Chapter 26

“Are you ready?” Old Dave said. “Carmela is waiting for you inside.”

They were in front of a large building, a private care facility in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those places for the rich, away from prying eyes, surrounded by a lush garden. Sprinklers were making sure the grass and bushes stayed green, while everywhere else the summer heat had already turned most of the ground brown.

Even though it was afternoon, nobody was around, the huge facility almost deserted. Michael liked to think it was because it was Sunday, but knew it probably was due to Carmela flexing her mafia muscles to ensure his privacy, as he had demanded.

“Impressed?” Dave asked, amused, “she sure can deliver, when she sets her mind to it, can’t she? There is a doctor inside, of course, but he’s one of hers. He won’t talk. I am asking you again, are you ready?”

“Hi Michael,” Carmela’s voice reached his ears as soon as they were inside, an unlike her usual demeanour she was all business. “I am afraid I cannot be here long. Il lavoro, work, demands my full attention. Problem with the Don, but nothing I can’t solve. I wanted to wish you good luck in person, though, are you not happy? We are going to make so much money together.”

She winked at him. Seductively. And, although she was a much older woman, Michael had to admit that his cheeks felt hot.

“Don’t rip him off.” Dave said.

“Pff, ti preoccupi? Don’t worry, old man, I know you want to have a say in this. I am not looking forwards to that phone call. Michael, good luck. I won’t be here when you are done, sadly, or we could have had fun.” She purred, “but I’ll be waiting for the good news in my ufficio, trying to sort out the mess I’ve been left with. It’s for your benefit too, say grazie!”

After she was gone, Michael was led to the sole occupied room in the facility.

He gripped the three silver coins in his pocket, along with the many copper ones. For some reason, he felt more tense now than he had right before fighting the forest king. He felt out of his element, the weight of the real world pressing on his shoulders, as if whatever happened in the dungeon had not the same level of reality as whatever happened out here. Or was about to happen.

He nodded, steeling himself. They had planned and prepared, at least Old Dave and Carmela had, in order to make the process as smooth as possible.

“Let’s do it.”

***

“Shattered spine,” the doctor said coldly, shooting glances at Michael even as he read the girl’s medical records. “She’s condemned to a lifetime in a wheelchair, with no hope to walk again. There’s nothing to work with,” he said with a frown. “I am loathe to admit, but modern medicine can’t do anything other than soothe the pain.”

The girl was sleeping on the hospital bed, hooked up to a number of machines to monitor her vitals, as well as to force her breathing. They had sedated her heavily for the procedure, to mitigate the risk of her waking up during the healing process.

“You think you can heal her?” Old Dave asked, hovering close to the pale girl’s body, heaving a sigh. “Damn, this is tough to watch.”

“I can,” Michael said confidently. “You can stay, but he’ll need to go.”

The doctor scoffed. “Sure. Feel free to call me once you are done, great healer.”

With that, he was gone.

“I thought he was one of hers?” Michael commented.

“Can you blame him? He’s a doctor first, one of hers second. He won’t talk, but he won’t believe we can heal the girl either until he sees it.”

Michael didn’t miss Old Dave speaking of it as if they were healing the girl together through a joint effort, but thought nothing of it. Dave had been instrumental in making this happen, after all.

“I guess it makes sense,” he said, “magic is not very scientific, and I would expect a doctor to be a man of science.”

“So, how do you want to proceed?” Old Dave asked, a touch impatiently.

Yeah, no need to stall. “Did you do all the procedures?”

“Yeah,” Old Dave said, “we gave her that strange powder. She made faces, but she drank it. You know, her father was crying as she did, calling her a brave girl. I have never seen Mr Naoshida in such a state.”

“I got it. Don’t worry, Dave.”

“You better,” the man said, and for a moment Michael didn’t know whether he had said it because his reputation was on the line, or because seeing the father and the girl in such a state had tugged at his heartstrings. I guess it doesn’t matter in the end. I would be lying if I said this isn’t having an effect on me.

