Chapter 18

I woke up to a start. I shot up, realizing I’d fallen asleep and worrying about how long I’d been unaware and not watching. Stupid! Stupid, Stupid! I’d let me guard down! That was a bad thing to do with these girls and Rina near me. If something were to happen to any of them I’d be in hell.

The last thing I’d remembered was trying to pour more “Cure” into Rina to the limits of my strength, but then I think I’d exhausted myself. My head hurt a bit. Perhaps I’d pushed myself too far?

The sun was up and shining, but it was still pretty early, early enough for dew to form still but not yet evaporated. I could smell the fresh dew in the grass around us. Frantically I looked around.

Near us about a hundred yards away one of the rangers was still acting as sentry over the plain that led to the orc fortress, which was still too far to be visible but not far enough away that they couldn’t find us soon. He was doing something to look and peer over some rocks and trees that he was using for cover. It was a lookout position.

The other students weren’t very close to us, since Asakura Sensei had chosen this spot away from the boys…although some of them had seen me jealously with them, but it was only because Rina needed me. Most the time Yumi blocked them and told them to go away, since the girls were so good looking that a lot of them had wanted to be near us the past few days. Yumi did seem a bit too protective sometimes, but it’d actually made life easier for us.

That was my first sigh of relief, but not the last.

Its also interesting to that Asakura is hanging onto helping me and Rina. At first I think she’d done it to help Rina. Then she saw I was a decent guy. Then it seems she was often watching me and hanging onto being with me after discovering I have the heal skill.

And so far nobody else has a heal skill!

I breathed in quietly and slow. At some point I’d collapsed while watching over Rina and Asakura Sensei, both sleeping. It was late when we finally got to share a nice fat fish between us delivered by the rangers; as they’d raced through camp delivering them quite late in the night. It was the only food we’d had yesterday.

Then I checked Rina’s pulse and listened to her breathe. It was weak, but still a bit stronger than yesterday and more stable. I checked it again to be sure, on one minute counts each time. I had to account for fluctuating and variance.

“Cure!” I tried it again, and the small blue spark hit her. Good it was working, but it still felt kind of shaky and unstable. I’d need to practice it some more. I repeated it a couple of times, but it made me too weak to do more than the third time in a row. Each time the worsening fatigue was more painful than before, and even made my legs feel heavy just trying to walk around. I huffed just taking a few steps.

Was this really how awful magic was?! This wasn’t a blessing, but a curse! Why had it weakened me so much?! And the gain was like nothing. I’d felt the blue spark go into Rina to boost her life force, but it’d felt like the spark itself was so tiny compared to how much she needed. To call it a spark really was how small the gain was.

I’d have to find a better way! This wasn’t good enough! If she were to have another bad night I’d probably not make it.

But there were a lot of questions unanswered still.

If you cast cure on someone, it seems it didn’t cure fatigue, in either of you. I’d tested trying to ask fatigue in Rina before going to sleep. I also tried casting on myself, and it didn’t cure my bruises entirely, but made them smaller, but I was more tired for sure. So then probably something else had to be used for bone and structure parts being hurt, assuming I could ever get past all the other problems that made magic seem like trying to jump over a fifty foot wall. Because of physics and the way energy flowed and worked would that mean even if you could cure fatigue that it wouldn’t cost even more of the healer’s fatigue too?

The wall was so dauntingly massive! I struggled with the temptation of giving up on it. But in the end that’s a bad life choice that would cost me a future…

Wait…maybe I could just try to get stronger at it? I could try to break it down too and try to figure out what made up the blue spark? Did my physical stamina affect how hard the fatigue hit me, and the cost of the blue spark, or both?

Also what if the wound was really big or had specific problems? There could trouble with tendons, torn muscles, broken bones and would it affect each of those or not? There might be more to this than I thought.

Was the effect the same or smaller or bigger if cast on myself? I’d tried to experiment some things on myself but hadn’t been able to tell about that part yet. If I got better at it would the effect grow or stay the same? How would I even know how many “Cure” spells I could cast in the day before passing out? And which would grow first out of wanting the cost to be smaller, or the effect growing?

After playing with it one more time I didn’t have much for answers. But at least I could do it know without feeling like it would give out and fail.

Was there a limit to how many times it could be used on the same person, such as Rina? Did it have a side effect?! This seemed like the biggest problem of all. There must be some kind of trade off somehow or it would be too God like. I mean of all the different RPG skills it seems that “Heal” or “Cure” was the most indispensable!

