The house I was led to sat downriver, on the edge of the village. Considering the size of the village on whole, the distance wasn’t actually very far away. On top of that, I couldn't tell if the house was run down or if my standards were just too high for this backwater village.

Man walked to the front and knocked on the door. This got me thinking, he door felt out of place. I figured it was the hinges, those seem like a piece of metalwork that were too high class for such a rundown village. What else would they do though, just put a plank of wood in front? Maybe the durability of it meant it was a good investment.

I got caught up in some weird thoughts, before Man opened the door for me. He led the way slightly obstructing my view into the house. Unlike the door, everything inside seemed suitably derelict and simple. I noticed a cot raised off the floor, with a pile of matted straw serving as bedding. Ah hygiene, I will miss you.

My moment of levity was cut short as I finished my observation. I must have slightly flinched, because Man put an arm in front of me, interposing between myself and the patient. She was not as I expected.

I latched on too tightly to the preconception of healing a woman wounded by a monster of some sort. Instead, laying on that shabby cot was a girl with small horns sprouting from her head.

Not only that, but she seemed to be what is best described as shedding. Skin peeled everywhere I could see, up to the tattered edges of the loose sleeveless tunic. Underneath was reddish skin, not like from a burn or cut, but bright-ruby, dragon scales red.

I swear, it seemed the only quests I could get were far beyond my level. But I had resolved myself! Heroic resolve could work wonders if only I applied it!

Kneeling down, I did a more thorough examination. Even if I wasn't trained, knowledge of modern biology probably made me more qualified than half the witch doctors in the new world.

I looked closer at the skin of the patient. Flaking off in vast quantities, it was accumulating on the haystack. Having recently mutilated a goblin corpse and squishing an eyeball barehanded, I wasn't really qualified to feel queasy. After all, most dust is dead skin, and you breath that in all the time.

The more you know.

The skin had layers, more obvious than usual. While most seemed to be red revealed from the original layer of skin shedding, I spotted an area near the upper shoulder where there was an orange tint. Could it be another color would emerge in time?

How many colors would it go through?

That observation was a dead end, but I noticed in some areas it seemed sores were forming. Perhaps the skin was shed prematurely in some areas, leaving it open to infection? At least this was something I could help deal with to some degree.

I figured I should do something about the blood caking on some parts of her body and cast . The blood vanished, and despite the minor quantity, it seemed to vastly improve Patient’s condition. Man gasped and looked elated.

Hey, that was just cleanup, it didn't actually help at all. Well, I didn't complain since he looked so satisfied, but I really hadn't done anything yet.

Gesturing for the cloth, I picked up a piece of wood from the small fire pit in the center of the hut. I waved it around and tossed back in, shooting a tiny after it. I wanted to boil some water to help disinfect the area. Quaffing the rest of the water from my flask, I decided to use that as my container. It was probably the cleanest thing around, and being made of metal, I doubted the tiny little fire would permanently harm it.

Rigging something up to hold it over the flames would have been easy, but that wasn't the point. kept it aloft nicely in the middle of the flame. I made sure to use magic as often as I could in the process; I didn't want them doubting my ‘mystical procedures’.

I waited until I could touch the cloth with my bare hands before treating the wounds. Wouldn't want to give Patient burns on top of...whatever she was suffering from.

Many minor injuries were treated this way. Not knowing about the magical illness, I did my best to fix the mundane ones. 

About half an hour to an hour of this sort of thing passed, before my realm of experience could help no more.

Time to do some magic.

lead the way. There was a new color, green, faintly surrounding Patient. I immediately figured green represented sickness, but it was so faint as to be almost not there. Was she not dying? The disease might not be terminal. 

Since that didn't help, I released it and cast .

It wasn't a great surprise, but the condition was at least some measure magical. Unfortunately, I was unable to discern what kind of magic it was. Looking at it felt like warm water.

I could tell actually fixing this was going to take a lot of effort.

Unable to do anything more at the moment, I stood, brushing dirt off my robes. Man looked expectant.

Taking up the board, I flipped it over and carved a long sequence of moons and suns. Then I gestured at myself and pointed at the ground.

Man’s face fell a little, but it seemed like he still had some hope. I felt that was fine, but really didn't want him getting too expectant. He pointed at himself.

“Pan.”

Oh, it seemed we were doing introductions. This was probably brought on by the fact I would be staying for a few days. To make sure, I pointed to him and repeated. He nodded.

Then I should introduce myself.

My name? What did I want it to be? I was a necromancer, I was a wizard, I wanted to be a hero. I almost laughed aloud when I thought of a good name.

“Alric.” I pointed to myself. Alric was a good choice for a necromancer.

Pan did not understand the light in my eyes, but he sagaciously nodded and repeated the name. He then put his hand parallel to the ground, palm down as if indicating a height. Pan began speaking things I did not understand in a questioning inflection.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We spent a minute playing charades in this manner before I caught his meaning. He wanted the children to speak. I nodded, thumbs-upped and said yes. With that, we left the shack to go find my teacher.

