Carrying the lower part of Tommy Pope's body, the Rokian still felt a hint of worry, while entering the house, imagining how terrible its interior might be, given the dreadful look of the outside.

But his expectations were betrayed by the sober and homely, nice smelling, bright and all round heartwarming place he found the house to be.

Hard wood dark brown furniture was harmoniously framed by stone pieces in light colors, with brightly painted walls, a different color in each room. Still looking all over the place, he suddenly got over it prompted by Madame Boule's pulling of Tommy. They moved fast inside the house open spaces, veering a few times, up to a room which lighted by itself as they went in, full of shiny metal objects, a table in the middle, trays and cupboards. It all looked a little eerie, even though there were nice forest pictures painted on the walls.

-Push him higher, he has to go on the table over here.

She said with her warmest tone yet

-Yes, Madame Boule.

He pushed his side of the man on top of his head, so not to bump on the table. When they were done, Boule smiled at the Rokian tenderly, which gave her rough face a very feminine look, and told him

-My name is Simone Boule, people call me Madame Boule, as you have heard, but you should really call me Simone.

-Nice name! I don't really have one for now, even though I know it should begin by E... somehow. So currently you can call me E. What do we do now?

-Well, E, now we go to the sink on the other side of that mirror and scrub ourselves up to the armpits with soap and sponges, then we put on some operating gowns. Surgery, as your Aw-k was saying before has to be done in the most aseptic environment which is possible.

-Right. And what is “aseptic”?

-Oh, well, in the air there are all sorts of invisible small particles that can cause nasty afflictions for the body. When you cut someone open, everything has to be as particles-free as possible in order to avoid those to cause the injured person infections and side effects that could be worse than what you are treating him or her for.

E had made a worried face once more. Simone had him follow her out of the operating room through the wooden door near the mirror she had mentioned. This time too, the room got lighted on its own, revealing it to be small, light green colored, with brown furniture, various type of small tools, towels, sinks and a clean lemony smell.

-See, the entire operating room is no exception: pressing this button, I will radiate a blue light for a minute and that will kill all of the nasty particles, called pathogens. Hop on that stool so you can check it yourself.

E hopped on a metallic stool which was in front of a stone sink and the fake mirror. Simone pressed the round button she was talking about and a deep blue light flooded the operating room, making things look way paler than they really were.

-Interesting: so the light is killing all those small particles. Convenient.

-I know, right? Not all technology that came from our home land is bad. Now, we prepare on our side: those leaves that you are dragging on the floor are quite the outfit, but I'd so much rather you tried some of the Rokian clothes which are in the third drawer from the bottom, on the wall.

E opened it and got some black small clothes, light pants and a dark tank-top. Before he could ask, Simone told him

-You can go behind that curtain in the corner for getting dressed. And put some scrubs on... The blue cheap clothes you'll find on the other side of the curtain.

-Thank you.

-Don't mention it, now get going: the more we have Mr. Pope wait for us, the worse it will be for him.

E half ran behind the curtain and abandoned, with a sigh of sadness, his leaves skirt into a trash bin. 

The clothes he had chosen surprised him when, as soon as he had put them on, they started shrinking just enough to be a perfect fit for his small body. He really wanted to know how he looked, but that wasn't the time he reckoned, so he hurried and wore the scrubs. Coming out, he found Madame Boule elbow deep into some yellowish bubbles' soap, getting clean, already into the same blue weird clothes he had on now. He went to her and mimicked what she was doing until he was sure to be clean. She made him wear a cap, mask, gown, gloves and they went into the room where Tommy Renee Pope was waiting. 

She had explained him a little of what they had to do and he had risen to a state of both excited and horrified, his guts a little queasy, but also he had a steel resolve: he wanted to assist her. If nothing else, because he felt Tommy was important.

-Now, help me turn him belly down, and take his shirt off.

E received a quest pop-up from his Aw-k stating “Help Simone performing surgery on Tommy Pope: reward 580 exp points. Exp possible modifiers: 100 points for successful outcome, 100 points for first time on this quest”

Whatever that was, it looked like E was going to gain something out of it, so he accepted it in order to focus on what he actually had to do. Once they had removed it Simone spoke once more

-Good, now we clean the neck and all the area around it with this cotton swabs and disinfectant: grab one and do as I do.

E noticed a stool laying by the operating table and moved it so to be more up to level with Tommy.

