Reborn Healer Chapter 26

“Guild?” Mizuki asked.

“Yes.” Matias sounded like he’d bitten straight into a raw lemon. “Those are Federation colors.”

I recognized the name. The Federacy was one of the top ten guilds on the content in terms of manpower and influence, and they’d been a dominant force in Liaren for a while, eating up a lot of the territory Southern Star had laid claim to after that guild had dissolved.

In other words…

“Isn’t this exactly the situation we were looking for?” I asked. “We wanted to run into a guild so we could get an informal tryout, weren’t we?”

“Right,” Matias said, “but this isn’t good. They’re in public turf. Guild guys all ‘ave their own entrances to run with. Why’re they here? An’ why are they using our route?”

“Dunno,” I said. “How much of a problem is this?”

“They might’ve been paid off,” Mizuki suggested, a hint of worry in her whisper. “They’re still looking for me, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know if the city guard is looking for you,” I said. “Vallis told me the only witness doesn’t remember who you are. I don’t think the city was ever the one looking for you.”

“True, but—“

“Hey!” a man called from down below. “You three up there! Show yourselves!”

Shit. Though I logically knew that most people with a martial class also had a sensory ability of some kind, I was still nowhere near used to operating like every word I said in the vicinitiy of another person was liable to be overheard.

“This is bad,” Matias said. “I didn’t think we’d be dealin’ with this.”

“You have ten seconds!” a high-pitched female voice added. “If you don’t show your face, I will make that cliff cease existing?”

I got to my feet and walked forward. Of the three of us, it looked like I was the one with the least reservations. Mizuki was worried enough about someone recognizing her that she still had her faux religious hooded cloak on, while Matias had some history with the guilds that made him really not want to deal with them.

“Hi there!” I said cheerfully, waving at them.

Now that I had a proper look at them, I could confidently say that they were better equipped than we were. 

I hadn’t studied dungeon diving, but I had some general idea of how parties were supposed to be formed both from conversation and bits and pieces of old memories of playing games that had setups like this.

While I was aware that there were a lot of reasons that role-playing games didn’t translate over to reality, the presence of magic in the form of spells and skills really did do a lot to weight the scales. My conception of a game-like party was wrong, but it was closer to reality than I might have expected.

These four, for instance, consisted of one man with massive, bulky armor that hid his entire body and made it seem like he was the size of three people, another cloaked one with a recurve bow and a glimmering quiver, and two women who both looked like mages judging by their spellbooks and magical focuses. I didn’t use the latter, but it was a popular choice for a lot of spellcasters, apparently.

All of them had the same blue-and-gold color scheme going to their armor and robes, respectively, and each had the insignia of the Federation inscribed in a piece of jewelry or on their armor.

“You’re not guild,” the archer accused me. “Scratch that, even. The fuck is a kid doing down here?”

“Trying to finish a public contract,” I said. “Diving this sinkhole, actually. That was the plan, at least. Why are you here?”

“None of your business,” the archer said. “Get lost, kid. It’s not safe for you here.”

I sighed, gesturing behind me. “The contract, please?”

Matias handed me the contract, standing beside me but not speaking. I wondered why. Did he know these people? Was he shy around them?

The emotion I could see practically roiling off of him with my Empathic Insight gave me a hint.

Anger. A shocking degree of it, to the point where I was honestly surprised he wasn’t physically shaking with rage.

He didn’t know these people, but guilds had wronged him deeply. Possibly even this guild.

Well. That left me to do the speaking.

“Here, let me show you,” I said, jumping down from the overlook and landing on the same ground as them, rolling to absorb the impact. “City contract. Specified this entrance, this area. We claimed it.”

The archer, who seemed to be the de facto leader of their group, glanced it over and shrugged. He drew a similar scroll out of seemingly nowhere—another storage device, I guessed.

“Guild assignment,” he said, rolling it open and closing it fast enough that I barely caught a glimpse of what was written on it. “It’s ours.”

