It was midday when we finally reached the village. Corsair stepped off the cart, unloading a crate of various metal building materials, mostly nails and such. Castor and I exchanged our farewells.

“Take care will you? Theodore really took a liking to you, and I'll have a hard time if I bring him any bad news.”

“You don't have to worry about it, I'm a rather resilient fellow. Don't have Ruffles work too hard yourself.” The horse gave me whinny seeming amused, Castor laughed along with him.

“Haha, don't worry, we've been on this route for ages. We’ll see each other in time, until then!” The chipper merchant and his clever horse resumed their travel, plodding across the stream. Traveling with them was rather relaxing.

Huh, actually, watching them depart, they seemed to be moving quite slowly. Filtering the information I’d gathered , I slapped my face. Given the hours and speed Castor moved at, going on foot would have been superior in both respects. My Inventory could carry all the supplies I needed as well.

In reality, it was a good thing that the realization came a little too late. This way, I'd learned a lot more about the world and was introduced to Theodore. Journeying itself was a pleasant experience as well. In the future though, I would likely have to sacrifice that for efficiency. At least this first time was enjoyable.

Now to the matter of the village. Pan had come out to meet with us, wearing a neutral expression. Looking to Corsair, he nodded in approval at the sight of the supplies. Acting surprisingly content with the silent praise, I was a little confused about what made him so happy. As far as I had seen, Corsair had been embodying a surly teen; eh, I could play psychologist later.

To me, Pan started looking in anticipation. From that look, Ria’s condition probably started to decline slightly, and was praying for a ray of hope. He acted like with the approach of the paladins tragedy was inevitable just a few weeks ago. I guess that the parental desire for one’s children to do well just can't be suppressed.

My gains over the course of the trip didn’t include any direct cures, and Pan seemed to have raised his hopes up higher than I would have liked. Still, it wasn’t as though I returned with nothing; after all, trying to find something for Ria was the impetus for the journey.

“They lacked what I needed to act in my area of expertise, but I made acquaintances with an alchemist during my stay. He informed me of some of the local reagents that grow in this area. I was unable to purchase alchemical tools of quality, but with my abilities I should be able to make a few of the simpler salves that may be able to help.”

“There’s still nothing?” Pan spoke more to himself than to me, casting his gaze downward. “Perhaps my expectations were too high, of course even a mage wouldn’t know about this strange disease.”

“Don’t sound so dejected, not all is lost just yet! It’s not as if her condition grows worse, and she is young as well. There is still plenty of time to find a cure. Even in this relatively obscure region, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something.” I confidently asserted to Pan without a shred of hard evidence to back it up. Perhaps I did know nothing of the disease, but that didn’t mean I could do nothing about it. Her condition had been improving during my stay, had it not? “I’ll go and check up on Ria now. There’s no need to worry at this point in time.”

“I hope that is the case. There are only about five weeks before the paladins arrive to collect taxes and bless the village. Please keep in mind that this is not your homeland, and she will not be looked upon with mercy.”

That fact had been becoming more and more apparent to me as of late, and was one of the things not likely to slip my mind any time soon. Pan gave me one last look before we went our separate ways into the village. Time to see how Ria fared without the daily magical care.

Returning to the shack on the outskirts at the village, it felt somewhat homey, but I was once again reminded of its poor quality. The wood seemed to be in a constant state of splintering, Livewood oil would help with that, but I didn’t exactly have the amount needed to cover the door, much less the whole house. Splinters were really only a problem if you run your hand all over them, the poorly fitted walls would let in wind, rain, bugs, all manner of things that walls are supposed to keep out. Perhaps I shouldn’t have thought so poorly of the Bloody Goblin Ear. No, just because this place is terrible, doesn’t mean that inn wasn’t bad.

Given the ramshackle nature of the hut, it was a pleasant surprise to see that Ria appeared to be not too much worse for wear. Naturally, I did have to fire off a few rounds of to clean things up; but after activating , the faint green aura I took to represent illness had not returned. Her breathing did seem a bit fainter than I recalled, but not by much, and revealed nothing to indicate her health would decline any further. Not that its results were to be taken as gospel, but it remained the best tool I had to play doctor with.

“Heyo Ria, the doc is back. Are you gonna wake up and tell me how you’ve been in the care of your pops?” Slipping my arm around her back, I helped prop her up. She was much slower to react than usual, only stirring slightly. “Hello? *I just went on a two week long trip for you, you can at least make an effort.*”

I proceeded to get no real response from the girl. This called for drastic measures! Shifting her towards the center of the bed, and leaning back a little so we didn’t thump heads, I slowly moved to touch her horns.

“*Boop.*” Providing my own sound effects I felt something different this time around, my Mana had dropped a negligible amount and was pretty much instantly restored. Hey, what’s this? No time to think on it in the moment, Ria awoke.

“Eep!”

“Good, quick, I’m the Doctor, how are you feeling?” If I went by the measurements from last time, we only had a few dozen seconds. Of course, since I could detect mana leaving me, I guessed the duration would be longer, but how much time could one mana really provide?

