Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, I may feel like a veteran warrior, but after all I’m just an average citizen. Although it’s hard to call this a victory, the battle is over; and from now comes the trying to save lives, followed by rebuilding--it’s also about time for the harem candidate to appear--right?”

Arriving in a desolate back-alley, I quickly take off my robe; then I quickly cast All Map Exploration to check for any signs of humans, and seeing that there was no one around, I took off my disguise.

I put the disguise set, and robe, into the ‘forbidden’ folder, that I quickly created in my storage. I quickly made a Memo, to remind myself that I shouldn’t wear them normally--people had seen me fight a Demon, but I should wear them again if I fight another Demon.

With a shrug and a sigh, I take a uselessly gaudy robe out of storage, I dislike dressing up--I even wore a tee-shirt and jeans to prom--not that I managed to get a date--but this should be okay to wear, well it was one of the last in my storage that was neither mostly destroyed or Magic and dangerous.

After I changed, I decided to return to the street, of course I used a different route.

Hmm?

There seems to be the corpse of a soldier stuck on the branch of a tree the way I chose to go--to be thrown all the way to this back-alley--I couldn’t help but fall back on my deeply ingrained religious upbringing and muttered a pray for them; I managed to break the brainwashing when I grew up, but in the stress of a new situation, I accidentally fell back into long lost habits.

Well, for now, let’s just return to the plaza--I will think on this later.

“Err--person wearing the overly gaudy robe over there!”

--Somehow, there’s a voice coming from what I thought was a corpse in the tree; causing me to twitch in surprise. After recovering from my momentary surprise, I quickly confirmed on my radar--somehow, they are actually alive.

I look up at them.

“I’m sorry, could you please call some soldiers? It’s okay to wait until after the battle to do so.”

My first impression is actually quite favourable: instead of asking for help straight away, they were willing to wait until the battle--placing the safety of others over their own.

Now then, is there anything I can use for a ladder or scaffolding to help the soldier?

I guess I’ll just jump a few times, kicking off that window ledge and land on the nearby branch. After planning, I moved, following my planned route; rapidly launching my self upwards. Considering that the soldier may have fractured bones, I land as softly as I can on the branch.

“Well, the fight is over, so I shall carry you; please don’t move.”

“Eh? How did you get up here so quickly? Please don’t push yourself, if you can’t do it--call the other soldiers.” As they spoke, their voice distorted by their helmet, I picked them up in my arms.

If the soldier has any broken bones, or internal bleeding, then landing on the ground could be very dangerous, since we are around four meters up.

So, I jump over to the roof of the house nearby, which is slightly lower than the branch; landing carefully so as to not jolt the soldier at all.

When the armoured body in my arms twitched, I looked worriedly at them, “I jumped as carefully as possible, are you alright?”

“Yeah, well--that surprised me; but I’m fine.”

I quickly jump from roof to roof, searching for a house that had an exit on top of the roof which lead down into the attic. I finally find one, the top of the roof is flat, ringed with waist-high stone walls, with laundry left out on them to dry--it’s probable that they had left it out as they hurried to escape when the Demon attacked.

Luckily, there is a staircase which leads into the house, making my descent easier--though I have to hold the soldier close to my body to make sure I don’t whack them into the low ceiling and close stone walls.

Quickly arriving at the ground floor, I check the radar for people, then leave the house through a side door and into an alleyway.

Still holding the soldier in a princess carry, and being careful not to jostle them, I head towards the plaza.

“Hey, I have a question--” I pause as I quickly step around some rubble.

“Yes, what is it?” The soldier watches my movements as they answer.

“Uhh, even if the Demon’s attack blew you away--how come you ended up all the way over here?”

This isn’t like those overly exaggerated cartoons and anime where a character gets flung to the horizon, a small star glinting to show where they disappeared--the soldier was around ten to twenty meters away from the edge of the plaza, and four meters up in a tree.

“I got hit by the Demon, barely managing to stop the blow from breaking every bone in my body by accelerating myself backwards with Wind Magic, my friend noticed that I was about to be hit with the poison breath--so she flung me, carefully, even further. Since I would have died on impact, I used Magic to decelerate--I can’t fly, all I could do was slow my fall and drift--I got caught on the tree branch.” The soldier sounded slightly embarrassed, their green eyes, visible through the slit in their helmet, moved away from my gaze.

So, a normal soldier can use Magic, even without being one of the recognized Mages in their shiny cloaks.