“The Federation doesn’t have any jurisdiction over the public entrance,” I said. “The city does.”

“Hey, man, I don’t make the rules,” the archer said. “Just follow ‘em. Speaking of which, you really shouldn’t be here. You could get hurt.”

“I’m getting real tired of people thinking that about me,” I said, idly spinning my lifeline. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just curious why you think you can walk in and take our contract.”

Behind me, I could faintly here frantic whispers being exchanged between Matias and Mizuki. I didn’t bother to try to listen in. I was sure at least one ofthem was calling me an idiot for this, but I wasn’t going to sit by and let the one chance Matias was giving me to dungeon dive with actual structure go to waste.

“Seriously, you shouldn’t be here,” one of the mages said. Judging from the sparks bursting from the tips of her staff and the fact that she’d been the one threatening to blow us up, she was the more offensively oriented one. “There’s something more complicated going on, but even before that, this is an Adept-tier location.”

“The city said it was Initiate-tier,” I said.

“The city isn’t always right,” she said. “For your own safety, you should turn back. Let the city know there were complications. And don’t play with your focus like that. You’re a mage, right? One of the Southside healers. You’re going to hurt yourself. You shouldn’t even be hered.”

Okay, misunderstandings aside, this was actually starting to piss me off. “I’m going to either need a good explanation or for you to step aside and let us handle the contract we were given.”

“Yeah, with your Adept tank and fighter trying to protect your ass the entire time?” the archer asked, crossing his arms. “I can detect them up there, kid. You’re three people, and you’re what, a novice mage? Can you even cast spells?”

“Holy shit, can you fucking listen?” I said firmly, doing my best to not shout because I was fully aware how ridiculous a twelve-year-old screaming at these people would be. “Yes, I’m a mage. I’m a healer. I know what I’m doing, and I want to either finish our contract or actually understand why you have the right to take our claim. Is that too much to ask?”

I could already tell from my empathy skill that it probably was. None of them were taking me seriously. Hell, nobody was even bothering to disguise that feeling.

This conversation was never going to get anywhere.

“Look, kid,” the archer said, a cocky smile on his face. “How about this? Let’s have a quick mock fight. ‘Mock’ means fake, by the way.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

“You against Marcie here, our defensive mage. She won’t be anywhere near as tough as an Adept-tier monster in this sinkhole. Maybe you’ll learn your place.”

I looked at the woman he was indicating. She was the mage without sparks, and sure enough, she looked like a healer. Her clothing was similar to the formal robes my father wore when he went off to heal nobles, just with guild colors instead.

That wouldn’t go well for her. She didn’t seem to be very happy about being offered up to fight, either. Marcie wrung her hands, looking anywhere but the archer or me.

If this wasn’t going to work by being courteous, I would play them the best I could. Given how arrogant the archer was acting and how important I could sense his pride was to him, I decided to pull on that string.

“That wouldn’t be fair,” I said. “You keep on talking about how this is too hard for me to even dream of doing. I assume your party can handle it? You as well?”

“Oh, of course,” he said. “Best in class in the guild two seasons running. Fastest to Adept in my year, too.”

“Humble, too,” I said drily.

“Some say that.”

“If you’re so good, then why not teach me that lesson yourself?” I suggested. “It should be easy for you, right?”

“Like you said yourself. It’d be unfair.”

I nodded. “Then if it’s unfair, how about you give us the right to our contract, no questions asked, when I win?”

“When?” He laughed in disbelief. “I don’t want to hurt you, kid.”

“Maybe. Or…” I squinted, eyeing him suspiciously. “Are you just trying to get out of it because you think you can’t even do it as well as your healer?”

“Huh?” Marcie asked, nerves clear in her words. “No, I’m—uh, Arthur is—“

“Shut it,” the archer—Arthur, it seemed—said. “You’re trying to rile me up, boy.”

“It’s working,” I said.

“It isn’t.”

