Nalia watched as Hazel, seeing that both the duel and subsequent talk were done, quickly walked up to Ricardo and asked:

“Are you okay?”

“It doesn’t feel too bad, but I wouldn’t say no to some healing.” He replied.

She nodded and reached out her hand to touch his side, a bit above the actual injury, then channeled her magic. Seeing that, Nalia focused her senses, interested in what Hazel’s healing skills were like.

“I see… It’s not a big injury.” Hazel said while doing her healing “Done.”

‘I’ll need to get a closer view of her healing to fully grasp it, but it seemed quite gentle and well-controlled from what I could see.’ Nalia spoke to the others.

‘You’ll get the chance when she’s healing me.’ Elise replied.

As the procedure was finished, Ricardo let out a breath and seemed to relax. Elise opened her mouth, probably to bring up a question about how their cooperation should be done when the dryad clapped her hands together to attract everyone’s attention:

“Okay, now that the duel is over, please go back and eat before the food gets cold!” She told her teammates before turning to Elise’s group “I can work on your injury while they’re eating. Unless you also want some?”

“No, we’ve eaten only a bit ago.” Elise replied “But don’t you have to eat?”

Hazel shook her head “I eat while I’m preparing stuff.”

“Then should we go somewhere else for you to work?” Came Elise’s second question.

“I don’t think it’s really needed, but you should probably sit down, at least.”

The contractor had no issue with simply dropping down to sit on the ground, and Nalia moved down to remain close to her head before asking the dryad a question of her own:

“Can I have some analysis spells observing the procedure? I always like learning more magic.” Which was entirely true, though of course her main goal was keeping an eye to make sure Hazel wouldn’t do anything untoward.

If the dryad noticed those inner motives, she didn’t really care, for her answer was simply “It shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t suddenly alter those analysis spells mid-procedure.”

Nalia assured her she wouldn’t and Elise made to remove her bandages but Hazel assured her that wouldn’t be necessary, crouched down in front of the sitting girl and reached out to touch her shoulder as the fairy set up her spells.

From the perspective of those analysis spells, Nalia once again took in the sight of Elise’s damaged arm and felt a pang of guilt at the thought, but she quickly suppressed it and focused on watching what the healer would do.

Hazel channeled her magic and inserted it into Elise through her shoulder before making it flow down through the arm. The fairy saw very clearly that her initial assessment of the magic as ‘gentle’ was accurate, since the dryad’s probing spell seemed to barely interact with Elise’s flesh, only enough to get a grasp on her condition.

Hazel muttered “Hmm… Quite some damage”, but Nalia only heard it like a distant voice, such was her focus on the inner workings of Elise’s body and the dryad’s magic. She saw as Hazel’s probe went over the torn muscles, damaged bones and cut veins, as well as the many surgical strings, plastic bandages, metal pins and all sorts of artificial substances that had been put into Elise’s arm to try and fix the problems.

Then Hazel’s magic moved with a very direct will, diving into the center of the damage and accumulating more and more, before a strand of power began to knit Elise’s flesh back together… For about two seconds before it suddenly stopped, a wave of magic then going up her arm and into a part that was seemingly fine, except an artery ruptured right at that moment, thus needing that wave of power to prevent that injury from making things much worse.

“I see.” Hazel then said “This isn’t just ordinary damage. There is also an aspect of sacrifice here. Trying to fix things directly leads to the body breaking down by itself.” She paused for a few seconds, as if trying to decide on her next move “But I should at least be able to…”

After one last pass to make sure the new injury was properly dealt with, Hazel’s magic went back towards the main damaged part and then began to move around some of the surgery implements inside Elise’s body “This part has healed enough that it doesn’t need all those bandages, so I can shift a portion of them here…” She moved them to a more damaged part.

And that was just the beginning. Hazel then undid some of the string work in order to repurpose the lines for other parts before muttering “This is definitely a mistake. Was there something keeping them from seeing it properly during the surgery?” and carefully removing one of the metal pins from the arm entirely.

Hazel did some smaller work around it, mostly fixing the positions of some veins before pausing for a moment and saying “Ah! And this should help.” Then she began to use her healing magic on some of the non-damaged flesh and skin, making it grow and stretching it over some of the problematic areas like a biological bandage “Now I just need to set this up to fuse properly as you’re healing and…” She stopped talking, focusing fully for a few seconds, doing some strange transmutation on the flesh that Nalia could barely comprehend, then pulled her magic completely out of Elise.

The contractor sighed deeply once it was done, the healing process having clearly taken some toll on her, while Hazel was taking long breaths to recover from the magical and mental exertion, so no one spoke for a bit.

The silence was broken by Hazel “Sorry. Fully healing you is not within my ability. The changes I did should make it hurt and bleed less, but I can only say that recovery will take time.”

Elise shook her head “It’s okay. I already knew this was something that wouldn’t have a miracle solution, and I made my decision while having that in mind. Your help will make the rest of my recovery a lot more comfortable, and that’s more than I could have asked for. Thank you.”