Pan brought me back to where I fished, and left me with the children there before heading off. Hopefully to negotiate lodgings.

“Rion.” The boy with light brown hair pointed to himself. The girl that was with the group also tagged along, but it seemed the rest of the brats lost interest when they realized I wouldn't be giving them anymore shows.

“Alric.” I gave my name. The boy nodded and said some gibberish along with my name. Probably some sort of greeting.

He looked expectantly at me.

I could tell the learning process was going to take a while.

He tried getting to repeat gibberish along with my name again, I just sighed and shook my head. Pan should have waited to make sure Rion knew how to teach before leaving to go wherever.

Seemed like I needed to take initiative in the matter, I pointed to the ground.

“Grass.”

“Gas?” He tried mimicking me, and suppressing the urge to face palm, I pointed again.

“Grass.”

“■~.” Good, I got him to say it in his language. I repeated it and pointed towards the ground. Rion nodded emphatically. Now time to trip him up.

I plucked some grass from the ground and pointed at it, repeating the word. He looked a little haughty as he shook his head no, before realizing what I was getting at. Then he looked sheepish. After learning the word for grass and picking up a clod of dirt and pebble, I confirmed that the word he actually gave me was for ground.

So went several tedious hours of learning nouns, adjectives and verbs.

I mentioned earlier that I knew a large number of languages to a small degree, but I'm not some linguistic savant. Those were built up gradually, and while quicker than average, it still takes me a while to learn a new language.

Rion and I and Tagalong Girl walked up and down the stream, going over the same things as I kept forgetting them. I don't feel too ashamed, since it was a rather large number of things. Still, I couldn't help but envy those Isekai Protagonists who land in a world that speaks their language or are blessed by the goddess so that they can understand. Well, it’s fiction, so I can allow them those benefits of having such perfect memory as to allow spontaneous language acquisition skills. For me though, the rest of the day passed like that.

Pan brought me a small meal of cooked fish and bread, which I accepted. He also managed to convey that I would be staying with Patient, whose name was Ria.

He gave me a bowl of gruel as well, saying her name as he gave it to me. If I was getting paid to be a doctor in that small a village, I figured I might as well be the nurse too. I nodded saying yes.

“I’m home~” softly calling out in a singsong voice, I turned on some . I tried to see if Patient, or rather Ria, reacted. 

For the most part, she seemed to be in a half-conscious state of delirium, softly mumbling. Her eyes seemed to be shut tighter, but other than that, no reaction.

Stepping inside, it seemed Pan had been setting up accommodations. On the left wall from the entrance was Ria’s bed of straw, and along the right was another straw bed. This one was at least covered with some good sheets. As in, ones that didn’t look pre-dirtied.

Moving the shaved stump that served as a low stool over to the side of the bed, I sat down. Cautiously raising her body and leaning her forward, I tried to get her into a semi-lucid state.

“Hey, it’s mealtime. Tasty tasty oat gruel. What’s that smell? Smells like paste! Yum yum!” Since she doesn’t speak my language, and probably wasn’t in a state to understand even if she did, I babbled on in a hushed tone; hopefully bringing her to consciousness, but not to a state of fight or flight.

Her eyes seemed to twitch, but didn’t quite open. Her mouth opened ever so slightly. Probably good enough. Pulling out one of my flasks, I made sure it was the one I’d marked with an X. Making sure she was upright, I poured in a bit of the boiled, and hopefully cleansed, water.

It took a bit, but it seemed she was capable of swallowing in this state. Ria wasn’t quite unconscious, but I couldn’t understand her mutterings, so I paid it no mind. Since she could eat, that was what mattered.

However for more than one spoonful, I needed to be in a more comfortable position. After some trial and error, I ended up with my arm around her back and sitting on the cot with her. Narrowly keeping her hair out of the thin paste, I noticed it was the same shade as Rion and Pan.

Pan, this may not have been weird for you, but is it really appropriate to let someone get this close to your daughter? Please think your plans through in the future.

Chastising Pan’s thoughtlessness, I slowly fed Ria the watery gruel, which had turned cold by the time I finished. Gently laying her down, I realized that on the blanket between her and the straw, a lot of dead skin remained. As someone from the spick-and-span relatively futuristic reality, this wouldn’t do.

Taking a sheet off of my ‘bed’, I moved Ria over as I tried thinking of how to properly clean the mess. Honestly, straight up replacing the straw seemed to be the best option, but I didn't know where they got it from. There were some fields in the downstream direction, but they weren't growing hay.

Whatever, it was getting late. I could ask tomorrow.

Since I'd been sleeping under the stars for the past week, I could do the same thing again. Finding a nice patch of grass and treading it down, I rolled up the sheet given to me, using it as a pillow.

Yawning, I quickly ended up asleep.