he created, her whip now a sword as she spiraled towards the terrified mage within. The spell formation triggered and the Grancrest Adept disappeared just as steel met flesh, leaving behind nothing but a spray of blood.

The brat turned to the four survivors, all miraculously alive after this intervention.

“Oh hi there, Flare,” he said, giving her a small wave. “Glad to see you’re still around. Want to stick together on our way out?”

Flare’s head spun as hard as the worldview she’d been so confident in just ten minutes ago. She stared at the boy flatly and did her best to not pass out.

She didn’t even notice Victor bringing his axe behind his back and swinging it.