3
“Uggggggggh…!”
“C’mon, bite on a stick if you need to. This is gonna sting,” Todd said, wrapping a bandage soaked in a pungent medicine around the splint on Subaru’s broken fingers before tying it off tightly.
“The last thing is to drink this medicine. It should help with the pain some, at least.”
Subaru was covered in a cold sweat as Todd gave him a bottle of medicine. Inside was a viscous, green liquid, and steeling himself, Subaru downed the bottle.
“Bleh! Nasty! I-I can feel it clinging to my throat…!”
“It’s famous for being hard to drink. It’s rare and works like a charm, though. It’ll help you heal faster.”
Todd smiled as he picked up the empty bottle.
Subaru wiped his mouth, then…
“Sorry,” he said as he bowed slightly to Todd. “You wasted valuable medicine on someone like me.”
“It’s fine. Honestly, if you’d left it any longer, those fingers would have started rotting off. Can’t exactly call in a favor from a swordwolf knife bearer like that.” Todd laughed magnanimously.
Subaru bit his lip. The reason Todd was being so friendly was that he thought Subaru was connected to high Volakian nobility. He felt bad deceiving someone who was treating him well, and his heart twinged.
“Still, though, at times like this, it makes you think. I could get it fixed in no time with healing magic.”
To mask his guilt, Subaru changed the subject.
He was acting like it was no big deal, but it was something he had been wondering about—the treatments that seemed available here had been pretty lacking in fantasy vibes.
“Oh? Now that’s extravagant. Healing magic isn’t something you run into every day.”
“…I guess that’s just how it is?”
“Well, yeah. Of course, it would be useful if you could heal wounds or sickness as easily as lighting a fire or making a breeze,” Todd said with a shrug. “It’d heal your hand in no time, too.”
Subaru looked down. He felt both uneasy and relieved that his supposition had been on the mark.
In the past, back before he had found out about Roswaal’s plot and thought the man was just some easygoing jester noble, Roswaal had told Subaru about the rarity of healing magic. How magic was influenced by talent, and that people who could use healing magic were incredibly precious.
Add to that the fact that this camp’s medical tent was filled with poultices and bottles of medicine and stocked with medical instruments of all kinds instead of magic items.
And the fact that Todd had not relied on anything magical while taking care of Subaru’s hand—just medicine and a splint.
There was no mistaking it…
“Healing magic really is rare.”
“At the very least, I’ve never seen it before. From what I’ve heard, everyone who can use it is kept holed up in the capital. Either way, for regular folks, it might as well be in a different world entirely.”
“ ”
“If anything, I’m surprised to hear you even mention it. It wouldn’t even have occurred to me as being an option.”
It was something so unfamiliar, it was like it didn’t even exist.
That was how little the people in the empire, or at least Todd, interacted with healing magic.
And so, having expected that response, Subaru just shook his head.
“No—I mentioned we were travelers, right? We’ve been around, and we happened to run into someone who could use healing magic before, is all.”
“I see. I thought your clothing was odd. Your outfits didn’t seem suitable for the heat around here.”
Todd looked Subaru up and down. The clothes Subaru was wearing were the ones he had worn to get through the desert and take on the Pleiades Watchtower. Despite the desert vibes, the Auguria dunes had not been that hot, but in order to deal with the sandstorms, pretty much every bit of his skin was covered. Because of that, here in hot, humid Volakia, he was wearing an outfit that could only be described as out of season.
“So you ran into a healer during your journeys and were corrupted by the convenience.”
“Phrasing! It is definitely convenient, though.”
Subaru had actually been helped out by healing magic a few times…or maybe a lot of times.
From the very start of his time in this world, surviving his very first major hurdle had required Beatrice’s healing magic. If it had not been for her, Subaru’s stomach would have stayed split, and he would have had to live with his insides hanging out.
“I don’t want to have to trip over my own guts again.”
While Subaru was remembering a fairly unique experience, Todd exhaled quietly.
“Healing magic, huh?”
“—? Todd?”
Subaru furrowed his brow at the sudden change in mood.
“Nah.” Todd closed an eye. “I was just thinking healing magic’s a brutal thing, and I’m glad I don’t see it much.”
“Brutal? …Why? Isn’t it the opposite?”
Subaru struggled to understand what Todd was trying to say.
“I mean,” Todd said, one eye still closed, “healing wounds means not dying. No pulling back because you’re wounded, either. Get your wounds healed, and get back in the fight. That’s what it means to be able to heal wounds.”
“ ”
“It’s a scary thing. How much did whoever thought of the first healing magic love fighting? Can’t say I wanna see it up close, either.”
Subaru couldn’t formulate a reply.
He wouldn’t say it was an even-handed perspective. It was not like healing magic could only be used on the battlefield. It had a role day-to-day, saving people who got sick or had accidents.
But Todd’s perspective wasn’t wrong, either.
Healing someone who was wounded on the battlefield, then sending them back in to keep fighting. There was no denying that possibility, and no denying Todd’s fear of it, either.
But if Todd’s reaction was the same as the average person’s in Volakia, then Subaru would have to keep another thing in mind on his road back to Lugunica.
That was…
“…I gotta keep it a secret that Rem can use healing magic.”