As I exit the alley, entering the plaza proper, I see that there is a relief station already set up; nearby, there are mats placed down and several people--or parts of people--are laying on them, covered in sheets--it seems that this is where the corpses are.

“Civilians with only minor injuries, please gather over here!” A woman in a white coat shouted, gesturing where she wanted the injured people; I quickly walked over.

“Since you are holding the patient, please hold them a little further from your body.” She says as she approaches me.

I quickly, and very carefully, shift my grip and create a gap between my body and the soldier.

“I will be cleaning any dirt or other--’filth’ from them--it may be slightly surprising, so please don’t drop them.” The woman in the coat grinned at these words, the soldier rolled their eyes.

“*** **** *****, Soft Wash!”

As the strangely musical chant--formed from what sounded like many words layered over each other and spoken at an incredibly high speed--ended, water seemed to form out of the air around us--drenching me along with the soldier; it seems that I didn’t hold them far enough away from me.

Well, that certainly removed the dust and blood from me, and the dust from the soldier’s metal armour.

 

>>Skill: Life Magic Acquired.

 

Well, it seems to be a very useful Magic--it seems to be even better than bathing.

“I will dry it immediately.” The woman in the coat giggled softly at my reaction, before schooling her expression, “*** *****, Dry!”

The water seemed to be extracted from my skin and clothing, drying me and the soldier instantly and very efficiently.

“Well, that’s all I can do for now, please wait inside the chalk circle over there--that’s were the injured with gather for the healer to get to them, they are colour coded by severity. Go to the white one, for the lightly injured.” As she finished her words, the woman in the white coat turned and walked towards the next person.

This is the first time I have heard the chants for Magic up close--they sound very nice, musically--but I don’t think I could chant like that, since I can barely manage tongue twisters--let alone what sounded like ten or fifteen at the same time.

We went over to the circle drawn on the stone ground with white chalk, which was basically full; it reach capacity as the soldier and I entered. I wasn’t injured, I was just here to learn new skills--which was probably very selfish, since I took the place of someone potentially more injured.

Two girls wearing what looked like priestess clothing, thin white dresses that floated airily in the breeze--almost, but not quite, showing off their bodies--and wearing wimples--as well as strangely kind atmospheres, quietly approached; they were accompanied by some attendants.

“Alright, now than, the Priestesses of Parion will grant you the Miracle of Healing--everyone, please be silent!” An tall and muscular attendant shouted, drawing our attention.

Out from behind him came a smaller, female attendant, who spoke quietly and calmly, “Please relax.”

“*** **** ****--- (rest of the chant omitted, since it took almost two minutes straight to chant), Area Heal!” The Priestess’s forehead was beaded with sweat and she was gasping for breath after finishing the astonishingly long chant--after recovering, she smiled peacefully at everyone before moving on to another circle.

One of the Priestesses had come to our circle, the slightly older one had already started chanting while standing in the middle of three circles which had been drawn with red chalk, obviously where the dangerously injured people were gathered--I glanced over at the flash of green light that was generated when she finished, a glow of healing light washing over everyone at the same time; she was obviously more powerful than the Priestess who healed us, which was obviously why she healed the critically injured.

 

>>Skill: Holy Magic - Belief in Parion Acquired.

 

Most of the people in our circle seemed to be healed by the Magic just now, but a few with more broken bones and internal injuries needed additional healing--so the two attendants went around and cast smaller, individual healing spells on them.

It turned out that the soldier I was carrying was one of the more injured and the big attendant finished his spell before speaking, “Since you had a bad bone fracture in your left arm and some broken ribs, you will need to rest quietly for the night to recover completely.”

I was still holding the soldier in my arms--oh yes, as you may have guessed, the soldier is actually female--and quite attractive too. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be doing the same if it was a guy, I would just be a little more uncomfortable.

***

Now then, I’ve learned various Skills to use with Magic, but I don’t know any chants--while there were Magic shops and what look like bookstores that seem to sell Magic books in the remains of the plaza--but the stores have been destroyed, so they are probably closed--

“The good you do for others will come back for you--Karma and whatnot!” I mutter to myself as I decided to make myself popular with the owners of the bookstore and Magic shop by helping them--though I have selfish reasons, so Karma might not like it--

A carriage is half buried in the wall of the Magic shop.

Taking a quick look at my radar, I make sure that there are no survivors near the wreckage, before pulling it out.

Oops--

Thinking about it, I’m standing out by displaying the strength to pull a large carriage with a single hand aren’t I?

