Reid approached an unconscious man in his early thirties, dark-haired, dark-eyed, his face etched with exhaustion.
“Was it from working too hard? Or from the transformation that Pest triggered?”
Reid then turned him over.
The man had a bloody scar on his neck, neither too deep nor too shallow.
Reid lifted his hand slowly. With precise movement, he touched the back of the man’s neck.
His hand radiated with a green glow that seeped to the unconscious man's neck. The bloody scar on the man’s neck started to heal—slowly.
But the scar never truly healed. Reid sensed it.
There was still cursed energy imbued in the man’s neck.
“Probably all the other people here have a cursed scar too,” he thought.
The green glow on his hand gave way to a bright, white glow.
Another touch on the man’s neck. The flowing white energy that coursed through the man’s neck started to devour the dark, cursed light.
The wound healed.
Reid’s gaze shifted to another figure nearby. A woman stood beside the unconscious man, holding his hand tightly.
She looked like she was close to the unconscious man's age.
“Lovers,” Reid murmured.
His lips curled into a gentle, faint smile.
She had no scars on her neck, unlike the man. Reid turned her over.
Her stomach was bleeding—heavily.
Reid tore a strip from the tunic beneath his red, glowing Aquilonis armor.
He gently pressed the ripped tunic onto her stomach, trying to stop the bleeding. At the same time, his hand shimmered with green light.
The bleeding stopped after a while.
Then he repeated the same process he had used on the unconscious man.
As he finished, he sensed a vibration—a spell activating.
He turned to his left—curious, cautious.
It was Arttu…
…he was tending to the villagers’ scars, just as Reid had been.
But something was different from what Reid had done while he was healing the villagers.
Arttu wasn’t healing the scars first, nor did he purify them. His hand was neither glowing green nor white. But…
…something in between.
Reid’s eyes flared as he looked toward Arttu with awe.
“Did he really learn how to merge spells—this quick?”
A smile appeared on Reid’s face. One that made him feel strangely old. Like how parents would feel when their child achieved something, something dear to them or something dear to their child.
What Reid felt in that moment was…
…pride.
Reid’s eyes suddenly watered. The calmness in his eyes radiated warmth from his heart. He didn’t fully give in to the feeling. He didn’t break down. He held.
He had held strong for a long time. All these years of loss. The apathy in the eyes of those he couldn’t save, the fatigue of those who worked too much for too little…
He faced every single one of them. He felt their pain. He felt his pain.
But—he still walked. He needed to walk.
Because he had something that made him cling to life. Something that’s worth living for…
Arttu.
He wiped his eyes and continued healing people. This time, he changed his process. Reid applied purification and healing magic together as Arttu did. His hands gleamed in white and green light, the two mixing together. The wounds that took some time to heal healed almost instantly.
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Combining purification and healing magic not only speeds up the process but also strengthens both spells.
“My little brother is a genius.”
After finishing healing the injured, Reid told Arttu to stay in the village to keep an eye on the villagers.
Arttu nodded and sat on a log from a cut tree, feeling like a true guardian for the first time. He sat, crossing his legs to achieve maximum comfort.
Reid giggled as he saw his little brother's position. He remembered that Arttu was still a child. And a funny one at that.
He waved one last time toward Arttu before he started running to the village ahead. He needed to go there. Many injuries healed, but they may have underlying problems rather than just surface wounds, and two of them couldn’t possibly carry more than thirty people at once.
Reid needed to be quick before anyone’s condition worsened. He adjusted his legs. Right one ahead of the left. He strained both his calves and thighs to improve his acceleration.
He closed his eyes, calming himself. A big sigh came out of his mouth.
“Ugh.”
With that, his beast eye flared and…
…he flew.
Not in the actual sense of flying. He accelerated so fast that he looked like a jet flying at maximum speed.
With that acceleration, Reid could cross a thirty-minute road in just three minutes.
He ran through the path as if he were a cheetah. Every object in his path looked like it was erasing.
Reid started to close his legs after two minutes had passed. With that, he started to decelerate. If he hadn’t done that, it would have been fatal. There are two reasons:
- If he tries to decelerate instantly, the use of force will lead to an impulse that can destroy his own legs
- If he hits someone or something, the difference in momentum would force through or redirect with an impulse so big that it can destroy Reid or the person that opposes him.
