“Now what...?”
Having been kicked from his party, Zenos trudged along the dilapidated city streets.
The chilly evening air made him instinctively pull the collar of his cloak tighter. It was jet-black, one that blended in with the dark of night, and he’d worn it since before joining the party.
“Should I stay an adventurer?” he wondered aloud.
Even if he were to join another party now, without an official healer’s license, he’d still not be able to apply for membership at the Adventurers’ Guild.
And, in the wake of the betrayal of those he had believed to be his allies, the mere idea of trying to fit in somewhere else was exhausting. On the other hand, adventuring was all he’d done since leaving the slums, and he knew no other life. Though he had no regrets about his former party given how cruelly they’d cast him aside, his future was entirely hazy.
For now, though, he needed to get some food in his belly. He was looking for a place to eat when he overheard an argument further down the street.
“You idiot! Why did you shoot our merchandise?! How are we supposed to make money now?!” a man’s voice bellowed.
“I-I’m sorry!” an apologetic voice replied. “She... She was going to get away, so I...”
Curious, Zenos stepped into the narrow alley. Creeping close as he navigated around the scattered trash and dead rats, he spotted a small shadow lying on the bare black soil, with two shady-looking men standing nearby.
The fallen figure was dressed in soiled rags and seemed to be at death’s door. Judging from what he could see of her face, she seemed to be a young girl.
The edges of her ears were slightly pointed—an elf, perhaps. Elves were uncommon and lived in the north, but some would occasionally drift to the royal capital.
A silver arrow was deeply embedded in the young girl’s back.
The angry man clicked his tongue. “She’s a goner. Elves are valuable, you know! We finally get our hands on one, and you go and do this?”
“I-I’m sorry!” the apologetic man repeated.
“Hey!” Zenos called out. “You put an arrow in a child’s back?!”
The two men turned to glare at him.
“You stay out of this,” the angry man retorted, scoffing. “This girl’s our slave. Our property.”
Zenos quietly gazed down at the girl’s pallid face, then held out the single gold coin Aston had offered him for his silence. “I’ll buy her off your hands, then. Will this suffice?”
“Huh? Are you stupid?” the second man asked, incredulous. “She’s already—”
“You shut your mouth,” the first man cut in. “I don’t see the problem. He wants her, he can have her. If she’s just gonna die anyway, we might as well take what we can get.”
The man snatched the gold coin from Zenos’s hand, and the two thugs ran off.
Kneeling beside the girl’s prone form, the healer placed a hand on her back.
“Hey. You okay?” he asked.
The girl only groaned in response, her lips opening and closing, her gaze vacant, her glossy golden hair caked with dirt.
“Am I...going...to die?” she croaked.
“You’ll be fine,” Zenos replied. “This isn’t too bad. You’ll survive, don’t worry.”
“There’s...no way...”
“Look, your wound’s gone. You can speak normally now.”
“Huh?”
The girl’s large eyes blinked open, and she slowly pushed herself up.
“What?” she mumbled, staring in amazement at the arrow lying beside her. “It doesn’t hurt. The bleeding’s stopped. How?”
“I’m a healer. I pulled out the arrow and knit your wounds shut using magic.”
In disbelief, the girl reached behind herself to feel her back. “The wound’s...gone! I was so sure I was going to die!”
Zenos laughed at her reaction. “It was hardly a scratch. It’s no big deal, really.”
“Hardly a scratch?” she echoed in shock. “W-Wow...”
The young girl gripped Zenos’s hands between her own small ones.
“Th-Thank you,” she stammered. “Thank you, mister.”
Perhaps out of relief, her eyes filled with tears. The healer felt a warm glow light up deep within his heart.
It had been a long time since anyone had last thanked him for his healing.
Aston and the others hadn’t believed that Zenos had learned to instantly cast healing spells, no matter how much arduous training he went through. Since he’d taken care of even the slightest of their wounds in combat, they’d never noticed. In retrospect, he’d never even had the chance to explain it, since both his lodgings and his place at the table had always been separate from theirs.
Looking back, they’d treated him extremely poorly, considering the amount of hard work he’d put into everything.
“It’s fine,” Zenos said. “Say, were those men just now slavers?”
“Y-Yeah,” the young girl stammered. “I was captured yesterday, and...when I saw an opening, I tried to run, but they found me...”
“What’s your name?”
“Lily,” she answered, her gaze low. Hesitantly, she continued, “Um, about the money—”
“You mean the gold coin I paid them?” he interrupted her. “Don’t worry about it. That was dirty money anyway.”
A bribe wasn’t something to be cherished and held on to. It was much better used to help others.
“Um, who are you, mister?” Lily asked.
“My name’s Zenos,” he replied.
“Are you a famous healer?”
“No way. I’m self-taught. I don’t even have a license.”
Given his origins, he’d never formally registered as a member of his party with the Adventurers’ Guild, and therefore he hadn’t been allowed to accompany them in any sort of official capacity. In other words, there were no public records anywhere of a healer by the name of Zenos.
“Either way,” he continued, “I’m sorry you got captured by slavers. Where’s your home? I’ll make sure you get there safely.”
“I don’t have one,” Lily said, shaking her head.
That meant she was an orphan living on the streets. It reminded him of his past self. Elves were quite rare, so whatever circumstances had led to an elven child being homeless had to be serious. Still, he had no intention of prying.
“You don’t, huh?” he asked with the mirthless smile of a man who had nowhere to go either. “That’s not good.”
Lily’s stomach growled, and a blush spread across her cheeks.
Standing up, Zenos smiled at her. “For now, maybe we should get something to eat, Lily.”