Old Mo didn’t look good. That was my first thought as I stepped into his room. His physical body looked like a withered, rotten apple. The skin on his arms and legs was wrinkled and desiccated, and his stomach was shrunken. I resisted the urge to grimace.

I had been healing for years Old Mo to keep his body in peak physical condition. However, over the years, his body had started to deteriorate, despite my efforts. These outward problems were symptoms of the disconnect between his soul and body. I remembered when I had tried to heal an infant with no soul, and it had felt like I was trying to pour water into a bucket with no bottom. My essence had slipped out, as if there was nothing to heal. Old Mo’s body was in a similar condition - my healing still helped, but I couldn’t ever heal him back to a perfect state.

Unlike his body, his soul looked vibrant today. For years, I had been nursing his physical body, hoping for exactly an occurrence like this. It was obvious why Old Mo had woken up - the connection between his soul and body looked almost normal again.

Almost. The problem was that his body was decaying like a frayed rope. It wasn't that the connection between his body and soul had healed. Instead, it was more that he was waking up one last time before the end.

I stepped forward and grabbed his hand, before I started to pour healing magic into his body. However, my essence leaked out, like water poured into a cracked clay pot. I smiled bitterly.

With my healing magic, I couldn't save him.

Old Mo was awake for the first time in years. In a few hours, or perhaps a day, he would close his eyes forever.

“Is that…” Old Mo broke into a fit of coughing noises, before he cleared his throat. “Is that your special ability? The one you obtained from… outside this world?” Old Mo glanced at the room, as if nervous of having missed someone who had entered with me. But there was nobody in the room but me.

I nodded. “It is. I’m sorry. I want to heal you. But I can’t… my healing ability isn’t working. Ssoul connections are complicated, and I... I don’t know how…” I choked back a sob. I didn’t want Old Mo to die, but I had no way to stop it.

Old Mo beckoned for me to come closer. I stepped towards him, and then he grabbed my hand.

“Miria,” he said. “You don’t have to feel bad. It’s just… cough cough. It’s just my ability and my old body failing.” Partway through his words, he was interrupted by a fit of coughs, but he recovered his voice soon enough. It was almost enough for me to forget that he was dying.

Almost.

“Ability?” I asked.

“When I was born, I had some problems with my heart and lungs. It was possible to survive… but not very well. I was… cough cough. I was always sick. Do you remember what I told you about my family?”

I tried searching through my memories. The conversation I’d had with Old Mo about his past as an assassin felt like it had taken place decades ago.

“They were… wealthy? Influential? Something like that…” I said, as I wracked my brains for details that didn’t matter.

Old Mo laughed, but soon enough, his chuckles broke into a fit of coughs.

“Right. They were wealthy. So they searched and searched for an ability potion to cure me. It would be possible to replace it with prosthetics… cough cough. It would have been possible, but surgery wasn’t reliable back in those days.” Old Mo cough again, breaking up his words as he tried to speak. Instinctively, I tried to pour more essence into his body… but just like before, it leaked away. I tried not to scream in frustration as my healing ability failed me.

Old Mo smiled at me after he finished his coughing fit. It was as if he couldn't feel his life slipping away from him. “As I was saying… my family got me an ability that heals my entire body. It focuses on my heart and lungs… but it also keeps everything else strong and powerful. A mixture of a self-healing and a self-strengthening ability.” Old Mo sighed, before coughing a few more times. “It looks like that’s failing. Based on your descriptions... cough cough. Based on your words, I suspect it's something to do with brains or souls. Abilities themselves might be... cough cough. Might be related to brains or souls.” Then, he smiled, and ruffled my hair. “So don’t be sad. I don't think you could have healed it anyway. And I got an extra eight decades beyond what I should have had. I got to meet Mary. I got to see you grow up. That’s… enough.” His smile grew wider. "It... it wasn't such a bad life, all things considered. I just wish that Mary and I had... a little more time."

I leaned over him, and hugged him. I swallowed back a few more tears, and, with great difficulty, managed to straighten my face. “I’m not used to the people I care about dying before me.”

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“In all that time… you’ve never managed to outlive the people you care about? You… really are a rather reckless individual. You should… cough cough… treat your own life with a bit more care. I’m sure in the last few worlds, you’ve left behind people who cared a lot about you. They must have been sad… cough… to see you go.” Old Mo gently ran a hand along my head again, and I leaned down so that he wouldn’t strain his arms. He stroked my hair, as gently as a parent, and then let his arm fall back to the bed.