Eww, there’s a corpse in terrible condition stuck on the front of the carriage--crushed bones and gooified organs spread over the splintered wood--I can feel nausea welling up inside me.

Looking away, I can see that the inside of the Magic shop has been completely destroyed, but it seems that the owners are probably fine, there is a back door and I can see that there are people beyond said door.

With a shrug, and hoping that they’re fine, I walk over to the bookstore.

The front wall is destroyed and it looks like it’ll collapse at any minute now. When I peek inside, numerous bookshelves have toppled over and the books have scattered on the ground. From the radar I can see that there are two people squashed under some of the shelves.

The bookshelves seem to have been lined up in such a way that they fell like dominoes, and thanks to them being made from some kind of dense wood--they’re very heavy.

I move slowly and carefully, mainly because of the bookcases fell, and partly because I’m afraid that with my strength the shelves would break as I try to raise them.

After almost fifteen minutes, I finally arrive at the first person--the only reason that I didn’t hurry, was because according to the radar and my Menu, I could see that they weren’t injured and losing health.

It’s a boy of around ten years old and he seems like he is unconscious--but his breathing is fine and he isn’t losing health. I quickly stop moving shelves and carry him out to the relief station--I didn’t forget to tell them that he was rescued from the bookstore.

The healer who approaches us isn’t the Priestess from earlier, but a Mage in deep blue robes who healed people with what seems like Water Magic--interesting, both Holy and Water Magic can heal, I wonder if any of the others can--I would guess that Light should be able to.

There are more Priests moving around and healing the people who are critically wounded, there are a lot more than I though; the Priests were all wearing different styles of clothing--I wonder if they are from different sects?

Now, let’s stop procrastinating and get back to work, because the one left who needs rescuing is most likely--the storekeeper!

I continue the rather boring work of raising the bookshelves, while moving quickly and carefully, until I was able to help the storekeeper who was buried in books; it was an old man.

He didn’t get crushed under the bookshelves or the books, he was just laying under an arch of bookshelves. They didn’t touch him, but he couldn’t wriggle out without worrying that they would shift and actually crush him.

“Thank you very much for helping me.” He spoke with what seemed like a habitual smile--which was commonly found on people who had been working retail for most of their lives.

I can see that an old woman and what seems to be their daughter have come back, they look around with surprised faces; it seems that they weren’t nearby when the Demon attacked.

As I carefully pick up the old man and carry him to the relief station, the old woman follows along--the younger girl remains in the store to clean things up.

The number of injured people at the relief station have increased even more. It seems that the Healer couldn’t keep up, and it looks that the two attendants of the younger Priestess from earlier had run out of MP and are sitting on cushions on the ground.

Looking at them, I search through storage--there.

Pretending to reach into the voluminous pockets of my robe, I take out three MP potions and give them to the two attendants--it’s payment for the skill I got earlier from their Priestess.

While the smaller female attendant quickly downs the potion, the larger one looks at me with a suspicious look on his face; but he drank it down after I explained that it was a MP potion, then he thanked me.

I leave the storekeepers to the relief station and walk back into the store to help pick up the books which I had ignored in my hurry to pick up the bookcases and free the two people.

It seems that I had forgotten something important.

The younger female--it turns out that her name is Somi and she is actually the owner's granddaughter; she has a surprisingly large chest and long brown hair and eyes--she seems to be the same age as Nadi, and like the other females I have seen, she is more attractive than normal--but it turns out that she is married already, unlike Nadi.

While helping pickup and arranging books, I have a calm, and idle talk with her--it is quite enjoyable to place the books, which must be how librarians feel.

I love books, even organizing them.

Of course, I don’t forget to mark the interesting books with my Menu, and quite a few translucent arrows appear on my Heads-Up-Display--I quickly turn them off, and add a Memo to remind me to turn it back on when I come back at a later time.

As the sun is beginning to dip below the walls, the storekeepers come back.

When they offer for me to stay for dinner, I politely decline, but I purchase three books that catch my attention and leave back to the inn--they wanted to give it as a thanks, but I compromise with just getting a slight discount.

The books are: Tourist Guide to the Royal Capital, Introduction to Life Magic, and Life Magic for Dummies--they should have cost two gold coins and three silver, but with the discount, it was just two gold coins.

As I glance at the Log, I see that I got three more titles.

 

>>Title: One Who Prays for the Dead Acquired.

>>Title: Previous Follower of a False God Acquired.

>>Title: Rescuer Acquired.

>>Title: Protector of Books Acquired.