Both women stared at Nikolai suspiciously.

  “Why the bloody hell would a healer be interested in explody things!?” the first one asked.

  Nikolai adjusted his aura slightly, willing it to emanate a slightly sad emotion, and then gave her a small smile. “Not a day ago I saw two companions die, and I only just managed to save a third who had her stomach cut open by goblins… I was thinking that perhaps I could have been more useful if I had something like that.”

  “Pff, don’t get all sappy with us, boy!” the second woman scoffed. “Do you even know how to handle alchemical explosives?”

  Nikolai shrugged and mimed a throwing motion. “Throw it and boom?”

  There was a pause, and then both women burst out cackling. The first one wiped a tear of mirth from her eye and grinned. “You’re not wrong! Although they are pretty bloody unstable, so there’s a low to medium chance it’ll blow your own bloody arm off before that.”

  Nikolai winced. “Yeah… that wouldn’t be ideal. I am still interested though.”

  The second woman walked over and past Nikolai, pointing up toward the top shelf where a number of earthenware containers stood in rows, tightly sealed with string. “These are the safest ones to use, popular with the town guard too! Just throw them like you said, and boom!”

  She then pointed toward the next row down. “These are a little more tricky, because once that container breaks, the liquid inside will react with the air… and react extremely violently.”

  “Violently? Like how violent?” Nikolai asked, taking a small step back.

  She grinned wide. “Hit a group of goblins with it and boom, instant bonfire!”

  “So it creates fire then?” he asked hesitantly.

  She rolled her eyes. “Not just fire! We call it fire oil for a reason. It is almost impossible to smother until the oil itself is burned out. It won’t burn for long, but it will be extremely intense while it does.”

  Nikolai nodded slowly, a small grin forming on his face, because this was essentially a molotov cocktail.

  “And the third row?” he asked.

  She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “These create smoke…”

  There was a long pause before she finished with a completely deadpan expression.

  “That’s it.”

  Nikolai immediately imagined himself throwing down a smoke bomb, only to disappear into the night Batman-style. It was a little embarrassing that he was actually the most excited about that one, but hey, he had always been a sucker for drama.

  Grinning, he gestured toward the whole rack. “How much for all of them?”

  Nikolai left the shop with a big smile, quite satisfied to have his spatial pouch filled with more or less unstable explosives. It wasn’t until he was almost back to the guild that he suddenly remembered his original purpose in going to the alchemists in the first place.

  Slapping his own forehead and groaning, he stopped right in the middle of a busy road, which forced the traffic around him to walk around his stationary form, earning him a few rather colorful curses in the process.

  Apologising with a sheepish smile, he pulled his outer robe tighter around himself and turned back the way he had come.

  This time he didn’t return to the shop, however. Instead he wandered through the streets for a while, asking for directions from a few locals until he eventually found a medium-sized stone building that stood a little apart from the rest of the town.

  Its seclusion spoke volumes about its purpose.

  This was a place meant for the sick.

  Nikolai strode up to a set of open doors, knocked on the doorframe, and stepped inside.

  He was met with a fairly sizable waiting area, along with a small desk where an older woman sat behind it. She was clad in a grey dress, her hair bound tightly up behind her head, and her sleeves rolled up while she wrote something onto a scroll. She looked up at him with narrowed eyes as he entered.

  “What ya want?” she asked brusquely.

  Nikolai turned up his aura slightly and smiled. “I’m here to help. I heard there were people in need of healing.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Did you now? Well it’s the truth that… too many are falling ill recently. Stomach pains, throwing up, and the medicine doesn’t seem to help much. You a true healer then?”

  Nikolai bowed slightly, pulling his outer cloak to the side so that his healer’s robes from the Hospitarium became visible. “I am. I am travelling through the area.”

  She sighed with visible relief. “Oh, we would appreciate the assistance, we would. Please, follow me.”

  A side door opened into a large room with beds lining both walls, and every single bed was occupied. The smell of sickness and stale sweat was so strong that it almost made him gag.

  Nurses moved among the sick and injured, all of them wearing cloths over their faces while they worked, and every single one of them looked grim.

  With a few quick steps Nikolai reached the closest patient and pulled a stool over to sit beside him.

  Gently he took the young man’s hand. The boy looked young, perhaps fifteen or sixteen at most, and he looked terrible. Sickly pale, and dangerously emaciated. He tried to pull his hand away but was far too weak to do more than twitch slightly.

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  Nikolai pushed his aura harder, because he was there to help, there to save them, and he wanted to communicate that feeling to everyone around him.

  “Let me take a look at you please. I am a healer.”

  The young man’s eyes grew moist at those words, and through cracked lips he managed to whisper a single word.

  “Please…”

  Nikolai nodded, then carefully sent a trickle of mana into the boy’s body. There was a brief moment of resistance, but the boy allowed the connection, or perhaps he was simply too weak to resist, and either way Nikolai was in.

  Closing his eyes, Nikolai grimaced at what he felt.

  There was sickness present, yes, like a corruption that had spread throughout the body, but more importantly he quickly found the root of it.

  A glob of pulsating darkness was lodged somewhere near the boy’s heart.

  It wasn’t physical.

  It was something made entirely from mana and essence.

  And it was alive.