I wanted to tell him that he would be all right, that I would find a way to cure him… but I had no idea where to even start. As a doctor, I knew that Old Mo should have died a long time ago. As a market resident who used magic from outside this world, I knew that Old Mo’s soul was barely hanging on by a thread. As a healing mage… I knew I could reverse old age. But not enough to make a real difference. Making Old Mo a few seconds younger didn’t matter. Making a noticeable difference was far beyond my current level.

I didn’t lie to my patients. I had no way to help Old Mo. If what he was saying was true, and his heart and lungs were reliant on his ability to keep working… then I had even less of a way to treat him than before. I didn’t know much about how essences worked behind the scenes. Just another thing that I had never learned how to heal. Sometimes, my healing ability felt omnipotent, like it could cure anything. Even if I had no idea what I was trying to fix, my healing ability could do incredible things like regrow limbs.

Other times… it could do nothing at all. This was just another case where I couldn’t fix anything. My healing ability, that had seemed so omnipotent sometimes, was failing me again. And I didn't even have the slightest clue how to change that.

Old Mo laughed.

“You’ve turned into a fine woman, Miria. You’re eighteen now, right? You look... about that age.”

“Yeah. I’m two years past being an adult, by this world’s standards. I'm eighteen.”

“Have you found anyone you like? What have you been up to after my accident?"

“I don’t want to fall in love until I find some way to take the person I cherish back to the Market with me. So for now, romance is off the table. As for what I've been up to... we all moved. Some things happened to the Zelyrian continent, but we managed to escape. Trish and I started a new clinic.” I said. I smiled, although it felt forced. "Life is good here. The people have accepted us. We have friends. Things are peaceful here. It might not be the best for my growth as a Transmigrator... but I'm happy here."

Old Mo paused for a moment, before he nodded.

"I'm glad... that life is so good for you, despite my illness. I still worried... but you look healthy. I hope that someday you find someone special to you, like my Mary.” he smiled. “Well, what I wanted to say...cough cough... I’m grateful for meeting you. You may not have been my real daughter… but I’m glad to have met you.” He gave me another hug. “Thank you for being here with me, Miria. I hope that in future worlds you go to, your lives are happy, and that you meet people you cherish. Friends or romantic partners... it doesn't matter which. Cough cough. Don’t forget what I taught you about pretending to be a child. You’re terrible at disguising yourself, but this could determine life or death someday.” Old mo’s smile became gentler, but the light in his eyes started to dim. “I love you like the daughter Mary and I never had. I hope that perhaps, someday in the future… cough cough...we can meet again. Maybe that's a silly wish from an old man... but as I lay here, I think about what really mattered. All of the war and hate were so pointless... cough cough. The time I spent with Mary, the time I spent with you... those were the things that mattered. In another life, it would be nice... cough cough... if we could do this again.” Old Mo started coughing again, and this time the coughs were so forceful that the seemed to contort his body. Finally, he sighed. Then, his lips curled up into a final smile, and he pulled me a little bit closer. “My ability…. cough cough… is fading. It shouldn't be long now. Before I go… there’s an old cache of money. I hid it under the bakery. You can… cough cough. You can have it. It has a few sentimental items, too. You can… cough cough… you can take them or leave them, if you want. It’s… up to you. But nothing too important. You say that... cough cough... that you left the continent?" Old Mo chortled, although it sounded like his lungs were collapsing as he did. "Well, if it's impossible to get, it's impossible to get. It's nothing too important anyway."

Under the bakery? I felt my eyes grow hotter.

We were in Zanna now. Most of the Zelyrian continent was an uninhabitable death zone. There was no way to even find the ruins of Old Mo’s bakery, much less check the basement. Whatever inheritance he had left me under the bakery was gone. I felt a bitter, ashy feeling well up in my heart, but I pushed it down.

“It's probably impossible to retrieve. The Zelyrian continent suffered quite a bit during the war."

"I always... cough cough... knew some foolish war would be the end of the nations there." Old Mo shook his head. "Well, that's... all I wanted to say. Live well, Miria. Both now, and in the future."

Old Mo’s smile widened, and he stroked my head. As he did so, his hands started to slacken. Like roots withering on a tree, his arms drooped. As I hugged him, he leaned back onto his patient bed. His heart and lungs started to fade away, one second at a time.

The essence in his body started to dissipate into nothing. A few seconds later, the soul in his brain started to lose its connection to his body. it only took a minute for it to shuffle off the connection to Old Mo’s brain. Then, the soul escaped, before it started to float higher. I saw a very faint image of the ocean of souls start to appear, as the soul drifted forward. Then, his soul returned to the Ocean. The connection between the ocean and our dimension closed, leaving me with nothing but a sack of uninhabited flesh and memories.

Old Mo was gone.