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"Uhhh...!" Vestin fearfully whines from behind. She's too drained to do anything to help me, which is honestly what I deserve after pushing her to teleport us into this cave. I'm wrought with pain, suffering from blunt trauma, but we can't end the story here. I know I have no choice but to best this big bully at his own game, right?

I have no choice. I really don't. At least, that's what I need to tell myself to get moving!

The club has limited swing in the cave's opening, so horizontal swings are all I can really anticipate -- nothing over the head, as I previously noted the hobgoblin's head grazed the cave ceiling alone. He has no clearance to do anything vertical. It's still dangerous, but I can count on not getting squashed at least.

I can sense the hobgoblin's aether threads, but they're taught and nearly impossible to sap as it stands. I need to get a connection to his body through my sword, which means close quarters. I don't have outstanding speed quite yet, though, so all I can do is hope I can outsmart this thing while dodging his gigantic club. The club itself is probably about the size of a standard human, about five or six feet long and made of wood. It packs a punch, and I need to learn how to heal if I'm gonna risk taking another hit from that thing. Surely there's a way to repurpose the energy I stole from that wolf like that, right? I try to channel my extra energy to my stomach where I feel warm with probable internal bleeding. There's a warmer feeling, and I think for a moment the injuries got worse. The pain's not gone, in fact there's a newfound itchiness from my efforts, but I can't think about the effects of whatever I just tried to do right now. I've got a club barreling at me!

The club comes at me hard. I just barely manage to evade it, dipping down to the ground as the wooden weapon grazes my back, tearing my shirt in the process. I take the moment that he has to take to recover as an opportunity to close in the distance, and within seconds despite my unremarkable speed I'm in his bubble just enough to jab my blade out and dig it deep into his stomach. I can feel it now -- that connection to his aether threads. He lets off an enraged cry, and I've got mere seconds to make this count. They're tough to grab, but with my blade dug into him I'm able to rip free a massive arrangement of those silken threads that define his life.

As those threads come free and draw into my body, I feel myself start to sweat profusely with an abundance of energy inside of me. I need to get it out immediately, and press a hand to the hobgoblin's stomach in a hurry, excising the energy I'd just stolen in the form of a black energy ball, eating away at his gut before leaving his midsection an empty husk. Blood splatters on me again, but this time, it's more like a rain shower over me as the hobgoblin begins to keel over from pain and, soon enough, loss of life. I'm basically dyed red on my shirt now, but my face has new war paint too. It's too wet, though -- I let the hobgoblin topple to the ground, wiping my face with my free hand.

"Ugh..." I groan at the blood's inconvenience. That being said, I won! Here's a party popper.

Vestin is frozen behind me, unable to process the atrocities she'd just seen. "What did you...?"

"... Stole his aether, then used it to power an orb inside of him. It worked pretty well," I say, somewhat out of breath. I cough, and there's blood of mine mixing with the hobgoblin's that I'd just killed. I really did start bleeding internally... "I also tried to heal myself with the wolf's aether, but I don't know if it worked. I'm still in pain."

"Healing doesn't cure pain, that's a nervous system reaction," Vestin says. "So maybe you did."

"Oh, that makes sense."

"Still, you're too calm."

"I still think it's the denial. It's hardly been 24 hours since I originally died because of you."

While we're discussing things over the hobgoblin's final breath, I hear something faint. Vestin is looking past me still, and after a moment she says, "There's... s-something over there."

She points to another tunnel that I hadn't noticed in the dim light of the torches. Keen to investigate and not so keen to receive another sneak attack, I make haste to the corner she's pointing at, snagging one of the torches off the hobgoblin's homemade stand to illuminate what I can't see as is. As the glow of the torch reaches the corner, I'm already greeted with the scent of rotting flesh and whinge back, not willing to go another step.

I nearly double back in repulsion, but something catches my eye. Movement.

That is, the flicking of a foxlike ear.

There's life?

