After hours of answering questions and calming down the adventurers in attendance, Lee was free from his duties. Frankly, he was surprised by the questions asked about healing. While he knew the residents of this world knew little about human biology, they did seem to have a very rudimentary grasp of anatomy.

Like the Dark Elves, they knew most things from repetition, failure, and what was now known as common sense. They knew they couldn’t breathe water—That was quickly figured out long ago by their predecessors. This was common sense.

They knew that realigning and setting bones was beneficial and should be done well before the healing began. If bones were not correctly set, they either wouldn’t heal or would instead heal incorrectly, damaging and hampering their future. They learned this through repetition and failure.

But, they didn’t know why their bodies did what they did.

Why did their bodies need air to breathe? Why do you die from starvation? Why couldn’t you live without water? Why did you bruise? Why did some injuries fester? Why did you need light to see? Why did losing blood cause death?

They knew these things, but they just didn’t understand, and that was okay. The fact that questions were, in fact, being asked and that he could answer some of them was a blessing. Of course, for every question he answered, more were brought up, but he would take that over ignorance. Once the first question was asked, many more followed.

By the time he finished, Regina was waiting for him near the doorway with someone he didn’t expect to see. Annalise.

Just when the nervousness of teaching finally abated, another type of nervousness began to flutter in his stomach.

Lee gave them both a bright smile as he strolled over towards them with his notes tucked under his arm. He gave them both a slight nod. “Today was very productive. Did either of you happen to catch the end of the lecture?”

Regina returned the slight nod but completely ignored everything he had just said. “I require your assistance with Ross. Time is of the essence.” She turned to Annalise and gave a formal bow. “It was a pleasure.” Then, she stormed off out of the building with hasty steps.

Baffled and put out from her casual dismissal, Lee gave Annalise a shaky smile. “I hope we see each other again.” Lee then sped out of the building to catch up to Regina with a frown.

“Regina!” Lee whisper yelled as he caught up. “What is the rush? We couldn’t spare any time for Annalise?”

Regina barely even spared him a look as she continued onwards through the village. “I wasn’t aware you both were acquainted, but no, we could not. As I said, time is of the essence.”

Soon, they both arrived at a series of ramshackle shacks near an opening that delved deep into the ground. Regina, completely ignoring Lee as he gazed upon the location, swiftly swung open a nearby shack door and gestured for him to enter.

Once inside, Lee stilled as his eyes caught up to his brain. In the center of the small shack sat an unconscious Ross, tied down with ropes and bleeding from several cuts across his body. Red bloodstains coated the floor, along with some teeth.

“Regina. What. The. Fuck. Is. This?” Lee ground out as he fully entered the room.

Regina closed the door behind them, darkening the room. The only light source within was the thin beams of light that found their way through gaps in the shoddy roof. She spared a quick glance toward Ross. “Heal him so I may continue gathering information.”

Like the weight of a train smashing into his chest, Lee finally understood what had happened. “Jesus Christ, Regina. I didn’t mean to torture the kid.” Lee quickly waved his hand and double-cast Mend Wounds, making use of his new skill, Multicast.

The shallow breathing and swollen lips faded with a silver glow, the slices and bleeding stopped as flesh was mended, and eyes were shocked open as unconsciousness ended. Terrified, Ross shifted his eyes across the room and eventually landed on Regina. Tears poured as he shook his head side to side and tried to scoot away in his chair from her, creating a grating sound and wood scuffed wood. His mouth opened and closed, but no sounds managed to come out, likely from pure terror.

Lee threw open the door to the shack, causing it to tetter off his rusted hinges as he jerked his head to tell Regina to follow. Once outside, he pointed at the shack. His voice strained as he struggled with his emotions. “I know I asked you to question him for information, but this…” He frantically waved his hand at the shack. “This is not what I had in mind. This is torture.”

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Regina didn’t seem to be phased by his remarks. “This is an effective way to gather information—Information that we require.” Regina looked over her shoulder at the ramshackle shack. “Tell me. Have you killed a person before?”

Not expecting or appreciating the topic change, Lee narrowed his eyes slightly. “I haven’t, and I hope I don’t have to anytime soon. Why do you ask?”

Regina was quiet for a few seconds but eventually replied in her monotone voice as she turned her neck to face him again. “I was just curious. You may leave. I will return when I am finished here.”

