Chương 64: Book 2 Chapter 16 - No Healing Magic

She wiped her sword off, then put it back in her soul space. She noticed before she did, that there were chips in the edge of the blade. That meant the enchantment had worn off, and the blade had begun taking the impact itself. She would have to look at getting it recharged. She stood and moved towards the wagon. The fighting had scared the horse pulling the wagon, and it had run some ways off. Now that the fight was over, her adrenaline spike began to wear off, and her limbs were shaky.

Looking down at her shaky legs, she realized she was still bleeding where Mason's spear had connected. With the adrenaline wearing off, the bleed rate was increasing. She quickly wrapped some cloth tightly around her leg and put pressure on the wound. She would need to clean it properly when she got to Portish. She drove the wagon back to the road, where the young family was waiting. She had told them before she left that she would try to chase down the bandits and bring their wagon back to them.

They had apparently taken her at her word, and hadn't moved from the spot where she left them. When she stepped down from the wagon, the young wife and mother took one look at her leg and made her sit on the back of the wagon.

"We have some clean water and cloth here in the wagon," she said, going into full mother mode.

"Sit here for a moment while I wash the wound." She rummaged in the wagon for a few minutes until she found a shirt and some water. She tore the shirt into strips, then gently washed the wound on Kiara's leg.

"It looks like a clean gash," she said, leaning close to the wound and narrating what she was seeing for Kiara's benefit.

"There isn't much in the way of dirt or debris in there, but it's still good to rinse it out." After rinsing it, she wadded up one strip of shirt and pressed it tight to the wound, then tied the remaining strips around the area and instructed Kiara to keep firm pressure on it.

"No use walking on that leg while it's bleeding like that," the husband said.

"Why don't you ride with us for a bit?"

"I'm supposed to get to Portish today…" Kiara said, wanting to be on her way.

"Just for a few hours, then," the man cut her off.

"Give it time for the bleeding to stop, and let the wound heal up a bit." Kiara considered for a moment, then nodded tiredly.

"Okay, thanks, I appreciate it." The man nodded in acknowledgement of her thanks.

"It's the least we can do after you've helped us like this. I'm Benjamin by the way. This is my wife, Adeline, and our two kids, Nathan and Nellie."

"I'm Shian."

"It's lovely to meet you Shian," Adeline said with a smile as she lifted her two young kids into the wagon beside Kiara.

"We can't begin to thank you enough for rescuing our things." The kids hurried to hide behind a nearby crate, then peeked out and stared at Kiara with wide eyes. Kiara smiled gently at the sight before replying.

"It's no problem at all. Anyone would have done the same." Benjamin shook his head.

"I wish that were true. Those that wish to help usually don't have the ability, and those that have the ability don't seem to want to help." Adeline sat down next to Kiara to help normalize her presence for the kids, while Benjamin moved to the driver's seat and got the wagon rolling again. Once they were moving, Kiara revised her estimate of when this family would make it to Portish. With how slow they were moving, the trip would likely take them three more days.

The conversation quickly died off so Kiara could rest, and the young mother began playing a simple game with her kids to keep them entertained. The gentle roll of the wagon and the peaceful sound of the nearby family lulled Kiara to sleep. A few hours later, she awoke feeling much better. Her leg had stopped bleeding, and she had her energy back. She thanked the young family again for giving her a ride, then jumped down and bid them farewell.

She set off at a slower pace than before, trying to avoid jostling her leg wound too much, but she still quickly outpaced the slow meander of the wagon. Her leg only ended up bleeding a little as she ran. At her reduced pace, it took her another two hours to reach Portish. It wasn't until she was inside the city walls that Kiara realized she had never set up a rendezvous point with Dustin. It seemed like a gross oversight in retrospect.

She hadn't passed them on the road, which meant they had likely already arrived. They would have found a place for the horses to rest and be fed, and Dustin had a familiarity with the world of travelling merchants. In fact, they had passed through Portish a few months back on their way to Easton, and she was pretty sure she remembered how to get to the merchant district. Portish was a large city though, with winding streets where zero thought had been put into city planning or layout.

It had grown organically from a much smaller size, with people building houses wherever was convenient at the time. Eventually, it grew large enough and wealthy enough to warrant a city wall, and turned into what it was now. Being a county capital, there were even small neighborhoods and poorer districts overflowing to outside the city walls now. Kiara realized she was as likely to get lost as she was to remember the way to the merchant district on her own. Oh well! She didn't mind exploring for a bit.

But first, she needed to find the infirmary for her leg. She asked a few passersby for directions, and headed straight there. The building was larger than the one in Easton, and had small rooms for the patients, instead of just a field of cots side by side in one large room. A medic re-cleaned and dressed her wound, which had gotten rather dusty and blood soaked in the past few hours. The medic chatted amiably with Kiara while she worked, asking her name, where she was from, and how she got injured.

Once the wound was cleaned and bandaged, the medic left to fetch a healer. The healer, a young woman, entered the room with a smile.

"Hello! Lady Yountal, correct?" If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"That's me," Kiara replied.

"My name is Elaina," the healer said.

"Bandit attack?" she asked, pointing to Kiara's leg. Kiara nodded. Elaina grimaced.

"Well, let's be thankful you only got one injury. I've seen much worse come in from bandit attacks out on the roads. I wish the count would have the roads patrolled. Maybe if travel was more common…" she trailed off, lost in thought.

"Well, nothing we can do about that here," Elaina said, coming back to the present conversation.

"Do you mind if I apply some healing magic to the injury?" Kiara considered it. She had turned down the offer in Easton the last time she had been injured, but her recent experience with Hugo's lightning magic affecting her in some way made her curious. She wondered if healing magic would work on her? Maybe her body wouldn't reject it since it was beneficial?

