Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 122 - 117: Disagreements

Knight Grehwan, who didn’t seem too thrilled about me leading the raid, did his work with surprising diligence.

Immediately, he called for an meeting of leaders in a nearby tent, informing the Mayor about my arrival through a squire. This meeting included a total of twelve people including himself.

First was the Mayor of the town, Rose Dister, appointed by the Baron who ruled the major city nearby. She was woman with auburn hair, and sharp green eyes; wearing a simple white blouse under her half cut grey suit and auburn pants, only wearing simple silver jewelry on her neck and matching silver beads in her hair that seemed to be some kind of protective magical artefact.

In fact, it should have been only the secretary of the mayor who attended the meeting but, since I was here, she had to be present as well.

Of course, her secretory was present as well; Roan Chalm, also head of logistics of the town, who normally handled these affairs. He was a eastern man in his forties, with his hairline having seen better days. Wearing a light blue shirt with folded sleeves under his dark charcoal vest and square framed glasses, he looked like a reliable secretary. And he had to be reliable cause, their group was the only group of mundane people in the tent.

The others were coming in one by one, and when the last one arrived, there were eight new magic users seated around the table. Each one being the leader of a mercenary band that consisted of 15 to 25 people each. Combined, it was a total of 182 people, a total of 182 magic users, though most of them were D rank or below.

As soon as the last leader was seated, the Mayor Rose, gave everyone a light nod before she spoke, "Greetings, everyone, greetings, Young Master Rayne. Time is of essence, so hope you all know the reason why we are gathered here. Monsters have been trickling out of the Shawn Forest as of late. After preliminary investigation our scouts have already confirmed that a monster wave is upon us. We had a week’s time when found out about this and today is already the fifth day. As you can see, the preparations are mostly done, and we’re ready to be under siege for the next week. The specific details of the siege will be explained by Knight Commander Grehwan and any other queries can be made to the head of logistics Mr. Raon."

"We are prepared to support the raid party to minimize the causalities, so as the raid party’s leader I do not want you, Young Master Rayne, to hesitate to ask for any kind of support. And, in case, at any moment the task seems beyond you, I want you to directly inform me. I’m sorry if it seems rude, but this is but a periodic event for those present in this room and they have experience handling it before, compared to Young Master who is inexperienced."

"I understand Madam Rose.", I said, sitting on the far end of the table, noticing that all the mercenaries around the table indeed seemed very used to this. "If leading the raid party indeed proves to be a tall task for me, or if you judge me as inadequate then you can replace me with someone else. As long as your reasoning is justified, I’ll be the one to answer the higher ups. All I want is for you to give a chance."

Yep, it was natural that they were not satisfied with me leading. After all obvious that someone pulled the strings to place me in this position, and no one liked a cheater, but they couldn’t do much when the higher ups were in my favor. So, me saying this allowed to the Mayor to have some of her power back.

Thanks to that, Rose crossed her arms and affirmed, her gaze fixed on my figure, "Spoken like a true hero. I will provide you, Young Master, with the chance you want. I only hope that this chance will not cost me precious lives. Everyone agrees with this arrangement, right?", she said, her gaze lingering on every member of the meeting, who agreed even if they were not fully convinced.

After a light pause, she sighed and dropped her gaze, her features softening as she looked back at me, "May you be the hero the rumors speak of.", then turning her gaze, she looked back at Knight Grehwan, "Then Sir Grehwan, you may start explaining about specifics of the raid to everyone."

At that, the Knight commander stood up, and activated the device placed on the table. The device was a magical projector that showed the hologram of the scaled down version of the Shawn Woods, from there, he started a lengthy explanation.

***

Grehwan’s explanation took a while but it could be summarized as follows, the Shawn woods had a natural mana gathering spot right in the heart of the forest, that natural mana influenced the types of monsters residing in the forest.

The mana in Shawn woods was of earth and water elemental type, so mostly bulky and tanky monsters lived in the forest accompanied by some aquatic ones. Then he went forward to explain the habitats and distribution of monsters, their characteristics, the geography of the forest and the water sources present in it so that the attack party could plan effectively.

He also informed us that a group of bandits were also active for the last two weeks near the village south of the forest. And some recent information about the forest that we should know about — like there had been a change in monster’s nature and such.

Then Roan who was listening to the explanation that was about to end, also added that this monster wave was a month earlier than expected, causing the city to be much lower of war resources than normal, and proceeded to elaborate the resources the mercenaries could use from the town’s vault.

By the time the lengthy meeting reached its end, the situation and resources at hand were more or less discussed, so finally, Roan who had taken over at some point asked me, "So, these are the resources available, and we plan to procure around 100 more mid-tier potions, standardized pieces of armors that each group can request, medical supplies for healers, more labor for setting up the traps and mana crystals for the city’s defenses. Anything you would like to add, Young Master Rayne?"

"Just call me Rayne, Mr. Roan.", I started, "And yes, I would like you to cut down on the mid-tier potions and invest more on acquiring mana crystals and armors.", I suggested, causing many people to raise their eyebrows, in fact, one of the mercenary leader who seemed pissed from the very start couldn’t take it anymore as he slammed the table.

"Hey! What do you mean to cut down on potions!? The potions available are less than half what they usually are! Are you planning on sending us to our deaths!? That’s it! I can’t listen to a kid who only knows how to play a hero!"

Then turning to the Mayor he said, "He said it himself, replace him if he isn’t good enough. Rose, this is your chance to do it."