You can live without a fire spell. You can live without a lot of magic, but not heal when you have a harsh environment and lots of enemies. And in a world with no hospitals or modern medicine things could be crazy fast!

You could do an RPG with no mage, but not without a healer. Also what were its other accompanying skills and skill tree? I wouldn’t know everything right away either. It would take a lot of smaller experiments to be able to know.

Would it slow aging if I casted it a lot on someone? Because Rina had a specific condition, how would it be different on recent injuries like cuts compared to a chronic condition? What about amputees that had already healed over? If an amputee had healed over their injury and then you cut off a section of stump where the original wound was located, would that then let you regenerate them slowly over time? Of course nobody would survive the sanity but it’s still an interesting question. Was there a bonus if combined with herbs and real medicines? Somehow I didn’t really want to go hang out with the herbalist guy though. I liked him well enough, but he was a little too odd, and I was afraid his influence might affect Rina’s future.

There was too much I didn’t know still. That worried me too.

I might have to do something about the Kenji problem too. Last night he’d been too bold in coming over. His fixation on Rina also seemed pretty unhealthy, and instead of it stopping it seemed to have grown some, and I’d have to talk that over with Yumi and Sensei first to gauge what they thought I should do. Wonder what Akira might suggest too, besides trying to execute him?

I’d try to not involve Rina if I could beyond warn her to never be alone with him.

I felt relieved to have gotten through the night, but I felt sore all over from all the stress and from everything that happened.

“Oh thank goodness. You are awake. I wasn’t sure what I’m supposed to do when I woke up and you weren’t here,” Asakura Sensei said.

She looked a bit tired.

She was still supporting Rina, with her head and neck over Sensei’s lap, but Yumi was supporting Asakura’s head and neck, and then again Yumi had formed a triangle with her own neck and head resting on Rina’s thighs.

“Oh, how’d you work that out?” I asked.

“None of us wanted bugs in our hair actually,” Sensei said.

“So you all were willing to let each other rest on each other’s legs and thighs?” I asked.

“Actually no. Ugh, for some reason my head hurts!” she suddenly felt her head and hair with her hand but then she suddenly pulled away from her head with a surprised look.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked.

She looked a bit too stiff and like she was hiding something, “Oh nothing. It’s nothing.” She kept insisting nothing was wrong but somehow when she’d touched her head she’d acted strangely. But I couldn’t force her to talk about it.

“So yeah, none of us wanted to rest on each other at first, but then a bug crawled on Yumi’s face, and she started talking about earwigs. Then it just somehow happened to help guard each other’s hair and face from bugs,” Sensei said.

“None of us like bugs actually,” Yumi said, as she stretched out her arms getting up. Yumi was interesting in that she’d somehow had this really straight silky hair that nobody what was going on seemed to never get out of place, unlike Asakura and I who had to smooth our fingers through our hair in the morning to make sure it wasn’t looking wild.

“Eh? Yumi’s hair is so pretty? How do you get it to always lay down perfectly?” Sensei asked.

“EH?! Your asking me?” Yumi wondered. It’s true that most people thought Asakura was the best looking, but even she had to comb her hair like a normal person.

Asakura shrugged.

“Any bug bites?” Yumi wondered, looking herself over for anything that shouldn’t be there on her clothes. The rest of us were doing the same.

“Aren’t earwigs the worst?” Sensei said sincerely. “When I was a kid I had nightmares about falling into a bed of earwigs.”

“Oh dang. That’s the worst. My room sometimes bugs would try to come in through the window…” Yumi started to say.

Somehow the girls all had empathy for each other suddenly. All it took was a few bugs and they could somehow band together even with no electricity. It was surprising how such an adversity had brought them together while another might pull them apart.

“So do we have anything for breakfast?” Rina asked, being the last to wake. Since her hair was short of course she didn’t have to worry about combing it.

“Ah, I’d give anything for a bathroom…almost, of course,” Asakura hurriedly added.

“We saved a bit of fish for you. It’s the last of last night’s dinner. If you don’t eat it now someone else will and we don’t know when the next meal is,” Yumi said quickly, making sure she knew.

“Got it,” Rina started eating the last bit of the fish while we all looked at it disappearing.

A few minutes later we were about to discuss the plan for a day when a runner came up to us. He stopped to catch his breath and then wiped the sweat off his face. It looked like he was working pretty hard.

Then I recognized him. It was Ziggy, one of the first rangers that had been identified.

“Yuta-sama wants everyone to gather for a meeting. Everyone is supposed to come, including Rina and Sensei,” the ranger kid said.

