♣♣♣
“N-NNGH…” I stirred.
When I woke up, I was in a small room, sectioned off with a white curtain. Sitting next to me were my two friends and a blond girl with red eyes.
“Oh, he’s waking up,” the girl said.
“Oh, Garfel!”
“Garfel! You’re awake! Oh, thank goodness, you’ve been asleep for three days!”
“Th-Three days?!” I asked in shock, my voice hoarse. “What happened to— Agh?!” I cried out in pain.
“Don’t try to get up yet.” The girl pushed me down into the bed gently. “When recovering lost limbs, there’s occasionally some pain left over. I suppose a high-grade tonic can’t heal it entirely…”
From the girl’s serene expression, I could instinctively tell this was the Holy Woman. The girl raised a hand over my foot and chanted, “Pure light of the Holy Star, lend your ear to my prayer and grant me your sacred glow. Photon Healing.”
This is healing magic!
People who can use magic were hard to come by as it was, and healing magic was even rarer. And she was able to use it to such great effect!
“O-Oooh…” I exclaimed in disbelief.
“Is the pain dying down?” she asked.
“Y-Yes… It doesn’t hurt.” I tried moving my leg, and the dull pain from earlier was gone. “Wh-What happened to my leg?” I asked.
“A zombie crushed and tore them off… Both of them,” she said grimly.
“Aaah…” Shivers ran through me.
Otto and Rigal stopped the bleeding, but apparently, a major artery in my thigh was torn. I was in serious danger. They rushed me into Fort Deshmel in the nick of time, where the little miss here gave me a high-grade tonic that served as first aid. And that tonic was an ideal quality high-grade one, with an effect that was about the same as a supreme tonic. It was capable of restoring lost limbs.
Still, it wasn’t quite as potent as a supreme tonic, so some pain remained. And the girl just removed that pain with her healing magic.
Tonics and healing magic were both extremely precious. An alchemical apothecary capable of brewing the former would surely be taken to be a state alchemist, while a magician capable of the latter would be a court magician. And just the thought of an ideal quality high-grade tonic’s price tag made me shudder. I was grateful to have survived, of course, but the price scared me.
“Ah, erm…” I muttered, a bit anxious.
“Oh, yes, could you sign here, please?” the girl handed me a piece of parchment.
I winced, and then checked the parchment. It said, “I consent to be a test subject for a high-grade tonic’s (ideal quality) effects.”
“Huh? Uh… Wh-What is this all about?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that high-grade tonics are expensive, so I can’t give it away for free,” she said. “So if you could consent to helping me research the effects of my medicine, I should be able to make it free of charge.”
“What?”
“Oh, I’m not doing this entirely out of the kindness of my heart here!” the girl said in an animated fashion. “There’s a lot I don’t know about the effects of ideal quality high-grade tonics, and there aren’t many people who get injured badly enough to necessitate such a potent tonic! So I’ll write down your experiences in a report I’ll submit to the alchemical apothecary society. If you are willing to cooperate with that, I’ll make the tonic free of charge!”
She was so excitable I lost track of what she was saying halfway through. But put simply, so long as I agreed to be a test subject, she’d let me get away without having to pay for the tonic. That almost felt too good to be true.
“B-But…”
“Oh, he’s up?” I heard a familiar voice.
“Huh? Y-You!” I exclaimed.
The man who walked into the infirmary was someone I recognized—he was the man who led the De Marl platoon during the war with Edesa Kura. I heard he had lost an arm, but the man had both of his hands, and it almost sounded like he recognized me.
“My daughter sure is talented, eh, Garfel?” he asked me.
“Y-You remember my name…?” I sputtered.
“Of course I do!” he said with a smile. “It was, what, seventeen…or eighteen years ago? Back when I was still in active service.”
“R-Right!”
I was shocked. De Marl’s Blue Demon Wolf recognized my name and face, even though we only fought together a few times nearly two decades ago. And that war hero now stood, his supposedly missing arm wrapped around the Holy Woman’s shoulder, boasting of how she was his little girl.
“…The Holy Woman is your…?” I muttered in disbelief.
“Yeah, that’s what they call her. But to me, she’s just my little girl,” he said with a father’s proud smile.
“I see… Well, she saved my life. You’ve got a wonderful daughter. Thank you.”
The two of them exchanged a glance and smiled at my compliment. It was a truly dazzling sight, and when they left, my two friends started discussing how good it would be to settle down and start a family.
Maybe worshipping the Holy Woman is a good idea. Not like I worship any gods, anyway. But a pretty, kind girl like this Holy Woman? That, I can get behind.
✦ ✦ ✦
♣♣♣
A year later, the black mass covering the sky just disappeared one day. I later found out that the Holy Woman and a powerful Mythical worked together to erase it. Me and my two buddies were still mercenaries, but we started relationships with three of the women working in Deshmel. We discussed if it was possible for us to become permanent guards at the fort.
Spurring each other on, we got to our feet.
“Three more days to Deshmel!” Otto said.
“Don’t think they’ll tell us to get out this time,” Rigal said, remembering how they kicked us out last time. “The crisis is over.”
“Well, the Holy Woman saved my life. I’ll have to pay her back for that somehow!” I exclaimed.
All over the world, there were people just like us headed for Deshmel. Gathering there to see the legend of the new Holy Woman from up close. It was time to return home from our forced evacuation, and this would be our second chance at a better life. Truly our Holy Woman was one of a kind.