“Oh, stop crying, you baby,” Phisola teased.

“And when do I have the right to cry if not when the blood is gushing out of my vein?”

“It will stop soon. But really, look at it go! You have some mighty pulse there. Or you’re just absolutely terrified.”

“I wouldn’t volunteer for it if I were scared. And by the way, I appreciate the distraction. I appreciate how you’ve focused all of my attention on the conversation right before cutting it. You acted like a real nurse there.”

She gave him a genuine smile this time: “You’re welcome. I take it that means your nurses know how to draw blood from people?”

“Yes, it’s always a nurse who does it.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be taking care of people?”

“They are. Taking their blood helps with understanding what’s wrong with them. Sometimes it’s not so obvious.”

“Hmm … ok, let’s stop the bleeding first, and then we can continue the conversation. Oh, and don’t talk now. I need to focus. Don’t distract me unless you want to keep on bleeding.”

“Understood.”

As she took his arm in her hand, she moved her other hand over the wound. She started making strange gestures with her fingers as her hand hovered over the wound, sometimes even moving her hand in circular patterns.

Eric noticed the blood flow slowing down considerably until it eventually stopped moving altogether. For a few moments, his blood just stood on his arm as if frozen in time. But then it started moving back into his severed vein as if going back home. It took all of his will not to say anything to that, to how his blood had suddenly started acting as if it had a mind of its own.

Once all the blood was back in, Phisola put her hand on the severed vein. Looking at her face, Eric realized that her eyes were closed entirely. Her face was devoid of emotion, making her look like an exquisite, immovable doll for a few moments.

After a while, she moved her hand away, revealing that the wound had been closed.

“Phew,” she let out a labored sigh as she wiped her forehead, “that was much harder than I thought. But energy-wise, we’re good.”

Eric, however, looked at her somewhat disappointed: “That’s it?”

“What do you mean that’s it? The bleeding stopped, and the wound is closed. What more do you want?”

“No, I just … I don’t know why, but I expected a glow or something.”

“Some other magics do glow, but not this one. There are many ways to do magic, you know.”

“Well … I’d say you did a great job, and that’s what’s most important,” he said, examining his arm closely.

“Healing isn’t my specialty, but I do know some of it.”

“Healing a severed vein is damn impressive if you ask me.”

“Still, my healing was way too energy inefficient. A healing mage would do it much better than I did. She could even make it glow.”

“It lasted for only a few moments, and it looks like everything is fixed. I can’t even see a tiny scar or any other trace of cut out here. You did a splendid job.”

She let out another tired sigh: “But it took all of my concentration to pull it off. Wait … why the fuck do I need to explain myself to you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been showering you with praise ever since you did it, yet you keep on insisting that it’s nothing impressive. I know for sure it’s impressive to me.”

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She observed him for a while with an annoyed look on her face: “It’s just irritating to be praised about something you’re not good at. If you’re going to praise me, then praise me for the many things I’m great at.”

“I’m just genuinely impressed with what I’ve seen. The way the blood moved … I only saw that in horror movies. I must admit, it did make me feel uneasy, but I did my best not to say anything so as not to break your concentration.”

“That’s good. I would’ve punched you straight in the face if you said anything. Well, the blood part wasn’t anything special. Anyone who is semi-competent at magic knows a thing or two about blood.”

“Anyone?”

“Hmm … ok, maybe not the idiots you’re used to. Those retards in Greadinall have created so many taboos that most of the knowledge is forbidden to them.”

“Now, I’m completely ignorant when it comes to magic, so I have to ask. Was this that I’ve just witnessed blood magic?”

Phisola rolled her eyes really hard: “Oh, boy! First of all, there is no such thing as blood magic! It’s not like fire or wind, it’s not a natural force to be controlled! Blood is just the most efficient way of doing magic! That’s it! Any mage can use it to power her spells. It’s not like you have to focus on just studying blood to make use of it.”

“I’ve only ever heard of how blood magic is dangerous. Even back home, in my world, where magic doesn’t exist. Even there, we have stories of how dangerous blood magic is.”

“The term blood magic was created by some short-sighted fools to discourage using blood when doing magic. It doesn’t really mean anything! The retards of Greadinall have coined that term to prevent the mages from becoming too powerful. Some noble idiots didn’t like the idea of meritocracy because they knew they’d have no chance against it, so they decided to prosecute any mage who dares to use efficient magic. That’s all there is to it. And that’s also why our mages wipe the floor with theirs every time we meet.”

“So, you guys were at war? I must say that your disdain for them is quite noticeable.”

“My disdain doesn’t come from us fighting. It comes from them being complete idiots.”

“Shouldn’t that make it easier for you? I mean, aren’t dumb enemies easier to deal with?”

She gave him a sideways glare: “What kind of world are you coming from? Are there any orcs in your world?”

“No, there are only us, humans. There are no other sentient creatures in our world.”

“Did you happen to exterminate everyone else?”

“Not … really. First of all, there were only a few sentient spec … races that were created, or to be more precise, came into being. Our world’s biological diversity is nothing compared to yours, at least when it comes to sentient creatures. And the few of those races that did exist got assimilated into our race through breeding.”

“Aha. So you’re sex demons.”

“We’re not demons!”

“Sounds very demonic to me! What demons do is assimilate. Just because you’re too cowardly to conquer the other races, that doesn’t mean the end result is different. Either way, they no longer exist.”

“No, they do exist, as a part of us!”

“That’s even worse! I don’t think you can dominate people harder than that!”

“No, you’re… what I mean is that our races have merged together. We humans aren’t the same as we were a few thousand years ago. We all merged into a single race.”

“Your people are big on blood, right?”

“No.”

“This human that is in front of me right now,” she pointed a finger at him, “how much of his blood is the original human blood, and how much of it belongs to these other races?”

“First of all, our blood is constantly changing due to evolution. And even now, when there are no other races to breed with, it keeps on evolving. The future humans will have radically different blood from mine.”

“How much of your blood belongs to non-human races?”

“I think it’s… one or two percent on average.”

“What is prsent?”

“It’s … one-hundredth part of something. Hundred percent is something complete while one percent is one-hundredth of it.”

Hearing that, Phisola started laughing wholeheartedly.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“You fucking idiot! You couldn’t have dominated them harder if you tired!”

“A percentage doesn’t mean a thing! There are people who have more or less! The point is that their DNA still exists!”

She wiped her eye: “And this di en ej is their essence, I guess?”

“Yes. We didn’t exterminate them, we have just assimilated them!”

“Oh my god,” she said between the bouts of laughter, “How can you be so clueless?”

“I just don’t understand what’s so funny. I’m not offended, I just genuinely don’t understand what’s so interesting.”

“What is funny is your denial. You genuinely believe in what you’re saying.”

“I don’t know how it is among your people, but we didn’t breed with them to make them disappear. We just have nothing against race-mixing.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, why would you?”

“Exactly, why would we? People should be free to love whoever they want.”

“Just tell me, who got fucked there? I mean, not literally. Who got shaf … umm … what sex of these other races got to breed with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you do something like that, you choose one sex to breed with you while the other one doesn’t get any of it. That’s how you make sure the entire race disappears. First, you divide them, making sure one sex gets everything while the other one gets nothing. That makes the other sex bitter and jealous. That divide makes their families nonfunctional until, eventually, those families disappear completely. Their complete assimilation is only a matter of time at that point.”

“And what the fuck made you come up with such a bullshit story? How did such an idea even get into your head?”

“It’s because that’s exactly what my people are doing.”