Subaru might just have been overthinking it, but it needed to be taken seriously.
Right now, Rem had forgotten how to use her magic, and in all likelihood she had also forgotten how to transform into an oni and manifest her horn. But there was no fundamental reason to assume she couldn’t do what she had been able to do before.
If, for some reason, she was able to activate her healing magic, and someone here saw…
“At the very least, it will make the road back home a lot longer.”
Whether it was for good or ill, they would definitely be stopped. And Subaru needed to avoid that. Of course, if lives were on the line then perhaps, but…
“Sorry, I got off track there. Wasn’t trying to give you any more wrinkles.” Seeing Subaru fall silent, Todd tried to reset the mood.
Subaru nodded at a perspective he had not really considered before and said, “It’s fine.”
Then, changing the topic, Todd looked out of the tent.
“But that means that missy out there is your partner on this trip, right? So why is she snapping at you so much?”
“…An unforeseen accident is probably how I’d put it. We got along well before, but for now it’s all one-way communication, in more ways than one. Gotta take the long view on it, I guess,” Subaru said wistfully.
“I mean, it’s no skin off my nose, but it looks pretty rough on you… But in that case—”
Not probing into their relationship any further, Todd touched his chin while looking away.
His gaze moved toward Subaru’s right arm, which Subaru had been rather intentionally ignoring. Clinging to it, like she had been for a while now—
“Aaah?”
—was Louis, vacantly looking up at him while making a silly noise.
She was beaming as if enjoying herself as she clung to his arm, sometimes playing with his fingers and wrapping her hair around them, and just sort of having the time of her life.
“Given the ages here, she’s not your kid. What’s your relationship to her?”
“I already said, she’s no one I know. But she’s nothing good, that’s for sure.”
“That’s pretty harsh… The girl in the cage sure seemed to care about her, though?”
“That’s the problem…”
With Todd pointing it out to him again, Subaru couldn’t help sighing at the complicated situation he had gotten himself into.
Currently, Subaru was striking out with Rem, and a big part of why she was so cold with him was because he ignored Louis.
But even knowing that, he couldn’t bring himself to accept Louis.
Of course he couldn’t. She was an Archbishop of the Witch Cult. Pure evil, with whom he couldn’t coexist.
“How did things end up like this? What are you planning, and what is it you want?”
“Uuh? Aah, aaooh.”
Louis just smiled at his question and did not answer.
Everything about her was annoying. Of course, if she’d answered with the same viciousness as she had shown in the corridors of memory, that would have been a problem, too, but at least he wouldn’t have had any trouble writing her off as an enemy.
It was better than her acting like a baby or a little child like she was doing now, where only he could recognize how dangerous she was.
“Well, you’re on the road together. Wherever you go, you should at least try to get along a bit better.”
“…Who exactly is that FYI for?”
“Huh? Well, you can interpret it however you want.”
Cocking his head at the unfamiliar acronym, Todd stood up.
This was a medical tent, so hanging around chatting any longer than they already had would probably be frowned on. Subaru stood up as well, Louis still clinging to his right hand.
“Now then, we got your hand looked at… Ready to take care of a chore?”
“Hmm? Ah, yeah, it’s better than feeling guilty and sitting around doing nothing. Give me whatever job you want. I’ll take any job other than eating boots.”
“Guess Jamal’s boot really didn’t sit well with you… Fine, fine, I won’t let that happen. For now…”
Todd glanced at a group of tents with black banners, thinking to himself.
Subaru followed his gaze.
“That is…?”
“Gear for the camp. A bunch of general stuff we needed to bring, but it’s difficult dealing with it all piece by piece. So that’s where you come in, my tidy friend.”
“…Did I ever say anything about being tidy?”
“Nope. But I was just thinking it would sure be nice if you were. And even if you didn’t happen to be, I had a feeling you’d do your best anyway, since you’re grateful for being saved and all.”
“…Gee, thanks, Todd. Anyone ever tell you that you have a shining personality?”
Todd was saying something pretty nasty with an amiable smile on his face. Subaru’s cheeks twitched a bit, and he looked over at the bunch of black tents.
At a glance, there were around twenty of them; they were all filled with supplies; and as Todd had said, they were very much not in order.
“This isn’t a one- or even two-day job…”
“Don’t worry about that; just get it done before the resupply wagon leaves. Ha-ha-ha.”
“Ha-ha…”
In other words, “hop to it.”
Considering the state of his left hand, it was a difficult request, but that was just how things went.
“This is for today’s bread, in order to get back to Emilia-tan together with Rem…”
“Uuuh!”
While Subaru clenched his fist and prepared to face the difficult job before him, Louis cheered. Lowering his arm, Subaru grimaced.
The Archbishop was adding to Subaru’s mental, emotional, and physical burdens without even seeming to realize it. She was just as vicious as she was before, but even harder to deal with now.
“After Shaula, too. Too many people I don’t know have been clinging to me lately…”
“Aah, uuiuh.”
Dragging Louis, who seemed cheerful regardless of whether she understood what was going on or not, Subaru headed toward the black tents.
Thinking to himself that—unlike with Shaula, with whom he’d eventually come to an understanding—coexistence with Louis was impossible.
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