Healing the Unhealable

Ereb von Ahental, Second Young Master of House Ahental, was trading idle banter with his knights when he cocked his head.

That one was a herb gatherer, wasn't he? What was his name?

There was no need to memorize a commoner's name. Still, something about it nagged at him. Only moments after the otherkin who had given him such a fine opportunity to mock Ramang had climbed into the wagon, the herb gatherer had gone bolting into his own house and come running back with something in his arms.

Looks like cloth and water. Did that otherkin give him specific instructions? They can't even talk to each other.

A prickle of suspicion ran through him. Ereb's instincts were usually sharp about this sort of thing — that unpleasant sensation of worthless ants huddling together, cooking up some incident. He was a man who had always congratulated himself on possessing the sensory gifts befitting a noble of his station.

He heaved his heavy frame upright and walked toward the cargo wagon where the wounded lay, snatching healer Boyle by the nape as the man hovered nearby and dragging him along.

When he climbed into the wagon, the otherkin had both hands hovering close to the wound, attempting something.

Magic? Don't tell me that otherkin is using magic?

He pressed the question, and the answer that came back said as much. The creature claimed to be casting Heal.

Well. There are monsters that use magic too. Not unheard of. But that thing comes from the Forest of Resentment — the very place we're headed. If otherkin who can work magic like this are crawling all over that forest, it could get dangerous.

And what if that magic surpassed what humans could do?

The healer Ereb had brought along — Boyle — was a man of some standing within the territory. Ereb had not hired him on a whim. The man had a particular reputation for detoxification and the treatment of trauma. And this was a wound that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠same man had declared, without a shred of hesitation, absolutely beyond saving.

And yet…

Boyle's face was draining into raw astonishment.

"This is… th-this is impossible. Th-this isn't supposed to happen!"

At first, Boyle had been sneering on the inside.

The lunatic! I've seen hundreds of patients drop dead on the spot after some fool slapped Heal on a wound like that and scrambled the internal organs into soup. There's a reason experience matters, you know.

A healer with ten years behind him. That meant at least several thousand trauma patients had passed before his eyes — which was another way of saying he had watched several thousand people die. Boyle knew, as well as anyone alive, exactly what grade of wound Heal could and could not touch.

Gaston's injury was nowhere near that grade.

Messi used all ten fingers of both hands to trace a magic circle in the air, and a pure white light began to pour from his palms.

That's it — kill him! If that mercenary dies, my worth is proven!

But even as the light of Heal took hold, the wound was not closing. Healing magic was supposed to be instantaneous — the hole in the surface sealing the moment the spell was cast. Something was wrong. Boyle leaned in for a closer look.

And he saw it.

The shredded viscera inside the abdomen were knitting themselves back together, slowly, into the exact shape they had held before.

"It's working — it's working! He's actually healing!"

The woman could not contain her joy. The Village Chief shrugged with a smug look that said, See? What did I tell you?

The sight nearly shattered Messi's concentration mid-cast. His mind filled with a single baffled question: Why is he acting like this has anything to do with him…?

He really is Brother's disciple.

Leto allowed himself a quiet smile. The child Barcelo had one day brought home had grown into this — a young man whose skill was enough to leave a noble house's personal healer, fresh from the capital, slack-jawed with horror.

"…Boyle."

"Y-yes, yes! Young Master, something is wrong here. This creature is working some kind of sorcery, it has to be! This is impossible! Do you know how many years I've—"

A flick.

The idle twitch of Ereb's wrist near the sword at his hip cut Boyle off cold. It was the peculiar habit of knights trained in Ahental Swordsmanship — that art in which every form began from a high-speed draw — in the instant before the blade left the sheath.

"Shut that mouth of yours."

Boyle tucked his neck in like a turtle under the frost of Ereb's voice.

"…I'll cut your stipend in half. Any complaints?"

"N-none, sir. Thank you for sparing me."

