Reborn Healer Chapter 15

Erica hissed out a curse as she watched the twitching child—Ren Kane, apparently—come to a stop. He was bleeding where he’d hit the ground too hard and of course at the point where she’d roughly injected the refined sleeping poison with a thrown needle.

She fought the urge to vomit, turning away and retching.

He’s not dead, the thief told herself. It was small comfort. She’d just poisoned a child with a grown man’s dose. What kind of monster could. Do that?

“Told you it wouldn’t be that hard,” Nathaniel called. His typical satisfied smirk was missing. “Come on. Let’s pack him up and get this over with.”

The bravado he’d been showing off earlier was gone now. Even Nathaniel, who had far fewer scruples than any other mage Erica had ever spoken to, had his reservations about doing this.

Erica’s discomfort didn’t just come from what she’d done, though. A lingering sense of wrongness hovered over this entire situation, and it wasn’t just because she knew her soul would rot in hell for this.

Ren had been far too developed for someone of his age. Seven hells, she hadn’t seen any mage move like the kid had, let alone someone who was, what, six years old?

When it came to cores, people—humans, at least—had one. Erica had learned that when she’d been younger and her family’s ties had meant something. That core would either manipulate mana in the world, creating a magical class, or within the body, creating the physical side.

Erica had the latter kind, and she’d grown familiar both with how body cores functioned and how poor the fitness of most mages were. Even those who trained a great deal often couldn’t physically match body cores, and she’d seen mages as powerful as Highmaster.

Yet this kid, who was supposedly a healer and yet was whipping out spells from entire different schools of magic, had moved like Erica’s teachers had. Much of it could be explained by magic, and it had to be, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to it. It had taken her years of training to get to where she was today. How had a child who didn’t even have a body core matched her?

“Nathaniel,” she started, turning back towards her partner. “I think the guild should—“

Erica froze in her tracks. Nathaniel had also paused where he was, a good ways away in the poorly lit alleyway. The reason why was obvious.

Shakily, Ren Kane stood. He was clearly unsteady on his feet, but he was standing.

“I put enough tranquilizer in there to knock out an Adept,” Erica whispered.

“Hey,” Ren said, a waver to his voice indicating that the poison still had some kind of effect on him. “Are any of you assholes going to tell you what you’re doing here?”

He said a few more words, but Erica didn’t understand what he was saying. Her father had told her they spoke a different dialect down in the south. Maybe that was it.

Unimportant. She had to focus.

“That’s need to know, kid,” Nathaniel said, tossing the net again.

And there it was again. Ren slid away from the magical trap like he’d seen where it would land before Nathaniel had even taken it into his hands, then immediately shot a bolt of flame at the mage. Nathaniel, a high Initiate on the cusp of Adept himself, blocked it easily with a Barrier, turning it away, but it cost her valuable time.

The pit in Erica’s stomach had only gotten heavier as she looked on, and she hesitated.

And that was enough.

#

Identify Illness lvl 7 -> 10

Spell learned: Cure Poison [Initiate]

As it turned out, overloading certain scalable spells enough times in a row with a given amount of power could get the system to just recognize what I was doing as a whole different spell of the same kind.

I had recognized the danger immediately. Even now, I still had yet to cast a single normal healing spell. The poison I’d been injected with was insidious and quick-acting. After the torture I’d gone through during the incident that had sent Locke running to parts unknown and gotten me stuck in the World Dungeon, I had grown significantly more familiar with healing myself from poison. My body had also grown ever so slightly more used to dealing with poison, which was certainly a help.

As it was, I couldn’t neutralize it entirely. My vision was still dark at the edges, and my head felt like it had been stuffed all the way through with cotton. Whatever this woman had stuck me with, it was potent.

Augment Perception lvl 4 -> 5

Swift Step lvl 3 -> 4

Enhance Strength lvl 3 -> 4

Not potent enough to take me down, though. With the help of all three of my buff spells, my cognition was at least usable enough to keep fighting. They’d gone down when she’d hit me with the dart, my concentration broken, but re-establishing them had been easy enough after so much practice. It took a lot of mana to manage all of that, and it meant that I wouldn’t be able to use my only offensive spell or any of my other healing spells for the time being, but that was fine.

Earlier, I’d wanted to go for the mage, but the needle-lady was proving to be a problem. If she stuck me with another one of those, I probably wasn’t going to be able to stay awake.

What the fuck was their problem? It was safe to assume they were human traffickers, but I hadn’t heard of that as a major problem so far. Maybe I had just kept my eyes averted from the worst of it.

I eyed the woman, wondering if I could glean anything. She had another needle or dart in one hand and a long knife in the other.

Focusing was difficult, especially with how many spells I had active, but I fell into my warrior senses anyway, looking for something to glean.

Immediately, I struck gold. There were threads of mana woven through her so bright it was a shock that I couldn’t see them with my eyes. I pulled on one, accepting it into myself.

Harmonic Empathy lvl 2 -> 3

A wave of pain washed over me, but none of it was physical. Bitter disappointment. Being the kid who couldn’t live up to what his parents had wanted of me. A hidden face recognizable only by impressions. An unbearable guilt.

I spat out the first words that came to mind.

“What would he think if he saw you now?”

I had no idea who “he” was, but the impression I’d gotten from that brief, confused glimpse was decidedly male. My attacker was conflicted, and if I had to guess, someone important in her life was playing into that.

When in doubt, try to psychologically break your opponent. Some Minecraft YouTuber had said that once. Either that, or Sun Tze. Unimportant, really.