"Let's give it a shot," she said with a decisive nod. Elaina smiled and placed her hands gently on Kiara's leg, over top the bandage.

"This won't hurt a bit. In fact, you should feel some sense of relief." Elaina closed her eyes, and a look of utter concentration came over her face. Her hands began to glow with a warm, honey-colored light. Golden colored mana slowly ran down the woman's arms towards Kiara's leg. After a moment, it stopped, and Elaina glanced up awkwardly.

"My apologies, Lady Yountal," she started, a bit sheepishly.

"You seem to still have some kind of mana shield or defensive artifact active. I'm unable to do any healing without it being disengaged." She looked at Kiara expectantly, strongly hinting that the defensive measure should be deactivated, but not wanting to outright say it out loud. Kiara's heart fell a bit. She had hoped that maybe healing magic would work on her, but apparently that wasn't the case. She didn't have a way to 'turn it off', at least not that she had found yet.

For now, she would have to live with the wound. That increased the desirability in her mind of improving her Healing stat. If she were ever severely wounded in a fight, without improved natural healing and regeneration, she risked dying, since no healers would be able to provide her with magical healing. As it was, the stinging from her pants rubbing against the wound already made it a chore to walk around. She would probably have to skip her sword classes for a bit, or at the very least forfeit her spars.

Elaina was waiting for her response.

"Ah, sorry about that," she said with an apologetic smile.

"On second thought, I'm okay without any healing. The medic cleaned the wound up really well, I'm sure I'll be fine in no time."

"It's really no trouble at all!" Elaina said, seeming nervous for some reason.

"A healing session doesn't take all that long. I'm quite experienced, and have developed a healing concept. If you just lower the defenses on your leg for a short while, I'll have you back to full health!" The mention of a concept was foreign to Kiara. Curious, she reached out with [Magical sense 3] to gauge the young healer's tier. She registered as a tier 3, which Kiara took note of. Once Dustin found her somewhere to learn more about magic, she would have to ask for details about what a concept was.

She also made a mental note that it might be helpful to leave [Magical sense 3] running all the time. It didn't cost her anything to use it, and it was actually quite helpful. The only reason she hadn't done that yet was that she still wasn't fully accustomed to the increased noise of raw data that it fed her mind. She ran it during spars and fights, but usually had it turned off otherwise. It might be time to start training herself to function normally with it turned on.

While mages were fairly rare in a general sense, they were quite common amongst nobility, city guards, and house guards. With her current social status, she interacted with powerful individuals on a regular basis, and it was convenient to know what tier someone else was. In response to Elaina's comment, Kiara shook her head sadly.

"I'm afraid that isn't possible. These defenses stay up around the clock." Now Elaina looked less nervous, and more confused.

"Surely that's wise out on the road, as evidenced by your own encounter with a group of bandits, but here in the city? Especially here in the infirmary, I can assure you that you're perfectly safe. There's no need to fear anything happening while your defenses are lowered."

"Mmm," Kiara agreed, nodding.

"Even so, I can't lower my defenses, unfortunately." Elaina was back to looking a bit nervous, glancing at the door periodically. She leaned in and lowered her voice conspiratorially.

"My uncle had to pull some strings to get me this job. This is my first week, and I haven't had very many patients yet. If I don't show any real results…" She trailed off, leaving Kiara to guess at the implied consequences of not doing well her first week on the job. Elaina leaned back and got a far-off look in her eyes.

"I've always dreamed of being a healer, ever since I was little. I just love helping people. I've always had a knack for it, even when I was young. After the magical academy, I worked for my uncle over in Yarreltown for a couple of years. He's the head physician over there." A slow smile of delight spread across her face.

"And then a position opened up here in Portish, the county seat! My uncle knows the head physician here, but he had to call in a few favors to get me my chance, since it's a highly coveted position. It's been a slow first week, and one of my other patients already had a negative response to the healing session." Her face scrunched up.

"I still think he was actively trying to thwart my efforts. There's no other reason the magic would have gone off the rails that badly." She blushed, realizing she was oversharing. She waved her hands in embarrassment.

"Not that you need to worry about anything like that happening, of course! I really am good at what I do. It's just that…" She leaned back in, her voice lowering again with just a hint of desperation.

"I need to make a good impression. If a second patient in my first week comes out without pristine results, it might reflect really poorly on my performance. If I lose this job, my uncle will be furious. Please, just let me try?" Kiara felt for the poor girl. She was just trying to do her job, after all. World Engine, she thought to the sky, any chance I can get the ability to turn on and off my magic resistance? … No response.

Ever since those first few weeks, the World Engine had stopped being as actively engaged, almost like some sort of tutorial period had expired. Things still updated properly when she levelled up, but she hadn't been able to carry on any kind of conversation with it in recent times. She opened her abilities to see if maybe anything had changed. Abilities: [Personal Spell Negation] Basic magic does not affect you, and dissolves on contact with your body.

[Soul Space (modified)] Your soul can function as a spatial storage device, accessible only by you. The space itself is spherical, with a diameter of 10 feet. Anything placed in the soul space will enter a time stasis. As a bonus, this space can serve as a coin denomination exchanger for a 10% fee. [Invisibility 2] Renders you undetectable by magical sense, aura, domain, or any other type of ability. You will be truly invisible and undetectable.

Any items in direct contact with your skin while you are invisible will also turn invisible. Releasing skin contact will remove invisibility from the item. Touching or directly interacting with another person will remove the invisibility. [Magical Sense 3] Sense life forms around you, down to the size of insects. You have a general sense of the size and location of each life form, as well as a general idea of the danger they present. Can roughly gauge the tier of other mages.

Can sense the general location of plants in the area as well. Range: 50 feet (modified). No change. Oh well, it was worth checking.