Sama?

That’s not good. It sounds like they think he’s the leader.

“Huh?” Rina looked up confused.

“What?” Asakura Sensei also looked up.

“So did he specifically say their names specifically?” I asked innocently.

“Yep. He wants them especially. Of course everyone else too, but especially them,” the ranger kid said.

“What’s it about? The meeting I mean?” I asked.

The ranger kid just smiled. “It’ll all be explained and informed. Come along then.”

“Where’s the meeting at again?” Yumi wondered, stretching again. It seems Yumi was weak against lack of sleep, and morning stiffness.

“The lookout spot where the rangers found out their calling is where everyone is gathering,” the kid said evenly with his teeth flashing.

“Uh, we’ll be along in just a minute,” Yumi said, giving him her fake smile to put him at ease.

He smiled back, but I knew her long enough to know it wasn’t the genuine smile; it was the fake one she used when putting up a front. She’d used it on teachers and our parents a few times to get her way. Since she practically lived with Rina, I’d been able to know to identify it.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Sensei suddenly whispered after he’d left. She kept her voice low so others didn’t hear us. Around us, but not too close, there were other students that were also waking up in their little huts.

“Um, not sure?” Rina asked. “Is there supposed to be something going on?”

“Well they were acting pretty suspicious,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Rina asked.

“Well he called Yuta, Yuta-sama instead of just plain Yuta. That by itself is weird as hell and shouldn’t be happening. He acted like it’s decided that Yuta is the head of everyone,” Sensei wondered. “Was there a shift in leadership while we were resting?”

“We’re not sure,” I said, beginning to feel very uncomfortable.

“It looks weird,” Asakura said. Apparently she was no dummy. “Yuta probably isn’t much better than Kenji and they spent too much time together. It’s possible the nerd-ness of Kenji may have infected him somehow over time, even before we were brought here.

“Eh? I’m surprised to hear you talk like that,” Rina gasped in surprise.

“Uh, well I like ‘nerdiness’. It’s cute a lot of the time, when it’s innocent. But when it loses innocence and gets like into weird obsession and danger to others that are different. If possible I’d help most my students for things that are possible and reasonable to do,” Sensei explained quickly.

“Hmm, so you don’t think we’re nerds? Because I did a lot of nerd stuff,” I said.

Sensei blushed and then pinched my cheek, “Oh Shun, you are so good. You take care of your sister,...cousin, or whatever, and help others. I wish more people were like you.” She was standing close to me and it looked like she might give me a hug, but suddenly Rina cut her off.

“Well what are we supposed to think about Yuta? It looked like something is happening?” she said.

“So you think people would want Yuta to be the boss over their teacher even?” Yumi smirked. She was partly playing with our Sensei.

“Hmm, I don’t know yet,” Asakura shrugged. “And even if we had, I’m worried about if we even could.”

“About which part?” I asked.

“Everything? Why Yuta? And is Yuta responsible? At school there were things about him that I’m not sure I liked. How will his own needs conflict with the groups? Will he feed himself and then only others if its convenient? What will he want in return for being the boss? That’s the real question to ask. Will he have enough maturity to be put others before his own self,” Asakura wondered.

“So you think his personal wants and needs might conflict with the others?” I wondered.

Sensei sighed, “Not because it’s Yuta, but everyone that’s what they have trouble with when they suddenly get into power or unexpectedly have a lot of wealth. My grandfather talked about it a lot to warn us, after all he had his own company. How much of their time and resources go to themselves instead of others. Look at what’s happening with politicians while people reject God. None of its good. Even my grandfather struggled with it and he was a really good person. Over time it changes and they have to learn what’s best. Everyone has trouble with it a little. But in extremes it can go badly and mean a lot of corruption. I don’t know how Yuta will be,” she finished shrugging.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I said.

“So you think…” Rina started to say but I raised a hand and she stopped.

I kept waving my hand, “Why would Yuta be calling a meeting? This doesn’t look good, but I’m not sure why. Why wasn’t it Akira calling the meeting, who was clearly in charge before, and helped me kill the boss pig orc, or Yuriko who was with him?”

“Oh well. Guess we’ll find out soon,” Sensei said, shrugging. “But it is puzzling isn’t it? I think Akira seems more reliable too don’t you?”

Rina nodded, “ah that is also another factor that makes this strange.”

