My thoughts were rudely interrupted by the Ruby Mace member who had the job of being my receptionist, rudely barging in. I send granny away and look at the pain in the ass she brought with her.

A little girl is convulsing in her arms, blood pooling out her mouth.

I take her from my receptionist and place her on my table. It looks closer to my torture table than a surgical one, but I won't make that comment out loud.

I start inspecting her with [Scientific Insight+]

"Hey, how many people in your group are female?" My muffled voice sounds from my mask as I go through my mental checkup.

"What? Don't make small talk while a child is dying right there!"

"You're supposed to just send the patient in, but since you are sticking around, I might as well ask."

It's either a slow-acting poison or a spell... Would it be considered a curse rather than a spell? What's the difference? I stopped myself from falling into a mental tangent. That could cause this girl to die.

"Uh, there's more than just the eight of us in the city, but out of the eight specifically, there are three."

"Thank gods. If your leader sent the only woman in the party to be a receptionist, that would've been concerning. Did you volunteer to oversee the healing thing or..."

A steady stream of mana keeps this girl on life support. Her health is constantly draining, so I'm not letting her reach zero.

"What the fuck?"

I thought she was responding to my question, but I looked down at my patient again, and her skin was undergoing necrosis. She's basically rotting while still alive.

"That's not good."

"Can you do something?"

"I am doing something. Let me experiment with something."

[Martyr

You are a martyr of the people. May your sacrifice be remembered. The user can siphon any amount of damage taken by another target.

Range: 10 feet

Damage Taken: 2x]

I've been using this as a "get down, mister president" skill, so I want to try using it in a different application. It doesn't have a mana cost, it doesn't have a duration, just one line of text that isn't flavor or specific parameters.

I activate the skill and immediately feel like shit. The girl stops convulsing and spitting up blood as my mask starts to fill.

Her necrotic skin slowly heals as I am still pumping in healing, but whatever I took the burden of fucking sucks.

Blood is streaming out of my eyes and nose. My skin starts to itch and warm up before becoming worryingly cold in spots.

[Resistance: Necrotic 10 > 11]

[Resistance: Necrotic 11 > 12]

[Resistance: Necrotic 12 > 13]

I ignore my resistance going up as I keep myself above half health. I stop healing the girl once I notice that her skin is back to being rosy and her breathing becomes stable.

"Holy shit, whatever you did made her better-"

I think she's shocked by my appearance, but I can't really see right now. Blood is seeping through my clothes and spilling out of my mask. A puddle of unnaturally dark blood pools around my feet as my socks are drenched in my own delectable juice.

My passive regeneration is a big help with keeping me functional, but I could do better. Is blood streaming out of my eyes so rapidly that I can't see, or are the lenses of my mask drenched in blood?

At least my entire body isn't hurting, just my skin and muscles.

I hear a crowd whispering. Did that Ruby Mace member leave the tent flap open?

"Holy shit, look at what the doc was willing to take on to cure this girl!"

"Is there a healer? We need a healer over here."

"That's the only healer we would be able to bring over anyways. I'm glad there are still people nowadays willing to go so far for other people."

"Is he going to die, mom?"

"The healer must know what he's doing."

This application of [Martyr] and the constant decomposing of my flesh gives me a few insights into the unique skill of my martial arts, [Traumatism].

I stand in silence, analyzing my body using [Scientific Insight+] and my "mind's eye."

The hushed whispering of the small crowd died down from either tension or my focus blocking out their voices.

I kept the condition slightly longer than needed to ensure I reached the level of insight necessary to learn the first part of the skill.

I didn't learn the skill. I guess I need to complete every part before I can acquire the skill.

[Resistance: Necrotic: 88 > 89]

My resistance stopped there, and so did the persisting condition. I've felt necrotic energies from a necromancer and from miasma. That felt nothing like either one.

I don't think it was a curse or poison as initially thought.

"Does anyone have a medical history for this little girl? Where are her parents or guardians?"

"Holy shit, the doctor is alive! How long has he been silently standing there?"

"At least 30 minutes. That receptionist lady just stood there, so I figured the healer had everything under control!"

There was a lot more whispering, but I only acknowledged the helpful comments. I turn my head to the Ruby Mace member who is tending to the little girl.

"Ask the child about medical history. I know I didn't ask for any help, but did you have to just stand there as the crowd commented?"

