5. the right way to use healing magic

“Open wide…”

I was a villain.

“Uhh, a bit wider. I can’t see the thing.”

No–I was the villain.

It rained over the sparkly mushroom forest, not because it ought to, but because of Aoko’s magic. Hisui, Yukimura, Aoko, the dragon and I sought shelter under a mushroom. Back to human form, the dragon stuck her tongue out as Yukimura attempted to heal her mouth, not because he could, but because of magic.

“...sheesh, this looks like minced meat. Aoko, wanna see?”

“No!”

Yukimura snickered. “Your loss. So, uhh… I’ll see what I can do, but I’m trying to think it and it’s just not happening.”

Hisui loomed above the dragon girl, too. “Not even when you imagine it closing?”

“Nope.”

“Can I try?”

“Nope.” Yukimura waved her off with his hand. “Go console Aoko or something. She’s very sad.”

More like very grossed out. She’d almost passed out last time she’d gotten a papercut at the club. She’d made it so that rain would put out the purple fire, then she’d curled into a ball.

As for me, I’d stood under the rain to get the dragon saliva off. I was and wasn’t grossed out. It was a fitting punishment for getting annoyed and being reckless. Still, the blood for my old wound had soaked onto my uniform sleeve, obviously, and now it hurt. I’d found a semi-comfortable spot to sit on after that. The four of them gathered in a cluster at the other side of the mushroom.

Not a dream.

I poked at the gash on my arm. It hurt a lot. I didn’t wake up or die.

Not a dream.

I was supposed to confess to Hisui so she’d reject me and I’d finally get over her, yet.

Not a dream.

“Ow,” I mumbled, then left the wound alone.

Yukimura groaned. “I can’t do it. Why? I closed the other guy’s laceration earlier. Can you really not talk? The other dragon helped me out earlier as well.”

The dragon shook her head.

“...great. Great job, Ishida!”

I pretended not to hear. Needless to say, he wouldn’t be closing my laceration. It probably didn’t need stitches, though, so it’d be fine.

“Let’s just wait for Connie,” Aoko mumbled. Hisui had gone to sit next to her. She’d even made two small mushroom-seats for both of them. “Thanks. So you have um. Mushroom magic?”

“Nature magic,” Hisui corrected, then grinned. “And other things. You?”

“Water, mostly. I dunno. There was some other guy with us, but he died.”

Hisui blinked. “Huh?”

“But it’s fine or something. Connie said he’ll respawn. Like a videogame. I guess. Oh, Isami, what if you just haven’t leveled up enough?”

Yukimura groaned. “Not a game. That’s dumb. But I agree. Connie should be able to heal it. He just went to help the other guy respawn.”

Respawning, (not) leveling up, choreographed moves… I wondered if he could see stat screens. In actual games, I often gave my character extremely high intelligence to vicariously live through them, or I’d use mages rather than physical fighters.

The dragon girl closed her mouth. She’d been staring at Yukimura the whole time. He’d been the one to offer healing, after all, probably to brag about his newfound power. Good for him.

From what I’d gathered, Yukimura found Aoko after losing Hisui. Aoko, in turn, found him after losing Mrs. Hiyama (thus confirming that the poor woman had somehow traveled along with us despite not signing any contract). While looking for Mrs. Hiyama, they found some other guy that’d recently been summoned, who apparently knew a lot about Korova because the rabbit monster summoning him had actually told him about this place.

The guy told them that ‘awakening’ was just feeling the magic, that everyone in Korova had it–everyone and everything. Locals were used to tapping into it, but outlanders needed a push, kind of like learning how to float in water. By then, Yukimura had figured out the entire thing was a hoax–so he said anyway–so he didn’t care that much until the dragon showed up.

Unlike the fake onis, who were also outlanders, the dragon was much, much stronger. Aoko had actually been the first to awaken, using her body as a meat shield when the dragon tried hurting the third guy she’d known for maybe an hour. Seemed like an Aoko thing to do, honestly. After she created a shield or something (Yukimura didn’t go into detail so I had to fill in the blanks) the third guy then awakened and almost tore the dragon in half with a sword of light.

This pissed off the dragon, who then chomped the top half of the guy’s torso off. That was when Yukimura awakened. He mentioned really not wanting to die, then bam, magic. The dragon then explained that he got carried away because the sword slash hurt, but that it was fine and that the guy would respawn soon, and he volunteered to help outlanders get magic by pretending to be evil or something. Oh, and Connie was with them.