“It can’t be that bad. Maybe he’s found something about the new skill system? Or another tool of some kind? Maybe he’s going to share about that?” Yumi suggested excitedly. “I mean its exciting isn’t it? We can ask him about your skill too?” she suggested.

“It does seem like the window magic system is involved somehow, but I’m not sure if that’s directly or indirectly related,” Sensei said, trying to think about it.

“Wait! You can’t tell others I can heal or that I have a magic job,” I said adamantly.

“Wait? What?!” Yumi and Rina gasped. “Why?” in unison came out a bit stiffly.

“But it could give them a lot of hope when people are dying,” Yumi protested combatively. She had her hands on her hips. Wow she was kind of stubborn huh, I thought.

“It’s too soon. What if they go crazy? Everyone is too desperate. Also I’m not that strong and everyone’s wounded. I could end up having them all wanting me to heal everyone to death beyond my strength…literally,” I said with wide eyes. “Just having it cast it like three times on Rina had taken a lot of my strength actually. I think I passed out actually, instead of falling to sleep last night.”

“Oh, I was wondering why you were sleeping in a silly posture. I should have done something. I’m sorry,” Sensei said. “I’ll look out for you better from now,” she bowed slightly in apology.

“Ah, I was so tired my mind was totally gone too. Sorry Shun,” Yumi nodded in my direction sincerely.

“Hmm, are you sure that’s a good idea to not tell people though? People are really hurt right now and there are some that are sure to die,” Asakura said.

“Let me figure out how much is my limit first and what the rules are. I feel like I’m gambling without knowing how it works. It’s very clear there is a physical stamina loss when I cast it and a very strong weak feeling and that worries me a lot. The weak feeling also gets stronger with consecutive casts. What do you think will happen if fifty people to a hundred people want me to heal them all now or else. They will not take no for an answer and I’ll just end up taking their place if we don’t define limits first,” I said.

“Are you sure they won’t be reasonable though?” Yumi wondered hopefully.

“When you put it that way…its true we don’t know very much about it,” Sensei admitted. “But it could be so helpful…” she muttered at the end indecisively.

“Well think about just Akira and Yuriko…they are suffering from actual burns right now. That’s hell pain. Burns hurt bad! If you thought someone could get rid of that hellish pain, and there were dozens of others with that same pain…things could get out of control fast,” I replied.

“Ah, now I get it. I’m so sorry Shun!” Rina said tearfully, but I just patted her head.

“Hmm, that’s a good point,” Sensei admitted. “But you won’t let them die will you?” she looked worried and was studying my reaction intently.

“Well I don’t even know if I can stop that. There’s so much need now. It’s not just wounds but food and food storage being our main culprits right now. Will cure spells cure starvation? I’m not sure sure about that. Also Rina is going to need me still and I can’t save a hundred people by myself. That’s unfair to expect that,” I said.

“Ah, that is a good question. Somehow I’m not sure if starvation will be ‘healed’ either with a spell. Wouldn’t you need to fix it some other way?” Asakura exclaimed.

“Ah, I didn’t think about that,” Yumi also acknowledged.

Asakura sighed, “Your right. I’m sorry Shun. But please don’t…be cruel. It’s hard to see people hurting and not do anything. Don’t you want to help them?”

“I won’t be cruel,” I said.

She then looked puzzled, “However, if healing someone is closing up damage on a cellular level, then isn’t starvation the absence of energy in those same cells that aren’t damaged? So maybe heal or cure or whatever won’t heal starvation,” Sensei guessed. “But I could be wrong,” she said.

“Eh…Sensei is so good at figuring stuff out,” Rina smiled.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when people go to school,” Yumi encouraged.

“Yeah, of course I do want to help others,” I said getting back on topic. “But the amount of demand is like ten times higher than I can cope with, if not more. I will literally collapse if I try to go heal everyone that’s injured right now. I mean Akira and Yuriko’s burns right now are enough to collapse me and that’s just two people. They must be pretty awful right now. I want to help them soon, but...,” I said. I opened my eyes wide and shrugged.

“Yeah this isn’t good. If they find out we have a healer after that fight he’ll get mobbed to death, literally,” Yumi said, frowning.

“Well do you think there will be other healer jobs?” Rina wondered.

“Somehow I doubt it. It’s something pretty rare after all. Desires factor into it. You can run into people who are smart enough or strong enough easily enough, but having the right heart and desires that’s something else, and we do know that desires are a part of the jobs, but not all of it,” Asakura explained, while patting my arm and standing really close to me.

Sensei sure was acting weird lately…I couldn’t help but notice.

