Chapter 26: Healing Magic Part 7

“Good morning, Milady! Are you excited for the party tonight?”

I woke up in a cold sweat and had to take a few deep breaths to calm down, while reassuring myself that everything was okay and that my patient was fine. Still, I skipped breakfast and headed straight for the infirmary. Despite my past experiences, I couldn’t fully believe he was okay until I saw him for myself. Once I did, I let out a deep sigh of relief, thankful that he was all right.

Yeah, I know I had gotten people killed before and had even celebrated Roman’s death not that long ago, but he was my enemy. He was responsible for my suffering, so I wanted to see him suffer, and while I couldn’t say that I wanted him to stay dead, I didn’t think I’d be that sad if he did. That said, my patients were different. Yeah, they were idiots, but all they’d really done was hurt themselves and give me a headache. Overall, they were innocent, and even if the game was controlling them, they’d trusted me to treat them. I couldn’t betray that trust, even if I was the only one who’d remember that betrayal.

To avoid making the same mistake, I instructed the patient to only pull out the spear once I was ready, and thankfully, he listened. Unlike last time, I now had all the time in the world to get this spell right. I formed the image of the spell while breathing in a ridiculous amount of aether.

Oh, and when I said that this spell required a deep breath, I wasn’t joking. It’s not like a calming breath or the kind you take before diving into a pool. It was more like a vacuum, sucking up every bit of aether from my surroundings and condensing it in my lungs until it felt painfully warm and heavy. However, I wasn’t the only one suffering. While the other patients had previously acted oblivious to anything I said or did, even when one of them had died just feet away from them, they now began to panic. My spell had consumed so much aether that they were struggling to breathe, and while I initially panicked, thinking that I had just wiped out all my patients, things soon stabilized. Aether quickly refilled the room and replaced what had been lost, allowing everyone to once again breathe easily.

Meanwhile, the spell itself had gone off without a hitch. Despite looking around the room, I kept an eye on this patient’s wound. I watched as every part of him that’d been missing was replaced by pure light that gradually took the shape and color of bones, organs, and flesh. In the span of less than a minute, he was as good as new. So good that he immediately jumped out of bed, gave me a hug (very inappropriate for nobles), and then bolted out of the room, declaring that he was gonna go smack his buddy for stabbing him.

Once more, I was convinced that only idiots got hurt in this academy, and the next patient just strengthened that belief. Unlike the last guy, this one had remembered to use Boost, but he clearly wasn’t very experienced with it, as several arrows were sticking out of his back. Yes, you read that right. There were five arrows in his back. Apparently, he was trying to practice using the spell to enhance his defense by having his friend shoot him with arrows. You might think he’d stop after he failed to block the first arrow, but nope. He kept going at it until he finally collapsed and had to be dragged to the infirmary.

Treating him was a bit more complicated than the last idiot because he wasn’t able to reach the arrows himself, so I had to pull them out. However, this also made the process a bit easier as the wounds from the individual arrows were small and easy to treat individually. Regenerate alone was actually enough for all but the last one, which managed to pierce something major and thus required Restore. However, it was still a pretty painless process, at least until I was finished and the patient happily declared they were going back to training. Now that hurt as I imagined all my work being undone by another volley of arrows.

Thankfully, the next two weren’t quite that dumb. The first was a young man who’d gone into the woods with his betrothed to have a nice picnic before they had to go back home for the summer. While that sounded quite lovely and romantic, even to my jaded heart, they had seemingly forgotten that monsters occasionally appeared in the woods. Usually, this isn’t a problem for students as the monsters normally keep quite a bit of distance from the academy. However, these two weren’t so lucky as their date was interrupted by a goblin.

Now, goblins have nearly the same level of strength and intelligence as a child, so they’re pretty easy to kill. In fact, the couple could’ve easily killed it if they worked together, but that’s not what happened. Instead, the guy tried to sacrifice himself so that she could escape. While this was a very noble, if slightly stupid, gesture, its emotional impact was severely hindered by the fact that his fiancée was lying in the bed next to him and in far worse shape. Yeah. It seems like the idiot also forgot that goblins hunted in packs.

