Ulrick wasn't in danger of death or anything, while his appearance might suggest otherwise, the only real wounds were a laceration across his chest, and a broken leg, neither of which would be threatening for an Adventurer above E-Rank. Basic measures had already been applied to the laceration with some bandages, and a makeshift splint had been made, but both were rather shoddy in application. While the people of this world were easily more resilient than those in Velen's, proper emergency care was paramount for a full recovery, if I hadn't stumbled upon them and decided to as for directions, Ulrick likely would have gotten an infection, and while his leg would recover, I was pretty certain it hadn't been set, so in the worst case he wouldn't be able to walk properly.
While the laceration wasn't something that would have normally been seen on a battlefield in Velen's life, broken bones were, though with the advanced technology and science, even if it didn't heal properly cybernetics were always an option, though a long period of recovery was still required. As far as Ulrick's leg went, it was probably a pretty clean break and would only require me to realign it, and the laceration was even simpler as I just needed to stitch it up really. I of course wasn't willing to risk causing more damage than good so I also used Creation to a small amount of healing salve and a small dose of a healing potion.
Both were one of the first things I had learned when I started taking alchemy classes back in the academy, and until now I'd never had a reason to make any, nor had I ever really bothered looking into making more powerful versions, if I had been in a fight where my companions were to able to get seriously wounded without me being able to make any intervention, then regardless of powerful potions or salves we were screwed. For all other wounds, Arya was an excellent healer and when I shared mana with her there was very little she couldn't heal.
For Ulrick however, I figured this would suffice anyway as I carefully stitched the laceration on his chest before applying the salve and covering with a new bandage. For the leg I undid the makeshift splint and hunched over the leg to hide what I was actually doing. I didn't have much faith in being able to tell if the bone was properly set just from feeling since Velen had barely done so, but with clever use of my Thread Manipulation I was essentially able to brute force it by tying the break back together internally, before injecting the healing potion in a similar manner and creating a much better splint to use. Ferrik and the two others had been worried since the unconscious Ulrick had been groaning with pain but once I finished and they checked on him they could confirm that I hadn't caused him any unnecessary pain.
With Ulrick's treatment finished, Ferrik was happy to travel together back to the city they were based out of. As we traveled I routinely checked on Ulrick to make sure his recovery was going smoothly and spent the rest of my time asking Ferrik and the others the history of the region. It was strange that to me that the Rymiz Kingdom was not only isolated but had outdated maps and knowledge about the rest of the continent, however Ferrik and his group weren't extremely knowledgeable on the subject.
Apparently around a fifty years ago a small village was wiped off the map by the birth of a powerful demon who retreated into the Forest of Darkness which had been a much smaller area back then. The demon was extremely bloodthirsty and very powerful and it took control of the forest, occasionally making appearances and destroying entire villages. It was however stopped one day when a group of powerful adventurers finally set out to subjugate it, not a single member returned, however neither did the demon's attacks ever resume so it was assumed that the they had slain each other. Despite the demon's defeat, the Forest of Darkness still only continued to grow, eventually enveloping the entirety of the forest, and cutting off the Rymiz Kingdom from the land routes.
It was an interesting note of history, one that wasn't taught, or perhaps even known in the Rymiz Kingdom, however, it was a strange and bizarre coincidence that the the defeat of the demon just so happened to line up with the current king's ascension to the throne, though since the story I was told by Ferrik wasn't fully documented, the times could actually have been different, so I was possible I was just seeing relations where they weren't present.
Another interesting fact that I learned was that for an unknown reason, both monsters and demons were becoming more powerful, making once simply requests more dangerous than they had been before. As such the Adventurers Guild had raised the requirements of each rank to have each Adventurer stronger and more capable than they had been before. Ferrik's group was only a lowly E-Rank, able to take the least dangerous missions outside of cities. There current request had been to survey the edge of the forest as recently the ecosystem had seemed to change and the weaker monsters were being driven elsewhere. It was simply bad luck that they happened to run into a troll and good luck that I happened to want directions from them.
It only took a few hours to reach the city, though it was beginning to get dark as the walls came into view. I was impressed as the city looked to be much larger than Eldora, the capital of the Rymiz Kingdom, however, once we passed through the first wall I understood why. Inside the wall was an abundance of farmland that stretched out all the way to a secondary wall. I figured it would be better to stick with Ferrik and his group until the Adventurer's Guild as not only did I not know the layout of the city, being with a citizen would make me less suspicious to the locals, at least, that was what I hoped. However, as usual, my appearance drew the attention of many people, regardless of the fact that it was essentially only my face that was exposed, but I had figured that I wouldn't be able to just blend into the crowds anyway and just continued to follow and make small talk with Ferrik and his group, doing my best to ignore the amount of gazes on me.