Despite my senses revolting, I move in a bit closer and shine the torch on the black-tipped foxlike ear I just saw. There's two of them, and connected to them is a humanoid head full of long orange hair. I shine it further along, and it's a nude man before me with fox ears that I've discovered. He's shakily trying to pick himself up, but failing. His features are youthful but covered in filth, and there's clear trauma the man's faced up to now. I look a little closer and realize he's actually bound at the feet, but his hands, while bruised from bindings, are no longer bound. How long has he been here like this?

"These bodies were prisoners, maybe?" I mutter, stooping down to my knees to get a look at the fox boy. "Hey. Look at me."

The fox boy, fearing for his life perhaps, does just so. Yellow eyes make contact with mine, and they're glazed over with tears. Does he think rescue is imminent? He's probably right, but I can't say I know the first thing about securing a rescued body.

"... He's a beastman," Vestin murmurs, moving in to inspect his body. The torch is starting to burn a little hot, but I continue holding it so I can see this guy properly.

"Can you heal him?" I ask Vestin.

"I can't."

"I'll have to try."

"But you don't know how!"

"I've figured everything else out pretty well. Hang on. I gotta at least try."

I put a hand over the fox boy's body, and he's devastatingly cold. I can see his aether threads; they're all frayed, broken or downright missing. I could try to transfer the leftover aether I got from the hobgoblin, but how do I do it without killing him is the question. I sigh, and take in a moment to look at the situation at hand.

I reach out in my mind to these aether threads. Gently, gently. I can't hurt him. As I'm doing this, for some reason I can feel the despair and fear inside of him, causing me to tear up despite my eyes being shut for focus. I just want to repair those threads, so slowly I take my time envisioning imparting my own energy to repair them.

"What are you doing...?" Vestin murmurs in concern.

"Trying to heal him."

I'm probably taking the long way around, but he's warming up. This certainly isn't a way to heal on the fly, but maybe my attentiveness here means he'll turn out better than a short-term heal. Right?

"She's... healing my soul... directly...?" A raspy, weak voice whispers in confusion. Ah, it's coming from the fox boy.

"Oh. You can talk," I say flatly, the smallest of warbles in my voice from the residual despair in my soul from repairing him. "What's your name?"

"Fe... Ferenc," he manages. His voice is a little broken, as though he had been screaming. I look to Vestin for her impressions. She's devastated to see him in such a state.

"Well, what do we do?" I say to the goddess.

"We... We can't just leave him."

"Okay, we recover him and take him to a medical facility?"

"... Um... I don't... think there's a facility that will see beastmen... nearby..."

"No? Why?"

"... Beastmen are discriminated against in our region," she whispers, cupping her hands around my ear to conceal her voice from the injured beastman before us. "Nobody will want to see him."

"... Ah." Well, say less. "Guess we're taking him in."

"A-are you sure about that?"

"Look at him. He's as intelligent as us. There's no need to discriminate against him."

"Please... Don't... waste your time..." His brittle voice sounds amid our discussion once again.

"Waste my time?" I ask. I then shake my head. "Make it worth my time, and you won't need to worry about it being a waste of my time, yeah?"

"..." The beastman is at a loss for words.

I glance to Vestin. "Can I tell him, Vesti?"

"What? No!"

"Relax, I was going to tell him anyway. At least, what he needs to know." I look his way. He looks like he's drifting into unconsciousness... "Hey. Listen to me. Don't fall asleep now."

I gently slap his check to shock him back awake. He jolts, and shakily sits himself up to prevent himself from easily losing consciousness.

"Do you have any home to return to?"

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"... No..." He whispers.

"Great. In that case, you'll teach me about this world. I'm sure you'll do a better job than this girl, right?" I thumb to Vestin, and both parties look perplexed. "Here. Let me heal you a little more. Or whatever I did, anyway."

"Stop!" He rasps, holding up a shaky hand. "You... You weren't healing me. You were repairing my soul. That's... How did you..."

"How did I do it? I want you to tell me. And how do I heal you?"

