TERNLF Vol. 1 Chapter 2 Part 6

Full title: The Exiled Reincarnated Noble Lives Freely

Note: If you found any typos/mistakes, pls write them in the comment. Thanks.

Translator: Canon

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“So this really is the limit…”

I had known it the moment I laid eyes on it, but Edra’s wrist and hand—shredded beyond recognition—hadn’t healed completely, even after receiving advanced healing magic, 【High Heal】.

While the bleeding had stopped, her hand hadn’t returned to its original form.

Most notably, her index, middle, and thumb were all completely severed from the base.

That meant Edra would never be able to wield a sword again.

“If only I could use healing magic capable of regenerating limbs…”

The person who taught me healing magic back at the frontier fortress had been a man named Clyne, who boasted of being among the kingdom’s top healers.

Even he had said that mastering regeneration magic was beyond his full control.

Naturally, someone like me, with only average talent, had been unable to learn anything beyond high-tier healing spells, no matter how much I trained.

In the end, I had to accept that I could never reach the heights of the seasoned warriors at the frontier, that this was my limit.

But I chose to shift my mindset.

Even if I lacked the gift to master a single discipline, I could aim to become an all-rounder capable of wielding many.

Even if I couldn’t defeat an enemy with one skill alone, I believed I could overcome them by combining many.

In the end, perhaps I’d become a jack-of-all-trades, but that was fine.

…Still, this wasn’t the time to reminisce.

“Grassa.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Can you stand?”

Grassa tried to lift herself at my question, but just as she began to rise, her knees buckled and she slumped back down.

It looked like her legs had given out entirely.

“Here.”

“…!”

Pretending not to notice the puddle at her feet, I took her hand and helped her stand.

I’d wet myself plenty of times too, back when they’d throw me in front of savage monsters and call it “training.”

I pulled a large towel from storage and handed it to her.

Incidentally, it was homemade, crafted from the fur of a magic beast.

Crude in design, but perfectly functional.

“Thank you… very much.”

Realizing why I had offered it, Grassa’s cheeks reddened as she accepted the towel and wrapped it around her waist.

Avoiding looking directly at her, I hoisted Edra—still unconscious—onto my back.

“We need to get out of here. Nikka’s waiting up above.”

“Huh? Nikka?”

“Yeah. She asked me to come find you.”

Grassa’s eyes widened in disbelief. She hadn’t expected to hear Nikka’s name.

“That girl…?”

“I’ll explain on the way back. Can you walk?”

Grassa took a few tentative steps and nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good. Stay close.”

With that, I started retracing the path I came from.

Along the way, I made sure to collect the two horns growing from Tauros’s head and the magic stone buried within its body.

Magic stones of that caliber couldn’t be left behind.

If I did, the dungeon would absorb them, and another powerful “Guardian” could be born.

Besides, magic stones from monsters like Tauros could fetch a fortune.

Considering the money I’d handed back to Glaas and the compensation I gave to Nikka, my wallet was practically freezing. This would be a welcome windfall.

“And that’s why Nikka and I came looking for you.”

I explained as we approached the exit.

“I can’t believe it… That pendant was a cursed item. I can’t believe I handed something like that to Nikka…”

Grassa’s voice was tinged with remorse.

But what was done was done.

We couldn’t say there hadn’t been consequences, but at the very least, Nikka was safe now.

“What about you? Are you alright?”

“I thought I might lose it during the goblin fight, so I left the pendant at the inn.”

Apparently, Grassa hadn’t brought her matching pendant, worried it might get lost.

She wasn’t the type to use magic in battle, so perhaps it wouldn’t have affected her either way.

Still, if she had brought it, there was a chance it could have disrupted the other Windfang members’ spells.

Even if by coincidence, her decision not to bring it turned out to be the right one.

“Better safe than sorry. Once we’re back, we’ll recover that cursed item.”

I said as we reached the bottom of the pit trap.

“We’re climbing this?”

“It’s the fastest way.”

Of course, it wasn’t something we could scale as-is.

The walls were smooth, with no bumps or grips to hold on to.

“Well, if it’s not there, I’ll just make it. 【Blessing Earth】.”

Dungeon walls were mostly composed of soil and stone.

Which meant I could shape them easily using earth magic.

“Whoa. You made stairs… just like that.”

With a staircase now in place, we climbed our way out and finally returned to the surface.

“Grassa!!”

The moment we emerged from the dungeon, Nikka ran up and threw herself at Grassa.

“Nikka…”

Unlike Nikka’s cheerful expression, Grassa looked pained.

Of course she did.

She had unknowingly passed a cursed item to her friend.

