Chapter 116

I sat on the bed tracing small lines through the fur on Bella's head. The first two patients had been the worst of them. After those two the most severe injury had been a few broken arms and facial injuries that would have scarred if it hadn't been for Bella's intervention.

It was still pretty early in the day. Getting an early start had been a good idea because even though none of the individual injuries were all that severe, healing so many people had still taken a lot out of her. Fortunately, she told me that healing so many people with such a variety of injuries had done a lot to raise her skills. From what she said, she even gained a level from all of it. So as altruistic as it was to heal everyone just for a place to stay, it wasn't like we hadn't gained anything from it. Experience was valuable too. It did make me wonder how rare healers were though. Surely they could have found someone else who would be willing to do it pro bono just for the levels? Maybe the ones willing to help are too busy healing other people in town.

Bella was taking the opportunity to nap on my lap before Raya came and grabbed us. The rest of the party was downstairs chatting with Grace and the other women who worked here while I took care of Bella. I really enjoyed quiet moments like this, even if I was merely being a pillow.

I looked down at the sleeping deerkin. Her little white spots were rather cute, like little hearts all over her body. It made me smile, Bella seems a lot happier in the time she's been Bella rather than the short time I had known her as Bruno. It was kind of amazing how much she had changed in such a short amount of time. The thought made me laugh, from farmhand to healer, slave to savior of all the girls in a brothel.

Bella's eyes flickered open and met mine. She smiled and my heart melted. After she sat up and yawned, she rubbed her eyes and leaned against me. Neither of us said anything, we just basked in the reassuring contact between us. I would be able to feel her contentment even without our bond.

"Feeling better?" I asked before planting a small kiss on the top of her head.

She looked up at me and smiled warmly in return. "I am. Did you stay with me the entire time I napped?"

"Yeah."

"Aw, you didn't need to." Despite her words, I could tell she was happy about it. She slid off the bed before stretching. "How long was I out?"

"Not long, maybe half an- er, half a bell."

She glanced back at me. "You seem to make that mistake often. Did they call the bells something else where you come from?"

I nodded. "It's the same thing in concept, we just called them hours, we even used bell towers the same way."

"Were there still twenty-four bells in a day?" she asked.

I scratched the base of my horn. "Yeah. That's something that has always made me wonder. This is a completely different planet, with multiple moons. Does this planet really have the same number of hours in a day? Why do we just so happen to use the exact same time system? I don't understand it."

"Does it really matter?"

I sighed. "No, not really. It's just strange. Why are some things so different and others... exactly the same?"

She tapped her chin. "Perhaps you should pray to Sorsette to lead you to the answer if it makes you so curious. The movement of the sun and stars is certainly in the realm of gods."

I frowned. "Perhaps." The idea didn't sit well with me, praying to the god of knowledge, or any god for that matter. I don't think I had been religious in my past life but the gods were so much more tangible here. They felt so much closer because you knew they were there. They were just more powerful.

I shook my head. "Let's go back down and see if Raya is ready to go yet."

When the two of us reached the bottom of the stairs of the lobby there was a small crowd gathered around Torien as she told the story of our fight against the vampire queen in the dungeon. Raya was one of the people closest to her as she told it, stars in her eyes.

Unfortunately for me, I came back to the part where I had almost died only for Mimi to suddenly save me. Rather than a mimic, in her retelling, it was a young woman we had come across in the dungeon who had saved me. The moment had been just as shocking to the listeners as it had been for me at the time. To my chagrin, she didn't skip over the part where I passed out in a pool of blood while Bella healed me. Unsurprisingly she didn't retell the part about my experience with the god of death.

"Bella!" One of the girls Bella had healed this morning pointed at us when they noticed us listening in at the base of the stairs. A crowd of people gathered around Bella to thank her again and to ask excited questions about our adventures.

I sat down next to Torien. "Sounds like the girls here enjoyed your storytime. How'd they manage to convince you to do it?"

Silva laughed. "I gave her the 'ol puppy dog eyes. How could I not be interested in some of her adventures."

Torien flushed and looked away.

"How long were you listening?" Morrigan asked.

I scratched the base of my horn. "I got back at the really embarrassing part where I almost got eaten by the vampire queen."

"Aw! That's the best part though! Where Mimi saves you out of nowhere when we all thought you were a goner!" Morrigan looked more excited for that moment than I would have liked.

"Eh, it's still kinda embarrassing. I got distracted in the middle of a fight and almost died for it." The memory made me feel so awkward.

Morrigan shrugged. "It was your idea to take Mimi along, in a way you saved your own life."

"Where's Mimi now?" Raya asked. "Did she make it safely back to town?"

I smiled. "Don't worry. Mimi's save and sound. I might even be able to introduce you two sometime."

Raya beamed. "Really? Is she in town too?"

