Chapter 118: Discovery
Higashi no Higashi Village. It was around the time the ears of wheat began to shine golden.
As I was dealing with documents in the brand-new Adventurers’ Guild, the area outside suddenly grew noisy.
“Let us through! There’s a seriously injured person! Let us through!”
Good grief. Again?
I placed the documents I was holding back on the table, stood up, and left the room.
“Hang in there! The wound isn’t deep! Please, don’t close your eyes!”
Seriously injured, or the wound isn’t deep, which is it?
Thinking such thoughts, I stepped out onto the Adventurers’ Guild floor to find a crowd had formed. There was a strong smell of blood.
“We’ve reached the Adventurers’ Guild! Can you hear me?”
“Is there a Healing user here!?”
“We’ll pay! So please, this girl! Heal this girl!”
The pleas for Healing echoed in vain, but no one stepped forward.
“She’s probably not gonna make it…”
“Her right arm and left leg are torn off…”
“What a terrible injury…”
“U-um…”
“Don’t, missy. You’re not skilled enough. With injuries like that, she can’t be saved. If you can’t save her, they’ll resent you, you know?”
“…”
It wasn’t that there were no healers, but it seemed everyone was hesitating due to the severity of the injuries. If you offer to treat her and then can’t, it leaves a strange awkwardness. I could understand why no one was quick to volunteer.
“I’ll heal her.”
When I spoke up, a stir went through the crowd.
“Lord-sama…?”
“Lord-sama can use Healing too?”
“Idiot. Lord-sama is the foremost Healing user of our time, you know?”
“As expected of the Dragon Killer…!”
When I stepped forward, the crowd spontaneously parted, making a path. I felt like Moses.
At the end of the opened path, I saw five bloodstained female adventurers. Four with minor injuries were kneeling, surrounding the one seriously injured person lying on the floor.
“Y-you’re…!”
“It’s been a while. You’re Zasha, if I recall?”
If I remember correctly, they were a mid-tier adventurer party that had come all the way from the Royal Capital in response to my call. The adventurer party “Crimson Vow.” All their party members were women, making them a glamorous adventurer party.
“My name… Please, Lord-sama! Please save this girl!!”
“I know. Let me take a look.”
“Yes!”
The girl was taking shallow, rapid breaths. Her face, drained of color, was dazed, and she looked as if she could fall into an eternal sleep at any moment. Judging by her attire, was she the healer?
The girl’s right arm was torn off from the shoulder, and her left leg was missing from below the knee. The bleeding was severe. Her left leg had been crudely staunched with a tied cord, but they probably couldn’t stop the bleeding from her right shoulder with a cord.
Let’s start with the right arm.
“Heal.”
When I chanted Heal, a pale green light gathered on her right shoulder, like fireflies congregating. Then, the light rapidly extended, and when the light subsided, a perfectly white, unblemished right arm was there.
“An arm grew back!?”
“No way, he regenerated an arm!?”
“Just what level of mastery has he reached…!”
Ignoring the comments from the onlookers, I next attempted to regenerate her left leg.
“Heal.”
The rest was a repeat of the previous scene. The girl’s perfectly white, smooth leg made my heart skip a beat for a moment.
“It’s healed…”
“This… isn’t a lie, right? A dream? Is this a dream?”
I thought they would rejoice, but the girl’s party members touched her healed right arm and left leg, their words tinged with bewilderment. It seemed they really couldn’t believe the girl was healed.
Well, she was indeed in a critical condition. They must have been hoping for their comrade’s survival while also having mostly given up.
“That should do it.”
“I can’t believe it… To think even her arms and legs… Lord-sama, thank you so much!”
“””Thank you, Lord-sama!”””
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. More importantly, you lot are afflicted by poison, aren’t you? Since I’m at it, I’ll heal that too.”
“No! This poison, we can just take some medicine for it!”
“Don’t mind it. Since I’m at it, since I’m at it.”
I dispelled the poison from the members of “Crimson Vow” and healed their injuries as well. There was one among them who, while not critically injured, was missing a finger, so I healed that too.
“Still, for ‘Crimson Vow’ to have such a hard time… What did you encounter?”
Zasha, who had been tearfully rejoicing at her comrade’s survival, looked startled by my words.
“A Hydra! A Hydra appeared!”
“I see. So a Hydra appeared…”
“A Hydra, you say!?”
“It finally showed up!”
“Where did the Hydra appear!?”
A Hydra had appeared. At that information, the inside of the Adventurers’ Guild suddenly became noisy.
That’s right. These adventurers are the ones who gathered in this Baumgarten Territory seeking the Hydra’s head. It’s not like I don’t understand them getting excited over the sighting of the Hydra that had finally appeared.
However, “Crimson Vow,” a mid-tier adventurer party, ended up like this. Many adventurers had gathered in the Baumgarten Territory, but the top-tier adventurers hadn’t come. The remaining adventurer parties are probably around the same skill level as “Crimson Vow.”
If we leave the Hydra as is, won’t adventurer parties just compete to challenge it, leading to more casualties?
“Wait! The Hydra is… L-Lord-sama!?”
I placed my index finger to Zasha’s lips, stood up, and looked down on the adventurers with authority.
“Everyone, quiet down! Your courage in not flinching from the Hydra is admirable, but the Hydra is a formidable enemy. Without a plan, you, our valuable fighting strength, will only be depleted. As your Lord, I hereby forbid you from engaging the Hydra in combat. Don’t worry. I won’t monopolize it or anything. I intend to issue a subjugation request for the Hydra. I will enter into discussions with the Adventurers’ Guild, but I expect you to refrain from any unauthorized actions. That is all.”