"So you're a lost cause who can't even feel defeat or resentment at being outdone by some otherkin? As long as you're still breathing, that's enough for you, is it?"

"No, sir! I swear it — next time I will show you far superior healing!"

"Make it seventy percent. If you show me something better, I may consider restoring it."

"Thank you, thank you!"

Ereb left the wretched, shriveled Boyle where he was and climbed down from the wagon. Not a word of congratulations for the mercenary who had just been pulled back from the dead.

So otherkin magic is that far ahead of ours? I'll need to be careful… and I'll have to warn Sir Ramang as well. I don't care for the man — Father stuck him on me as a watchdog — but we'll need him if this expedition is going to succeed.

And I'll need more information on that otherkin. If he's hiding an extra card, we could use him as a guide and still end up getting eaten.

Ereb decided he would wring the information out of the woman mercenary who had been close to the creature, tonight, when she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠came to his bed. A woman drunk on pleasure had a looser tongue than she thought.

The next day, from the gray of early dawn, the knights and the mercenary company were already in motion. At the Second Young Master's insistence that they set out as early as possible and see results, Knight Ramang had hurried the departure. Village folk had been pressed into service as porters for the privilege, and the Village Chief was hauling baggage with his face twisted into a scowl that said, What the hell is this circus at this hour?

"Those bastards got no mothers or fathers…"

"I can hear you, Chief."

"Hup—! Make some damn footsteps when you walk, Leto! Nearly stopped my heart."

"Then you should've been grumbling on the inside."

"Damn it. Did you talk it through with Messi? If that boy doesn't go, the lot of us are getting dragged along. You hear what the Young Master said yesterday?"

"I know. Messi's going. But it's strange the knights won't tell us the destination."

"Must be the kind of place you have to keep secret even to get there. And what do we care where those bastards are headed anyway? It's the poor sod getting dragged along who gets screwed…"

"You knew that, and you still put Messi forward?"

"What, you want all of us hauled off together so we can hold hands and skip into the woods? It's the sacrifice of the few for the many. Once you're in a position to represent this village, you live with that much awareness."

"You do talk a fine game."

While Leto and the Village Chief sniped at each other, the preparations for departure ticked steadily toward completion. Messi, set apart as the designated guide, was checking over his own pack and the condition of his boots. The Forest of Resentment was vast, dangerous, and full of ground that made travel a misery. His master had taught him that the worse the road, the more faithfully you tended to the basics.

"Hey…"

At the unfamiliar man's voice, Messi looked up. A man and a woman he had seen before. The man was Gaston.

"Thanks for saving my life."

Messi tilted his head as if he hadn't understood. The woman grinned at that.

"It's all right. Gaston heard the whole promise we made yesterday. Looks like he was a little conscious even in that state."

"Keep up the pantomime anyway. There are a lot of eyes watching."

Messi's warning was on the mark. Ereb and Ramang were watching from a distance. Ereb had been suspicious since yesterday, and Ramang, having heard the talk, was openly on guard. There was no chance Messi had failed to feel it.

A crash of tumbling steel!

"Hey — watch it over there! You trying to wreck every spare weapon we've got?"

Someone from the village had dropped a load they were tying onto a horse, and Ramang and Ereb's attention snapped that way.

"There's no need for thanks. Your captain already paid the price. Just keep the promise."

"Even so… a man whose life was saved doesn't sit easy. Honestly, the captain's promise was in her own interest — if I lived, it benefited her. If I'd died, she'd have had to pay my family a support stipend for a good while. And a company member is company property. So you took your payment yesterday and left the actual price of my life out of it."

Gaston was a big man in his thirties. His face was still pale from yesterday's blood loss, but his body did not look the worse for it. Messi's Heal had restored every wound to perfection, and the blood-building red herbs Leto had prescribed seemed to have done their work as well. That he could move like this after a single day was proof enough.

