“Alright, Uriel, Nameless child - before I leave there is still something I would like to do while investigating the alleged cult - I found out that something happened in Exversia,” Adam explained,

“What happened?” Uriel asked we were sitting at the living room table, the chair arranged in a circle.

“Allegedly a massive crack appeared with molten rock pouring out,” Adam replied.

“Did those idiots build the city on a volcano?!” I demanded thinking about the fact it was built on high ground, I didn’t expect them to be this reckless though.

“I think it’s worse, the entire underground tunnel was flooded with lava,” Adam explained.

“Someone wanted to kill the demons in there…” Uriel concluded,

“That’s what I thinking, but what if that’s just one of the demon’s abilities? Like what if they’re still down there, but they filled the tunnel with lava to stop anyone from going down there!” Adam proposed,

“Wouldn’t it be better to flood it then? It’d be less suspicious and would still deter people from going in there!” Lily suggested,

Adam ignored the suggestion.

“Yeah, if you don’t want people coming to look for you a giant pool of glowing, liquid rock is not the best option,” I commented,

“Yeah, you might be right, nameless child - It’s most likely an attack on the demons…but who would carry out an attack at the cost of the capital?” Adam asked.

“What about the wizard’s guild?” I asked,

“They’re a likely suspect - but I’d say they’re more likely to cut them up and use them for experiments at the cost of the entire city ranter than destroy them,” Adam replied,

“Maybe there is some demon infighting?” Lily suggested getting no reply from Adam.

“It’s not impossible, I mean demons aren’t exactly all the same - some are more reasonable and some are chaotic beasts,” Uriel explained.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Adam replied.

Lily pouted and marched out of the building shutting the door behind her.

“Good job, Adam.” I sighed sarcastically,

“Psychological warfare!” Adam exclaimed giving me a thumbs up,

“Don’t pat yourself on the back for that…” Uriel sighed.

“Seriously though, we should go and investigate what’s going on in the capital,” Adam said resolutely.

“Alright, let’s go have a look,” I suggested patting my side making sure I still have my gun and ammo on me.

Uriel, Adam and I got up and headed towards the door, I only had a few coppers on me in case I got hungry.

We headed down the road, turning towards Exversia.

As soon as we came into view of the city we were shocked by the number of carts leaving the city, dozens of bodies wrapped in reddish-yellow cloth carted off by hooded figures, the carts pulled by a strange bird-like creature.

Over the city, a large cloud of smoke remained.

We headed towards the city, at the large gate we were stopped by the guards, “Sorry - the city’s closed to all non-locals.” the moustached guard said sternly.

“We’re here to help out, we can heal people,” Adam explained hoping to sway the guard’s judgement,

“You can heal? Hell - we can always use healers,” he sighed stepping aside to let the group through.

We stepped into the city seeing the dozens of people sitting along the walls of the buildings - burns covered their bodies, from small pink wounds on their arms to charred off limbs.

The scene looked grotesque.

“Alright, do any of you plan of helping me heal the people?” I asked turning to Adam and Uriel.

“Sorry, I’m going to go check out the actual damage first,” Adam replied turning to the scene of the collapsed chunks of the city.

“I’ll help out,” Uriel replied.

I looked around to see who was in the greatest need of healing - I saw a few guards sitting in a small military tend, in front of them lay unfinished bits of bread and several empty bottles of alcohol.

I approached them, “Are you guys alright?” I asked,

One of the men looked over to me revealing half of his face was black, his hair mostly missing.

The other two stared off into the distance, one of them was missing both arms, but it looked like they were amputated.

I used the generic healing spell from before - in a matter of seconds the man’s face was back to normal, his eyes also returned - I couldn’t do much for his hair.

He was at a lost for words, “W-who are you!?” he asked feeling his face and closing one of his eyes to confirm he can still see, “Feel free to call me nameless child, go help out the civilians - I’ll hear your friend up.” I explained to the man who stood up and headed back into the city.

