Reborn Healer Chapter 30

I was having the same dream again, except not quite. I was familiar with how the dream visions began now, always showing me my mother. This time was no exception. She stood before me in what looked like a castle room in a style I didn’t recognize, tearing her knives out of an unmoving, bloody body that had been sitting atop a throne built from metallic bones.

Up to there, everything was business as usual. What was strange now was how I felt. Every time I’d had one of these before, it had been a bright, vividly real vision where I was an observer, often ending when she noticed my presence, the scene switching to that of the barrier in our basement.

This was not the case now. For the first time, I felt like I was actually here as more than an observer. Instead of just looking, I moved. I could almost imagine walking here with my own two feet as I approached Aria.

Also unlike before, she turned to me and crossed her arms instead of calling my name out immediately. Her posture was more self-assured than it had ever been in one of these dreams.

“I knew this day would come,” she said, “but I didn’t think it would be so soon. You’re going to change the world, you know that?”

I made to respond, fully aware of how futile it was from experience, and surprised myself when I found words actually coming out.

“I hope it’s for the better.”

Aria’s expression softened. “If that’s the first thing you think, I’m sure it will be.”

“You can hear me,” I said. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“No,” she said. “You must have realized by now that you are not a normal child.”

“You could say that.” I had realized that a lot sooner than she thought. “I assume this has something to do with the Nightmare.”

“Not necessarily. Souls can wander out of their bodies even without a connection to another plane. Your ability to actualize yourself in reality is a product of this, however.”

“I always come to you,” I said. “Why?”

“Because I pull you,” Aria said. “Wandering around in—one second.”

Behind me, the door opened. I turned to see a pair of heavily armored soldiers break through, each of them carrying a complex cannon-like weapon larger than I was with ease. They didn’t notice me even though I was directly in their line of sight.

I wondered what it looked like to them. Was Aria just talking to thin air? Had she been talking at all?

Before I could ponder the question any further, she had thrown a pair of knives, both of them trailing shadow. Both soldiers froze up, some kind of mental effect or physical paralysis taking over them.

Aria vanished, suddenly reappearing next to one of them, catching her own knife, and decapitating them. Moments later, the same happened with the other. They were dead before their weapons could hit the ground.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I’m working.”

Working. There was still so much I didn’t know about her. Was this what former members of the Nightmare sect just did in their free time? Was there something else, some greater purpose to this? The only thing I could gather was that she had a pendant in the shape of crossed, curved knives swinging from her neck that she didn’t usually carry around at home. Was that a representation of the Nightmare? Something else?

“As I was saying,” she said, “It’s a poor idea to have your soul freely wandering out and about. There aren’t as many soul mages around as there used to be, but they’re still there.”

“Soul magic is banned in every great kingdom,” I said.

“So is shadow.” As if to accentuate her point, Aria vanished and reappeared, calling her knives back to herself. They trailed lines of the exact magic she’d mentioned.

“Fair point.”

“You’ve come into your own,” Aria said. “We have a lot to discuss when I return.”

“We can’t do it here?”

“No. Your soul connections are still immature. Wandering for too long will leave you lost.”

“You know a lot about this,” I said. “This sounds like soul magic.”

“That’s probably because it is soul magic.” She smiled. “The Nightmare is a lot more than just a source of physical power. Learn to wield it, and you will find an entire new lever with which to move the world.”

“How do I start?” I asked. “I know you said you’ll mention it when you come back, but you also know that it’s better to find my own path. I don’t know what to look for.”

“Stop looking and see,” she suggested. “Or don’t.”

On that cryptic note, the vision faded out of view.

Once again, I found myself in a dark path. Rather than the stairs I’d seen before, though, this one was more like a regular pathway, the only visible aspect the steps evenly spaced beneath my feet. I followed it until I saw another nondescript door, which I passed through.

The transition was easier now. I drifted awake, blinking heavily. Someone had put me in a bed, my head resting against a pillow.

In terms of post-vision wakeups, this didn’t rank as the worst, especially given where I’d been before I passed out. I’d used up all of the mana boost I’d gained from reaching Adept healing Matias, and—

Matias.

I bolted straight up in the bed, provoking a rustle and a faint sense of surprise from someone else in the room.