The dragon mentioned that Hisui and I were still on our ‘trial’, carried Aoko and Yukimura towards us, then fucked off. Connie stayed behind to unkill the warrior of light. Aoko summoned a rainstorm, the dragon turned back into a human and started to cry, we found shelter, and then this happened.

…so the dragon was part of the tutorial after all. Trial, my bad. Same fucking shit.

In the end, she’d been holding back the entire time. There had been no need to stab her. None. The dragons were probably a backup plan in case the dumb oni thing failed. They were… locals? Volunteers? Not ‘outlanders’.

“I wonder how Mrs. Hiyama showed up,” Hisui said, hands behind her back. “She didn’t sign a contract.”

“Dunno,” Aoko replied. “But she looked very scared.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah. So, um… Sakura…?”

“Hisui is fine.”

“Hisu…” Aoko trailed off, then laughed nervously. “Feels weird if you’re an upperclassman.”

“I’m not,” Hisui said. “Not anymore.”

Not anymore.

Not a dream.

“Speaking of which,” said Yukimura, “Assuming this shit is real, how are we supposed to go back? Don’t tell me we can’t because tomorrow is Tabletop Thursday.”

“Who cares about Tabletop Thursday,” naively replied Hisui. Aoko and I cringed, for we knew; we knew.

Slowly, Yukimura walked towards her. Hisui was indifferent until she wasn’t, until he seized her face and squeezed her cheeks, until they were an inch away from each other at best. Yukimura’s eyes did the opposite of healing. “I. Care. About. Tabletop. Thursday. Tabletop Thursday is my life. Tabletop Thursday is why the universe began. Tableshop Thursday is why there’s skin mites having sex in your face. I don’t know how, but you’re taking. Us. Back. I’ll kill you if you don’t. You’ll just respawn anyway.”

He let her go. Hisui immediately cupped her cheeks, wincing. “B-but–”

“No buts.”

“I don’t–”

“NO BUTS!”

“Isami, calm down,” Aoko said, with the tone of someone telling their child to stop putting the cat’s face into their mouth. “Connie said we can go back, remember?”

Hisui actually flinched when Yukimura pointed at her. “But we signed her stupid contract so we have to save this shithole first!”

“Yeah, but we can go back. So please don’t kill anyone. No more blood. Please. I’ll let you do whatever you want next Tabletop Thursday.”

And as easily as that, Yukimura was appeased. He was the sort of person to take the worst possible option every single time just to annoy his party. If left to his devices, games would end in minutes because his character would kill everyone and then himself. “Fine,” he said. Even with the scarf covering half his face, his expression was pure evil. “I guess we’ll just wait for–”

“Me?”

Another matcha portal appeared. This one was small, though. A bizarre, shelled creature hopped out. It had rabbit ears but a lizard’s tail, its eyes so large they had to take a third of its face. It was also green. “That’s Connie,” Aoko told Hisui. “He just looks like that in this world.”

Connie closed its giant eyes, paws behind its back. “It is more apt to say that I look like that in your world. I had to opt for an equivalent. Regardless, I’m happy to see that four out of five party members have assembled. While I believe I know the answer, I’ll ask nonetheless: did everyone awaken?”

Hisui’s hand shot up. “I did! Hi, Connie.”

“Hello, Sakurahisui. How about the rest?”

Aoko raised her hand, then it fell back next to her. Yukimura nodded.

Wait, no–

Wait–

Connie hopped to my side of the mushroom. I grit my teeth. They were looking at me. No, I hadn’t passed the tutorial. I couldn’t use magic. That burst of energy earlier had been… an error, perhaps.

But they were staring. All of them. I was being perceived. I was the asshole who’d stabbed through a volunteer’s tongue and made her mute.

“What is your name?” Connie asked me.

Without looking at him, with my arms around my legs and my hands gripping each other, I replied, “Sei… um. Ishida. Seishin.”

“A pleasure, Ishidaseishin. Could you please confirm your awakening?”

What else could I do but nod?

Connie closed its eyes again. Since he seemingly had no mouth, that was the equivalent of a smile, I supposed. “Splendid! In that case, allow me to heal your wounds and test all of you myself.”