I looked around, realizing I don’t want to get in trouble because of my magic, it’s useful so I’m sure somebody would want to exploit it, I looked around seeing a roll of bandages, presumably used to wrap the dead.

I wrapped my hands and face with the bandages leaving only my eyes sticking out. I picked up a cloak which lay strewn in the corner pulling its hood over my face.

Now that I’m anonymous I can help out.

I walked up to the amputee, I cast the healing spell, within forty or so seconds his limbs returned and seemingly the man snapped out of shock, he turned to me asking who I am, “I’m the nameless healer.” I replied.

I’m bad with names.

I rushed over to the next group of people, it looked like they were merchants.

They had a few burns but overall, they seemed to be the lucky ones,

I continued rushing around the area from one person to another, out of nowhere I felt a tug on my cloak, I turned around to see it was a kid, “Are you hurt?” I asked seeing that he looked unharmed,

“It’s my brother - can you make him alright?” he asked pointing to a cart filled with several other bodies.

My stomach sank as I saw where he was pointing, “I don’t think…he’ll be alright…” I said turning back to the kid,

“No! He was breathing when they put him in the cart!” he insisted,

I that’s the case, then I had nothing to lose, I walked over to the cart and placed a palm over the wrapped up body the kid pointed out - after a minuted of solid healing the body stayed still.

I turned towards the kid and shook my head causing him to fall to the floor, somebody was calling the kid’s name from the distance as evident by him turning to look at who it was, a red-haired girl looking a lot older than the kid, sixteen or so - rushed over to the kid, I made my way away from them as fast a possible.

I made my way to the gate of the city remembering there were a lot of people with minor wounds there, when I got there I saw Uriel sitting down next to a few people, at first I thought he was slacking off until I saw the wounds on the person beside him slowly disappearing, I guess he didn’t want to attract any attention either.

Seeing that the people are being healed by Uriel I decided to head deeper into the city.

Soon I found myself surrounded by worse cases than before, people still breathing with most of their body red and blistered, I performed the healing like usual, I worked out a handy time table for healing burns, too!

A first-degree burn: five seconds,

Second-degree burn: ten to fifteen seconds,

Third-degree burn: twenty seconds to forty seconds,

Fourth-degree burn: A solid minute of healing,

Missing limbs or literal holes in the body: Two to five minutes.

As I was finishing up healing the crispy man I started to feel dizzy, I didn’t want to start throwing up blood here so I reached into my pocket for two mana bullets and crushed them with my teeth.

As I made my way through the crowded streets I eventually saw the cause of the damage, a massive crack in the ground shooting blisteringly hot steam up, I noticed a few victims of this trap and rushed over to help, a mother and child - seemingly in the middle of their escape they got surprised by the steam - the child was crying as she sat beside her mother who was seemingly blinded by the steam.

I reached to my side pulling out my revolver, I loaded it full of healing bullets and shot one at both the mother and child, in and instants the mother regained her sight and while the child didn’t stop crying I assume any wounds were cured.

I almost felt weird at the perspective of not wanting to complain about having to help people, it’d be easy for me to say that I was roped into it by Adam or guilt-tripped into it by Uriel - but the fact was I was feeling kind of nice after helping them…I hope I’m not going soft now.

I walked past the steam fissure and over the buildings in the distance I could see the massive hole where the very ground of the city began to collapse and fall into the pool of lava.

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I tried to approach the area seeing that it was barricaded by walls of what looked like sand, from what I saw the sand was being brought in by various mean, upon closer inspection I saw that it was being brought in by the monster hunters guild, Darthold was carrying two actual wheelbarrows of sand, standing on top of the sand was Abe who was casting a water spell, his range was too low but it was enough to create a pools which seeped into the cracks cooling the lava, that’s when I realised that he must have been the reason the water was turning into steam and shooting out around the city, I rushed over to Abe.