“You’re finally awake,” a girl said next to me. Mizuki. “Nice. I was worried for a minute there.”

“Were you really?” I groaned, rubbing my eyes. 

I’d gotten up too fast, and I was seeing stars. Even with my eyes shut, though, I could sense Mizuki leaning closer to me and make out the shape of her body. It wasn’t just a general understanding, either. I could make out the shape of the bed I was on, the bottle of water on the nightstand next to me, the folds of her civilian clothing.

Huh. That had to be thanks to the upgrades. They were still visible when I focused on the system.

Sixth Sense -> Danger Sense [Adept]

Flowing Harmony -> Harmonic Awareness [Adept]

Concentrating further on the skills gave me bare-bones descriptions. I’d long since learned that most skill and spell descriptions were primarily written by people, while the system itself didn’t like providing nearly as much detail apart from cryptic quotes that I assumed had some philosophical or religious significance.

Before I read them, though—

“Matias,” I said. “Is he okay?”

“Knew you were going to say that,” Mizuki said. “He’s alive and stable. Still unconscious, and there’s a lot of damage that they need to patch up. It’ll be a while, but he’s going to be okay.”

I winced even as I breathed out a sigh of relief. The reason it was going to take so long was definitely at least partially because I’d been doing a hack job healing him. 

I’d done my absolute best to keep him alive, which had meant abandoning most of my best practices and just hard dumping mana in order to hastily regenerate skin and muscle. It was always harder healing someone else’s mistakes than it was just curing a wound from scratch.

“I didn’t understand a lot of the more technical parts of it, but the guild healer says that whoever was healing Matias did a fantastic job,” Mizuki added as if she’d read my thoughts. “They found how much damage he’d taken, and even the Master-tier guys were practically shitting themselves. Matias would’ve died eight or nine times over, someone said.”

“Good to hear I made a difference,” I said. “You know, you really don’t talk like how I’d expect elven royalty to speak. Especially now.”

“A royal bastard is as far from true royalty as you are,” she replied easily. “Maybe further. I learned the necessary manners to exist in public should they ever want to claim me, but I never lived by the code.”

“The more you know, huh.” With my immediate concerns and idle questions answered, I turned my attention back to my upgraded skills.

Skill: Danger Sense

Tier: Adept

Type: Precognitive

Evolved from Sixth Sense.

The Way of all things is that which gives rise to change, but change is not the Way. Order and chaos are two halves of the same body. To know order is to know the world; to know chaos is to survive.

Provides sharpened awareness of danger, now including those that threaten you beyond the present.

That was odd. Up until I’d gotten my lifeline and its associated skills, all I’d had were bare-bones descriptions of the skills. This new line was uselessly cryptic at best, making partial sense to me only because Iryn had touched on philosophy and the religion of the gods who’d once walked the planet when she’d taught me.

The final line was what mattered. While I had no way to test it here right now, the upgrade was more than welcome. While Sixth Sense had been a life-saver in many ways, it only really worked when I was in direct combat with someone. If I was intuiting the new effect correctly, I would be able to tell if someone was trying to poison me or otherwise held some kind of ill intent. It might not go so far as tell me who didn’t like me, but the breadth of situationsit handled was so much wider than it had once been.

My second skill upgrade was similarly strong.

Skill: Harmonic Awareness

Tier: Adept

Type: Surveillance

Evolved from Flowing Harmony.

To become one with the Way is to understand the world as an extension of the self. Through all things runs the Way, and through the Way one may understand all.

Provides sharpened awareness of your body as well as the area immediately surrounding you.

Again with the mysticism. Had getting my lifeline altered my system entirely?

Questions I couldn’t answer aside, this was genuinely massive. Flowing Harmony had been probably the single most important part of my skillset as a warrior, providing me the ability to exercise my training in a manner that went above and beyond what any normal human should have been able to do.

Normal Earth human, I corrected myself. Again with the misconceptions. The reason I surprised so many people with my movement wasn’t because it was impossible. It was just the fact that I was both young and primarily presenting as a healer who shouldn’t have been able to move like a warrior. When it came to people who spent their lives practicing, inhumanly graceful movement was just the standard.

