Kyle looked around the classroom that was now being used as a makeshift infirmary as Claire dragged him over to where he assumed Damian was resting. All around there were people bustling back and forth carrying bolts of cloth to be used as bandages, and ducking through some screens that had obviously been set up to provide privacy for the patients with clean bandages or exiting with dirty ones and people with healing magic doing their best to heal the injured. It wasn’t unusual for even people who had no interest in Levelling Up to learn some Healing Magic because being able to heal yourself or someone else if you were injured was useful not matter who you were but unfortunately more powerful spells required more practice to master and more MP to use which meant that most people couldn’t learn to heal more than a bruise or small cut. This meant that while there were plenty of volunteers who could tend to minor wounds with healing magic and even more who were mixing fresh batches of healing potions, there weren’t anywhere near enough healers who were able to heal the more serious injuries because keeping the people on the front lines in fighting shape was more important.
There were a large number of injured in this room alone and Kyle knew that this wasn’t the only place in Greenhearth that had been designated a shelter in case of monster attack but it was the largest and had the most healers who hadn’t gone to the front lines to help out there which meant that the other shelters were probably even worse off.
“Here he is guys,” Claire said as she pulled Kyle in through some privacy screen to reveal a pale-faced Damian lying in a small bed. Next to him was his Companion Lenny whose needles rattled together as he turned to look at the friends as they approached and blinked worriedly.
“How are you doing?” Kyle asked quietly as he slowly turned his head to examine his friend’s injury, there was a sheet that blocked Damian’s view of his injured leg which was definitely a good thing as far as Kyle was concerned because just looking at the mutilated limb made him feel like throwing up. Thankfully he could see that there was a spell cast over the ruined limb that blocked off Damian’s sensation of pain and another which kept his blood where it belonged which meant that not only was their friend conscious, he was lucid as well. Kyle could also see marks on Damian’s leg just below the knee where someone had obviously tied a tourniquet to prevent him from bleeding out on the way back from the Dungeon.
“Not as bad as I look,” Damian chuckled weakly. “They gave me a potion that’s blocking most of the pain and someone comes along every now and again to renew the spell that’s keeping me from bleeding out but I’m still drifting in and out of consciousness a bit.”
“What happened?” Hal asked looking at his friend worriedly.
“A monster slipped past our front line and tried to attack our healer, but I managed to jump between them,” Damian explained. “Unfortunately for me it was quite a bit tougher than I was even with the training you guys have been giving me, so it managed to nearly rip my leg off before the teacher intervened.”
“Is the healer alright?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah he’s fine,” Damian replied wincing slightly as he shifted in an attempt to make himself a bit more comfortable causing his hedgehog-shaped Companion to move out of his way so that he didn’t accidentally get stabbed by his spines. “He’s been checking up on me as well as Claire so I’m not doing too badly.”
“Well then you did the right thing,” Kyle told his friend firmly. “It’s the job of the rest of the party to protect the healer so that the healer can keep everyone alive.”
Damian nodded in agreement; he knew that he had made the right decision for his part even though it had ended up with him being badly injured, but it was still good to hear the confirmation from someone he respected the way he respected Kyle and it also helped when the others chimed in with agreements of their own. He was still a bit worried about the future; he had seen the mess the monster had made of his leg and he knew that even a skilled healer would have difficulty making him whole again.
“Kyle, I might go around and try and help out where I can with my magic if that’s okay with you?” Fi asked.
“Of course,” Kyle replied giving his companion a surprised look. “You don’t even have to ask about something like that.”
Fi nodded and took to the air and flew over to one of the healers nearby and asking how she could help out. The healer, a slender young Beastman nodded sent her over to a certain area, telling her to let the healer in charge of keeping the patients in that area know that they could take a short break to regenerate MP.
The healer who was only Level 4 had been struggling for some time to keep the patients as stable and comfortable as possible but didn’t have enough Mana to do was thanked her and walked off to rest outside the hall where the injured were leaving Fi to cover her area. It didn’t take long, however for the companion to realise that she might have been able to keep the patients stable with her Restore spell but keeping them comfortable was another thing entirely and she sent a message to Kyle explaining the situation.
“Alright,” Kyle sent back. “I’ll come and give you a hand with that.”
He and the others had been keeping Damian company for about quarter of an hour now, but they were starting to realise that they were just in the way where they were so Hal decided to go and see if there was anything that he could help with elsewhere while Sonia walked over to one of the healers to see what she could do to help. Claire was already back on her rounds and was currently carrying a large basket full of blood encrusted bandages to the laundry area.
“I’ll be back in a bit Damian,” Kyle told his friend. “Take care of him for me will you Lenny?”