“Dude, stop that!” I called out, Abe stopped casting the spell and turned to me, “Oh, hey…nameless mage…don’t worry about me, I’m not running low on mana or anything,” he replied lazily fixing his glasses,

“Shit, you realised it’s me?!” I exclaimed, “Wait no! That’s not it! - stop using water magic, it turns to steam and erupts all over the city hurting people!” I explained, a look of shock spread on Abe’s face.

“I didn’t realize…” she said apologetically,

“It’s alright, we’re working on healing the people - do you have any ice magic?” I asked,

“No…actually, I have a snow spell - it’ll just make it snow in a small area.” Abe replied, “Alright, that’s fine - cast it onto the burning buildings, I don’t think it’ll be any good to make it snow on the lava.“ I recommended.

I hopped over the pile of sand, I placed a healing bullet in my mouth in case I got hurt or pinned down without access to my bag.

Seeing the difference in the number of damaged buildings, the smoke and steam filled the air making it hard to breathe - the bandages over my mouth helped me considerably.

I looked to the side seeing cheese-bread-man carrying people out of some building, I had no time to say hi so I kept moving, I reached the end of the street and the tiles themselves became loose as they neared the edge of the crater.

I removed the healing bullets from the revolver, and replaced them with ice shots, they have a wide area of effect - so I may be able to harden the surface of the lava, I shot a bullet towards the lava, for a single second the surface turned black before turning red and eventually melting away.

I took out every ice shot from my pouch, I had about ten or so, I threw them into the lava, I didn’t expect the mixture to be so explosive, sharks of hardened rock shot out, aside from a few small bits only one large piece cut my arm, I used a healing spell to close the wound.

I reached into my pouch taking out two mana bullets, crushing them in my hand.

I had to think of a way to cool the lava, I can’t use water…or ice…

That’s when I got the idea, I created a brand new spell, I created a massive magic circle, the target was the lava - the circle was red and served as a heat vacuum, I started to drain all heat from the lava by converting it to mana, soon my head began to feel dizzy - I think I might have too much mana… I started mass producing mana bullets, I filled my entire ammo pouch, eventually, I had to throw them into the nearby crate.

I felt the nausea clear up - I guess that means the mana output of the circle was low, I let go of the spell, I sat down on the ground breathing heavily…

Shit…that was risky…imagine if I swelled up like a balloon and exploded into a mana nuke!

I stuffed my pockets with the mana bullets before kicking the rest of the mana bullet crate into the remaining hole in the earth.

I made my way back, looking in into the houses as I walked, through the window of one of the houses I saw the figure of a green-haired man, he didn’t seem hurt - but he was clearly passed out, his hair was about as long as mine, he looked like he was in his late teens or early twenties.

I picked him up over my shoulder, damn, why am I the one carrying grown-ass men.

I moved the man over to the wall of sand tossing him over it, “What did you do?” Abe asked looking me, “I used some magic to remove all head from the lava and turn it into mana.” I explained.

Abe didn’t say anything for a while.

“Nameless mage, if anybody asks you - say you got a scroll from me which cast that spell,” Abe instructed,

“What? Why?” I asked.

“If the wizard’s court finds out - you’ll be pursued for the rest of your life.” he replied, “I’m already a member of the wizard’s court,” he added,

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” I asked,

“Yeah - I made sure to hid my ability level from them - I bet they’ll believe it,” he replied.

“Alright, oh - while I’m at it…” I grabbed the pouch at my side which served as my pocket, it was filled to the brim with mana bullets, I handed it over to Abe, “They’re like the ones I gave you back at the festival.” I explained.

“I see - are you really sure about this?” he asked, “Yeah, don’t worry about it - I have a few spare…” I said patting my ammo pouch which was mostly filled with mana shots now.

“Oh - is see, thank you. - You should go find Adam as soon a possible, with the dirty work done, the wizard’s court is sure to come and try to figure out how.” Abe said apologetically.