  At least… something resembling alive, and it absolutely did not appreciate his intrusion.

  The thing attacked him through the connection, and for a brief moment Nikolai almost pulled back and severed the link, but instead he gritted his teeth in defiance.

  No.

  Fuck that.

  Whatever it was, if it lived, then it could be killed.

  Without even consciously deciding, he placed his other hand over the boy’s chest and activated Essence Drain.

  With practiced precision he did not target the boy himself, but instead the source of the corruption. The dark growth froze where it was, and then suddenly seemed to panic as if realizing what was happening.

  But it had nowhere to go.

  Nikolai drained it rapidly until the growth finally collapsed, its remaining substance dispersing into corrupted mana.

  He moved quickly.

  Cutting off the spell, he immediately cast Minor Cleanse.

  The corruption fought back against the spell, resisting the purification, but Nikolai poured some of the essence he had taken directly into the spell.

  The empowered magic surged forward and overwhelmed the corruption entirely.

  The boy sagged beneath his hand.

  Finally finished, Nikolai cast a weak Healing Grace on him before standing up again, letting the spell continue its work slowly over time.

  When he opened his eyes again, the entire room was staring at him.

  He looked around until he found the boy’s gaze, and the young man’s eyes were now clear, tears streaming down his face.

  “Thank you… thank you so much! I will find some way to repay you, I swear! I have no money but—”

  Nikolai held up a hand and smiled. “No need. I am here of my own free will, not to make money. Rest now. The healing spell is still working on you. Your body is still weakened, but you will make a full recovery with rest and food.”

  The older nurse who had brought him in was staring at him in open shock, but she quickly hurried over when he turned toward her.

  “I have never seen anything like that… What was that black energy!? No, it can wait, heck it doesn’t matter does it? Here, let me show you the most dire cases.”

  She rushed down the line of beds, pointing out patients as they went.

  Nikolai was more than a little distressed at the condition of some of these people, and a sudden clamor broke out as several patients called for him to help them first, but he decided to trust the staff and follow their guidance.

  Nikolai went to work.

  Several hours later, Nikolai finally collapsed onto a bench outside, his robe soaked in sweat and every muscle in his body aching from the amount of mana he had pushed through himself. Several times he had come dangerously close to depletion, but the constant draining of that black corruption had kept him going, if only barely.

  The good news was that his Cleanse spell had upgraded not once, but twice during those hours, which was an unprecedented speed of improvement for him. It made sense though, because especially in the worst cases he had been forced to pour absolutely everything he had into stabilizing the patients, and it had taken a serious toll.

  Someone sat down beside him carrying a tray, and Nikolai, who had been leaning back against the wall, slowly opened one eye.

  It was a younger nurse, and she was staring at him with utter worship in her eyes.

  He cursed inwardly and toned down his aura again, realizing he had forgotten about it and had simply left it running the entire time. No wonder he felt completely drained, because his ability to push his aura outward and maintain it constantly certainly wasn’t free.

  “Healer Travelion, please… have something to drink,” she said, her cheeks flushed with color.

  Nikolai nodded gratefully and drank three glasses of some tart juice before finally putting the cup down.

  “Thank you… that hit the spot.”

  She smiled brightly. “Happy to hear it. Here, we had some food prepared for you. Sorry if it’s a bit simple…”

  A large plate piled high with dried ham, jerky, eggs, and cheese immediately caught his attention. A bowl of butter and a whole loaf of bread accompanied it.

  Taking the tray, he grinned. “Simple is often best!”

  She giggled softly. “You’re too kind, Healer Travelion. Say, can I ask you a question?”

  Nikolai gestured for her to continue, his mouth already full of ham.

  “How are you so strong? We have seen healers before, but none of us have ever seen anything quite like what you did in there.”

  Nikolai gave her a wry grin. “Trade secret, sorry.”

  She pouted for barely a second before she began asking him question after question, ranging from his favorite food to where he was from and everything in between.

  At least until she was interrupted by someone else arriving.

  Kaelith.

  The petite black-haired woman stood there with her hands on her hips, the robe-dress swaying lightly in the wind while her face remained hidden behind the familiar black mask.

  The nurse—who he had learned was called Jody—jumped in surprise and instinctively grabbed his arm, pressing herself against him.

  Nikolai almost rolled his eyes but managed to resist.

  “Hey Kaelith, you done at the guild?” he asked, completely ignoring the situation.

  She nodded. “I am. You finished here? You must have been busy, you seem a little… drained.”

  Nikolai glanced down at his empty plate, drank the last of the juice, and grinned.

  “Yes to both!”

  He carefully peeled Jody off his arm and stood up, straightening his robes.

  “I need a bath. Did you take care of lodgings?” he asked.

  Kaelith rolled her eyes. “What do you think? Of course I took care of it.”

  She then turned fully toward Jody, who had been staring longingly at him before flinching slightly when her gaze met Kaelith’s purple eyes.

  “Thank you for providing food for my companion, but we must be going now,” Kaelith said politely.

  Jody opened her mouth to say something, paused, and instead looked toward Nikolai.

  He smiled warmly. “Make sure the patients get plenty of food and rest. Goodbye for now.”

  Then he turned and followed Kaelith back toward the guild.

  A bath and a bed.

  That sounded like heaven.