Hazel smiled in response before standing up from her crouch and offering Elise a hand to get up herself.

Looking up, Nalia deduced that the whole healing process had taken less than half an hour to complete, and looking around she saw that both Nina and Yura had been waiting patiently on the side.

Hazel saw the same thing and said “Okay, how about we go inside now?”

+0+

Yura looked around and saw that the other members of the lotus defenders were eating and talking. They briefly paused when the new group came in, but Hazel told them she’d ‘entertain the guests’ while they were eating, so they went back to their own business.

Elise seemed to have decided there was no need to waste time, so she asked Hazel “I want to know everything you can tell me about this incident. When and how it started would be a good place to begin.”

“Okay, that’s fine with me.” The dryad replied “As far as I know, everything began four months and twelve days ago, when the first bizarre magical creature appeared.”

“Weren’t there any signs beforehand? I mean did anything strange happen that might have some connection with those incidents?” Nalia asked.

In response, Hazel tried to think back to those days to see if she could remember anything of the sort. Meanwhile, Yura’s attention was captured by the other members of the lotus defenders. The elf girl didn’t really think she had much to add to the conversation anyway, so she listened to it with one ear while watching the dining group.

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Now that the initial tension was gone, she was able to tell a lot more about their dynamics from watching. They were all sitting at the table to eat, save for Lauria, who despite having her own small plate was flitting around, asking for a taste from the others here and there.

“The first incident happened close to Ashina island.” That was Hazel replying to a question from Elise.

“The island that holds the major council?” Nalia asked, which the dryad confirmed.

Yura very easily noticed that Ricardo was very much the center of the group, leading the conversation (which seemed to be mostly about casual subjects, rather than the current crisis) and listening attentively when he wasn’t speaking. Ember was mostly listening and eating, but she was still making contributions to the conversation once in a while. Leonem, as they had already seen, was quite friendly and talkative, always having some comment to make regardless of the subject, to the point where his plate looked like it had barely been touched, while Silvie spoke only about as much as Ember and with a lot more hesitation.

“… a definite pattern to the incidents.” That was Elise talking.

“It’s vague but I think you’re right.” Nina replied “Besides the first few, all of them have occurred on the west side of the zone.”

“The number of incidents so far is still too small to say that for certain.” Nalia disagreed “Plus saying that it has something to do with the west side doesn’t really

narrow things down enough.”

And back to Yura’s observation, there were also the two people who weren’t taking part of the conversation. Onyx had taken some of the documents to the table and was continuing his work while eating robotically, while Naiou was focusing mostly on her own food, but sometimes she would sneak a glance at him, as if she was afraid he’d hurt himself by not paying attention to what he was doing.

The earth mage felt like she could understand how the Lotus Defenders worked in terms of their interactions with each other just from what she’d been able to observe during that short time. She knew that was a false impression, though, specially given that Hazel wasn’t part of that scene.

Thinking of the dryad, Yura caught the latter half of a sentence from her:

“… certainly building up to something.”

“Yeah, but it’s hard to say whether that’s due to a conscious design or a natural effect. Specially given how varied those creatures are.” Elise replied.

That sounded pretty interesting, so Yura almost regretted not paying proper attention to the conversation with Hazel, but she could just ask about everything later on, so no worries.

+0+

Yura had already expected it, so once the other group finished their meal, she wasn’t surprised when Ricardo was the first to address Elise.

“Okay. I already know who you people are, and I’m sure Leonem has told you about us, but I think our groups should still introduce themselves personally, just to make sure we’re all in the same page.” He then turned his head slightly to his companions “This means you too, Onyx.”

The gnome, who had already dived fully back into his research, looked over in apparent surprise at being called out, but then nodded slowly after a moment.

“I agree with that idea.” Elise replied “And since we’re the visitors and the smaller group, I think we should go first.”

Ricardo nodded in assent, and Elise began speaking:

“My name is Elise, I’m a contractor and I’m actually not someone from this continent. I come from the Bramos continent instead.” That was, as Yura knew, the place where the White Star Mountain Range was located, the place Elise grew up in.

“Really?” Ricardo seemed surprised “It’s rare for people from Bramos to come to this continent.”

Elise smiled and replied “Based on what I’ve heard, it’s rare for anyone from any other continent to come here.”

“Point.” Ricardo allowed “But I’d say that Bramos people are even rarer than most. Could you tell us why you came here?” He asked in a tone that was fully expecting to be refused.

Elise decided to answer anyway “I trained the basic abilities of a contractor back home, but it was better to try and find contract partners somewhere else.” She paused for a few moments, clearly considering how much she should share “If I kept staying beneath my older sister’s wings, I would never develop into a strong contractor.” She eventually finished.

“That makes sense.” Naiou interjected “Any group that lets its members coast on the older members’ coattails is destined to decay as time goes on, so having them prove their mettle by training outside the group’s influence is a good way to guarantee that the next generations would be able to maintain the group’s status and influence.”