With wild golden brown hair and matching eyes, the mercenary in question was built like tank. With a domineering height of over two meters, several cuts and scars that were visible on his arms and neck. Note, those were the only exposed part of his body, thanks to his neat white shirt whose sleeves he had folded and maroon pants. As if not domineering enough, he even had a nasty scar on his face that couldn’t be fully hidden by his eye patch.

"Sit down, Ruhr.", Rose said, placing her hands on the table as she crossed her fingers and asked, "I apologize for his rude words, but I agree with Ruhr. We don’t have enough potions; we have to buy them in order to reduce causalities. So, can you explain why just suggested that?"

"I was about to, Ms. Rose, but it seems that Mr. Ruhr just couldn’t wait for my explanation.", I said calmly, and though I heard that Ruhr guy mutter, "Explain my ass.", under his breath, I chose to ignore it.

"I can pretty much heal any and all wounds sustained by any mercenary so it’s unnecessary to spend resources on-"

"Hah! That was your explanation? Do you know the number of people we have? It’s a freaking 182 people, can you, a single person heal all of them? Do you have enough skill? Not mention will your mana even last? The fact that you said such a thing means you aren’t a competent healer! Even veteran healers of C rank can only heal ten people with mortal wounds, and you, a D rank magic user are suggesting you can provide healing to the whole raid party? Did you even think this through kid?"

The mercenary named Ruhr exploded again, and not just him, everyone in the room seemed disappointed even incensed, it even seemed that Ruhr was holding himself back from punching me.

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Before the mood could get even worse, I spoke, "Can you please let me complete, Mr. Ruhr? As for your questions, six yeses. I can do it, I can heal all the raid party, and I can keep healing it indefinitely."

"What is this kid even saying?"

"Is he serious?"

"This fucker…"

"That’s impossible, you know?"

Several such exclamations echoed through the tent, and though they were kind of subdued because of my status, they were still cursing me out. Of course, I remained unfazed.

"Looks like you guys won’t believe me unless I prove it to you. Then, let’s do this.", I said pointing at Ruhr, then at every member of the meeting who had some degree of scars or internal wounds, typical of mercenaries.

"I’ll sit here, right in front of you people and heal everyone. Be it missing limbs, organ damage or old scars, I’ll heal everyone right here, in front of you. No breaks or mana potions. And by everyone, I mean, literally everyone, not just people in your mercenary band. Madam Rose, if anyone requires healing in the town or has been disabled, call them, I’ll heal them back to full health. I think, that’ll be enough proof of my claims. Is that acceptable Mr. Ruhr?"

"Hmph, that’s acceptable, just don’t make any excuses when you fail."

"I’d like to say the same. Then, please sit here, I’ll heal that eye for you.", I said pointing to an empty chair beside me and the mercenary complied, though he grumbled, "It’s supposed to take a high grade potion to heal this, let’s see you try kid."

Needless to say, I planned to heal him in a flash. I wasn’t wasting time in the past month. I knew that healing magic was going to be one of the things, I was gonna be best at so, I had already packed the grimoires with me, and after taking special permission of the Empress, I was allowed to learn Advanced tier healing magic. Thanks to my highest level affinity with the light element, I was able to barely learn it within a month.

I had already tested this spell with Cana and Syrus, healing all their old scars, so I was pretty confident with this spell.

So, as soon as Ruhr sat on the stool, I placed my finger on the domineering mercenary’s forehead and activated the spell that one of my thought process had already finished weaving — [Vitae Restorare].

It was an Advanced class spell, that aimed to restore the body to its peak, including the aspects of both healing and rejuvenation.

Light shone through my finger and entered Ruhr’s body, flowing through his veins, coloring them a splendid golden, as a vortex of revolving rotating runes emerged around his body. The runes were big at first but slowly the got smaller and smaller, becoming so miniscule that to a normal person they would be seen as nothing but motes of light. Those motes of light gathered around Ruhr’s wounds, internal organs and even near his scars, being especially dense on his eyepatch.

An enormous amount of many poured out of me to cast the spell, almost taking up 70% of my mana reserves as the process continued, and the motes of light slowly stimulated Ruhr’s body and soul. And after a minute of stimulation, the motes of light shone brighter, submerging themselves into Ruhr’s body and then, his flesh moved, shedding the uppermost layer revealing red beneath.

The flesh moved, blood vessels grew, and muscles entangled into each other sealing the wound and scars all over his body, and not just the superficial wounds, the internal injuries, the organs which were damaged and all sorts of aliments he encountered during his rough mercenary life, were cured with a single spell.

Before the third minute ended, I took off my hand and Ruhr’s body stopped glowing, all his scars vanishing from existence. The mercenary in question though, didn’t say anything, silently his hand reached for his eyepatch which he promptly removed and… a perfectly healthy eye, appeared in my view.

Seemingly in disbelief, Ruhr closed his other eye, and looked around with his restored one, even going as far as directly touching it with his hand. Only, when his vision blurred and tears appeared in his restored eye that he believed it.

"Sigh, I take back what I said, you’re a skilled healer. I thank you for healing me.", he bowed, after checking the condition of his body, "But can you keep this up? I don’t know how you learnt it, but that should be Advanced Spell that you just used, can you keep using it for two hundred people?"

Of course, normal magic users couldn’t, but not me. The instant I completed infusing mana in my spell, my mana had already returned to 100%.

Instead of answering, I just said, "Next person please."