Chapter 114: Breaking the Spirit
Chapter 114: Breaking the Spirit
The night passed.
Early morning.
Blue Seal's infirmary.
Jiha sat with his back turned, receiving treatment.
Sirel, who had her hand on his back, let out a weary sigh and withdrew it.
"I've done everything I can for now..."
"Thanks for the hard work."
When Jiha moved to put his clothes on, Sirel gave his back a sharp smack.
"Don't put them on. I need to keep monitoring whether your skin's healing power is activating. What if it leaves a scar?"
"A bit of scarring is..."
Smack!
When Sirel hit him once more, Jiha gave up.
Though Sirel was an exceptional healer, she had been treating him continuously for an hour and a half.
She'd taken brief breaks, but she'd healed Jiha until her stamina and Mana were nearly drained.
"Burns are especially difficult to treat. They're incredibly nasty. The easiest to treat are bruises, then cleanly cut lacerations and wound sutures. Harder are cases where nerves or severed sections are crushed by a blunt weapon—and the hardest of all are burns..."
Sirel wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked at Jiha's bare skin.
"Good, your back's fine now too. At this stage, it won't scar once some time passes. Just in case, want me to introduce you to a cosmetic skin healer? I know someone who can make even burns heal without a trace."
"I said it's fine, what kind of man..."
Sirel lectured him.
"With injuries this severe, I can't just look the other way. I have to write a report stating who sustained such wounds, where it happened, and how it was treated."
"..."
The report Sirel was talking about would go up to the Uniques and potentially even to the Legends.
Sirel sighed.
"Lie to me."
"What?"
"Even if I ask how you got hurt this badly, you won't tell me, right? So give me a story I can believe. Tell me something that'll convince me this isn't report-worthy. I've treated you last night and healed you again today, and though I've barely got the strength to move, I still need something to make this feel like nothing serious."
Sirel looked at Jiha.
She was asking him to lie to her.
"Last night, I got hungry and snuck into the kitchen to make some fried meat. I accidentally set my clothes on fire. I panicked, flailed around, and burned my skin."
A transparently blatant lie, and yet Sirel looked surprised.
"What, you know how to cook too?"
"Simple stuff, more or less."
He'd lived alone back on Earth, after all.
And whenever he'd needed to curry favor with someone important, he'd had to train his palate as well.
"Alright then, could you cook something for me next time? If you need a kitchen, you could just come over to my place and cook there."
"Next time, when I get the chance."
This woman living alone was rather careless.
It could be taken as a casual invitation, but Jiha simply figured Sirel was the type to speak without guile.
If she'd been trying to flirt, she wouldn't have said it so comfortably.
"But... I couldn't ask earlier, but it looked like you'd received some preliminary treatment before I saw you. Who saw to it?"
"Asira Hellrunner seems to use healing arts. Do you know anything about her?"
"I do. The Unique who puts working healers out of a job."
"From your perspective as a healer, how skilled is she in healing arts?"
"Hmm, how should I explain this..."
Sirel crossed her legs and fell deep in thought.
His gaze traveled up from her coffee-colored stockings, past the skirt covering her thighs, along the blouse that faintly hinted at her figure, until her pale neck came into view.
A polished beauty lost in contemplation—it was a picturesque sight.
"..."
Come to think of it, she really is a charming woman.
As Jiha gazed at her blankly, Sirel explained.
"Even though it's called healing arts, the range is very broad. In my case, for example, I'm a post-injury healer. I can treat amputations, crushed wounds, and all sorts of bodily damage. I'm such an incredible lady that I can even treat the most difficult of all—burns. Make sure you remember that."
When Sirel spoke playfully, Jiha nodded.
Early in the Extinction War, when Jiha had no strength to fight, Sirel had saved his life several times over.
Even when his abdomen was torn open and his organs spilled out, a fatal wound, Sirel had kept him alive.
"...No, I was hoping you'd say something back. Why are you just nodding? It's embarrassing."