And worse, because of her mistake, Edra had suffered a devastating injury, losing her dominant hand.

The former had ended without incident thanks to her.

But the latter… that was serious.

Because it meant Edra could no longer live as an adventurer.

“Nikka, Edra… she’s hurt because of me…”

Edra was still asleep on my back.

That missing hand of hers must have remained in Grassa’s line of sight the entire time she followed behind me.

While she had been too numb with fear to feel much inside the dungeon, now that we were in a safe place, the magnitude of her mistake finally seemed to catch up with her.

“So Grassa and Edra are both safe.”

Redroal, who had walked past the two girls and come up to me, looked visibly relieved when he saw Edra still breathing.

He must’ve heard the situation from Nikka; there was none of the hostility he had initially shown.

“Yeah. Barely, but she’s alive.”

“Barely?”

Redroal’s expression shifted with suspicion.

But the moment his gaze fell on Edra’s severed right wrist, his face turned pale.

“Her hand…”

I gently lowered Edra’s body to the ground and turned to face Redroal.

“When I found her, I could barely heal the rest of her wounds. That was all I could manage.”

“I can’t believe this happened to a warrior as strong as Edra. What in the world happened in there?”

“Well—”

At his question, I relayed what Grassa had told me on the way up the stairs, along with my own observations.

It began after she and Edra had fallen into a hidden pit trap.

There, they had encountered a swarm of goblins, as if lying in wait.

While shielding the panicked Grassa, Edra had pressed forward alone, cutting her way through the enemy and navigating the dungeon. She had been searching for a more advantageous place to fight when she reached that narrow corridor.

“If it had only been goblins, she might’ve been able to hold out until help arrived.”

There was no way goblins alone could overwhelm someone like Edra.

In fact, according to Grassa, the goblins’ numbers had gradually dwindled as the battle dragged on.

But then, that Tauros had suddenly emerged from deep within the dungeon.

“She was probably already worn down from fighting goblins nonstop, and the darkness in the dungeon must’ve dulled her reaction time.”

Edra hadn’t even considered the possibility of encountering a monster like Tauros.

She couldn’t block its devastating attack in time.

She must’ve tried to raise her sword to defend, but she was just a split second too slow. The club struck her sword hand directly.

Grassa had watched her get flung through the air, already unconscious by the time she landed, and her right hand completely crushed.

“If only I’d gotten there a little sooner…”

I muttered, looking at Edra’s unconscious face.

Thanks to the healing spells, some color had returned to her cheeks.

But her right hand showed no signs of recovery.

“No. If you hadn’t gone to save them, the two of them would be dead by now. Edra, and all of us, we’re grateful to you. There’s no reason to blame you for anything.”

Redroal said this as he gave my shoulder a firm pat.

“Edra probably won’t be able to hold a sword again. She’ll have to retire from adventuring. But every one of us accepted that risk the moment we chose this line of work.”

He smiled as he spoke, but even I could tell it was a forced expression.

“I see…”

“In this job, you see a lot. I’ve watched many adventurers forced to retire after sustaining similar injuries.”

Redroal began gently wiping the dirt from Edra’s face with a cloth dampened in water.

“But even so, I consider those people the lucky ones. If an injury happens during a commissioned job, the guild usually helps them find a new career.”

Surprisingly, this world’s Adventurer Guild apparently provided fairly robust support for its members.

Maybe the guild viewed adventurers the way a company views employees.

After all, without adventurers taking on jobs, the guild wouldn’t earn a single coin.

In my old world’s isekai novels, I’d never heard of a guild paying damages like they did for Nikka.

But if that system existed to protect adventurers, then maybe it made sense.

Even that “guild entrance exam” might have just been their way of checking whether someone was a viable candidate, like a job interview.

In the end, I never actually took it, so I still didn’t know how it worked.

“What do you think is the most common reason adventurers retire?”

Redroal suddenly asked me a question out of nowhere.

“Injury? Old age? Maybe striking it rich?”

“Wrong. It’s when they die.”

His answer made me catch my breath.

“That’s why I think being able to retire without losing your life is actually a kind of blessing.”

His words, tinged with self-mockery, left a silence hanging between us.

“That person… she’s the one who saved Grassa, right?”

Just then, Nikka approached, walking alongside Grassa.

“Yeah. If she hadn’t been there, Grassa would’ve died before I even made it to them.”

“Her hand…”

Nikka passed by me and knelt beside Edra, who lay on the ground.

“Thank you for protecting my dear friend.”

Then she gently held Edra’s right hand between her own and closed her eyes.

“【Low Heal】.”

She cast the low-tier healing spell on Edra’s crushed hand, despite knowing it wouldn’t do anything.

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