All that set aside, the upgrade was incredible. Not having to rely on Sixth Sense—Danger Sense now—to tell that an attack was coming at the last second meant a lot more flexibility when it came to fighting.

I immediately started wondering how I could push the envelope with it. I could make out tiny details at a distance of a few feet at least. Did it go through walls? Could I take apart locks like this?

“How are you feeling?” Mizuki asked, distracting me out of my thoughts. “The guild says they’re willing to host us for as long as it takes for you both to heal, but I think they’d prefer if we were out here sooner than later.”

I pushed myself back up, my grogginess mostly faded by now. My thoughts sorted themselves into an order, and I pinged on a particular word she’d mentioned a couple times now.

“Guild,” I said, opening my eyes. “Where are we?”

It was disorienting seeing that Mizuki had changed outfits for the first time since I’d woken up despite already knowing exactly the shape of what her new clothes looked like. They didn’t look like anything my mother owned, which I assumed meant she’d either managed to sneak in some shopping or the guild had a spare sundress lying around.

“Took you long enough to realize,” she said, smirking. “After you passed out, the four-man we were with took us to the Federation’s Liaren branch. We’re in their city headquarters.”

“Northside still, then,” I concluded. “How long…”

“Twelve hours or thereabouts,” she said. “The moon has risen already.”

“I was out for a long time.”

“You needed the rest, I hear.”

“Guess I did.” I got out of bed, grabbing the glass of water by my head and downing it in two massive gulps.

“You’re still holding that thing?” Mizuki asked. “You really like that weapon, huh.”

“Hm?” I followed her line of sight to my other hand, which was still clutching on to my lifeline.

I hadn’t even consciously noticed that I was still holding it. Even with the level of understanding of my immediate surroundings I now had thanks to Harmonic Awareness, I hadn’t really taken note of the lifeline, just like I hadn’t really paid attention to the fact that I still had two arms and two legs.

“Guess I am,” I said.

“You wouldn’t let go of that even when they were moving you to the bed,” Mizuki said. “Whatever skill you’ve got tied to that thing, it’s pretty damn good.”

“I don’t know if that was a skill,” I admitted. “So what do we do now? I’m pretty sure I’m good. Do we just walk out?”

“I thought we wanted to talk to the guild about entry. Shouldn’t we do that?”

“True, but I don’t know where we should go here.”

We sat there in silence for a moment, both of us considering our next step.

Mizuki’s stomach gurgled.

“Why are you hungry?” I asked.

She looked away, reddening slightly. “I have a suggestion for where we should go next.”

#

Mizuki had been given a basic map of the complex, which she referred to in order to guide us to the cafeteria portion of the building. “Cafeteria” was a bit of a misnomer, though. It looked nothing like the cramped dining halls I’d grown used to in college and briefly in one of the ill-fated computer engineering jobs I’d worked.

Instead, what it most reminded me of was a summer camp I’d done once back in elementary school, where we’d eaten in a humongous shared log cabin. In that vein, the “cafeteria” was also just one very large room with a ton of tables for people to sit at as well as a long window where we could get food from what looked to be a reasonably expansive kitchen. Despite it being late at night, there were still a few people in the hall chatting and eating. 

“Aren’t you a little young to be in the guild?” the cook taking our orders asked, looking at both of us. “I thought we weren’t taking in new members for another month.”

“We’re visiting,” Mizuki said, placing a temporary badge she must have gotten from the Federation group on the counter. “We ran into them in the dungeon. They’re healing us.”

The cook shook his head. “You’re too young to risk your lives in the dungeons, you hear me? You were lucky this time. Stay out of trouble.”

That rankled for both of us, I could tell, but neither of us cared enough to argue about it. We took our meals and found a pair of empty seats at the end of a long table.

I had a plate of meat and potatoes stacked atop each other, a drizzle of sauce made from savory-sweet spices that didn’t exist on Earth, and nightrose juice.

Nearly dying after using up all my mana, tiering up, and falling unconscious for half a day had worked up an appetite. At least, I thought I had.

“Where is all that supposed to go?” I asked, appalled.

Mizuki was barely visible behind mountains of meat and riced vegetables. One of the chunks of meat she was eating was so rare it looked like it was still bleeding, and even that I could swear was the size of my head.

