Lament of the Slave

The four matches I had after the one with Thorn Serpent went more or less the same way. I fought, I bled, I won. It was exhilarating; it got my blood pumping. And yet I couldn’t shake the pang of regret in my heart. Ever since my first fight, the healers hadn’t shown up again, almost as if they were assessing from a distance, based on my visible injuries, whether their help was necessary. That they didn’t deem it necessary even made me wonder whether to throw away my last fight and get wounded enough to make them come out.

Pathetic, I know.

All I had to do was ask where they were stationed. Easy, right? But with that would come the questions of why I wanted to see them, and . . . well, long story short, I eventually got over my awkwardness about it, and as the day drew to a close, me coming off my last fight, I asked Vienlin after saying goodbye to Geran for the day.

“Why do you want to see them? You’re not bleeding - oh, the core, huh?”

“Yes.” Despite her crude and straightforward demeanor, she was quick to catch on.

“So, the healer was a quack.”

“No, he wasn’t,” I defended the honor of the Imperial Chief Healer, even though I couldn’t care less. A few days and she wouldn’t even remember me.

“The fact that you want to see someone else says something else.”

I really had no idea how to tell her that I had [Inner Perception] among my skills back then, and I could see for myself how messed up I was down there. Telling her about the system and the abilities would inevitably lead to questions like what the hell am I talking about and where did I come from - a waste of time, if I may say so.

“Please, Vienlin.”

“All right, all right, you’re no fun.”

“It’s no fun for me.”

“Maybe you should try not to take it so seriously, and before you start bitching at me, I get it. I really do. But if you want to become a true shifter, your prudery will eventually get in the way. Beasts don’t worry about such things, remember that.”

“I will,” I nodded, making puppy eyes at her.

She chuckled, visibly relaxed, and scratched me behind the ear. “Well, if I were you, I’d forget about the healers here and go to the healer tents . . . and judging by the look on your face, you don’t know where that is, do you?”

“You didn’t show me during the tour.”

“That is because they are not part of our order. They are their own healing order . . . how the hell don’t you know that? Have you been living under a rock somewhere?”

“In the cave, actually, before I came here.” It was true.

Vienlin laughed. “Now you are funny. Come, let me show you where it is.”

“I wasn’t kidding . . .” I murmured as I followed her.

On the one hand, I would think it would be better to have healer tents scattered throughout the encampment - you know, so you don’t have to drag patients all the way to one place. On the other, even in the modern world, there were large district hospitals where doctors and supplies were gathered in one place, like where Vienlin took me.

Dozens of tents, large tents, dedicated to healers. Despite the heavy rain, there were many people running around - why? I had no idea. But what caught my attention was their attire. I had already found it fascinating with the Castiana City Guards healers, however, here the white color of the healers’ clothes, matching those of the doctors on Earth, was even more striking. As far as I knew, there was no medical reason for the white color, apart from the fact that you could easily see the stains on it. Was that the reason for the white? Or was it, as on Earth, an effort to distinguish themselves from the various quacks, to make themselves look more trustworthy and professional, and to be visible to patients? I once found my dad watching the Discovery Channel, stayed up with him watching it, and for some reason this stuck in my head. Not so much the reason behind the cross or snake on a stick emblem that the local tents and staff did not sport. 

Here, the symbol of the healers, or at least of this order, was the depiction of a flower. A flower I imagined having medicinal properties, and one I would love to learn more about, something no less true of other flowers on Eleaden - there must have been so many beautiful blooms I hadn’t seen before.

Two worlds that should be so different, and they were, yet there were so many parallels between them.

“Are you sure about this?” Vienlin asked me out of the blue as we stood in the rain outside the tents of the healing order.

“No, but I have to know. Why?”

“Healers are basically magi. Once they know you have a core . . . well, I don’t have to tell you the rest, do I?”

Yeah, it was probably too much to hope for something like doctor-patient confidentiality to work here. “The one in the Pit noticed.”

“Then you’re screwed.” To her, it was that simple.

“Isn’t it possible that he . . . ?”

“What? That he’ll keep his mouth shut. Sure. I don’t know that guy, and he could very well be one of the good ones. But I’d be willing to bet that he’ll keep it to himself for a few days, and when he figures he can’t do anything with the info himself, he’ll spill the beans to someone further up the ranks.”

If I hadn’t known that no one here would remember anything about my issue in three days, she would definitely have talked me out of it. “Well . . . do you know any healers here that can be trusted?”

“Look, if you’re banking on Ronnu to shield you from the higher-ups, I gotta tell you she’s not all that powerful.”

Unable to explain to her how things actually stood, I shook my head. “I have no such delusions. After all, I’ve been in the Seventh for less than a day . . .”

“It doesn’t matter, not to Ronnu. Once you’re in, you’re one of the Seventh.”

