After Alice agreed to go, Ethan quickly smiled at her, before nodding.

“I’m glad to hear it. Get ready then. I sent word to a few other Mages, especially those who have some extra resistance or complete immunity to broken mana poisoning. The ones that accept my request should be here in half an hour or so. We’ll also be taking some [Guards] along; while I hope that the Society of Starry Eyes hasn’t reached the point where they can openly attack an Illvarian village in broad daylight, not taking countermeasures would just be silly. Some of them have Perks to protect them from mana poisoning, but some of them don’t, since most don’t bother with the Perks for it. Of course, I’m also here, and my specialty is definitely combat. So we should be able to run over smaller groups of the Society as long as they don’t have an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Just be careful.”

“All right. Thank you for the information,” said Alice. Ethan gave her a quick nod, before departing, presumably to make other arrangements. Alice spent a few minutes tossing on all of her enchanted items, just in case they ended up being needed, and also took the time to make sure her clothes were presentable. Then, she met up with Ethan near the front of the manor.

Ethan was sitting just outside of the house, and he wasn’t alone. There was a group of around twenty [Guards], most of whom were between level 60 and 65, and another two [Organic Mages], both around level 75. Finally, rounding out the group was Elder Sujia, who gave Alice a friendly grin. Alice smiled back at the elderly Mage, before Ethan addressed the [Guards] and Mages.

“Thank all of you for coming on short notice,” said Ethan. “I contacted you almost immediately after I got word of the dimensional mana flood, and I’m glad that you were able to come so quickly. People might be dying right now, so we don’t have much time to waste. You should have all of the details I do already, but to quickly re-iterate; a random flood of dimensional broken mana has suddenly appeared in a village near the capital. While I have some suspicions why this happened, we are going there to confirm, as well as to treat any injuries we can. We are also bringing along my apprentice, to get her some combat experience and some on-site experience as a healer. I have also recently been investigating ways to treat mana baptisms, and while I have no idea if any of my ideas will work, some of them might be worth trying. That’s everything we know. Let’s get moving.”

The other people in the group nodded, and Ethan quickly led the group to a stable.

Alice had a bad feeling. Somehow, she had always gotten caught up in her research, and had never actually found time to pick up any skill in riding horses. In other words, if the group was riding to the village, she might have a lot of issues sticking with the group, because she had zero confidence in being able to steer a horse or stay on top of one at a gallop. She also couldn’t outrun a horse yet, and while she knew some [Kinetic Mages] could fly using their clothes, Alice didn’t really have the skill to keep herself balanced in midair. She was more likely to break her neck than properly fly.

In other words, transportation might be a huge problem here.

Seeing Alice freeze, Elder Sujia laughed.

“Have you never learned to ride, Lady Alice?” Asked Elder Sujia, as she looked through the horses. It seemed that all of the [Guards] and Mages who were coming with the group all had some experience with horses, unlike her.

Alice shook her head. “I haven’t. I…” Alice winced, suddenly wishing that she had spent more time outdoors. It wasn’t a particularly common thought for her, but at least right now she was definitely regretting her actions a little.

The painful truth was that Alice had simply never bothered picking up the {Riding} skill. She had been more interested in research, and hadn’t bothered devoting time to things she didn’t find interesting. That was the reason why, despite having Ethan as a sponsor for several months now, access to financial resources that she couldn’t make full use of, and connections that would beggar the imagination of most people, Alice hadn’t actually made use of any of that time to pick up skills like {Riding}. She simply hadn’t feel a need to do so, and since it didn’t interest her she had never thought much about it.

Elder Sujia chuckled again. “Don’t worry about it, dear. I myself was never one for horses either. I used to think that if I was going to learn how to {Ride}, I might as well just learn to fly instead.” Elder Sujia snorted. “I was a fool. Flying is way too hard on your mana to use unless it’s an emergency. Flying from one town to the next is something only an Immortal has the mana for. And sadly, I didn’t get that far.” Elder Sujia sighed, softly, before her expression brightened up again and she gave Alice a grin.

Then, Elder Sujia beckoned towards Alice. “Come, ride with me instead. We don’t have much time to waste, but I’ve since learned from the foolhardiness of my youth. I’m a fair hand at {Riding} now, and you don’t look like you weigh much. Since I’m also quite light, we should be able to ride a horse without burdening it. I’ll help you sit properly and steer the horse for us.”