For those reasons, Reid needed to decelerate at that moment.
When he uses this power, he always remembers one memory. The one where Harven taught him how to use this power.
***
Reid and Harven were on the training grounds. Reid was twelve years old, still young, but had fully mastered the art of sarcasm from his master, Harven Klutz. Harven hit Reid’s leg as if it were a pre-cooked meal, and Harven was a cook who was trying to soften it.
“You need to build tension,” Harven said after stroking his beard like he was thinking about something very deep.
“I am trying to,” Reid murmured while pointing his leg.
Harven sighed.
“You are building tension, that’s not the problem, Reid. You are just building too much. Remember, this is not something you can use while fighting something. This is merely for running.”
Reid looked confused.
“I don’t understand. Even if it is not for fighting. I am trying to build enough tension. I tried different things, but you keep telling me that it was too much.”
Harven approached Reid, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t try to build tension. Try to run. Think. How would you run fast?”
Reid lifted his hand and put it over his mouth.
“I never thought about running so deeply.”
Harven ruffled Reid’s hair.
“Exactly. You don’t need to think about building tension. You just need to run.”
Reid caught Harven’s hand on top of his head and lowered it.
“I still don’t understand. How would it be different from my normal running?”
Harven sat on a nearby chair, pointing to another for Reid to sit.
“Do you remember how you coat your arm with mana to make it stronger?”
Reid sat on the chair answering Harven.
“Of course. I feel the flow of mana and direct it to where I want it to go.”
Harven snapped his fingers.
“Exactly. Now, when you coat your arms, what happens?”
Reid interrupted Harven.
“I get where you’re going, but I also tried running while enhancing my feet with mana, but I still can’t do it properly.”
Harven’s finger wagged like a pendulum.
“You are smart, Reid, but even smart people need to listen. For a person like me, there are two ways you can accelerate. The first one is my legs, as you mentioned, making them stronger. The second part you haven’t mentioned is my nerves. There is a nerve called ‘The Sciatic Nerve’ that controls how your leg moves. If you regulate enough mana to it, you can control how fast you can move your leg.”
He raised a single finger in the air.
“But there is one more place you can enhance in order to speed up.”
Reid looked serious. He liked to listen to all kinds of scientific and spiritual stuff. He was a nerd after all.
Harven pointed the upper part of his head.
“Your eye.”
He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
“You have an eye of anomaly. When you activate your eye, you feel like every bit of your body becomes stronger and your senses become sharper, right?”
“Yes,” Reid replied, not breaking his seriousness.
Harven continued without a break.
“That’s because the external mana in your eye uses both the preserved mana inside of it and the mana that it borrows from your own body. That way, you feel like you are far stronger than you could ever become with your own mana. As you know, there are different types of eye anomalies. The one you have is a beast eye; therefore, it enhances every bit of your body. Demon eyes vary depending on the user, and we know little about dragon and angel eyes because they are the rarest.”
Harven pointed to his own eye.
“Now think of regulating your own mana and pointing it toward your own eye. The mana you give toward it would enhance the production of the external mana and its output. With that, you can use your beast eye far more effectively. If you become capable of first enhancing your eyes and using the external mana to enhance your sciatic nerve and legs, the only thing that would be left would be simply running.”
Reid scratched the back of his neck.
“You explain it as if it is a simple thing to do.”
Harven pinched Reid’s cheek.
“Once you master it, it will be pretty easy to do. Don’t worry.”
Reid moved Harven’s hand away from his cheek.
“Could you show me one time?”
Harven’s confidence boosted as he boasted.
“Watch carefully, Reid. It’s your master’s time now.”
He adjusted his legs. Prepared himself and…
…he flew.
Even though Harven was too fast, it didn’t last that long. The training ground was not an open space; it had walls surrounding it. And Harven Klutz, the mighty vice-commander of Aquilonis, hit his head against a wall.
Reid ran toward Harven to check on him, nervousness overtaking his face.
“Harven, are you okay?”
In that moment, Harven was holding his head, clearly full on agony.
“I might have forgotten to teach you one more thing.”
***
“Dumbass,” Reid murmured after a faint smile appeared on his face.
Reid slowly focused on lowering the mana regulation on his legs to slow down, and when he arrived at the village, he was already decelerated.
“I must find a caravan.”