Salvation

“Hey… hey…” a voice sounded at the back of Haruki’s head. He opened his eyes.

His body was laying on its side, half-way submerged in mud. The sun was now beating down on the slushy landscape, causing a thin layer of dried mud-crust to form across his body.

Before him stood a pair of boots, belonging to an unknown crouching figure.

His eyes looked up, where he saw the silhouette of a man in a hat directly blocking out the midday sun overhead, but the details of his face were obscured in shadow.

“Hey…” the mysterious person’s hand touched Haruki’s cheek and began to gently lift his head up out of the mud. He tried to say something, but his throat was too dry to utter a word.

He felt the rim of a leather bottle touch his lips and pour a bit of water into his mouth. He swallowed and choked a bit on the liquid, but instantly felt its revitalizing effects.

“Hey… can you hear me?” Haruki looked up at the source of the voice, this time he could now see the man’s face. He was a middle-aged man, probably in his late 40s, with a short blonde beard and mustache. He had a look of concern on his face.

“I… stepped on a slime,” Haruki managed to utter.

“I see… it really did a number on your foot there.” He forced a little chuckle. He lifted Haruki’s back up out of the mud so that he was now sitting upright. “Here, can you drink any more water?”

Haruki nodded, this time drinking deeply from the bottle. He coughed a bit again.

The man stood up to a crouched position, grabbing Haruki by the hand and by the shoulder. “Do you need help gettin’ up, son?”

Not waiting for a reply, he pulled Haruki up onto his feet and leaned him on his shoulder, helping him walk over to the back of his horse cart. He sat Haruki down again on the seat of the cart.

“Hold on a sec.” The man climbed up on the cart behind Haruki and opened a bag. “It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.” He showed Haruki a handful of crackers.

“You need help eatin’ them?” Haruki shook his head, and the man handed him the crackers.

Haruki began nibbling on the things. They were very dry and tasteless, but the moment they touched his tongue his dormant hunger came back to life and they disappeared from his hands. He licked his dirty fingers.

“Th-thank you,” Haruki croaked, finding it a bit easier to speak now.

“Don’t sweat it. I couldn’t rightly leave you there after seein’ you in the mud like that.” He paused for a moment. “Where ya’ headed? I’m on my way back from Thistleholm to my farm near Whispervale. Is that where you’re goin’?”

“Yeah, I was on my way in that direction.”

“Good, good. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take you back to my farm. You need to get that foot seen before it gets infected, and I think I know someone who can treat it.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it.” Haruki was in awe at this man’s kindness, compared to what he had been shown by everyone else so far besides that one old man. “Oh, uhh…” Haruki remembered, “If I may ask, what’s your name?”

“Of course, pardon the late introduction,” the man responded. “My name’s Johannes. What’s your name, son?”

“My name’s Haruki.”

“Haruki, huh? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”

“Well, you could say I’m a long way from home.”

Johannes went up to the front and ushered his horse forward, pulling the small farm cart down the road.

Haruki lay back on the cart, reflecting on his thoughts of hopelessness from the night before, wondering if anything had really changed since then. He was thankful to Johannes, but he questioned if it was only out of a sense of obligation.

Did I really want to be saved? What good can come out of continuing to live in this world, when it’s even harder than my past life?

His skin was burning up and he was feeling drowsy. Those thoughts slowly faded away as he slipped back into unconsciousness again.

***

When he next woke up he was lying in a bed.

An actual bed! I haven’t lain in an actual bed for nearly a week! Now that he thinks of it, his last memories in an actual bed weren’t all that pleasant.

A few minutes later, the door to the room creaked open. Johannes entered the room carrying a plate of some food.

“Oh, good. You’re finally awake. You’ve been out cold with a nasty fever for the past day, at first I had thought you’d gone and died on me in that cart.” He sat down in a chair and set the plate of food on the bed beside Haruki. “Have something to eat, son.”

Haruki thanked him and accepted the food. This time it was actually something that was freshly cooked… again, another first for Haruki’s life in this new world.

After I’d finished eating the plate of food he leaned in and smiled at me.

“Here, I’ve brought someone to see ya’.” He turned his head and raised his voice: “Come on in, Lilly. He’s awake now.”

A young woman entered the room.

“This is my niece, Lillianna. She’s gonna heal yer’ foot,” Johannes proudly announced.

“Heal my foot? Is she a doctor?”

“Better, she’s a magician,” Johannes quipped back.

“Oh, stop it uncle. What I do can barely be called magic, it isn’t anything that special,” Lillianna interjected.

Lillianna turned toward Haruki: “I’m going to use healing to reverse some of the damage done to your foot. I can’t use very much magic and it doesn’t always work for me, so I can’t guarantee anything, but hopefully it should do the trick.”

“What do you mean when you say ‘it doesn’t always work’? You’re not going to accidentally turn my foot into anything like a rabbit or playing cards, are you?” Haruki asked, warily.

The girl giggled. “Of course not, silly! The worst that could happen is that the magic just doesn’t do anything. It won’t do anything I don’t intend it to do.”

“Oh, alright.”

She grabbed his burnt foot from out under the bedsheets, unwrapping the cloth bandage that had been placed around it and holding it between her hands. A girl holding his foot was not a sight he had expected to see.

Lillianna closed her eyes and held his foot firmly, entering into a state of concentration. A light glow began to appear around Lillianna, soon spreading to Haruki’s foot as well. He felt a slight tingling sensation, similar to the pricks and needles when a foot falls asleep, and began to notice the pain he had been feeling in his foot slowly leaving.

The glowing stopped and Lillianna opened her eyes, setting his foot back down. There was still a bit of scarring left, but the majority of the damage had been cleared away.

“I’m afraid that’s about all I can do, the rest we’ll have to leave to nature to heal. I’d advise you not to walk at all for at least another few days, and maybe take it easy on this foot for a while longer after that.”

Haruki was just amazed at what she had done, even if she considered it to be little. It was the first time he had seen a real act of magic in this new world.

It was nothing like the fireballs and ridiculous spells he was used to seeing in MMO games, but somehow the subtlety of it made it feel all the more real and majestic.

“Thank you, both of you, for everything you’ve done for me. I really don’t deserve such kindness, it means a lot to me.”

“There’s no need for thanks, Lillianna here is always wantin’ an excuse to show off her magic,” Johannes teased.

Lillianna became flustered. “I do not!” she pouted, half-heartedly pushing her uncle as they both left the room.

Just before she closed the door behind her, she whispered through the crack: “Rest easy, ‘kay?”

“Yeah, s-sure,” Haruki stammered, his cheeks flushing red.

Haruki lay back onto his soft pillow and sighed deeply. Something deep within him was already starting to feel a bit better about the prospect of living a new life in this world, even if he could never be the hero.