Alice nodded. “Thank you, Lady Sujia. I appreciate the help.”

Elder Sujia grinned. “Just make sure you actually work on levelling up the {Riding} Skill or something travel-related after this. It doesn’t really matter long term, if you actually reach Immortality, but, well…” Elder Sujia grinned. “You aren’t there yet. Even if you do end up reaching Immortality and ditching horses in the future, it’s not a terrible idea to learn to {Ride} now. [Scouts] won’t always be available to give you access to good marching Perks, and unless I’m completely mistaken, you’re probably still years away from completely reaching Immortality, right?”

Alice nodded thankfully, feeling more than a bit embarrassed by her sudden reliance on Elder Sujia. She decided she would make some time to learn about horses when this trip ended.

Then, Elder Sujia hopped on the horse she had chosen, and after settling down, she extended a hand to Alice. Alice quickly grabbed elder Sujia’s hand, and was surprised by how firm the woman’s grip was. Old age clearly hadn’t taken elder Sujia’s physical [Strength] quite yet.

Elder Sujia quickly seated Alice just in front of her, keeping one of her bony hands on Alice’s shoulder to help her keep her posture steady.

“The first thing to keep in mind when riding a horse is your Stats,” said Elder Sujia. “If your [Endurance] is too low, you need to pay careful attention to how you sit on a saddle, or you might get saddle-sores and crippling muscle cramps, and need to heal yourself. Right now, we can’t afford to waste any organic or healing mana, since Ethan could only find two people who have both broken mana immunity and healing abilities on short notice. If your [Endurance] is below around 100 or so, after multipliers, you should sit like this, while if it’s between 100 and 150, you can start to ignore some of that posture. Your body will compensate for some of the more minor saddle sores and other issues. If it’s above 150, you can start to ignore a lot more of the proper posture for riding a horse…” Elder Sujia took the minutes that the other Mages and [Guards] used to pick out and saddle up their horses to give Alice some quick tips on how to sit on a horse so that she could avoid hurting either herself or the horse. There was a surprising amount of variety to Elder Sujia’s instructions, giving Alice ways to compensate for different levels of [Dexterity], [Strength], and [Endurance]. While Alice couldn’t perfectly match her ‘correct’ riding posture after only a few minutes, she at least had a rough idea what she was supposed to be doing, which was better than being completely clueless. She knew that she would need to work on it as the group travelled.

With Alice’s permission, Alice also felt Elder Sujia use her kinetic mana to move Alice’s clothes around from time to time during the quick lesson, quietly prodding some of Alice’s limbs into the correct posture whenever she messed up. Finally, Elder Sujia nodded. “It’ll probably still be a little painful ride until you get the {Riding} skill, but it shouldn’t be that bad. As long as you can tough it out for a bit, maybe you’ll even pick up a point of [Endurance] if you’re lucky.” Elder Sujia grinned. “If you really can’t handle the saddle sores and pain, you can use a little healing mana on yourself. But try to avoid it if you don’t need it. And remember,” said Elder Sujia. “Even if you mess up while healing a person during our time in the village, that’s okay. Most of these people are going to die with or without your intervention. Do your absolute best and make sure that you can pass a test from the ethics committee, but don’t feel bad if you fail to save them. I know you have at least some access to healing, since you’re here, but everyone makes mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up too hard while you’re learning. It’s Ethan’s job to make sure you don’t mess up right now, so just blame him if you make a mistake!” Elder Sujia said cheerfully.

Bizarrely enough, after Elder Sujia’s words Alice felt a ludicrously inappropriate urge to laugh. Her words were ridiculously irresponsible, but at the same time, had a sort of carefree tone that helped Alice calm down. At the same time, she wondered if Elder Sujia had guessed that Ethan might not be being entirely truthful about Alice’s specialty as a ‘combat’ Mage. If there was anyone who could pick out an Immortal lying, it was likely his apprentices who had been with him for several decades.

Not that Alice intended to fail if she had any choice in the matter. She had no idea if she could successfully interfere with a baptism right now, but she wanted to at least try her best to keep villagers safe if they were hurt. Of course, the biggest problem with curing a mana baptism was that any mana she threw in would probably get absorbed by the mana baptism, and would probably harm the patient. She had a couple guesses about ways that might help a baptism, but Alice felt worried that all of her ideas would fail.