I just sat there and smiled at him. He was already getting increasingly aggravated, and even if he didn’t have an empathy skill, it was obvious how uncomfortable his teammates were getting with his behavior. He was losing face, so to speak, and my assessment of him told me that he was not happy with that.

Sure enough, he relented before I could count to twenty.

“Your funeral, boy,” Arthur snarled. He sucked in a breath, trying to compose himself so he could look better in front of his team. “Fine then. I accept your terms. Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you.”

#

“Knew I had a bad feelin’ about this,” Matias sighed, forehead in his hands. “I should’ve never agreed t’take you.”

He and Mizuki had both emerged from their “hiding place,” realizing that it was futile to stay there any longer. Matias was down here with me, mace drawn in preparation of any foul behavior.

Mizuki, on the other hand, sat at the top of the overhang, dangling her legs over the drop.

“Kick his ass, Ren!” she called out to me.

We didn’t have a formal arena, but there was enough space in the clearing to give us an area to fight. The three other guild members were behind a Barrier or Shield or similar defensive spell that Marcie was holding up nervously. She’d offered the rest of our group the same protections, but neither of them had trusted her enough for that. Mizuki was sitting far up enough that she wasn’t worried about protection, and as for Matias…

“You’re not really gonna fight him while holding this Shield up, are ya?” he asked nervously.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Besides, he promised he was going to go easy. Figured I should do the same.”

If he’d been a bit pissed earlier, Arthur was fuming now. He was doing his level best to not let it show, which I had to admit was working to an extent.

“Are you ready?” he asked, struggling not to grind his teeth.

True to his word, Arthur hadn’t drawn his bow. Instead, he had a pair of throwing knives drawn from his belt. Six inches apiece, maybe. I couldn’t tell perfectly from here, but they looked high-quality.

“Whenever you are,” I said. “Should we have someone do a count?”

“Oh, I can do a count!” Mizuki called out. “Three, two, one—“

As she shouted go, Arthur moved immediately. Even if he’d promised to go easy, he was also deeply pissed. The sheer aggression in his body language would’ve told me everything I needed to know even if I hadn’t had Empathic Insight.

My awareness expanded as my Sixth Sense alerted me to his movement. He was remarkably fast, even moreso than the archer from the city guard that I’d ended up Fireballing.

Still, one could only be so unpredictable with a throwing knife, especially if it wasn’t their main weapon.

I traced the arc of the first knife and leaned left, sharply angling my lifeline upwards. Strictly speaking, it wouldn’t be necessary, but I wanted this to register on an emotional level. This guy had annoyed the shit out of me.

The knife blurred, whirring toward me at pro baseball pitcher speeds, but my senses had served me correctly. My lifeline buzzed, the deep obsidian vibrating as the knife pinged off it, the collision ringing like a church bell.

It clattered harmlessly against the Shield I’d been holding, but the second one was already on its way.

For this one, I just summoned a Barrier. By now, I was well accustomed to holding concentration on multiple spells at once. When they were simple ones like Barrier, it was trivial. Activating two Shields at the same time would be a little more taxing.

The force applied by someone who I assumed was an Adept-tier was extremely high, though, and though the knife’s momentum stopped, it shattered my spell, too.

“The fuck was that?” Arthur hissed. “You’re a healer, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said, twirling my lifeline. “What about it?”

“No mage could make that movement,” he declared, pointing at the short spear in my hands. “The guild’s best aren’t nearly that fast.”

“The guild’s best should train more,” I replied. “Also, you must be really confident in your healer. Both of those were aimed for center mass. Lethal if not immediately tended to.”

“Sounds like something someone pretending to be a healer would say,” he said through gritted teeth, unslinging his bow. “Cocky little fucker. Someone needs to teach you a lesson.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Hey, I’ll heal when I have to. Seeing how you haven’t landed any hits on me…”

Before he was done stringing his bow, I shot a Firebolt at him, curious to see how he’d react. It was a low-level spell, and it wasn’t all that fast.