Sirel scratched her head and then continued.
"As another specialty, there are skin healers. Cosmetic specialists—healers who prevent scars, spots, or marks from remaining on the skin. They mainly deal with high-ranking clients... and they make a lot of money."
In other words, they were like plastic surgeons.
"I thought about switching to that profession once, but it's no easy task. First, you have to cater to the whims of high-ranking people, and skin tissue itself is extremely tricky. Ordinary healing arts accelerate natural regeneration, but using the skin's natural regenerative power takes a bit of time to heal. And those high-ranking types throw tantrums when they're not instantly fixed."
"So?"
"That's why cosmetic skin healers aim to provide immediate treatment without relying on natural regeneration. But let me just say... that is exceptionally difficult."
Jiha, with little interest in the tangent, cut straight to the point.
"So which type is Asira?"
"A combat healer. Someone who pursued practicality on the front lines. If the body's cut, stop the bleeding. If an arm is severed, reconnect the muscles and nerves just enough for basic movement."
"What's the difference compared to you?"
"I aim for slow, perfect healing. A combat healer aims for fast, adequate healing. As long as you can move again, that's enough—proper treatment can come after the battle's over. They specialize in quick healing with minimal Mana."
Sirel shook her head.
"It's an incredibly rare ability. Even among Warsland's Uniques, you can count on one hand the number who are capable of combat healing. Being able to fight while using self-healing means you can defeat enemies even stronger than yourself."
There were species with naturally superior physical regeneration and defense.
But even for those species, mastering combat healing made them all the more powerful.
"Combat healers usually only manage self-healing, so being able to heal others as well is even more impressive. No wonder she distinguished herself on the battlefield."
Jiha nodded.
He'd been considering various scenarios for a potential confrontation with Asira, and the most troublesome factor was precisely that self-healing ability.
The longer a fight dragged on, the more advantageous it became for Asira.
"An ability that can snowball... but there's no way it's limited to just that."
As he'd thought, facing Asira would require more preparation.
Jiha committed it to memory and rose from his seat.
"Thank you, Sirel. You've been a huge help."
"Sure, and..."
Sirel spoke to Jiha.
"Even if it's dangerous, don't die. Just get hurt. Because I'll fix you up."
Jiha left the infirmary and headed to his room.
He hadn't been able to rest even while receiving treatment.
He planned to get a bit of sleep and then act again.
"Kamain's whereabouts have been shelved for now. I need to make good use of that..."
Jiha had already acquired over 50 of the Grade 2 weapons he'd aimed to obtain from this incident.
A handful of the remaining hidden gnolls still had a few more, but the primary objective was nearly accomplished.
"Do I stop here, or push further..."
It was a critical crossroads.
"If possible, I want to drag Asira under my control. But the path forward is still hazy..."
He'd seized on a number of Asira's weaknesses, but it wouldn't be settled easily.
"Asira herself would be strong, but the healing arts are the real problem. Even if I bite her, she could heal it right away."
Jiha's vampiric Mana didn't take immediate effect; it required sustained contact.
No matter how he bit Asira, if she counterattacked and healed herself, it would all be over.
"Even if, by some miracle, I succeed..."
Asira wasn't the type of woman who would obediently submit to Jiha.
She'd draw her sword rather than yield to injustice.
In that case, simply sending Asira back was another option.
"But letting her go now seems like a waste..."
He coveted her healing ability.
Of course, Sirel and other healers could use healing arts, but Asira's advantage was her ability to fight on the front lines.
As a demon knight and a Unique Grade, her strength needed no elaboration.
In all the battles that lay ahead, if Asira accompanied him and could occasionally apply healing arts from behind him, how much of an asset would she be?
Jiha himself could heal by directly drinking blood, but doing so in the middle of a fierce battle was difficult.
"Or perhaps, if I bite her, the healing arts might come to me."
Which Special Ability he would acquire was impossible to know until he actually bit.