She just hoped she could actually help the situation, and didn’t just make the whole situation worse. If Alice tried to help and accidentally killed someone, she didn’t know if she would be able to forgive herself.

Such were her thoughts as the group saddled up and started riding to the village.

* * *

Through training, you have increased a skill!

Riding 1-> 7

Alice groaned as they had nearly reached their destination, resisting her urge to wobble off the horse and face-plant into the ground. Her legs and back felt like they had been beaten with a metal bat. Her Stats helped, but they didn’t solve the problem entirely. When she had acquired the {Riding} Skill, it had improved her posture and made the problem much less severe… but it hadn’t solved the problem entirely.

Alice resisted the urge to throw {Moderate Tissue Regeneration} at her aching body, or perhaps use one of her healing rings to fix herself up. While most injuries in the village were unlikely to be treatable with regular magic, if the Society had attacked there would be a huge amount of use for healing and organic mana here, and she needed to be sparing with her mana usage until she knew more.

The only relief was that the constant motion of the horse was finally coming to an end. Elder Sujia carefully helped Alice off of her horse as the village came in view, and one of the [Guards] quickly started tethering the horses. At the same time, other [Guards] got into position and drew weapons, in case an attack came.

Luckily, no Society Members popped out of the woods and attacked them. Oddly enough, no villagers did either.

“Be wary,” said Ethan, frowning. Alice saw dozens of magic tendrils snake out of his body, preparing for any dangers that might appear, and at the same time, rainbow mana shot into his eyes as he started looking around. His frown deepened.

A few of the other [Guards] increased their wariness, scanning their surroundings more cautiously than before.

Slowly, the group began advancing towards the village.

When the group arrived, Alice was surprised by how orderly everything seemed. It looked like once the villagers had realized the problem, they had started a rather organized flight from the village. There were well-defined areas of tramped down grass and mud where groups of people had gathered together, before they had started waiting for Mages to come and fix the problem. It even looked like they had started to set up campfires and crude tents, to make sure that they had supplies while they waited.

Alice thought about it for a moment, before wondering if Illvaria had some sort of emergency drill that people were familiar with if broken mana became a problem, perhaps similar to the way fire drills were common on Earth. She had never participated in a broken mana drill here, but it didn’t seem like an unreasonable drill to pound into people’s skulls here.

Of course, these areas were now completely devoid of villagers. Even though the villagers had clearly been here at some point within the past twenty-four hours, they were now suspiciously missing. Alice’s grip on her enchanted items tightened, and she saw many [Guards] tighten their hands on their own weapons. Something was wrong here, and she didn’t like it.

Finally, the group got close enough to the village that Alice could see the buildings and mana more clearly.

The western side of the village had a much heavier concentration of purple broken mana. She assumed that was where the largest number of villager baptisms had come from.

The eastern side of the village was much less heavily covered by broken dimensional mana. Alice suspected that some parts of the area hadn’t even hit the mana density required to start a mana baptism; this was likely where the people that had sent for help had come from.

In the sky, Alice could see the real problem. It looked very similar to the place where Alice had first arrived in this world. Giant purple clouds of mana rolled through the area, like a purple fog bank had descended upon the village and choked the life out of the inhabitants.

Plonked directly in the center of town, Alice saw a random chunk of road just… laying in the middle of the village. It was clearly from Earth. There was a completely demolished car laying off to the side of the road. While it was hard to see from this distance, Alice thought she could even see a few blood smears a little distance away from the totally destroyed car. She couldn’t tell what the car had crashed into; perhaps it had run into something just before getting teleported here, or perhaps it had been crushed as a result of dimensional travel. She had no clue.

Alice could also see that something was horribly wrong with the village. She could see some monsters already starting to take over the village, much like they had when the Cyran expedition had investigated Alice’s arrival point.

It wasn’t like bows and basic {Archery} skills were rare in this world. A village usually had at least a few people with weapons laying around, just in case a medium-sized monster started bothering the village. And even if the village was currently covered in broken mana, after the Mages cleared out the region, the townsfolk would surely want to move back into their village. Why was nobody shooting down the spidercrabs and other small monsters that had come to eat the broken mana in the region?

The answer was increasingly obvious, even if Alice had no idea what to make of it.

As far as Ethan’s group could tell, all of the villagers in the area had simply vanished into thin air. The driver of the ruined car was also nowhere to be seen.

The group was alone.