You woke up feeling like you'd ran three marathons and then lifted a truck uphill. Your whole body hurt, and it hurt in all the ways that told you sex was had; lots of sex, you'd never been this sex-tired. Scratch that, you'd never been hurt-aching before, even Kiara's romp had left you drained, not aching.

The groan that left you was worthy of the undead. Even sitting up hurt. Opening your eyes to the dim glow of the room's lights, you noticed the pink-haired monstergirl looking up at you with tight lips and concern in her eyes. Her hand reached out to touch your shoulder. "You're hurt, I should heal you."

A sigh escaped you.

"You pushed yourself yesterday, Master, this... is what happens when you do that."

Which was as good an indicator as any that they'd been taking it easy on you. "I'm old."

"At your age, tamers would have already retired and taken up jobs that are less taxing to their bodies." Diane whispered, her hand reaching out and pressing the palm of her hand against your lower back. She'd zeroed in where it hurt the most. "May I?"

You leaned slightly further forward, closing your eyes as you breathed in. "Does healing aching muscles actually help? Doesn't it undo training or something?"

"Only if it's done during the first six hours before the body begins its own natural healing processes." She whispered. You noted there were no weird sensations, she wasn't healing you yet. "An excess in premature healing can cause atrophy due to musculature not being allowed to trigger any of the processes that come after great exertions. You passed that point several hours ago while you slept."

A deeper sigh. "Heal it, then."

"I... will keep it light, Master." She said. "The aches will still be there, I will focus on reducing the bulk of it since that would still prompt your body to continue its strengthening process rather than stop it entirely."

You nodded, and the third sigh was of relief, the heat suffusing through you as if you were in a sauna. Just like that, the warmth was the one you recognized as the one used for healing. It slowly pushed through your body, and what before was a pain that slowed you down and stopped you from moving was now no more than a dullness throughout your body.

"What would stop me from asking you to do this to me every day?" The words left your mouth in a whisper.

"Your health wouldn't handle it." She replied, her hand slowly pulling away from your back. "My powers are not a miracle, I can help your body, I can't do its work for it."

Absently you nodded. "How... does that work?"

"There are two kinds of healing techniques. The ones that boost the process that your body already goes through, and one that works in tandem to fleshcrafting." Her voice strained. "If you were to lose your hand, I could help you scar the injury, reduce the chances of infection, and bolster your immune system. To regrow your hand I would need to fleshcraft your arm into working in a way humans don't. Raphas are very weak at this. We can do small tweaks over time, but it would take me at least a year or two of constant work. There are other breeds better at this, of course, but at the end of the day how much can be done comes down to the patient themselves."

"The flesh can only handle so much?"

"It is a balancing act, if I force your body to heal, toxins and leftover substances accumulate in your kidneys and liver. I'd need to strengthen them, but pushing that too far would alter the hormonal balance in your system, so I need to push everything one bit at a time." A sigh. "Even then, healing and fleshcrafting exhaust telomeres from forcefully making the cells reproduce faster. That in turn increases chances to have mutations, such as cancer, so I need to focus on making sure telomere exhaustion doesn't happen, which in turn forces the process to be that much slower."

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Slowly, you leaned back, finding your head on her lap. You looked up at her as she in turn glanced at your naked body with a clinical eye. "You said it's impossible to achieve immortality."

"The flesh is not all there is to be alive." She shook her head, reaching out, pressing her hand against the centre of your chest. "Mana flows through everyone's body, it is what keeps us alive. A human and a monstergirl are not that different in that regard, we eat, we absorb energy from our surroundings, our soul filters and processes and creates mana, our bodies absorb and guide it, our minds and emotions control it. monstergirls are better at this than humans by many degrees, but the process is the same." A slight sigh. "Theoretically, if I were powerful enough and knew everything there was to be known about the human body, I could potentially sustain your body for eternity, biologically. But your soul would still decay, and the process would irrevocably break down within a century or two at the most."

"I take it that can't be healed or fixed."

"If there is a way, I don't know of anyone who might know about it." A slight shrug followed. "And even if there were, there is no such thing as perfection. There is still much we don't know about the human body, and I'm certainly not the most powerful fleshcrafter out there." A wan smile appeared on her lips. "If I were, I wouldn't have been sent to work in New Bark, a small warm town at the border." Her fingers reached to caress your face, her smile brightened. "At least it got me to meet you, Master."

With a slight smile, you reached up to caress her hair, the nurse monstergirl closed her eyes, leaning into your touch, bowing down to kiss you. You relaxed, trying to ignore the gnawing urge to confirm whether you were feeling strangely warm anywhere or not. The second passes quickly. "Tell me about today's schedule."

"It's your day with Monica." She spoke in a whisper, looking as if she hadn't wanted to break off the kiss. "And you have an hour of training to do later in the day. It's mostly stretches though, wouldn't want to start off too strongly."

"Does Monica know it's a day with Monica?" You muttered. "I'm pretty sure she thinks all days are a day with Monica."

Diane tried not to look too exasperated and failed. "It will certainly be... challenging... to teach her the concept of reward." Her hands pulled up, caressing your hair. "At least she's a fast learner. Feral born tend to take longer to care about language."

"Monica's sometimes frustrated when she can't say the things she wants to say." You muttered, closing your eyes. "I too would be frustrated if someone were scratching me and I couldn't properly tell them where the right spot is." Diane giggled a little, to which you had to slowly rise back up. "What's your plan for the day?"

The question caught the nurse slightly by surprise, and she tilted her head a little. "I thought I'd spend it in my ball unless you called for me?"

"I've been... thinking about that." You said. "Now that we're earning more money, we can afford keeping you all out of the capture devices, so I thought we might as well start doing that."

"You need clothes." Diane declared from the bed, watching you stand up. "New clothes, better ones."

"Expensive." You replied. "I've seen the prices, and it's still unnerving that some are more expensive than..."

"A monstergirl?" Diane offered with an arched brow. "Expensive clothes tend to be protective, well worth the cost most times. And though I would certainly prefer if you were better protected, having a new harem sister would certainly help."

"Well, there you have your homework while I'm out." You muttered. "Try figuring out what possible options might be a good idea to add to the harem that I could potentially afford."

"Is there a time limit?"

"Not really, I expect we'll be pushing to collect money as much as we can, but, you know, keep an eye open for opportunities if anything comes up."

Diane nodded absently, watching you dress. "Any preferences?"

The question was so plain and easy, as if asking for what one would want for breakfast. It made you grimace. You held back the grimace. "Just... I don't even know where to start, I want someone who can help us be better able to handle anything coming our way. Probably best to have a list of potentially interesting breeds we might be able to find."

"I will keep it in mind, Master." She nodded, reaching for the belt with the balls. "I'll handle them while you're out with Monica, unless you wish to take someone else with you?"

"I think I'll survive." You shrugged. "Maybe asking the others what they think could be potentially interesting."

Diane nodded, you headed out to get some grub and get Monica out of her ball.