Regina turned around and started to make her way into the shack once more, but Lee approached from behind and grabbed her shoulder. “I’m afraid my conscience won’t let that continue. He’s what? Sixteen? He saw two gold and took it. After what you did to him, he would have told you everything he knew.”

Regina’s emotionless face slowly looked down upon the hand on her shoulder. A frown slowly made its way onto her face, and her voice had a frosty edge as she spoke. “Remove your hand.”

“Or what?” Lee challenged.

“I’m doing this for your protection.” Regina looked from Lee’s hand to his now determined glowing blue eyes.

“And I’m telling you to stop. I would use force, but without knowing how much HP you have, I’m afraid you’d die.” Lee calmly stated, eyes unflinching.

Regina lowered her gaze to something in front of her, and her eyes minutely widened. She shrugged her shoulder, removing Lee’s hand with a shockingly strong motion, and began walking to the shack once more.

Lee was about to pull the metaphorical trigger on his Antithesis of Healing, but Regina turned back to cooly regard him. “I’ll move him somewhere else for his imprisonment. But know this: if he knows something and didn’t tell us, the consequences are on you.”

Lee waited outside the shack until a tied-up Ross was escorted out and led back toward the center of the village. Lee watched the poor teen mumble and plead as they left before stomping his way back toward their camp.

While he had asked Regina to question Ross, threatened the boy with death, and intimidated him back in the village hall, he didn’t want to torture the boy for information. As Lee had asked, it wasn’t entirely Regina’s fault, but he obviously wasn’t clear on what he wanted. It was one thing to play some good-cop-bad-cop, but it was different to go all covert black site.

Without any leads, he was left with a tiny list of potential targets who wanted his spellbook of healing. And that teeny-tiny list had a single word—Everyone.

As Lee made his frustration-filled trek through the village, he felt a pinprick of warning from his wisdom. Less than a second later, before he could properly grasp the threat at hand, the ground started to quake. He stumbled and leaned across the wall of a nearby building. He watched as shocked villagers and adventurers hunkered down for what he assumed to be an earthquake. Vegetables on stands and coins exchanging hands tumbled to the ground as the formerly small quake increased in intensity.

After another ten seconds, his feet were jumping inches off the ground, and his vision was shaking back and forth from the ridiculous intensity. Suddenly, an enormous, hazy plume of dust, earth, and stone erupted from the distance behind him, launching debris hundreds, if not thousands of feet into the air.

It came from where he was just at.

Following the eruption, a deep reverberating thrum, which sounded like some old war horn, nearly ruptured his ears from its deafening volume as a shockwave of sound slammed into him and everyone nearby. Lee and those around were blasted back a few feet, and some of the more unprepared tumbled across the cobblestone street head over heels from the terrifying force.

The quaking slowly settled as everybody gazed into the sky at the now-falling rock, dirt, and stone. Within mere seconds, the first of the debris crashed down around them, crushing through roofs and smashing into the street. Almost subconsciously, Lee threw up several Wall of Earth’s.

Each one connected to the other, and some even created a haphazard roof of their own for those all around.

It appeared that Lee wasn’t alone in this endeavor, as several other nearby mages threw up wall spells of their own. Air, Wind, Water, and Earth walls materialized all around those nearby, hoping to shield everyone from the debris.

One large boulder obliterated and shattered one of the walls closest to Lee, tumbling through and landing mere feet away from where he cowered. Looking at the debris, a heart-sinking realization set in. These were not rocks and stones falling from the sky.

These were statues.

The loud, deeply unsettling reverberation echoed through the village once more as the falling debris began to falter off. Lee was about to yell about the statues, but he wasn’t the only one who noticed. All the nearby adventurers shifted from shock and surprise into a determined and ready combative state. Shields, swords, spears, bows, knives, and daggers were all drawn and donned nearly simultaneously as adventurers prepared themselves for what was to come.

Some were forming parties of their own with those nearby. Others began calling out their party names, hoping to find their teammates nearby to regroup.

Most didn’t get to finish grouping by the time terrified screams and the clashing of metal on stone started to spread throughout the village. Pandemonium swept its way through the village of Lopus like a wave once the starting of combat took hold.

Lee was about to search some of the nearby destroyed buildings for survivors when the reverberation sounded out once again, causing him to cover his ears with his hands. Then, off in the distance of the eruption, an enormous, dark, and murky green hoofed appendage rose from over the tops of the faraway buildings, sinking into the ground and crushing everything near as it braced.

A massive leg of a creature of unrealistic, unfathomable proportions.

One that was rising to the surface.