Messi thought that saving the man had not been a poor judgment after all. At the very least, he had saved someone who still knew what shame was. And knowing there was a family waiting for this man only settled it further.

"I just got married, so… money's going out every which way. I can't give you that, I'm sorry. But if you'll take it, I'd like to give you this instead."

What Gaston held out was a single arming sword.

"Looked to me like your waist was a little empty."

"I don't know how to use a sword."

"A man ought to have one. Learn on this trip if you want — I'll teach you."

"I was told it's a bit late in life to start learning the sword…"

"That's talk for people with high-grade mana cultivation methods and ascending sword arts. For folks like us, learning just to put out the fire in front of us, any time is fine. I'm only a three-year mercenary myself."

He even had the thoughtfulness to include a cowhide sword belt, a matching set for hanging the scabbard.

"Oh, Gaston. That's the one you treasured so much you never even swung it."

"Captain, I may not have book learning, which is why I do mercenary work — but I was raised right. My father used to say, if you can give someone else what is precious to you, others will return what is precious to you. I've already received something precious. So I'm giving what I held dear."

"Still a shame to let it go. Honestly, I don't even know what those letters on the blade say. You ought to at least know what it's worth before you hand it over."

"If I knew, it'd just make my stomach hurt. I'd rather not."

Drawn from the sheath, the blade truly did bear unknown characters etched into the steel like a faint tattoo — scrawl as indecipherable as the handwriting modern physicians left on a prescription.

"I'll take it gratefully."

"Good. I like a man who doesn't fuss."

The moment Messi buckled on the sword belt and seated the scabbard, a trumpet sounded the departure. He deliberately put distance between himself and Gaston and the woman, and followed behind.

The sun was climbing slowly. The knights stood in formation, every angle sharp, a well-ordered presence rolling off them in waves. Compared to that, the mercenaries were a rabble, and no mistake. Standing at the outer edge between the knights at the van and the mercenaries at the rear made the contrast even starker.

Why bother bringing these mercenaries at all?

If anything, men of that quality would only get in the way in a fight. Messi turned the question over alone.

Meanwhile Leto and the Village Chief came up. The chief slipped a pouch into Messi's hand with a furtive little press. Messi opened it and found well-dried jerky.

Even a well-fed ghost has a healthy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠complexion, is that it?

"Ahem. Don't look at me like that. I went to the trouble of giving you a going-away gift. Look after the knights, and come back in one piece. You hear me?"

"The chief's right. His motives are rotten, but…"

"Ahem!"

Messi did not answer. He only nodded and hung the pouch from his sword belt. It would be easy to eat a piece at a time as he walked.

The two of them were turning to leave when Knight Ramang and Second Young Master Ereb approached.

"Chief. Herb gatherer. Come to think of it, you two were getting along rather well with the otherkin yesterday too, weren't you?"

There was a barb in Ereb's words. Leto and Messi turned it over, trying to read the intent. The Village Chief did not get that far.

"Aigoo, of course. I've doted on the boy like he was my own. Different from us, sure, but I always thought of him as family."

"Is that so? Perfect. The two of you will come along as guides as well. There's the communication problem with the otherkin, for one thing… and I can hardly walk into that forest trusting that creature alone."

Half the Village Chief's face went white with horror, as if lightning had split a tree down the grain. That the other half managed to hold a smile at all was a testament to the superhuman patience built over decades of being village chief.

"We've about ten minutes until we leave. Both of you, grab your things and get back here."

Ramang's tone was unhurried. Which meant this was not some fit the Second Young Master had thrown on the spur of the moment.

That Young Master may have a deeper mind than I gave him credit for.

Just as Ereb suspected Messi, a thread of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠suspicion took root in Messi's own heart.

The Village Chief hurried toward his house with the rims of his eyes gone red and wet. His path was the same as Leto's, and the words Leto let fall as he passed caught the chief square in the solar plexus.

"What's that? The sacrifice of the few for the many… was it?"

"Shut your mouth!"