I head over to the young lady’s side first, since it looks like she might be more heavily injured than the man.

Of course, before I had even left the caverns, since I was heading into an unknown location with potentially powerful enemies looking for me, I brought along quite a few healing elixirs. It’s also supposed to be used to allow me to help anyone I see along the way.

As I review her injuries, I find that they don’t seem to be that bad, which is surprising, considering how vehemently that young master seemed to be kicking her. There’s still a broken rib and collarbone, but it is relatively better than I had assumed.

Either that young master was controlling his strength extremely well, or there was another intention for it. I can’t see someone of his demeanor or standing, taking consideration of someone like that.

Though, maybe I’m wrong based on that last comment of his toward the young man.

Focusing back on this situation, as I crouched by her side, I whisper in her ear a question I’ve asked many times before.

“Are you OK with me healing you?”

Her body, which was shivering slightly, seems to stop for a moment.

I see her slowly shake her head as I follow her gaze. My back straightens a little at what I see.

One of the young master's men is observing us, seeing what we’ll do. What my plans with this person are.

Shoot, this might also play into that thing that man was talking about before. If I help her openly and in front of the young master, it could be viewed as a slight against him.

I’ll have to come up with a different way to do this.

I leaned down again to whisper another idea into her ear.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you before. I’m sure you understand why. If you want, I can take you away from here, inconspicuously? That way, you won’t have to deal with any retribution later because of it.”

Her blueish-green eyes look up at mine. The blonde hair, with a reddish tinge, sways a little because of the slight breeze flowing through the street.

She says nothing for a while, but eventually nods head in affirmation. Her hand slightly moves, pointing to a nearby alleyway.

Finally, having been given the go ahead to take care of these injuries, I use my scan to determine the best way to move them to the alleyway. Without causing additional damage. What I find is that I should grab them by their clothing and drag them to the alleyway.

Before I move her, I turn to the young man, still unmoved from his position.

“Once I’m done helping her, I’ll come back to help you. I should be back relatively quickly.”

With that said, he continues to not move, but his eyes seemed to follow me even from the ground. He definitely heard me.

He seems to be the strong silent type, maybe even a protagonist in the making.

From there, I focus on moving her carefully. Dragging her by the clothes and being sure not to jostle either her collarbone or ribs.

Unfortunately for me, this looks really nefarious to outside eyes. Dragging an injured woman into an alleyway. With her seemingly being unable to resist.

What is kind of disheartening, though, is that few people seem to care. Some people whisper to each other, but look away quickly, moving on with what they were previously doing.

Almost as if this is somewhat normal.

Despite my mixed feelings on this, I continue until we are obscured from everyone’s view in the alleyway.

Despite my best efforts, there was some additional damage as I moved her. She seems to have relaxed a bit, being away from the public eye, but still seems to be in significant pain.

It’s curious, though.

She was definitely moaning in pain earlier, but now is much more silent. Maybe she’s learned to bear with the pain better?

I notice at this point that a broken rib is pushing into her lungs. She’s having trouble breathing. Normally this would be a loud affair, but she’s holding it in.

Looks like she might not be wanting to attract any attention over here. I’ll hurry and take care of this quickly.

Using the diluted elixir, I moved the potion over to her lips before pouring it down into her mouth. She makes no move to move her arms, apparently trusting me to not be hurting her. In its own way, it’s worrisome.

Because she’s likely to have already heard of me before, if she’s trusting me to this extent.

Despite my worries, her wounds heal pretty quickly with this elixir. And soon enough, she’s breathing and moving normally.

In a way that seems reminiscent of many other times before, she bows quickly, thanking me for my help with this. As her body moves back up, I see a look in her eyes that reminds me of the yellow sashes. She moves closer to me, seductively.

A bit surprised at the sudden action, I come to a realization.

Oh shit. Is this a plant from the yellow sashes? I thought something was up. This might be why she trusted me so quickly and knew that I was a healer, not being shocked at the fact that I would try to heal her.

As I prepare myself to dissuade her from that action, now knowing her true nature, she lightly nibbles my ear with one of her incisor teeth.

The shiver runs down my back, as that is quite a fresh experience for me.

Ahhhh. This is a bit weird, but kinky. Nice in its own way.

Though, I’d much prefer being the one doing the biting… Wait a second, I should stop her!

Before I can do anything else, though, she bites fully into it and tearing away, drawing a lot of blood from me.

Feeling the sharp sting of pain, I back away, slowly holding my now pierced ear. The shivers are still going down my back, now even more intensely.

My healing trigger goes off.

Not one to heal my ear, but to stop poison. Really, really fucking dangerous, fast acting poison.

I would have just died if it wasn’t for my healing ability.

My eyes move shocked up to hers, which reveal a smirk of sorts. My scan shows that she’s holding something in her pocket, a piece of paper, which she squeezes slightly.

Out there in front of her, appears a large silvery purple sword. Facing directly toward me.

Faster than I can even process, it shoots towards me, plunging into my stomach.

Strangely enough, it going in doesn’t hurt. Almost like a syringe, though, the purplish light that shines upon it drains into me, leaving only a silvery blue sword behind.

I collapsed to my knees, almost unbidden, as the blood drains quickly out of me from what I now realize to be poison, flowing through every part of my body. My healing constitution and automatic healing abilities work to keep me alive. As it’s clear, this would have killed a normal person by now.

I can feel myself growing dizzy and I fall back against the side of the wall, in this cold, dark alleyway. The woman casually takes the bag of elixirs from my side. Slinging it over her shoulder.

Her eyes look cold, but soften slightly as she looks down at me.

“Sorry, Sir, but we all have to come up with ways to survive. You had offended the wrong people. They don’t take kindly to losing…”

And before she can finish her words, my scan catches from on top of one building that a hooded man has suddenly appeared. The symbol of a black cauldron rests upon his forearm.

He simply raises a hand towards us.

The last thing I see, is something resembling a gray wire-mesh coming towards me and the woman. And my sight falling in multiple directions.

Everything goes dark quite quickly after that.

When I wake back up, I find myself surrounded by blood, with the sun a bit lower on the horizon. The remains of the diced woman lay next to me. Rats and vermin have already begun to feast on her.

It looks like the bag of elixirs are gone, but the bracelet from the yellow sashes has remained.

Fuck.

I think I was just assassinated.