Whether or not I was right, my words visibly gave her pause. She flinched back, and I took my opportunity, sprinting forward with full force. My coordination was sloppier with everything I had to balance, not to mention the poison, but I’d picked a good point to attack.

My opponent was still mentally off-balance when I tackled her, my body in such perfect harmony that even in my dazed, poisoned state, I could go right for her legs.

She hit the ground as I readjusted, dropping my strength enhancement spell so I had enough mana to shoot another Firebolt at her face.

This time, when the mage from behind me canceled the spell, I was ready. Rather than banking everything on one attack, I was already halfway through my next move. Using my enhanced strength, I stomped down on the prone woman’s wrist, shaking the poisoned dart free. She snarled in pain, apparently returning to her senses. I grabbed the dart and made a move to stick her with it, but she rolled out of the way, returning to her feet.

I tried a desperate swing forward, but she leaned back just far enough to dodge the tip of the needle. My danger sense flared, and I took a step back myself, avoiding a return slash of her knife.

We went back and forth for a few seconds that must have seemed comical to an outsider. I was half her height, and I had a needle. She had to lean down to swipe at me, but I had no reach at all. Both of our movements were fluid, though, our fight looking more like a dance than the nasty life-or-death brawl this was turning out to be.

She was like me. A warrior core, or something similar. Something that enhanced her ability to fight.

More than once, I tried to fit a Firebolt into our fight, never replenishing my strength enhancement spell, but it disappeared every time. Fortunately, it seemed like the mage didn’t have much more to do in close quarters than that, which could have meant any number of things. Maybe he was trying to take me in alive and had only lethal spells, or maybe I was just too close to his partner so the only spell he could safely cast was the counterspell.

Whatever the case, he also wasn’t throwing the net, which made me assume that my proximity to needle lady was generally a good thing.

Still, I was stuck in a failing stalemate with her. The poison and steady blood loss was going to add up, and if she managed to land even a single hit on me, I would be in deep shit. Every time I went for a Barrier or a Firebolt to try turning the tides, though, it was countered.

I had to change the pace, and I had a monumentally stupid idea for it.

When I saw the slightest opening, like I’d seen many points before, I feinted like I was going to try to get inside poking range, then backed up instead of pressing the “advantage” I had opened up. It was completely counterproductive to landing a hit on her, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. I just needed a breath to turn and throw.

Aria was often away from home these days, but when she was here, she always spent as much time and effort as possible to train me physically and with all manner of weapon. My mother had said I would have to pick one eventually, but I wasn’t always going to have access to the same weapon. As such, we’d gone over a lot. I had at least basic proficiency with most of them, though I wouldn’t be winning competitions anytime soon.

Reflecting that, I wasn’t able to sink the needle into my other’s assailant eye like I’d wanted to, but I still hit him square in the face with the sharp end. Just like I’d suspected, he was a mage and not a warrior, which meant he had no passive danger sense like I and presumably needle lady did.

Speaking of needles, mine clattered to the ground just in front of the net-holding man accompanied by a light red shower of blood.

I didn’t spare a second glance at him, but my enhanced senses did catch the very obvious sound of a heavy body slumping on the ground.

Throwing the dart left me wide open to an attack from the woman in front of me, which my Sixth Sense was very happy to inform me of.

Even with my enhanced speed, I couldn’t dodge—but there was nobody to block my spells now, so I just blocked it with a Barrier.

She hadn’t been prepared for that. I could tell from the way her eyes widened in shock that she had fully fallen into the flow of fighting me as a warrior, which was laughable enough given our disparity in age, size, and presumably experience.

“Is this your first time picking up a knife?” I asked, dispelling the Barrier as she fell back. “My mom could take you in your sleep.”

“Who in the Emperor’s name are you?”

“That wasn’t an answer, but I’ll assume that’s a no, then.”

I pressed the attack again. I was reasonably sure that I could escape at this point, but to my surprise, I was having fun. Managing my dwindling mana, knife fighting with a dart for my life, fighting off poison… and I still felt more alive than I ever had on Earth.

Maybe there truly was something wrong with me.

Either way, I was in too deep now to stop, so I sent a Firebolt blasting at my opponent. I’d thrown away the dart I’d stolen, but I had my spells back online. I got back into her personal space again, dropping even my Swift Step and Augment Perception spells so I could focus on managing my mana. I was running dangerously low now, but I had plenty for Beginner-tier spells, which I used in spades. 

Barrier lvl 4 -> 5

Firebolt lvl 6 -> 7

When I would have blocked with the dart before, I used a Barrier instead. When I wanted to attack, I used a Firebolt. She was still dodging them like she had before, using her supernatural awareness to avoid attacks before I even shot them, but I had the advantage right now.

Within half a minute, I clipped her with one of them. She stumbled, and it was over. The next Firebolt—my tenth or so of the fight—hit her square in the chest.

Firebolt was more force than it was heat, so this casting was enough to knock her down but not out.

A second one aimed at her head would do the trick.

“W-wait—“

My spell was already formed and releasing. Before I could hear what she had to say, a beam of flame and force smashed straight into my attacker’s face, knocking her out cold… and setting part of her hair on fire.

Oops.

I re-cast Enhance Strength so I had the physical ability to stamp it out before it could spread to the rest of her and the houses on either side of us.

Okay. Now I had two unconscious adult kidnappers, one poisoned and the other burned and concussed.

“What the hell am I going to do with you?” I murmured aloud.

My eyes slid to the net, still grasped tightly in the male kidnapper’s hand.

Well. I could think of something.