Ferenc is a bit baffled in this moment. But, he obliges to his savior. "Forbidden arts are hard to explain. But I can... I can explain how to heal."

"Okay, go."

"Marie, we can't stay here. We need to get him out of here."

I scoff. "Alright, Vesti. Are you able to move us?"

"I-I should be able to!" She says rather bravely, but something tells me this is going to end badly, at least for her.

"Don't push yourself too hard," I warn, and gather the beastman Ferenc in my arms, something he hardly has the energy to protest.

Vestin closes her eyes and focuses hard for a moment, unlike previous teleports, which tells me this might be bad. In a flash of white light, we open our eyes and we're back in the house we're supposed to call home. Vestin's knees buckl. I can't catch her on account of holding up Ferenc, so she topples to the floor onto her bottom, practically fainting. I click my tongue, between a rock and a hard place, but if I play my cards right this could work out for us. Hang in there, Goddess.

Given he was listening when I talked about dying, Ferenc already knows too much, so either I earn his loyalty and heal him successfully or let him die, and I really don't want to do the latter.

"Vesti, please rest. Now that we're safe I've got it from here."

"You... You got it...." She mumbles breathlessly, flopping onto her side and curling up on the floor, too tired to let me know if there's an actual place to sleep right now.

Ferenc needs a bath, then I can see what kinda wounds he has. I'm sure healing has to start with knowing what's wrong first rather than repairing willy-nilly. As much of a hurry as I'm in to get him healed, I have to get the basics down now that we're out of the hobgoblin's cave.

"How do you feel about water?"

"Ugh..." He mumbles, but there isn't a no, so it's bath time.

It's actually pretty remarkable that I'm able to hold him up -- though possible only because of his emaciation -- but I'm starting to get incredibly fatigued keeping him astride. A fox tail hangs limp from my arms, and his ears are drooped in exhaustion. I pace through the house to what seems to be the master bedroom and find a master bath inside of it. A sizable tub sits in wait, and I pray we have functioning water. If we have power, surely there's nothing to worry about. I place him as gently as possible against the bathtub and test the water; it's on and flowing, but cold as ice. I turn the temperature of the water up on the faucet and wait a moment.

"How did you get in this situation?"

"... Enslaved..." He rasps softly enough to where I have to lean in to hear him. In the meantime, I loosen the binds on his ankles, and he's officially free.

"Don't strain too much." The tub's got about a foot and a half of warm, clean water in it. I swish my free hand around in it, testing the temperature. It's mild and won't send him into any shock as far as I'm concerned. "Alright, the bath's ready. Need help?"

"No, no, I...." He slowly gets on his knees and crawls into the tub. He practically rolls in once clearing the ledge, a massive splash sent out of the tub to soak me even further. Well, I do need to wash my clothes, but... Now's really not the time, nor the method. I don't even know if I have a change of clothes to substitute this set. Ferenc wiggles a bit to a sitting up position in the tub, and it's only been a few seconds, but the water's already turning a bit grimy.

"Hang on. Lemme find a sponge."

I depart from him to let him warm up in the tub, and dig through a box intricately labeled 'bath supplies' in the living room. Vestin's still curled up on the floor, absolutely out cold. We really shouldn't rely on that teleport spell of hers... Aha! Sponge! And soap! Vestin even brought over my favorite body wash, though the letters on the bottle are different from Earth's. I can still read it just fine, which is absolutely peachy in terms of convenience. Lavender lemon scent!

I rush back to the bathtub just in time; my naked beastman quarry is about to pass out in the tub from exhaustion. I come up to the side of the tub and slap his cheek lightly to shock him back awake.

"Here. I'm gonna bathe you, but I'm not wiping your ass or anything, so try to do that yourself in a bit, yeah?"

"... Yes, of course..." He mumbles, rubbing his cheek.

The next twenty minutes are spent scrubbing him head to toe in a very professional manner. The smell that fills the bathroom is absolutely splendid thanks to my favorite body wash, and in no time I'm able to see a multitude of injuries and cuts and scars on his person.