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The boy was skinny indeed, but he had some muscle after all, tanned only on the arms and from the neck up. E cleaned all he was told to and then Simone called him by her side, so he took the stool with him.

-Now we put on this sheet around the area and you start passing me the tools on that tray as soon as I ask you to, alright?

-I'll try.

-Good boy.

They shaved the area, cleaned it once more and then started cutting with a scalpel. Simone had to explain what every single tool was, but E was very perceptive and didn't need too much direction to follow her. He was laser focused as he was chasing after every move of the blades, or the forceps that Simone used, careful to observe and record even the slightest nuance. Soon they had removed all the shards of bone from the tissue thanks to a big lens which enhanced the area, allowing them not to miss even one. Two of the boy's neck vertebrae had been shattered, but using some of his surgical magic and mana, Simone had glued the pieces back together into a mana mold; what parts were too damaged she had just left out, sure that the young man could replace them with his passive healing skills. Magic sure made the whole process almost look simple to E, which couldn't help feeling a mix of admiration, fascination and envy towards the woman Simone Boule was.

She even thought him how to apply stitches when they closed the cuts they had made, which she called incisions.

Two hours later, Tommy Pope was left to sleep, under sedatives, still belly down in a room which had plenty sunlight coming in through the windows and roof.

-It is better for him to sleep for all today. It shouldn't take him longer than three days for fixing the bones to a point where he can walk again, but if he moved too much now, that could ruin what good we have done.

-I see. Bones are tough to fix.

-Exactly. We can check his vital signs through this machines, but our job here is done.

E was in awe and got a little scared when he received another quest pop-up for having finished the job properly. In addition he got a few other messages.

“Passive skill unlocked: Basic Human Anatomy. After extensive observation of the human body, you understand its muscular and bone structure, increasing the possible damage to all humans with your attacks by 10%. Double clicking this passive skill will activate its active component, initiating a body transformation to appear more human.”

“Passive skill unlocked: Basic Blades Mastery. After observing a Master class blade artisan, you obtained a basic knowledge of how to operate a short cutting tool, or knife, increasing the damage you deal with the weapons of that class by 2% per each skill level.”

To top it all up, he had received something called “level-up”; but that needed to wait until later, when he was, hopefully going to be alone. E kept looking at Tommy's back, raising as he inhaled, now realizing how silly he had been thinking he could heal him on his own: he had so much to learn in order to keep the pace with that new life of his, but he so wanted to learn it all.

As the boy opened his mouth to ask something of Madame Boule, he got unexpectedly interrupted by a rather violent grumbling drum roll, coming from his own belly: it was lunch time, after all. For the first time, E got to eat something that had not come from the ground... directly. Simone Boule was a renaissance woman, with mad skills; by observing her put their meal together, E had learned several abilities: “Cooking”, “Spicy” and the passive “Gourmet”.

He felt overwhelmed by all of this knowledge: he needed time alone, but there was still the one issue on the table, he remembered when he was done eating his okonomiyaki... He shouldn't have trusted Simone too much, since he didn't really know her. He swallowed his meal's last bit and he drank, only after cleaning his mouth, like he had just been taught. He sighed with satisfaction before starting to talk to the smiling woman. Her smile was really something, kind and open, making it really hard to be mistrustful.

-Simone, once more, this was amazing: thank you so much...

-It was nothing much. It has been quite a while since I last had any guests for lunch. I got the feeling though you are itching to ask me something, E: what is it?

Her eyes, both the real and the artificial one on him while she rested her head on the flat of her hands, scanning every last sign on his face.

-You have been kind, although a little crafty, so far with me... Us. I feel like I gotta ask: why? You bought us. Not that I am against this treatment, about anything you have done, keep in mind, but it doesn't... Fit.

-Can't I just be a good Samaritan?

-What is that?

-A person who likes to help the other without expecting anything in return. You have helped Mr. Pope quite a few times, now. Do you expect something back from him?

-Hell yeah I do!

-That I didn't expect.

She said with amused surprise.

-Don't get me wrong, I don't expect payment like you did give to Samson earlier, no. I want him to cooperate with me... and maybe to tag along for a while. So, I don't think you want money either, but you must have some deeper goal that you think we can help you reach.

Simone unleashed an even more charming smile so bright and powerful it was like it had magically deleted her scars and made her face look sweeter than honey. E steeled his resolve and braved against the tide of cuteness which had slammed against him. He wanted some decent answers.