“Into my stomach,” she said in the tone one might use with a very small child.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I saw it.

Over the course of thirty minutes, Mizuki methodically demolished her food. The nearly raw meat she ate with her hands, tearing chunks off with her sharp incisors. Almost as scary as the speed and volume of food she ate was the fact that she managed to keep any of it from staining the clothes she’d changed into.

“That was a good meal,” she sighed afterward.

“I’m pretty sure half the people in here are looking at you funny now,” I whispered, finishing my own much less impressive plate around the same time.

“They would’ve done that anyway. We stick out like sore thumbs.”

That was true. Even though the minimum age for guild recruitment the normal way was only a year above Mizuki’s age, there weren’t many young people inside the guild’s base at this hour. We were the youngest in the room by a pretty fair amount, especially me. My feet didn’t even reach the floor when I sat down.

An awkward part of my skills developing was that I could feel the stares on me. While they didn’t register as actual danger, there was still some level of threat in them, however small, and that registered to my senses enough for me to understand just how many people were observing. 

It was a relief when they finally looked away, but that was rapidly replaced by sharp panic.

I snapped alert, Mizuki doing the same as we turned to look another one of the entrances into the dining chamber. Two people walked in afterwards, one of whom was a tall, broad man I swore I should’ve recognized and the other completely unfamiliar.

As they entered, the couple dozen people still in the room all rose to their feet, saluting as he passed them.

“At ease,” the unfamiliar man said. The room collectively eased up, though not all the way.

I forced myself to breathe. Though he didn’t exert the same kind of pressure that Aria always did and Mizuki did from time to time, my Danger Sense was pinging like mad just from his presence. It didn’t give me the impression that he was going to attack me or anything. Whoever he was, my senses just regarded him as an incredible threat.

He was dressed impeccably. I’d gotten the vague impression earlier today that Matias had been trying to mimic someone’s style. If there was one person I could point to as the original, it would have been this guy. Unlike everyone else who was either in civilian wear or their dungeon diving gear, he wore a two-piece suit and carried himself with the casual arrogance and poise of someone who owned the place.

Given the reactions to him, I guessed that he did own the place. I couldn’t glean much more than other than my own insight that this was not someone to be messed with.

I was just about to wonder what he was here for when he answered that himself, walking with purpose straight to our table.

Ah, shit.

Mizuki and I stood as well, following the examples of the others.

“Feel free to sit,” the man said, spreading his hands. “Sebastian Ferris, but you can call me Sebastian. Regional commander of the Federation. I’m told you’ve met Henry.”

So that was why the other man had seemed familiar. I waved. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you both formally, but honestly I’m more confused than anything.”

Mizuki looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. I supposed that even if she didn’t act that way around me, she still had been trained in formal manners. I definitely wasn’t living up to that at the moment.

Sebastian chuckled lightly. “A fair issue. Red, was it?”

I’d almost forgotten about that. My official city identification was under an obviously fake name, but… oh well. The point of getting into the guild was to get us protection using a system that could function outside the city

“That’s me,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing enough.

“You stick to your stories,” Sebastian said, nodding approvingly. “Good. Ren Kane, I take it.”

“Not according to the city,” I replied.

“You’ve got spirit, kid,” he said. “And you… Mizuki. Multiple layers of obfuscation. Good tactics.”

“Not good enough, evidently,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “How may I be of service?”

“You don’t need the manners around me,” Sebastian said.

I could see why she thought she did. If her senses were anything like mine, every movement of his hands, every syllable he uttered was a potential threat. We were both on edge. 

“Actually, I come with an offer,” the guild commander said. “According to Wildflower Team’s report, you two demonstrated competence well above what is expected of your age and tier, successfully surviving and assisting in the takedown of a Master-tier area boss.”

“That did happen,” I said. “Thank you for sparing the resources to care for us after.”

“What kind of man would I be if I didn’t honor the work you did in there?” he asked, smiling without his eyes. “While it would be my pleasure to directly invite you to the guild, you must understand if I want to see your aptitude before my own eyes.

“The next set of entrance exams take place in twenty days. Should you accept, I would like for you to participate in them.”