Yura knew that Elise’s situation wasn’t exactly like that, but the girl clearly decided it was close enough, so she didn’t say anything against that. There were a few moments of silence as people waited to see if anyone else had more comments, but then Nalia flew a bit forward and made her own introduction:

“I’m Nalia. I come from the place you would call Forest of Dawn, and I guess you could call me a generalist mage.” She smoothly downplayed her own skills.

“How did you and Elise met, then?” Leonem asked.

Nalia paused for a moment, thinking of what to say, before replying:

“There was a dangerous entity in the forest which I was trying to fight when Elise passed by. She helped me deal with it and then we talked for a bit and she offered to help me learn magic beyond my imagination.” She summed up the dramatic events as such.

“Just based on what I’ve seen so far, that sounds very much like her.” Ricardo said in a light tone, causing Elise to smile.

“It sounds like a very interesting story. Could you…” Lauria was stopped by Ricardo giving her a look “But we can hear more about it later. Who will be the next one to talk?”

“I will.” Nina declared, stepping forward decisively as Nalia floated back “My name is Nina. I’m from the forest of Theremis. My first encounter was a bit like Nalia’s. Elise caught me when I was spying on her out of curiosity, and then she and Nalia helped when my village was being attacked.

“It sounds like you already know a little about the things that were happening in the

forest during that time, but long story short, Elise promised to make me strong, and so we made a contract and we helped deal with the situation as mercenaries.” Nina finished.

“She promised to make you strong?” Ember asked, surprised “But that didn’t happen all that long ago. Can someone really get as strong as you in such a short period?”

“Yes.” Nina replied with a grin “But I could barely believe how fast I got stronger, so I understand.”

Ember then looked at Elise, still looking a bit incredulous, so the contractor decided to explain herself.

“Nina’s quick growth was simply due to a combination of a really effective training method I knew of combined with the pressure of the crisis in the forest, which was a good environment to foster her strength.” She then decided to be cheeky and added “And her growth isn’t really all that fast in the grand scheme of things. People in other continents would find it more or less normal, in fact.”

Ember sighed but seemed to accept that. Nina, on the other hand, visibly deflated, making Yura stifle a laugh.

The rabbit girl then turned to look at her for a moment and walked back, obviously letting the elf girl have her go.

Yura walked forward, quickly thinking about what she’d say. She didn’t feel comfortable talking about her past, but Leonem had asked how they met Elise, so…

“My name is Yura. My birthplace was a city that doesn’t exist any longer. I met Elise and the others by chance while they were fighting a monster, and asked for help in dealing with a problem in Danmin.”

She paused to give her listeners the chance to process that before continuing “One thing led to another, and after we managed to survive a really dangerous situation, she offered me a contract.” Yura glossed over the part about the temporary contract, as it wasn’t that important “I accepted because I wanted a family.” She finished in a deep tone, thanks to thinking back to that moment.

Surprisingly enough, Onyx was the first one to comment “I see. It sounds like you’ve been through a lot.” He said in an empathetic tone.

“But it looks like you’re happy being Elise’s contract partner.” Silvie put in “In fact, all of you look happy with the way things are.”

“Well, of course.” Elise replied “That should be the goal of any contract. Making both parties happy. I certainly wouldn’t want to spend my life with people that aren’t happy being with me.”

“I can agree with that idea. Definitely.” Ricardo replied “Then I guess it’s our turn to talk, unless you have something else to say?”

No one did, so the knight nodded and began to speak “My name is Ricardo Ferreira. I’m a knight born in the Linus Kingdom, so I’m the only member of the group who wasn’t born in the Lotus Lake Zone, but I’ve already been here for almost a decade.” He paused for a moment, as if trying to think of what else to say “I began trying to help people around here because even the warriors in service of the greater council rarely moved around too much, preferring to protect the main islands, so there was no one to protect the people on the borders. The rest of the team more or less formed around me.”

The greater council was the closest thing the Lotus Lake Zone had to a ruling body, being a combination of representatives from the biggest and most important settlements in the region. Yura knew about it due to Elise’s previous research. And she wasn’t surprised at all about such a group not doing much to help those not under their direct umbrella.

The fact that Ricardo was the one to make the team was a bit more surprising. Yura had thought the team was something older that he had joined, something like a loose collection of defenders that he then turned into a better connected group, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

Ricardo had finished speaking, and after a brief pause Leonem was the one to step forward to introduce himself.

“I already introduced myself to you all, but I’m Leonem.” He smiled “My parents were elf nomads who decided to settle themselves here because the elemental power around was agreeable to their traditions of wind magic, which they taught me. I’ve only been in the team for the last year and a half, and I decided to join after seeing the others saving a caravan from a group of bandits.”

His introduction was more or less exactly what Yura expected. Though given the way he mentioned his parents, she thought they were probably still alive. She wondered what they thought about his current occupation.

Regardless, it didn’t seem like anyone had any comment to make about it. Perhaps they felt curious about his parents as well but didn’t really want to bring it up. So the elf boy moved back to let the next person talk.