I glanced over at the necklace Bella was wearing, I could feel Mimi's ever-present curiosity through [Soultouched Connection] as Bella chatted with all of the people surrounding her.

I looked back at Raya. "She is, I'll be sure to introduce you later. But for now, we should probably get going right? You wanted to go looking around today?"

The question brought back an air of seriousness to her. "Yeah, we've probably dawdled here enough." She glanced at Bella too. "Though I admit I liked the idea of Bella coming along. Waiting for her to finish her nap didn't seem like too bad of a plan."

I nodded. "Let's get going then."

I walked over to the group that had formed around Bella. "Hey, we're going to head out. Do you still want to come with Bella?"

"Oh! Yes of course. Sorry girls, I need to go out now. I'll be back later tonight though, promise!" The group of people around Bella dispersed and the girls were happy to go back to chatting among themselves. And so the six of us (plus Mimi) left the Ruby Vixen in search of food.

We followed Raya deeper into the city in a direction we hadn't gone before. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me. "So Raya, where are we headed? It doesn't look like we're going back to where we met you yesterday."

She nodded. "Since we have a large group of demon hunters apparently, I figured we could go to an area most people are avoiding right now. The area is one of the places that was heavily destroyed by the demons. People are worried there might be more demons around but because of that, there might still be food somewhere in the rubble too."

It seemed like a solid plan but I wasn't eager to fight more demons again either. "How strong were the demons that were running around here?"

Raya shook her head. "The only ones that I know were here for sure were the big ones. They were high level but all of them are definitely dead now. There might not be any demons at all in this area but the situation is so crazy people are still scared to come. I haven't heard of a demon sighting since the big ones were killed but until the guard are focused on more than just the gates and the inner walls, areas like these where the big demons spawned will probably be left alone except by desperate people... like us."

"I see." I turned to Torien. "We should get in formation then."

Torien nodded. "I agree. I'll scout ahead."

I looked at Silva. "Since we have two in the vanguard now, you go ahead and stand next to Raya. I'll hang in back until we've spotted an enemy. Bella and Morrigan will be in the middle, Bella, you're in charge of area awareness again."

Silva pulled her spear off her back and glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. "You usually sound like a noble but right now you sound more like a soldier... or a knight."

I sighed. "I'm not either. Just... someone who's played too many strategy... er, books. Besides I've been working as an adventurer, of course we would have a formation."

"Riiiiight." Silva clearly didn't believe me but chose not to argue and began to watch our surroundings more closely.

It struck me as odd how abrupt the change in the surroundings was. While there weren't a lot of people on the street, once we passed a couple of particular buildings it turned into an absolute ghost town. A lot of the buildings in the area were burnt down or collapsed completely and there were a lot of loose rocks and rubble where the demons and soldiers seemingly fought. There was also an unpleasant number of blood stains lining the ground in this area as well.

Raya was looking around. "This is the area Eira was found in, she had been beaten up pretty badly. She told me she was grabbed by one of the demons and thrown down the street. Someone managed to carry her to a nearby clinic despite everything happening, she was lucky not to have bled to death. Grace told me you healed her this morning while I was still asleep."

Bella nodded. "I remember her. She came out of the experience feeling positive despite how hurt she was. She had a lot of wounds but none of them were too severe to give me much trouble. I mainly focused on making sure her wounds healed well and didn't scar."

Raya smiled. "I'm really thankful you helped them."

I frowned. "How many... didn't make it back. That you know of?"

"...Three people are missing from the Brothel. None of them are people who had family in the city so they should have come back to the Ruby Vixen, even if it was only to pack up and leave like some of the other girls in the first couple of days after the attack. Instead there's been no word on them so... they're probably gone."

I nodded. "I'm sorry."

Raya smiled weakly. "I am too. I'd like to think they're just recovering somewhere else and we haven't found them yet. But... I feel like that's unlikely now, after how long it's been since the demons ran wild. Wait! Over there, that used to be a bakery. Let's go have a look."

We walked up to the ruined building. Despite all the damage, it was still recognizable from the collapsed bread oven in the back of the store and the fallen sign with a loaf of bread burned into the wood. A lot of the roof was gone but most of it had fallen outside of the store into the alley and street.

Bella looked at the ruined building anxiously. "What about the owners? Isn't digging through their store stealing? What if they come back?"

Silva sighed and pointed towards a pile of wood and stone. "I wouldn't worry about stealing. It looks like we've found them."

Under one of the collapsed walls that Silva was pointing at were the dried corpses of two people wearing clothes smeared in flour. The remains of an older middle-aged couple from the looks of it. The bodies smelled awful, rotting meat left out in the sun.

"I found something." Torien had already started poking around the ruined bakery. She dragged away a rug that hid the entrance to a storeroom in one of the corners. "Found you," she said with a grin before gripping the handle and pulling the trap door open.