It seemed to correlate with the abilities the target used—Yura had given him wings, Lijin had given him enhanced hearing.
"In any case..."
Asira was too valuable to let slip away.
Even more so now that Kamain's downfall had created an opening.
Arriving at his room, Jiha took out his key and reached for the doorknob but paused.
"..."
The soot smudge he'd left on the handle had been wiped clean.
Jiha had left a mark on the handle to guard against anyone secretly entering his room.
If you grabbed the handle without thinking, the soot would be erased.
"The angle makes the soot invisible from the front of the door. An expert would notice the stain on their hand afterward. But since it's impossible to restore the exact same pattern, they'd usually retreat..."
Given that it had simply been wiped clean, this wasn't an expert.
Housekeeping? Jiha had strictly barred entry to his room.
"..."
After thinking for a moment, Jiha braced himself, unlocked the door with the key, and stepped inside.
Creeeak.
"...Oh, you're here?"
Sitting on the bed was the red-haired succubus, Yura.
When Jiha entered, she rose from her seat and, with demure grace, clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head.
Looking at her like this, she seemed so gentle...
"..."
Closing the door, Jiha stepped inside.
The window was shut, with no sign of entry or exit.
Uniques were powerful, but they weren't supposed to be ethereal phantoms.
Jiha turned to Yura and asked.
"How did you get in?"
"Ah, I unlocked the door with my tail."
"..."
Yura's heart-patterned tail, attached at her waist.
She was saying she'd slipped it through the crack in the door and tripped the lock.
"I'll need to reinforce security."
As Jiha thought to himself and removed his jacket, Yura quickly accepted it with both hands.
She then hung it on a hanger herself and approached Jiha once more.
Her expression was one of quiet anticipation, waiting for him to take off his shirt next.
When Jiha stared at her wordlessly, she looked puzzled at first, then brightened.
"Ah, shall I undress you?"
Jiha smiled and asked.
"Did you come because you missed me?"
"...Yes."
Yura quickly nodded.
Her face flushed, and she spoke quietly while gauging Jiha's mood.
"Honestly, I've wanted to see you for a while now, but Asira kept staying by your side. So..."
"While Asira is around, you have to pretend we're not close. So you've been holding back this whole time, right?"
"Yes..."
Yura nodded.
"But I heard you went through an ordeal yesterday. And it seemed like Asira was staying in her room, so..."
"So you saw an opportunity and came to see me?"
"..."
Nod.
Yura bashfully nodded.
An unauthorized intrusion into his room—ordinarily absurd—but Yura must have agonized over it plenty.
If she waited in the hallway or anywhere else, Asira might find out.
She simply couldn't suppress her desire to be alone with Jiha.
Jiha laughed and wrapped both arms around Yura's waist.
"Alright, you've come to see me now. Is that all?"
"...No."
Nestled meekly in Jiha's arms, the red-haired succubus whispered softly.
"You had a rough time yesterday... and I also wanted to comfort you."
"With your body?"
When Jiha asked teasingly, Yura merely gave a small nod.
She wanted to ease the burdens of the man who'd undergone such hardship.
She also wanted to have time for just the two of them.
It was the heart of a woman in love.
Yura wrapped her arms around Jiha's waist as well and whispered.
"It's fine. Asira won't be looking for me right now... a few hours, at least..."
"Only a few hours? Not until tomorrow morning?"
"That's..."
Yura's voice trailed off.
Of course she wanted that, but if she did, Asira would find out.
But Jiha asked bluntly.
"Do we have to keep meeting in secret?"
"...Excuse me?"
"Why should I have to worry about what others think when I'm sleeping with a woman who likes me? I don't want to."
Jiha spoke with a smile.
"Let's go tell her openly."
"J-Jiha. If Asira finds out..."
"She doesn't know, which is exactly why we're going to go and tell her clearly."
Yura, who was completely smitten with him, and Kamain, who'd become a wreck.
He would use them both to conquer Asira.