That gave me pause. “Th-That’s . . .” I was at a loss for words. “A-Anyway, I don’t expect her to protect me. I just need to know how bad I am, and whatever comes after that, I’ll just deal with it.”

Vienlin laughed. “I like your guts. Well, then I can tell you’re in luck. I know a healer, a good one.”

There was no need to tell her how great it was to hear that; my joyful wiggling of Sage spoke for itself. But, as we took the first step, a thought crossed my mind. “Wait, is it that bastard? I mean, your former mate?” Weird wordplay, I know, but I was kind of getting used to the beast stuff.

“No, that bastard better hope we don’t cross paths here,” Vienlin said with an evil smile on her lips, her hand crushing his imaginary nuts. “We’re going to meet his sister.”

 

***

 

“You got what?!” cried Nihu Rihli, the healer Vienlin had introduced me to when I told her about my core. Luckily, the woman herself suggested that we move behind one of the screens, which, to my surprise, had an enchantment of silence woven into it. “Vienlin, I know you and my brother didn’t part on the best of terms, but I don’t have time for your jokes.”

“Hey,” my mentor grunted, offended. “Well, I admit, this may sound like one of my pranks, but some nutjob messed this kid up and implanted a beast core in her. I swear on both my tits.”

“Please, Miss Rihli, it’s true,” I said, making my puppy eyes again.

The woman’s eyes darted between us a few times before she sighed. “Fine, so what do you want me to do again?”

“J-just check how messed up my insides are around the core.” It wasn’t easy to keep my voice from breaking.

“Just that?”

“Yes.”

“Then shift back. I heal humans, not beasts.”

Kicking myself for not thinking of that before we even got here, I shifted back to my human form.

“Pretty shy for a shifter, huh?” Healer Rihli remarked as I hid my private parts behind Sage and the wings reaching out to Vienlin. She was the one who had my clothes in her spatial storage.

“Yeah, she is. Quite a prude, too,” Vienlin chuckled, handing me the few pieces of clothing I came in to the encampment wearing. The upside of wearing so little was that I was dressed in no time. “All right, I’m ready.”

“Wait, didn’t you hear me? I told you to shift back - completely,” Healer Rihli frowned at the fact that I still had wings and a tail, not to mention the other beast parts.

Finding the healer’s annoyance and confusion amusing, Vienlin was quicker than me to come up with a snarky response. “As I told you, some nutcase messed her up pretty bad. This is the result, her human-ish form.”

The healer frowned even more, glared at me, her finger pointed at me as I nodded to confirm Vienlin’s words. “If you’re with her and this is some stupid joke, I’ll make you regret it, understand?”

“I understand.”

“And you still want to continue?”

“Yes.”

“Then lie down,” she motioned to the bed, watching me closely as I did so. “You seem to have good control of your limbs. Are they sewn on, or . . .”

The possibility that neither Vienlin nor I had lied to her got to her, and now her curiosity won out.

“A mutation caused by some solution, some essence. That core, that was the only time that bastard cut me.”

“I see,” she said, looking at my stomach. “Well, try to relax. Now I’m going to put my hands on you, then you’ll feel my mana reaching inside you.”

I guess she went into full-on healer mode, calmly explaining to me what was going to happen so I wouldn’t be scared. It was nice of her. At my nod, healer Rihli did as she said and placed her hands on my stomach. Before I knew it, I felt her warm mana seeping into me.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding! You’ve got a fucking beast core!” the healer cursed, trying to keep her voice down, as if the enchantment around here wasn’t as great as I thought. Then, conscious of her actions, she frowned and focused again. “What if . . . No, it’s outside the womb,” she muttered, probably trying to find some sign that would tell her it was all a sham, a joke. She didn’t. “It was implanted.”

“Yes, it was.”

Nihu Rihli smiled apologetically. “I guess I owe you an apology.”

“That’s all right. Just tell me how bad it is.”

Without another word, she closed her eyes and refocused. “The tissue around the core is scarred, making one of your ovaries dysfunctional, but the other is fine. Your womb, I am sorry to say, has quite a bit of scarring as well. Look, if you came here because you wanted to have children, I don’t recommend it. However, it should be possible for you to bear one.

Hearing that brought tears to my eyes.

“I’m really sorry, but I don’t think there’s much I can do,” the healer said promptly, hitting me with soothing magic. “The core seems to form the tissue around itself after it was inserted. It’s a tissue that is nothing for me as a healer to fix on.”

“It’s okay. I was told that,” I said. However, I would be lying to say that I didn’t hope that the healers of this era would have a way, regardless of the fact that even if they healed me, or even got rid of my mutations, it was something I likely wouldn’t be able to take back with me to the present. After all, there was the matter of the last cycle. No restart, just a trip home through the misshapen space - hopefully.

“So you saw a healer before me?”