On his fiancé’s way back to campus for help, she ran straight into three more goblins. She fought back, arguably better than he did since she managed to kill two on her own, and was eventually rescued by Atlas, of all people, who heard their screams while on a run through the woods. However, by that point, they had both been stabbed multiple times and had deep claw marks all across large parts of their bodies, though the more concerning aspect was the purple hue that surrounded many of their wounds.

Poison was a common tool in a goblin’s arsenal, so much so that most hospitals carried large quantities of various antidotes. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was none to be found in this infirmary. I guess that would have made it all a bit easy, wouldn’t it? Well, that made it harder, but not impossible to treat them. Regenerate enhanced the body’s healing factor, allowing it to fight off poison to some extent.

For the guy, that was the case. Regenerate quickly broke down the poison, and Restore cured all the damage it had caused, as well as his other injuries. To his credit, his first words upon waking up were asking if his fiancée was okay. Well, unfortunately, she wasn’t. Even ten minutes after casting Regenerate, some of her wounds still had a purple hue to them. Treating her required a more complex solution, though thinking of one was easier said than done while her fiancé was bawling his eyes out next to me and professing his undying love to her.

Eventually, I realized there was a way to save her, but I won’t tell you how I did it. The entire thing was far too unpleasant for me to recall, so I’ll just say this. Despite the distasteful nature of what I did, her fiancé never left her side and never let go of her hand. Then, when she finally opened her eyes, he held her so tight that I was worried I’d have to heal her a second time. Interestingly, unlike every other patient, they didn’t run out of the room once they were cured. They just stayed on the bed, holding one another and crying.

Meanwhile, I moved on to the last patient, but as I did so, I was filled with a sense of worry. All my past experience treating the first nineteen patients gave me a good idea of the limits of each of my spells, and what I was seeing now was far beyond any of them. This man wasn’t just burnt. He had been consumed by the flames so thoroughly that almost nothing remained. It seemed impossible that he could survive such injuries for even a minute. Yet, he had somehow survived the hours I had spent healing other patients.

I suppose you could call that a miracle, but even miracles had limits. The man was essentially frozen in time like an unloaded asset. However, as I drew closer, he began to writhe in unending agony. I was certain that he would pass mere seconds after I drew near enough to heal him, but so what?

Treating these idiots had been nothing more than practice to me. I had Restore now. That alone was enough to outshine Holly and earn me the position of saint. I could leave. I could escape, so why was I hesitating? In fact, why had I even bothered healing the last four idiots? I didn’t need to show myself treating complex injuries. All I needed was a missing limb. If I could heal that instantly with Restore, then I was set. That was all the proof I needed that I was more qualified than Holly, so why wasn’t I getting ready for the party right now?

Coming back here had seemed like the most natural thing in the world after learning the spell. Maybe that’s just part of my gamer DNA. Isn’t it natural to wanna play with a new spell or ability once you unlock it? I wanted to believe that was all it was, but I had spent nearly a year looking over these last few patients. Each day I’d come down here, I’d have to turn my back on them and walk away because there was just nothing I could do for them. At some point, leaving them behind started to hurt, and I began silently promising them I’d be back.

Still, I had done my best. I had cured nineteen of them. Wasn’t that enough? Hadn’t I earned my happy ending? I was sure I had. I was ready to leave. I was ready to escape, but then I saw her. My last patient was the only one who wasn’t alone. He had a friend, girlfriend, or sister sitting by his side, pleading to the gods and begging that he be saved. She was likely little more than the guilt trip I’d programmed into my game. I wasn’t even sure if she was actually a real student or just someone Logos created for this scene. She should’ve meant nothing to me. I should’ve been able to walk away, but she wasn’t, and I couldn’t. I finally had the escape I’d spent the last year searching for, but I couldn’t take it. Not yet.

If I wanted to escape with a clear conscience, I needed to treat this last patient, and to do that, I needed the one healing spell that surpassed even Restore. I needed the other master-class healing spell. I needed Tears of the Goddess.