“Uh, fine, um...Doctor. Less, less itchy?” She appeared a bit startled, but that wasn’t all too surprising. Fine is good and less itchy...yes, it did seem as though she was reaching the end of her shedding period. At least for the moment. While most of her skin had turned a dazzling red color, looking more towards her torso and neck revealed the orangish tint was growing deeper and spreading. “D-d-doctor…”

“Ah! Running out of time, tell me if this is uncomfortable.” I lightly moved to tap one of her horns, which she seemed to reflexively turn away from. Well, since I was holding her up with one of my arms, she couldn’t really avoid it. As I touched the smooth surface of the horn, she let out another small yelp. However my mana didn’t deplete this time, and her time seemed to have run out.

Hmm, I really needed to find a way to actually get her up longer. 20 seconds wasn’t long enough to explain anything. I could gather that it seemed like one mana provided 10 seconds of clarity and an equal amount of fuzzier reactions. The mana needed to be taken in all at once though, and immediate repetition of the process didn’t seem possible.

I also didn’t feel 100% certain on if I wanted to continue using that method to awaken her. It always led to her jumping about, and couldn’t tell what it represented. Using the information gathered thus far, I pondered over the illness and its properties.

I immediately connected the dots to Ralph’s OGP friend Fern, who ended up temporarily devoid of magic. Whatever afflicted Ria either fed, or was combated by magic. I leaned towards the side of fed, the progression of the color on the skin didn’t seem to diminish or slow, and may have in fact been accelerated. Though outwardly an illness, from her vitality when supplied with magic, as well as the story of the man OGP and Fern met, it wasn’t impossible that it could be present with the adverse effects mitigated. The only problem with that being it might be like a dependency she could build up a tolerance to. Or since she seemingly weakened without my presence, without a supply of mana, she would wither away. And there was nothing that prevented both of these cases from being true.

Let’s hear a hip hip hooray for ignorance, the MVP of halting progress, right up there with apathy.

Though it wasn’t like I totally lacked a route of progress. Tagalong Girl had some sort of ability to visualize mana, and though I didn’t know the extent to which it could do so, it was yet another possible path to discovery. I did need to find her though, but that wouldn’t be too hard. She followed Rion, and Rion…

Where did Rion get to anyways? I didn’t deal much with him after learning to speak Derrish, the little pest and I didn’t really get along. Probably out commanding his band of merry men, those slacker children usually played around in the river, or vanished to who knows where. Really, those children should help out around the village more than just occasionally fishing.

Making sure Ria wasn't suffering any grossly apparent negative effects, I stepped out of the house to go searching for the little ones. The task didn't take long given the small nature of the village, and quickly found the children hopping amongst what appeared to be a makeshift lumberyard. Ross and Troy must have really been at it over the past two weeks.

A pit had been dug up to make it easier to cut the trunks into usable boards, and the children were using one of the remaining logs as a bridge. It looked like the earth here was soft dirt, and the drop was only a few feet; but I noticed a couple of the kids looked a bit filthy and banged up, Tagalong Girl among them.

Observing from afar she seemed rather normal, if a bit shy. Only stepping up if given a slight push, she crossed the chasm swiftly as possible. She didn't seem all too nervous and it wasn't showing off, was she just trying to get it over with? Interactions with the others slight, but still there, she did act only half a step in the realm of childhood.

Tagalong Girl wanted to leave, but it was just a whim. In this scene, her distance from the others may have been part of the reason, but I felt it was something else more profound. The way she stuck near Rion was definitely manipulative, trying to make sure that he knew she was by his side, and she watched his reaction to some of her almost slip ups.

Manipulative, isolated, perhaps just poor at understanding, in the end they weren't things I cared about. If she wanted out of this village, I would oblige her and make sure no ills befell her before she had some measure of self sufficiency. For now though, what interested me were her eyes.

“I hope Ross and Troy are allowing you little rugrats to mess around with their stuff.”

“Alric!” The kid who shouted my name isn't one I introduced before. Ronnie was Hannah’s brother’s(Simon) kid. Just some people I'd helped out a bit when I had nothing to do, and Ronnie liked watching me work magic. His enthusiasm helped break the ice.

I played around with the kids for a bit, giving Tagalong Girl the occasional knowing glance to meet up later. For some reason, she looked a little shaken by my presence. But with a subtle nod of acknowledgement, she got the memo. I devoted a few hours to play along the log bridge, ‘you shall not pass’ and all that.

Led by the mischievous Rion, I ended up tackled off the log and into the dirt a few times. Despite his personal dislike of me, the others thought it all in good fun, and didn't mind too much when I returned the favor.

Eventually the seemingly infinite vitality of the children began to run dry, and I cast a few s on each before sending them home. Rion gave me a sour look for dismissing his group, but whatever.

It was nice to be back.

A/N:AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Since you guys sometimes listen to these author notes, you should all thumbs up my review of this story. I just think it would be funny if such a dumb 'review' got a bunch of thumbs up.