Sure enough, he dodged it with ease, even adding a bit of flair to it that I knew was completely unnecessary. Arthur wanted to destroy me, and he wanted to look cool doing it. I wondered what that was for.

Empathic Insight lvl 4 -> 5

This is a little absurd, I thought. Why was Empathic Insight leveling up so fast now when I pretty regularly used it around my family? Was it because I was in combat right now? Maybe because Arthur was a different kind of person than I was used to dealing with?

It didn’t really matter in the moment. What did matter was how I could use what I was picking up.

“Trying to look good for… what’s her name, over there?” I asked, pointing to the offensive mage. “I’d respect it if you weren’t such a dick.”

Arthur reddened slightly, as good as confirming my words.

“Shut up,” he managed, drawing and releasing an arrow so quickly I could barely track it.

I reacted on instinct, throwing up a Shield and moving my body at the same time.

The arrow smashed through the spell, barely slowing down and staying on the same straight, true path before I batted it aside with my lifeline. Even as I was resetting my position, a second one came with the same speed and power. Then a third.

Good to know, I thought. The Shield’s no more help than a Barrier.

This was an Adept-tier adventurer’s power. The amount of pressure he could place with these was unbelievable. The only thing stopping him from releasing a full-on barrage, it seemed, was the fact that he knew his arrows would break through the Shield protecting Matias, which would be a flagrant violation of the informal rules we’d set.

I couldn’t dodge or parry all of them, even moving as smoothly I was. One of them meant for my neck grazed me in the shoulder instead, and I winced, applying a Beginner-tier Mend Wounds even as I twirled to avoid another.

Not all of his shots were perfect, though. I could see that he was growing steadily more disturbed the longer I dodged his shots, even if they were grazing me.

One arrow went particularly wide, and in a moment of sheer, instinctive flow state, I snapped my off hand out to my right. Pain blossomed in it, a piercing followed by burning, but I closed my bloody fist around the arrow.

I looked down at it, hiding my surprise that I’d caught it. When I looked up, I saw my surprise mirrored in Arthur. He stared at me slack-jawed, not even going for an arrow.

Keeping my expression stone-faced, I dropped the one I’d caught, blood dripping down with it.

“My turn,” I said, stepping one foot back to give myself leverage as I hurtled my lifeline, enhancing my strength with a spell as I did so.

I’d practiced spear-throwing alongside many other thrown weapons both with Aria and Iryn to the point where I was good enough and the lifeline light enough that my throw was substantially faster than the Firebolt had been.

My plan was to throw the lifeline imbued with Nightmare Forged, catching Arthur off guard and giving myself space to close in and bring it back to my hands with Call Lifeline. The latter skill was still slow enough that I couldn’t really use it to threaten someone with it like the lifeline was a boomerang, but the combined effort should have been enough to get me inside his personal space with a lifeline, tipping the duel in my favor and hopefully getting him to cede. I’d thought a little about what I would do depending on what happened after.

That was not, however, what ended up happening.

I didn’t know why Arthur decided to try catching my lifeline. Maybe it was to one-up me by catching a cooler weapon. Maybe it was because he was sure in his knowledge that I was just a healer, even after seeing all the acrobatics I’d pulled off, and assumed that the spear would be easy to catch. Maybe he just had a skill that let him catch things better, or the stylish blue gloves he used for archery were magical items that assisted with it.

Most likely, it was a combination of some or all of those factors.

Whatever the case, Arthur shifted the hand he was using to pick out another arrow in front of him, making a motion to grasp the spear.

My lifeline, reinforced by shadow magic and powered by sharply enhanced strength, carved a dark line straight through his hand and continued without slowing down, impaling him straight through the gut.

Nightmare Forged lvl 3 -> 4

Arthur looked at me, eyes wide in shock, then looked down. He collapsed limblessly.

Marcie screamed.