Deciding to put the many swirling thoughts that had arisen out his mind, about the unfairness of life and how he wished he could do more than just heal a person to make the world right, he approached the bed. Thrusting a hand into his pocket, he got in range for the skill and designated the girl as a temporary ally. All he had to do was think of her as a target, and the skill would heal her.

Then his magic vision flared, his eyes gaining a faint shimmer that could be confused for a strange trick of the light. Coins started vanishing. He couldn’t see it, nor sense it clearly, but he knew his skill was doing something. He had a distant feeling of flesh knitting, bones mending, and of a vital yet fragile bundle of somethings being reconstructed from scratch. The process took a fair bit longer than an hour, and by the end, Michael could swear that his grasp of the process as the healing ran its course had improved, although his sight was still vague and blurry.

When it was over, they called the doctor back in. The girl was looking much better, color having returned to her face, her breathing was even and controlled even without the machine. The healing had broken down the anesthetic in her system, and she was stirring.

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“Hey,” the doctor said softly, having rushed past Michael as if he didn’t exist, taking the girl’s hand as she blinked in confusion. “Mina, can you hear me?”

“Mm,” the girl mumbled.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, and Michael realized that the doctor knew her, rather than being just here for the procedure. Perhaps Mina was a regular in this facility.

“Good?” she asked, as if confused, before regaining her bearings. Her eyes locked with Michael’s for a moment, and she inhaled deeply, “is it done?”

“Can you try to move your toes?” Michael asked.

“I…” she struggled. Her face was scrunched up in concentration, her body trying to remember how to do something it had not done in a long time. “I think… I can!” she blurted out, tears flowing freely down her face.

She wept, moving her toes then her feet, then her legs, and although she struggled to move them as she wanted, she was getting better by the moment.

“Impossible,” the doctor was muttering, by the side, having let Mina’s hand go as he stared wide-eyed at her, then at Michael. “Impossible…”

“Do you want to try to stand?” Old Dave said, looking like a caring grandpa for a moment, a stark contrast to how Michael saw him deal with other business.

“I… I don’t know.” The girl hesitated.

“There’s nothing wrong with you anymore,” Old Dave said softly, “Mike here will hold your hand. He’s young and strong!”

That shook Michael out of his stupor, and he shyly walked over to where the doctor still stood stunned, and took the girl’s hand. Gingerly she tried to stand, stumbling, but he steadied her, for she was very light despite her age. She took a tentative step, then another, tears once more flowing down her red cheeks.

“Daddy, daddy!” she opened the door on her own two feet, holding the railing but walking by herself, “look! I can walk again!”

Her father leapt to his feet, sweeping her into a hug.

“Thank you!” Mr Naoshida said. “I… don’t know what to say. When Carmela came to me, talking about nanomachines and this miracle cure, I didn’t want to believe her! I… I was involved in bad things, you know? But no more. I am turning over a new leaf, as you English say.” He shook his head. “I had thought, if I let myself hope again,” he turned to face his daughter, “I’m sorry princess. I should never have given up hope.”

“I know daddy. I thought I’d never walk again too.” She was weeping, but they were tears of joy.

“Still. It’s a miracle,” the man said, “I don’t know if nanomachines can really do what you did, or something else. But—”

“The powder we had her drink was full of them,” Old Dave said confidently, sticking to the script. “We simply had to activate and direct them towards the damage.”

“I see.” The man said. “In any case, I thank you once again. I admit I only agreed to this because it was free, and I had no hope left but… if there is anything I can do to repay you, I will do it.”

“There’s no need,” Old Dave was all smiles, patting the man on the back, “go home, or perhaps take your daughter somewhere nice. If someone asks, put in a good word about us. You have Carmela’s number, and here’s mine.” He gave the man a card. “Now go. Enjoy life, little girl!”

***

“That was… intense,” Michael said.

“That it was,” Old Dave replied, slumped on a chair. He allowed himself a few moments of rest before he straightened his back, eyes glimmering. “Ah, no backache. I have you to thank for that, Michael.”

“No worries.”

Old Dave chuckled. “Sure. Whatever. Now, listen, I didn’t give them your name to protect your privacy, is that okay?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah, just as we agreed.”

