After a short while of Kaoru being fed by the hunters, she finally managed to say, “Please, no more food! I’m stuffed, so I’ll take copper coins if you can spare them!” which the hunters gladly obliged.
Suddenly, the doors to the guild were flung wide open. It happened a little while after Kaoru had eaten her fill and was starting to get paid in copper coins.
A female hunter who looked to be in her mid-twenties came bursting in the guild, shouting, “Someone show me where a doctor is, I’ve got someone seriously wounded here! Tell them to get their clinic open!”
Just a second later, a man around his early thirties with a well-defined physique rushed in carrying another blood-soaked man on his back. They were followed by an archer who looked like he had just turned twenty, who was carrying a sword and some armor, which probably belonged to the injured man.
“He got done in by a graybear!” the man shouted as he carried his wounded comrade. “Please, we have to hurry!”
The receptionist came running out from behind the counter, her usual intimidating demeanor replaced by a more serious expression. Facing the four who just came in, she told them the one thing they didn’t want to hear:
“Doctor’s gone to one of the nearby settlements and won’t return for some time. The apothecary’s also left for a neighboring town. I dunno if they’ll return by tomorrow, or sometime later than that. All the hunters here are familiar with emergency first-aid techniques, so our only hope is to cooperate with ’em, while using any medicinal herbs you may have on hand...”
Expressions of despair clouded the party members’ faces. Anyone here could tell it was obvious these weren’t the type of wounds that could be handled by amateurs. They laid the injured man down on a blanket spread out on one of the tables, standing around in a daze.
“What are you all doing?!” Kaoru shouted. “We need to hurry up and cast a healing spell on him! With this many hunters, there should be at least one or two healers around, right?! Also, you should also be giving them your high-grade potions, a person’s life is on the line here! You can just get them to pay you back afterward! Why are you all just standing around?! C’mon, guys!”
The hunters continued standing where they were, blank expressions on their faces, as if they couldn’t comprehend what Kaoru was yelling about in her sudden outburst.
“Forget it, just get out of the way! I’ll do it!”
She pushed aside the people standing in her path to make it to the table where the injured man laid. His armor was already off, so she went ahead and swiped a knife from the middle-aged man who carried him in to begin cutting away the parts of his clothes near his injuries. His wounds were now out in the open, blood still pouring from the gashes.
“H-Hey...”
Kaoru ignored the flustered man. She didn’t have time to deal with him now.
“Somebody bring me the strongest alcohol you’ve got, bottle and all! Hurry!”
With dumbfounded responses, a few of the hunters ran off to the food and drink counter and brought back many bottles of booze with them. Kaoru used her teeth to pull out the corks before dousing the man’s wounds with the contents of the bottles. The injured man had been unconscious up till now, but as soon as the alcohol touched him, his back arched and he screamed bloody murder.
“I know it hurts, but it beats being dead! Pain is proof you’re still alive!”
The men didn’t say a word. They could only stand around watching, their eyes wide as Kaoru took one of the potions she made from her pocket—the yellow one, specifically. She held it out toward the female hunter who had come rushing into the guild first.
“Make him drink this! I only have one of the yellow kind, so don’t spill it!”
Maybe it was because the woman got the hint from the intensity of Kaoru’s expression, or maybe it was because she just wanted some hope to cling to, but she silently nodded and took the yellow potion. She moved the injured man’s head so his neck was completely straight, then took some of the potion inside her own mouth. She grabbed the man’s chin to open his mouth, then used mouth-to-mouth to feed him some of the potion.
She did it twice, then a third time, until the entirety of the yellow potion had made it down the injured man’s throat. At the same time, Kaoru was pouring the blue potion directly onto the man’s wounds. Not only was the alcohol she asked for earlier acting as a disinfectant, but she was using it to wash away the blood and dirt, as well, so she could apply her potions directly onto his injuries.
She took out a second blue potion and drenched him in it as well. That’s when the effects began appearing, and dramatically at that.
The flame of life looked to be all but extinguished from the man when he first came in, but, after drinking the yellow potion and having two blue potions poured on his injuries, the deathly pallor in the man’s face was replaced with color once more. Not only that, his once-torn skin bubbled and swelled as it knitted itself back together again before everyone’s eyes. He’d already stopped bleeding, and his breathing had become stable. His injuries alone hadn’t been enough to bring him to death’s door in a single blow, but rather, he’d been brought to the brink of death due to a significant amount of time passing after suffering so much internal damage and blood loss. That was the reason his wounds didn’t call for a red potion, but could be dealt with using a yellow one. Pouring the blue potions directly onto his injuries had proved effective as well. It wasn’t a perfect recovery, however, since it wasn’t as if the potions could also replace all the blood he’d lost...
But everyone who saw what had just happened knew what it meant: He was going to be alright.
Now that the specter of death no longer loomed over the injured man, the female hunter was clinging to him, while the middle-aged man who carried him in could only stand there in a daze. The young archer, who was carrying all the equipment, had already dropped to the floor.
Maybe it was because he’d been too busy worrying about his injured friend, but the middle-aged man had a deep gash on his left arm that was still bleeding. Kaoru was amazed at just how tenacious and focused he was to carry another man while looking like that. However, he was losing a bit too much blood from his wound. Judging by how deep that gash ran, it would take a considerable amount of time for it to heal, and there was always the chance it could end up leaving a scar. That would be a bit of a waste—no, it would be a huge waste for a guy like him. Smoldering middle-aged men were the treasures of all humanity.
Kaoru silently offered her last blue potion to the man.
“Wh-What are you doing?! You think I could just use something as valuable as that on just a few scratches?!”
“Quiet, you. Just shut up and drink!”
“...Y-Yeah, okay...”
After being glared at by Kaoru’s trademark harsh eyes, the man obediently took the potion and drank it all down. The next moment, the deep gashes on his arm healed and closed themselves.
The guild hall had fallen into a dead silence, when somebody muttered under their breath: “It’s a miracle...”
The next moment, the hall erupted into cheers.
“““YEEEAAAHAAAHHH!!!”””