"About healing..." He says gently, finally. His hair is filthy so I use the body wash on it loosely, just once, in a small amount to keep the natural oils from washing away too much. His ears are in airplane mode, flat to avoid getting water in them. I'm listening, but I'm also wondering if he's in any state to teach. "Place your hand over my wrist, and focus your energy in your palm. Envision the makeup of my wrist; presently, it's broken, so envision..." He breaks off to clear his throat weakly. I knew it; he's talking more than he should in this state. "Envision bringing the bones back together, and instill your aether in my wrist."

I wonder if that'll work even if I use dark magic. Hmm. Envision bringing the bones back together, then presumably mending them, right? I take his wrist gingerly and set my sword down finally, hovering my free hand over his injury. I take in a deep breath, find my muse and get to work. I can see his threads; they're weak, but a lot better than before. Not that that fixed his injuries... But I think it might help him in the long run.

Ferenc takes in a sharp breath, and I assume it's starting to work, or do something. Once I'm done, the beastman shudders a sigh and takes his wrist back.

"It's healed," he reports. "But..."

"But?"

"... It was incredibly painful and itchy. Most healers don't use... dark aspect to heal. They usually use light, earth or water... Did you mean to do that?"

"Ahaha..." I nervously rub my forehead. "My specialty lies with dark magic, you could say." He seems a touch perplexed by this, but I continue on. "Did it really hurt? I'm sorry if so. It's better now, though, right?"

"Yes, it is. I'm... a touch hesitant, but try doing that on my whole body. Envision bones being mended, torn flesh being regenerated, all in general, and it will probably work -- not efficiently, but enough to get me able to walk on my own I'm sure," he says delicately. Any force from his voice and it seems like his whole body may shatter. "It's going to be painful, but that's the reality of dark healing. You couldn't have chosen a less popular form of healing magic."

"I can at least see why it's unpopular," I say. I hover my hand over his body, and he lets off a grunt of discomfort as I begin mending him with the aether I have on hand.

"Ngh...!" His ears pin back and eyes shut. "It's like... a thousand ants... in my bloody skin..." He mutters, struggling to stay still. That being said, I can see open wounds clearly scabbing over, flaking off and appearing nude again with scar tissue in the wound's place, all in an exaggerated frame of time. There's a low, disgusting groan in his body, like bones fighting against a force that puts them back in place. It takes about five minutes, and by that mark, I've depleted all my stolen aether and don't feel willing to impart my own directly, so our healing session ends.

The bathwater is absolutely filthy, but the soggy fox boy I have in my new tub is cleaner than a whistle now, and healed a good ways to boot.

"See if you can stand," I suggest, and hold out my hand, which is still immensely bloody. I need a bath after this myself. He gingerly takes my hand and pulls himself up, careful not to slip in the soapy water. He steps out of the tub, and I leave him shivering while I go to find some towels. Vestin had the decency to pack some in the box I found my body wash in, and I come back to towel him off, assuming he's still too tired to dry himself off. I hand him the towel to at least dry off his extremities, and decide go to check on Vestin.

She's woken from her slumber, sitting on the floor with a set of clothes in her lap. She's a little sleepy still, but she gazes to me with a sort of tired pride.

"I made him some clothes," she said, holding up some briefs, a white puffy-sleeved shirt and comfortable looking slacks. I nod, knowing how much I need them, and don't scorn her for presumably using more of her limited reality magic.

"Do we have a mattress for you to lay on in the other room?"

"No."

"We need one, we'll have to go and buy one as soon as possible."

"I'll just make one," she suggests, and I give her a look. While it would save us money, it would also put her in pain. I don't know what's best here, but I've gotta put on a brave face.

"... Only if it doesn't pain you," I say, and the girl looks a bit cornered for a moment.

"Got it. I'll rest a bit more."

"Sounds good," I say, even if she is trying to sleep on the floor.

I return to Ferenc with the clothes in tow, and he looks grateful albeit perplexed that we had some ready. He dresses himself while I allow him the privacy, and exits the master bath cautiously once done, almost like a caged animal.