“Interesting that Mr Naoshida said he wanted to turn over a new leaf. I doubt Carmela will be happy about it. That’s a lot of profit going down the drain if he pulls out of her business.”

“Will it be okay?” Michael asked.

“She can handle it. Besides, she did mention she wanted to run the Family differently, now that the Don put her in charge. I wonder how she’ll do it. As for Mr Naoshida, he’ll spread the word about this… treatment we offer. Oh, the others will be so jealous he got it first and for free. I’ve told him to make sure to mention that the nanomachines are quite the limited resource, we don’t have many and treatments will cost a lot. How many can you do a day?”

“Depends,” Michael pondered. This single healing cost him well over seventy coins, although the efficiency seemed to change from moment to moment. He suspected that if the skill had been at level one it would have taken more than double the coins. “Invasive procedures like today? No more than one every two days. Something simpler, perhaps more often. But we’d need to test the limits of my ability.”

It was not the entire truth, of course, but Michael preferred to keep things vague. Mana was the real bottleneck, the amount of coins he was willing to devote to the task. He felt awful, limiting the amount of healing he could do, as if he was withholding something good from the world, but he had to think about his own goals first. Healing was a side thing, one he wanted to develop further, but it was not the main objective yet. Perhaps one day.

I could force the skill to grow into a wide area heal, rather than a localized thing. If I did that, I could mass-heal people every day basically. But it would probably lower efficiency a lot, making it much less useful in battle. Do I want to risk my life, and my dungeon delving capabilities, for this?

“Of course,” Old Dave grinned. “That’s why I think we should implement a ‘ get healed or get your money back’ policy. We can justify it well enough, claiming the technology is still in testing stage.”

“Isn’t it illegal, to have human trials like this?”

“Do you think someone like Mr Naoshida cares about that? No, he cared about seeing his daughter walk again, Michael. As for the illegal part, that’s why you have Carmela and I, no?”

He shrugged.

“Now,” Old Dave continued. “Doctor Kavins is still… recovering from his shock, but he’s agreed to work with us again for the next patient. He said he’s sorry he didn’t believe you.”

“That’s good,” Michael said, “I took no offense. I didn’t expect him to believe us when we told him we could cure the girl with magic.”

“Still. He was disrespectful. I’ll let Carmela know. For now, we’ll let Mr Naoshida spread the word for us, he owes us as much. I don’t expect it will take much before we see cash start rolling in. Speaking of, do you have plans about what to do with the money?”

They talked about their plans for a while, Michael mentioning the increasing mana density around the dungeon and the strange sights within the swirling mana.

“I can’t say I understand it well, but…” Old Dave massaged his chin, “if it’s true, it’s surely bad news. We need to cordon the area off, and the only way to do that without drawing attention to us is to buy the whole property. I’ll start looking into it.”

“What about other possible dungeon entrances? If the situation is similar to here—”

“Then what? We don’t even know where they are!”

“I can spot them with my mana sense.” Michael retorted.

Old Dave hummed, “and what is the range of that ability, naïve boy?”

“Shit. Not much at all.”

“You couldn’t find another entrance in this state in any reasonable time frame, let alone in the whole of America. Or the world. No, Mike, you worry about what you can control. Monopolize your entrance to the dungeon, and grow powerful before anyone else starts making a mess of things. You can’t avoid the eventual mess, but you can be ahead of them if you’re smart. Luckily you have me to help you keep your head cool.”

“You’re right.” Michael conceded, “thank you. I needed that. I’ve been worrying too much lately.”

“Still, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t investigate what’s going on in the wider world. But to do any meaningful digging, we need a lot of money. A lot. Better worry about that, for now. Oh, would you look at that!” he waved his phone, which was beeping. “Looks like Mr Naoshida works pretty quickly. We got another patient lined up tomorrow. You up for it?”

***

Later that night, Michael had a nightmare that he was a great shark, hunting in the ocean. Except that whenever he ate a little fish, it turned out to be the little girl he had healed, exploding in a shower of gore and weeping terrible tears. Then the fishermen would arrive, dragging the corpse from his sharp teeth and replacing its meat with heaps of dollars, rapidly getting sodden in the water before they disintegrated into a green goop.