“Yes, months ago,” I said, seeing no reason to hide it. Shocked as I was, I needed to know the answers. “But at that time, the scar tissue was much larger, making it impossible for me to bear children at all.”

“I believe he was a quack.”

“Shove it, Vienlin! Not everyone is as incompetent as my brother,” Healer Rihli grunted and turned back to me. “You say it healed on its own?” There was so much doubt in her voice.

“What else?”

“Injuries do not heal without a reason.”

Yeah, I understood her. Even my extraordinary regeneration couldn’t handle it, and yet, from what she told me, it happened. “It could be because I started using the core quite recently.” That was the only reason I could come up with since Vienlin told me that I smelled fine to her. For a long time, I had avoided even getting close to the core with my senses, and now I had no issue drawing mana from it.

“Wait, you can use it?” Healer Rihli blurted out, only to pause. “Of course you can,” she laughed almost hysterically. “Sorry, I am still getting my head around the fact that you have a CORE and are still alive.”

Her reaction made me smile; it seemed to be something shared among healers across time.

“Honestly, if you’re using it as you say, I’m shocked it hasn’t eaten you from the inside out; there should be beast mana in that core.”

“I’m filling it with mine,” I argued.

“Then you must be a beast,” she said, pulling out an egg-like tool encased in an intricate tangle of metal. “Mana storage. Inside is a beast core. When I store mana in it, the runes attribute beast characteristics to it, and the other way around when I want to draw it out. It only stores beast mana. There is no way to store human mana directly in the beast core.

Well, the disappointment of them not having a solution even in this era aside, being a beast was something I couldn’t deny. After all, I was a hybrid.

“Of course she’s a beast,” Vienlin quipped. “All shifters are.”

The healer gave her a look. “So you’re saying you could survive the core implantation?”

“Of course not, I . . .”

“Then stop spewing bullshit, Vienlin.”

“The way I am - I may be more beast than human,” I said to stop them from bickering. Deep down, though, I still hoped my human side had the upper hand.

“See,” the healer said teasingly to Vienlin. “She’s probably closer to the beasts than you’ll ever be.”

“And I’m the one talking shit, huh?” Vienlin snorted.

Their bickering turned into a staring contest, and it wasn’t until I coughed that the healer came to her senses. “Um, what I think is happening is that your core is getting more in tune with you. The more you use it, the more you make it your own. Each beast core is unique, and no other beast can easily use another’s core. What comes to my mind is that the damaged tissue could be either a defense reaction of your body, or a defense mechanism of the core that is gradually fading away.”

“I-I,” there was so much going through my mind right now. “So the more I use the core, the better I get?”

“That’s my guess. Look, this is way beyond my knowledge. I could ask around, but . . .”

“”Don’t!"" Vienlin and I both stopped her.

She chuckled. “I kind of figured that since you came to me with this, you’d want to keep it a secret. Well, you have nothing to fear from me - Vienlin, you must know that knights have a way of finding the core of the beasts.”

The hell?! “Not all of them,” she said when I gave her a puzzled look. “Damaging the beast’s core is the fastest way to kill it.”

I knew that removing it would kill the beast - Lord Wigram had warned me against trying to remove mine - but shattering it too? My eyes inevitably drifted to my stomach. “Are you saying that if my core cracks . . . ?”

“No, it won’t kill you, probably. But the pain it will cause you may well paralyze you, and then whoever broke your core will have an easy time finishing you off,” Vienlin explained, her warning tone sending a shiver down my spine: I should be very mindful not to let that happen to me.

“If I were you, I’d stay away from magi as well,” the healer Rihli advised me. “Or I would at least learn how to shield myself from their magical sight. Three stars and up have a damn good sense of the mana around them.”

“I was close enough to Magus Vejahr, and he didn’t notice anything, at least I don’t think so.” Hell, I was around him every five days and he never mentioned my core. “. . . a-aren’t you a magus as well, Miss Rihli?”

Vienlin burst out laughing. “Yeah, Nihu, how could you not notice her core?”

“Fuck you Vienlin. You know healers aren’t magi.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Don’t bother. You’re not the only one who doesn’t see the difference between us. Anyway, your core is still small, so if they don’t specifically look for it, they’ll probably miss that you have it. That luck might not last forever, though.”

The advice I’ve already heard today: relying on luck was a quick way to end up dead.

 

***

 

“Stella, did you know that warriors can detect the cores of beasts?” I asked my squad leader as we met back at the Rairok’s lair after a full day of training. What the healer Rihli had told me was bouncing around in my head, raising a lot of questions about my core and magic in general. And not only that: my training, the way Geran and Vienlin talked about sharpening my claws and fangs, brought me to the question I never got around to ask - about my unused skills, old skills I had swapped for others.

If the system was just supposed to be a guide, shouldn’t I still be able to use [Fierce Pounce] or [Inner Perception]?