"It's not often to see a dark magic user, let alone forbidden arts," he comments delicately, his voice still hoarse despite my healing.

"Is it?" I ask, feigning a lack of impress. Well, Vestin did seem a bit shocked when I chose it. "Will the Aetherum Ascendance not accept a dark magic user?"

"I'd... assumed you were already an Aetherum Ascendance agent," he says, connecting enough dots in my statement. "It's more common to see dark magic users taken under their wing, since otherwise they're considered outsiders, you know?"

I nod like I do know, taking his words into consideration. This is something Vestin didn't tell me.

"However, the fact that you know forbidden arts..."

I look him in the eye. Whatever he says next is important. He looks a little intimidated, though...

"... Well, the AAG will certainly want you in their ranks to keep an eye on you, so being accepted will hardly be a problem, if that's what you strive for."

That tidbit of information doesn't have me surprised. The AAG wants dark users, specifically forbidden arts ones, to keep an eye on them? It makes complete sense. The leader's one weakness is best kept in chains, after all. Vestin had to weave a specific web here to get us on track to the AAG, and while I'm not so sure how clever she really is, this much of an approach is actually pretty interesting. The AAG will want my abilities regardless of how I do on the assessment, even if it's only to keep me from challenging their top dog. I just have to make sure I survive long enough to eventually become their problem in the end.

"Ferenc, wanna join the Guild with us?"I finally say after a pause of consideration.

"Wha--?" His voice cracks, and he breaks into a raspy coughing fit. "J-join the AAG? I've gone from the slave of a hobgoblin to a potential agent of the AAG?"

"What, you don't want to?"

"It's not that... I've always dreamed of that kind of stature. I just thought my life was over back there..."

I feel a bit of melancholy now knowing I really did save his life. Not only that, but it feels like it wasn't for nothing. I really just need to learn about this world... and Vestin isn't providing information for me fast enough.

"... How ever can I repay you for such an opportunity?"

"Hah..." I laugh softly. "What's your background?"

"I was a battle instructor for my tribe in Ramhnai. I have plenty of experience fighting monsters without the AAG's involvement, considering Ramhnai is closest to Ruak."

I nod, not knowing the locales, but understanding the context pushed across.

"How did someone of such skill get captured into slavery, and sold to a hobgoblin no less?"

His ears droop. "I was enslaved by my own tribe for treason when I was found trying to negotiate with the monsters..." He muttered. "They were going to sell me off, but were ambushed by the same monster tribe I worked to negotiate with. That being said, the monster tribe still gave me to that hobgoblin after some deliberation..."

"I see. Negotiating with monsters -- you're a little bit of an idealist, aren't you?"

"I suppose you could say that. Ah, that reminds me... How did you manage to get into Ruak like that?"

"That was Ruak?" A dark cave-dwelling place with monsters...

"Yes. How do you not know?"

"W-well, Vesti teleported me there. I didn't know that was where we wound up."

"You don't know a lot of things," he mutters lightly, narrowing his eyes. "Why is that? You mentioned something about dying in the cave..."

I need to lie, fast and smooth. "Vesti says it's amnesia. I don't remember a thing, but I do remember wanting to join the Aetherum Ascendance Guild."

He's still suspicious, but Ferenc lightens up a touch at that. "I see," he says, sighing softly and rubbing his cheek with a palm. "... As much as I'd like to talk more, I'm exhausted..."

"... Sorry, your only option for rest is the floor. Can you manage that?"

"I've been sleeping in a cave for who knows how long. This is a step up."

"Right, then," I say, and he moves to a corner of the master bedroom, plopping down, his rather immense fox tail wrapping around him for warmth, mostly dried off by now from the bath. He rather calmly flops onto his side on the wooden floor, and I'm fighting off a grin at how it's kind of endearing how he settles down, just like a real animal.

As quickly as that grin tries to surface, a deep frown turns the corners of my mouth down drastically.

I need a bath.