Fractured God

Before his eyes was a familiar ceiling. Although he had been living in the wild for the past four years, this ceiling he'd only been seeing for over a week was now more memorable than any other sight he had from waking up within the last four years.

"Oh, I'm home." He softly said to himself.

From the darkness present past his window, it was presumably now night. Whether it was just after the evening or midnight he had no idea.

Then he realised something. His back was stinging. No, it'd be more appropriate to say it felt like someone had run a clothing iron all over his back. He then very quickly laid on his stomach as if his life depended on it.

("Why the hell am I still in pain?") He then felt his back very delicately and realised he had been wrapped with gauze of some kind.

He looked at his hand and there was no sign of blood. ("Well at least my bleeding has been stopped.")

He then tried to stand up on his feet and immediately fell to the floor. Because he wasn't putting pressure on them before he didn't notice but his legs felt like they were in an even worse state than his back.

("What the hell? Is Elizabeth still busy with her investigation?")

He then decided to throw himself back onto his bed and wait until someone showed up. His injuries seemed to no longer be fatal.

If no one showed up for the next hour however he decided he'd grit his teeth and go look for someone.

He didn't have to wait long, however. A certain blonde beauty opened the door to his room. At first, there was a hint of relief on her face but that was quickly hidden by a face that looked like an Asura.

"You bastard." She said in a very unladylike tone. Before Tibaut could even react she had covered the distance from the door to his bed.

Her fist was now directly in front of his face. Tibaut blocked but he knew if one of those was thrown, even a wall of Tungsten wouldn't save him.

Soon he realised something. The punch didn't come. He slowly lowered his guard to see why she stopped but she used the opportunity to move her hand to his forehead.

She then gave him a simple flick. However, the flick he received felt like someone shot a rubber bullet at his forehead. He writhed in pain for a moment before voicing his complaints.

"The hell was that for? Are you trying to finish me off? My hp just got back in the yellow and now it's in the red again!"

"Is that any way to speak to your saviour? (Thank God he's alive. For a minute there I was worried I didn't heal him enough. Do you know how hard it was to keep you alive while also making my healing look 'average' you son of a bitch!?)" She responded coldly.

A look of confusion was apparent on Tibaut's face and Elizabeth quickly decided to answer the question he most likely had.

"Because you decided to tell Ezekiel about my healing magic, I've had to lessen the effects a bit."

"Is him knowing about you having really good healing magic that much of a problem?" Tibaut asked out of curiosity.

In response to his question, Elizabeth gave a long drawn-out sigh.

"Do you know how many people in this nation have healing magic on a comparable level to me?"

Tibaut rubbed his chin for a few seconds before giving what he believed to be a reasonable answer.

"A thousand?"

"Lower."

"A hundred? (I suppose it's better to underguess so she tells me how many there are.)"

She then shook her head. "Twenty-five if we're talking about healing on my level. Although there are over nine hundred healers in the nation that would be able to treat serious wounds, so I suppose since you got it somewhat right on your first try, you get a 30%."

"And how many people live in this country exactly?"

"Around five million people live here. And in terms of those who wield magic, there are around 110,000 although if that number is rounded down to people who are considered competent it's around 30,000 and that word just means they could probably win a fight with it."

After hearing that Tibaut just nodded his head and responded "I see."

"I honestly thought you'd show a better reaction."

"I mean, I saw your immortality first-hand. It'll take a bit more to surprise me at this point. Still though, is that really enough reason to hide your magic?"

"Well, in my case there's only a short list of reasons why I would suddenly gain this level of healing and any of them would make it detrimental to me if a large amount of people found out about it."

"Don't you trust Ezekiel though?"

"I do but I'd rather not take that chance. The only reason I let you know about it was because of our first encounter, and trust me it wasn't because I wanted to."

A grim expression appeared on her face remembering that day.

An awkward silence hung over the room for a few seconds until Tibaut decided to shift the subject.

"Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you gave me the real thing."

Elizabeth was unsure of what he was speaking about until it clicked in her head. He was talking about healing. She laughed to herself for a few seconds before getting up. He grabbed her hand like a vice grip without a moment's delay.

"Hey, Elizabeth, where are you going?" He asked, trying to hide the concern in his voice.

"What do you think? I've confirmed you'll make it through so I'm telling the others."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"No." There was no hesitation in her voice. She then continued "Other adventurers aren't as fortunate as you, so I thought I'd let you experience how most of them deal with injuries." She then removed his hand and walked away.

As she closed the door only one thought remained in Tibaut's head.

"What a cun-