“Th-that’s too bad. It would nice to have other people to help,” Yumi said, with her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock and was looking down.

Are you worried if you’ll find something that you can do?” I asked her.

She suddenly stiffened, “Ah, it-it’s not that. I just want to be able to help out too. But I’m trying to figure out what will be right for me,” she blushed, glancing at Rina again.

“I’m sure you’ll get a good skill,” I said to Yumi. I believed it too. Yumi was strong, and good too, even if she was a bit overly fixated on Rina for some reason…

“So we keep it a secret for a few days, till Shun can figure out how it works,” Rina stated flatly to end the discussion.

“But…” Asakura protested.

“Shun isn’t selfish Sensei. He’ll help when he can,” Rina said confidently.

“You could help so many though. Even normal doctors on our world they want to cure someone but mostly are actually doing pain management and disease management than actual healing. A lot of people just end up spending their livelihood on pills that do little effect in the end. So it’s natural I have hopes for you Shun,” Sensei said, giving me a nod.

“So what’s up with that Sensei? You seem interested in Shun,” Yumi teased.

Sensei blushed; she was standing like so close her side boob was touching my arm but somehow she was casual. “Well like Rina, I had someone in my family who was really ill all the time. My mother’s sister had unexplained weakness and pain all her life. My mother also later had it, though it didn’t show in her till later on after I was born. It can’t be helped that if someone were to be able to help those people in real life…of course I’d do anything to help them,” she said with her voice shaking a bit, and very nervous.

“Our family spent a fortune with my grandfather using his company’s wealth to help them but we could never cure them either. Then last year my mom died,” Asakura looked down, as she’d continued speaking. She had her hands in front of her, but still somehow her side boob kept getting pushed into my arm.

I was feeling pretty embarrassed. It was an exciting feeling too and …the softness was hypnotic enough to make me feel so nervous I needed to go find a bush to pee in.

Rina blinked and was staring at Asakura Sensei who was looking down. I wondered what she was thinking. It was a strange odd feeling and I couldn’t tell what was going through her mind. Yumi was also studying Rina’s reaction.

I didn’t know what to say and neither did the others. I wasn’t sure what to think of Asakura Sensei either. Her desire wasn’t necessarily love, but she clearly was having a hope for others too.

Wow. Now I was being set up to run around helping everyone. That was going to be tiresome.

We both knew what see was talking about. It was some kind of heal skill or job or whatever and definitely magic. But we’d been so busy trying to save Rina’s life all last night and trying to pump heal spells into her over and over until I’d passed out that we’d not had a chance to even pay attention to the popup window that we’d missed.

I wanted and wished we’d had a chance to figure that out, and at the time Raya and Yuta weren’t around. And when I’d woken up in the morning it was gone. I guess there’s a time limit to how long you can have them open until they close automatically. I was worried there might be something important we might have missed in the blue window popup.

“First let’s go see what Yuta wants,” Yumi suggested. “But let’s keep this like between us. We can keep ourselves as a tight team,” she suggested. “Don’t let anyone else in without group agreement OK?”

“Eh? But…” Rina started to say, but Yumi cut her off.

“Too many people will just want to be in temporarily till they can steal Rina or Asakura away. I know how boys work…” Yumi said like a gangster girl type…

Wow Yumi could be scary when she wanted to be. She had such a rough personality that people were afraid to approach her too even though she was almost as pretty as Sensei and Rina.

So we started walking while talking quietly to ourselves and trying to actively avoid walking near others.

“What about Yuriko and Akira? Should we go find them?” Rina wondered as we trudged through the grass and the woods.

“Well…last night I saw them making out in the bushes. That’s partly why I didn’t mention going to hang out with them,” Yumi blushed.

“Eh? How can they be like that when things are so dangerous?” Rina wondered. I wondered it too. It didn’t make sense really.

“Well both of them actually wanted to be with each other before this happened. They’d almost confessed to each other enough times that they both knew it was going to happen. But I doubt that it will go very far till people figure out how birth control works in this world,” Yumi said. She slapped her hand over her mouth, realizing what she’d just said.

At the mention of that word everyone stiffened. I was surprised too that Yumi dared say it. There was an awkward stiffness for awhile. Rina and Sensei were both blushing, but Yumi seemed totally oblivious to everyone’s embarrassment and shyness of the topic.

“We’ll decide that based on how far we can trust them maybe after we figure out more about what’s going on?” Sensei suggested.

“Hmm, that’s a good answer,” I thought aloud, glad to change the subject.