"You have some pretty good hearing. I already got the medical history during your 'meditation.' I figured that if a charitable healer died from saving a little girl's life, we could use that as fuel against the Cerulean Shield. Think about it. The Cerulean Shield refuses to heal an orphan and causes a reputable healer in the community to sacrifice himself in response."

The little girl speaks up. "I'm not an orphan."

"Hush."

"You have issues. What is the medical history."

"All the females in her family have a hereditary illness. It could strike at any point in their lives, but it always happened before the age of sixty. It's more potent the older the recipient is, causing death slowly to the young ones."

I had a worse time with the illness since I'm older, and [Martyr] doubles the "damage." Lucky me.

"Are you sure it says hereditary? It's all too strange to be a disease or genetic malfunction. Where are you getting this information?"

"Oh, a neighbor close to her family brought her over here. He faints at the sight of blood, so he's waiting out of sight."

"Why didn't they call emergency services? Her life was in immediate threat. They'd have to give her treatment."

"I actually know the answer to that. That neighbor was rushing her to the hospital on foot, and I intercepted them."

"...You're a bad person."

"You did manage to heal her, so I don't see the problem with this."

"Give me an hour to recuperate before sending me the next patient."

"We have to change location right now. We've grown quite a crowd, and none of the gawkers need healing. The 'enforcers' will come by and shut down our operation if we don't leave."

"Fine."

~

The day passes with little to no hiccups. There was a run-in with some enforcers, but I slipped out the back of the tent when no one was looking.

I meet up with the members of the Ruby Mace on top of a building. We never exchanged names.

"This went way better than I expected. At first, I thought we wasted our grimoires, but I was worried for nothing."

I wait in silence. The members of the Ruby Mace can't see my expression thanks to my mask, but they aren't missing out on much. I've seen a few of their faces, but they all have seen mine. Pity.

"Don't you want to change or something?"

I look over my blood-soaked clothes and just vaguely gesture for him to continue with the discussion.

He waves over and the mage approaches with three tomes neatly stacked together.

"I gotta say you are great on camera."

"Pardon?"

"Our footage of you healing people with such attention to detail, the efficiency, and not to mention what lengths you'd go for a little girl you don't know."

There was a camera?

"The original idea was to find a healer willing to go against the Cerulean Shield and add it to a compilation the Ruby Mace will make for our public guild. A recruitment campaign sort of idea."

"..."

"Don't worry, your acts of healing really did help people, and that's just as important."

Where was that camera?

The leader pipes up.

"I bet you want to know what we will use that footage for. How the video turns out is not 100% up to us. But we have enough pull to turn this 24-hour video into some sort of propaganda that could subtly give the Cerulean Shield the worst opinion of those apathetic to the rumors they heard about their extortion rings. Also, we could even get the government more hands-on if enough traction picks up."

"..."

"I'd like to extend an invitation to the Ruby Maces. We can use someone with your healing. What do you say."

"No."

I make my way out of there as soon as possible.

I never liked guild culture. It perpetuates tribalism and gross competitiveness. I'd prefer to be left alone to my own devices and not be discriminated against based on my social group or lack thereof. Most guilds aren't set up to be full-time jobs/commitments anyways, so the unneeded divisions only get stranger when people double dip willy-nilly.

I don't have issues with personal guilds, but guilds that cement themselves into everyday life are an eyesore.

Merchants Guild, Bards Guild, Farmers Guild, Buerocrats Guild, Masonry Guild, there's a fucking guild for everything. To be fair, those aren't the exact names, but they are still guilds only open to those that fit their niche, and you must be in those guilds if you want to do what their namesake implies.

There are even guilds within guilds, and I don't mean branch offices.

Mercantile guilds are numerous, but they are all under one main guild that oversees them. The Merchant's Guild says they only nurture new guilds, sustain the economy, and mediate disagreements and grievances.

I'll eat my mask if there isn't market manipulation and insider trading behind the scenes.

I found an abandoned door and headed inside my manor. I handed the three grimoires to Duchess.

[Thank you, master. Thisss one didn't expect you to fulfill thisss one’s wish for magical knowledge so soon.]

"Don't thank me yet. If you can't make any sense from these books, it was all for naught."

I clean myself with well water and throw my clothing into a laundry bin. I still don't have a maid, so I have to do everything myself.