“Guess you guys don’t get along either…” I said thinking about how Adam disliked them too, “Alright - I’ll get going.” I said waving Abe a casual goodbye before rushing over to the entrance.

I saw Uriel sitting casually on a stack of crates, he was drinking something from a wooden cup, the whole area cleared up - no injured people or anything.

I removed the bandages and cloak tossing them aside.

“I see you did your thing,” I commented seeing most of the people were back to normal.

“I did all I could,” Uriel replied with a sigh, he gestured with a nod to the several people who lost family, friends, loved ones - some couldn’t live with the fact that they experienced so much pain and just sat with an expression of horror and shock on their face.

“This world really is fucked…” I said looking at everyone, sure I helped out a few people - half of them are probably going to be homeless now…

Uriel didn’t have any wisdom to offer - after seemingly stopping the crisis and helping the people, Uriel and I headed out of the city, waiting for Adam to come back…

Twenty minutes earlier…

Adam walked around the city its walls blocking off the smoke - the earth surrounding the entrance to the tunnels were seemingly covered in solid black rock, it was clear to Adam now that the tunnels were, in fact, the epicentre of the attack.

The massive pools of boiling mud contrasted by the dry cracked soil - both seemingly interwoven into the soil’s surface - no plant-life remained aside from old, dead trees.

Adam looked into the dry soil seeing footprints leading away from the tunnel - through what may have once been a forest, he decided to follow them, the further he walked away from the tunnel the more the soil returned to normal, the dry crunch of his boots turned to a wet squelch soon enough.

After a decent fifteen minutes of walking, Adam wasn’t sure if he was listening to the echo of the forest or if he was listening being followed, in a flash he spun around to look at who it was that was following him - his eyes bounced around the forest spotting nothing out of the ordinary,

“Is anybody there?” Adam asked - he decided that if it was a curious peasant or maybe Uriel or me - it’d be best to just ask - if it was an enemy then they already know Adam is suspicious of them - since he turned around so rapidly, he was greeted by silence.

Uncertainly he continued walking, soon what resembled a cave came into view - furthermore, it looked like somebody was living there, piles of stones with black scorch marks, cleanly sliced logs resembled seats and clothes and sheets were hung up with rope between some trees, Adam moves closer to the mouth of the cave, grass and twigs were hung up - each bundle tied together with grass thin strands of grass, Adam peeked his head into the cave - the grass blocking out all the light forcing Adam to cut the grass loose.

"Hello? Are you in here, lava monster?" Adam asked, hearing no reply Adam headed deeper into the cave - "I promise I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed..." Adam added still hearing no reply - Adam stepped out of the cave he looked around the entrance hoping to get a clue regarding the owner of this cave, as Adam was inspecting the area loud stepping sounds echo around the area, he moved his gaze to the source of the sound finding that it was a hooded figure wielding a curved dagger - "What the hell?!" Adam exclaimed as crouched down dodging a slash from the blade, a few drops of glowing purple liquid from the blade fell onto his jumper turning some of the fabric a bright grey-white colour.

Adam quickly rolled to the side - turning back to face the hooded figure "Hey, can't we talk this out?!" he asked frantically - the figure lifted their hand from under the cloak revealing a large hollow cylindrical item, before Adam could realise what it was he heard a loud bang accompanied by a flash as the gunpowder filling the item went off shooting out a handfull of pebble-sized items across the battlefield - narrowly missing Adam's vital spots a few of them cut his arms and legs causing a shooting pain to radiate through Adam,

Stumbling back from the momentary shock Adam found his back pressed against something - he turned his head to see what it was and when he turned back to see his opponent they were already inches away from him - knife in hand they pulled their arm Up ready to bring the blad down on Adam, he couldn't dodge this one.

A loud whistle came from nowhere - at first, Adam thought it was the blade, but even the assassin jumped back from Adam and looked for the source of the noise - when both Adam's and the assassin's gaze turned to the crossbow bolt lodged in the ground.