“Sure Kyle,” Lenny squeaked. The Companion was obviously distraught about what had happened to Damian and regretted the fact that he wasn’t able to do anything about it when it happened but unfortunately Damian hadn’t Levelled Up until the end of that fight which meant that Lenny hadn’t been able to learn any abilities other than the ones that he had been summoned with which were limited to a single defensive technique and night vision. He was hopeful that someone would be along to deal with Damian’s leg shortly, but Damian had asked that the healers healed the citizens first which they had grudgingly agreed to. Unfortunately Lenny knew that even with the spells that they had placed on Damian’s leg every minute that his friend had to wait without them actually healing it properly increased the likelihood of them having to remove the leg entirely which could end with Damian having to drop out of the Adventurer’s School if they couldn’t get a replacement that worked well enough.
Kyle nodded and walked over to Fi who asked him to start replacing the bandages on some of her patients and Kyle nodded and got to work. While he hadn’t unlocked the First Aid Skill, yet he had been taught how to safely clean wounds and safely apply bandages as well as several other basic first aid techniques. Having the related Skill would make him better at these things but he was still more than capable of changing a few bandages. Thankfully all of the patients were conscious as this area didn’t have any patients in critical condition like the area that Damian was resting in did so they helped him out as much as they could.
“Thank you for helping me out young man,” a middle-aged elf woman told Kyle as he tied off one of the fresh bandages that covered her torso. “May I ask how things are going outside?”
“Well, I don’t really know what things are like at the front lines but from what I’ve heard things are starting to calm down,” Kyle replied. “I can tell you that the city has seen better days. But the school is still safe, in fact before I came in here to check on a friend of mine an extremely powerful retired Adventurer showed up to take over for Reginald.”
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“Why did someone have to take over for Reginald?” the blonde woman asked curiously.
“Well, he had been fighting for a while by the time Alistair showed up,” Kyle replied carefully. “Most fights don’t last that long in reality so it’s not really that surprising that he needed to take a break.
Kyle knew that if he told the whole story about why Alistair had to take over for Reginald and of course the fact that he and the other students had to take over in between Reginald losing control and Alistair showing up then it could cause problems for the school and lower morale if the news got out so he decided to gloss over some of the details of what happened.
The elven woman eyes narrowed slightly at his answer. Even though she had the appearance of a woman a little over his own mothers age she was in fat over 100 years old and was easily able to recognise when someone who was as inept at lying as Kyle was trying to hide something. However, she knew that there had to be a reason that he wasn’t telling her the whole story so decided not to ask any more questions.
“Well then when this is done, I want you and your Companion to drop by my shop- if it’s still in one piece- so that I can thank you,” she replied watching him carefully for some sort of reaction.
“Are you going to make that same offer to all the people helping you out today or just me?” Kyle asked calmly as he realised that she was on to him making the older woman smile as she noticed the surprise flicker across his face.
“Well I get the feeling that I owe you more than the other young man who was helping me earlier,” the elven woman chuckled. “Besides my son is rather fond of you.”
“Your son?” Kyle asked cocking his head to one side as he tried to think of who she could be talking about. “Do you mean Revius?”
“That’s right,” the woman laughed lightly then winced as pain erupted from the wound in her side. “Ouch. He mentioned that you were quite a capable fighter and more than a little bit reckless.”
Kyle grimaced slightly at her words although after the events of earlier today he couldn’t deny that he was far too reckless. He was also surprised that this woman was Revius’ mother, not because they didn’t look alike but because he hadn’t been aware that Revius’ mother was even living in Greenhearth but then again, he didn’t actually know that much about Revius.
“Alright I guess I could pop by your shop at some point,” Kyle agreed reluctantly. “Now I’d better see to the other patients.”
“Yes, you probably should,” Revius’ mother agreed. “By the way my name is Patravia, call me Patty and my shop’s name is Patty’s Gems, it’s an accessory store.”
“Huh, I’ve heard of it, in fact I’ve been meaning to visit it, not that I could afford anything of course,” Kyle told Patty who smiled happily. As one might expect from the name Accessory stores sold things like rings and bracelets much like a jewellery store would. However, unlike a jewellery store the items that an Accessory Store sold were all enchanted to increase various Stats and occasionally even items that allowed someone wearing them to use a certain Skill, though not as well as actually unlocking it yourself would. Of course, that meant that buying anything from the Accessory store was out of the question with the money that he had so he had only wanted to go there to do some research on different Enchantments.
“Hey Kyle, Fi, you two can take a break now if you want,” said the healer who had been sent to take a break earlier said as he walked over. “I believe that Zerah is about to start surgery on your friend if you want to head over there.”
“Okay thanks, Dan,” Kyle nodded as an extremely tired Fi landed on his shoulders. It had been an extremely long day for both of them but for the small Companion in particular and now that she had also been healing people almost constantly for almost half an hour as well, she was completely burnt out. “I’ll do that.”