Realizing the situation they were in the figure reach into their cloak, they tossed the cylindrical device aside and pulled out another one, pointing it at Adam as a now exposed fuse same near igniting the gunpowder - the assassin turned their attention to the direction from which the crossbow bolt came from, they couldn't see anyone - they turned back to Adam seeing that he was no longer there, the gun-like device fired as several crossbow bolts skewered the figure - two bolts to each arm and leg, one to the shoulder and one to the gut.

At this point, the figure let out a yelp of pain - before trying to escape but collapsing soon after the attempt due to their injury.

"Damn - couldn't you have shot them earlier?" Adam asked turning toward the woods, by now he realised it must have been Lily.

From the top of one of the trees near Adam, Lily dropped down casting a weak boost spell to soften her fall. "And that's another favour you owe me," Lily announced placing her crossbow back onto her back - attaching it with a leather strap.

"Yeah, yeah..." Adam replied dismissively before he turned towards the figure - he headed towards it, snapping the bolts off before removing the cloak revealing the bloodied body of a well built, black-haired man, he turned him around hoping to interrogate him but he was surprised to see that the man had stabbed himself with his own poison blade as he was falling - perhaps it was intentional...

"Well...he's dead..." Adam announced scratching his head.

"I doubt an assassin would tell you all that much..." Lily replied with a shrug, she reached into her pocket pulling out a notepad and pencil, she wrote down a quick line under the 'Times I saved Adam' tab - it was at a solid five now.

Adam's expression now turned to a wry frown, "So - care to explain why you were following me?" he asked in a slow irritated manor.

"That's easy, silly. It's because I saw the assassin following you for a while now," she replied with a shrug.

"And you decided not to tell me!?" Adam demanded - a combination of shock and rage on his face.

"Adam, if I was to tell you about every suspicious person keeping an eye on you - you'd always be worried, looking behind your back and stuff." she shrugged.

"Wait...are you implying there are more?" Adam asked,

"..."

"..."

"...Lily..."

"..."

"..."

"...Perhaps...." she replied flipping through the notebook letting Adam see glimpses of crude sketches of people, "It depends on the season, we have the mages court a few times a year, the thieves guild one a year or so, the occasional thugs who pop up and try to collect the bounty on your head, we have the -" Adam cut Lily off while she was listing off the various groups spying on Adam, "HOW DID I NEVER NOTICE ANY OF THESE?!" Adam exclaimed as he started frantically looking around.

"Well, most of them are assassins, Adam - you're not supposed to see them," she replied bluntly, "Besides - if I see some amateur trying to get too close I tend to take them out," Lily added.

Adam let out a disheartened sigh, "That explains why you always disappear at night..." Adam said placing his thumb and index fingers against his eyes in frustration.

"Oh my, could it be that the stone-hearted Adam feel worrie-" before she got a chance to reply Lily found her face in the firm grasp of Adam's hand, "A-Adam?! What are you doing?!" Lily asked panicked as he began dragging her back to the castle, "Stone-hearted...I'll show you stone-hearted..." Adam mumbled to himself,

Once they reached the gates of the city Adam released Lily's face - which now displayed Adam's face printed into it.

"This isn't how you repay someone for saving your life..." Lily pouted,

"Sorry - I couldn't find an Axe," Adam replied bluntly,

Both Adam and Lily turned to see Uriel and I left the city

"Looks like you guys had fun..." I said looking at Adam's all the blood covering Adam's clothes.

"Don't worry - most of this is my own," he replied.

"I don't feel much better with that knowledge..." Uriel announced before casting a healing spell, several golden-white magic-circles appeared causing Adam's minor wounds to close up.

"Thanks, man," Adam said to which Uriel only gave a nod.

"Well, how was it?" I asked.

"I found this weird cave - somebody lived there for a while and it looked like they fled in a hurry," Adam replied remembering the still hung up clothes and the lack of any beds or sleeping bags in the cave.

"So the culprit could not a demon...?" Uriel asked.

"It's possible...but we can't be certain that it was the culprit lived there," Adam replied.

"Anyway - how was it inside the city?" Adam asked.

"It was pretty horrific," Uriel replied thinking back to the wounded people, the children and adults - even the stray animals.

"Well - I hope that didn't scare you too badly." Adam laughed,

"I'd hate to have to go see all the people..." Lily said - a clear expression of discomfort appeared on her face.

"It's alright - we healed most people - at least those who were out on the streets," I replied,

"Indeed, and a certain nameless mage solidified the lava," Uriel said smugly.

"Yeah - that's why we came here - didn't we?" I asked - I hated when Uriel did this... when he acted like I was some big hero concerned for the lives of the people. The fact is, if I cared for the lives of the people I could have searched the houses, I could have given them healing bullets to use when I'm gone... why I did what I did - I don't know - I guess it's pity, not compassion.

Adam, Lily, Uriel and I headed home, I went to sit down on the couch - finally able to relax a bit, I guess it's nice that I'm not out of mana for once.

Uriel headed straight to the kitchen, he opened the fridge door pulling out some eggs and milk - "Adam, do you have any salt, here?" Uriel asked looking through the cupboards and ceramic pots holding various substances, "No, sorry - I used the last bit yesterday." Adam replied apologetically, "Hold on, I think I can make salt." I offered, I walked to the kitchen, taking a small plate and pointing my index finger at it I created a white magic circle on my finger..."hold on..." I instructed trying to visualise the salt crystals, the white colour and the flavour,

"Is something wrong?" Adam asked seeing me struggling with creating table salt.

"Synthesis spells are difficult - the more accustomed you are to the material the easier it is to create - granted most elements come to us naturally," Uriel explained,

"That makes no sense - I know what salt is," I said confused.

"Knowing what it is and using it are two different things, did you look at the crystals, did you see how it forms or dissolves?" Uriel asked, obviously I didn't.

"That makes you creating that cola a few days back a little sadder," Adam said with thinking back to how easily I created it.

"Well, it's not like I know cola in all that much dept," I argued, that's when I had a sudden idea popped into my head."I guess I did see how cola was made on TV once..."

"I guess you never watched the 'how to make salt' episode?" Adam asked jokingly.

"The series had exactly sixty-five episodes, I guess that's all the stuff I can create on the spot..." I said somewhat disappointed, "Well - it's never too late to study more material!" Uriel suggested.

Uriel returned to the fridge, he took out some meat from which he trimmed the white fat - he placed the fat onto a pan to melt it, he fried some scrambled eggs on the fat - it's interesting how he added milk to the beaten eggs.

Uriel took out a jug of what looked like oil and whipped it with some egg yolks - adding vinegar when he was done.

Uriel wrapped the eggs in a blanket of some kind of leaf - it resembled a massive cabbage leaf - placing a thin line of the white sauce on top.

"It's actually amazing how fancy your scrambled eggs are..." Adam said - I nodded in agreement.

Uriel placed three plates on the table and one in the fridge - "What's with the fourth one?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Lily usually comes home just before sunset - I tend to leave the meals in the fridge," Uriel explained,

"...I knew she comes here at night." Adam said squinting - irritation in his voice.

"You really should be nicer to her," Uriel suggested.

"I think I'd rather drink boiling water after eating a jar of chilli paste," Adam replied bluntly.

"It's okay, Adam." I said placing a hand on his shoulder before I turned to Uriel and squinting, "I can relate." I added.

Uriel let out a "hmph" followed by a smug smile before sitting down and digging into his meal.

After the meal, Uriel did the dishes, Adam continued trying to produce tea and I read the language book, Adam headed to bed first, I went next leaving Uriel in the kitchen alone...