Nodding at the young man one more time Kyle waved at the patients who all smiled thankfully at his as he walked away. They all appreciated the fact that the pleasant young man and his Companion had done the best that they could to keep them comfortable despite the fact that it wasn’t something that either of them specialised in in any way.
“Well then,” Kyle sighed as he was finally able to relax. He had done the best that he could to help the patients that he and Fi had been left in charge of despite how awkward it had been at times but he was definitely ready to take a break and checking up on Damian was a great excuse especially since Fi had been running low on MP for a while now. “Let’s go and check up on Damian I guess.”
Fi made a tired grunt of agreement as she wrapped her long body lazily around his neck and Kyle chuckled at the way that she was acting. It was actually amusingly similar to the way she acted on cold mornings which made sense as depleting your MP continuously like she had been doing caused a significant amount of fatigue. Seeing her acting like this visibly improved his mood and he walked over to Damian’s bed with a smile on his face making the others who were already there look at him in confusion before noticing that Fi had fallen asleep on the way over.
“How’s it going man?” Hal asked as his friend approached.
“Oh, you know,” Kyle chuckled. “Fi’s been keeping people stable with her magic while I changed their dressings and made sure that they were comfortable, so she’s pretty tired.”
“So, I see,’ Hal nodded. “I’ve been checking up on the areas of the school that aren’t being used to make sure there isn’t any damage and making sure that no one gets into the forge that shouldn’t be in there.”
Kyle nodded at this, although the school was fairly well-defended it wasn’t impossible for some weaker monsters to get in by digging up through the floor or some other way that they couldn’t defend against. And making sure that people kept out of the forge was just good sense, especially considering the number of small children among the people taking refuge inside the school so Hal doing that instead of helping out here in the makeshift infirmary as he was even less qualified to help out with most things there than Kyle was.
“And how did that go?” Kyle asked as they turned towards Zerah who was beginning to prep Damian for surgery. Unlike back before the System came along you didn’t have to worry quite as much about infections and things like that because it was easy enough to put a barrier up around the patient or clean any surgical instruments with magic. There was a possibility that there could be magical issues like curses or magical illnesses to deal with in some cases, but all things considered performing surgery was far safer than it used to be.
“There wasn’t any sign of anything trying to get in,” Hal replied with a shrug. “I did have to send a couple of kids back to their parents and leave Herman to make sure that they didn’t try to get back in which he appreciated of course. I understand the interest in the forge but it’s a dangerous place for people who don’t know what they’re doing as you well know.”
“Yeah there are a lot of things in there that I wouldn’t touch, and I actually have some idea what they do,” Kyle agreed as Zerah checked Damian’s wound one final time with a frown on her face.
“Yeah,” Hal nodded in agreement and the two fell silent as Zerah turned to look Damian in the eye.
“Well young man you have two choices,” Zerah told Damian who frowned back at her.
“What do you mean?” he asked in confusion.
Well I can save the leg, but it will never be the same again,” Zerah sighed shaking her head sadly. She knew that this was hard to hear but the next thing that she was going to say was in some way even worse. “Or I can remove the leg just below the knee and set you up with an enchanted prosthetic that will perform almost as well as your leg did before the injury. Now if you choose that option I do have other piece of good news; because you were taking part in an official test for the school and we are partially responsible for what happened you will only have to pay 5 Gold instead of the 100 Gold that someone would normally have to pay for such an expensive item.”
As she expected Damian turned pale and started to shake. This was a hard decision for him to make and she wouldn’t disagree with whatever he chose. What she didn’t expect however, was what happened next.
“Kyle, Hal, what do you two think I should do?” Damian asked his two friends who had also turned pale upon hearing Zerah’s words. Hal and Kyle froze in surprise for a couple of seconds before glancing at each other and nodding. They knew each other well enough to know that they were in agreement on this point.
“That depends on whether you still want to be an Adventurer or not,” Hal began with a serious expression on his face.
“If you still want to be an Adventurer than you should probably choose the prosthetic if not then it probably doesn’t matter too much either way,” Kyle continued nodding in agreement.
“That’s what I thought, you’d say,” sighed Damian as she closed his eyes and nodded slowly to himself before turning to the gnome who was watching the exchange with wide eyes. “You have my permission to amputate my leg. I’m not ready to give up on becoming an Adventurer.”
Zerah hesitated briefly before nodding her agreement. As she set up a barrier around them that would prevent anyone from seeing what she was going to be doing to Damian which would be extremely distracting and unpleasant to witness even for someone who was used to seeing surgery being performed.
Seeing the barrier appear around their friend and Zerah Kyle and Hal both took a seat. They couldn’t help but feel nervous about what was happening and even slightly guilty, but they silently agreed that they were going to stay and support their friend’s decision. No matter what happened.