Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Choose your allies wisely, please! part

Consider killing!!!???

The way the consider skill is unlocked is by considering killing another human being!?

This means that Luke, at some point before he met me, considered killing someone in the group. This thought paralyzes me completely.

I understand that he doesn’t like me and that I came to take the place that he feels is rightfully his. Even so, he gets along so well with everyone, it’s really hard to think that he ever seriously thought about taking the life of any of them.

And what about that class? thief? other than clothing, all things in the settlement are for public use. Even if he wanted to, what could he possibly even steal?

Also, thinking about it, is that really a class corresponding to a hero summoned from another world destined to save humanity that is on the brink of extinction? Isn’t thieving kind of an inmoral thing to begin with?

Questions hit me one after another as I watch the pool of blood slowly grow beneath Luke.

.....

Luke 41/100 (bleeding) (unconscious)

“AHHHH!”

The heartbreaking shriek of Ayumi, who’s coming with wet hair shakes me completely. As much as I dislike him, Luke hasn’t really done anything wrong to me and he’s still part of the group so I should do what I can to help him however I can.

“What are you doing Ryu? what happened? Luke’s going to die if he stays like that! we should do something!” Hiraku exclaims as he runs over.

Apparently no one saw what happened as everyone was immersed in their own business and too far away.

“I don’t know what happened, everything happened very fast”

I know what I should do, I have to act but I feel everyone’s eyes as if they mistrust me and suddenly I can’t move anymore.

“It wasn’t me, I couldn’t help it”

my voice barely comes out of my throat.

Ayumi also seems to be in shock and Bob is the only one to react. He gently turns Luke over revealing the chisel stuck in his abdomen, the wound bleeds profusely and a trickle of blood runs down his cheek to the ground.

“you!? What have you done Ryu? why did you stab him? why Ryu! answer! please tell me he attacked you first, that happened right?” Hiraku says with a face of concern and disbelief.

It was just then that I realized that Bob was about to pull the chisel out of Luke’s body.

“STOP! stop! if you take it out he’ll die!”

I tell him as I jump forward.

“Bob, put Luke down as gently as possible and don’t move him. Anne! Quickly go get Helena, she said she’d go get firewood so I’m sure she’s not that far away.’ll try to stop the bleeding.”

I run to the cabin and search the medicine basket for one of the silver flower roots, starting to chew on it as I walk back to where Luke is.

I use consider on luke again, only to see that his life points have dropped dangerously. He only has 30 left. I kneel on the floor next to Luke and take a careful look at the situation.

My first instinct is to spread the medicine on the wound as before, but there are several factors to consider. First, the chisel is still embedded in his body and could cause all sorts of problems if the wound is closed improperly or with a foreign body inside.

“what are you doing Ryu? why don’t you use the medicine? give it to me, I’ll apply it” asks bob desperately

“Calm down Bob, he knows what he’s doing” says Hiraku, although he can’t hide the concern on his face.

“I need clean water and cloth to dress the wound. Bob, even if you try, you probably won’t get the same result since I have a first aid skill. I guess it’s ideal for cases like this. Our goal will be to stop the bleeding and stabilize Luke until Helena arrives.”

As I speak, Bob quickly cuts a strip from his shirt and Hiraku brings clean water in a clay cup.

“Is that enough young Ryu?”

I nod, then pour the water over the wound as I use one end of the cloth to gently clean everything around the wound. with the opposite end of the cloth strip I begin to apply the medicine only to the edges.

first aid 7%

“well, this medicine is fast acting, also my skill seems to have taken effect. Bob, could you go wash the fabric in the river? Hiraku, we’ll need more fresh water”

Hiraku removes all the mochis from the pot and leaves them in a basket, then goes to the lake to wash it and get more water. Bob stays next to luke.

To check Luke’s status I have to consider killing him, it’s a pretty awkward contradiction, but it’s the only way I have to activate the ability.

The bleeding stopped completely, he’s still unconscious but has not lost any more health points.

“It can be said that he’s stable now, as soon as Helena comes back we’ll have to consider removing the chisel before she uses heal, otherwise there could be problems. We don’t know what effects it could have”

Bob’s eyes are moist, it seems as if he’s going to cry at any moment. From the great concern that everyone shows about Luke’s state, I’m even more surprised that he unlocked the ability to consider. Even if it was a class skill, the requirement to unlock it should be the same.

After ten minutes of waiting Anne comes running with Helena following closely behind. she throws herself next to Luke wordlessly and holds her hands out in front of him.

“wait a moment Miss Helena” Hiraku says as he gestures with his hand to stop her

“According to young Ryu, Luke’s condition is stable at the moment and if you’re going to use your healing skill, its necessary to take into account all the possibilities”

Helena hesitates for a second and then nods with head.

“Could you explain the situation to me?”

“he was... stabbed! Ryu did it! We shouldn’t have trusted Ryu after all!” Ayumi says slowly, her face contorted.

“That’s not possible Ayumi! keep calm!”

“Let’s put aside speculation please, Ryu, tell us the truth, what exactly happened? don’t skip a single detail” anne says coldly

“Well, I was making mochi when I realized that the dough I threw on the fire was ready, in fact, it was completely burned”

“Enough! you’re just stalling while Luke is torn between life and death” Ayumi quickly loses control of her emotions.

“Ayumi hush, Ryu, get to the point please” Anne continues calmly, but as she speaks she doesn’t take her eyes off me.

“Luke is stable, there should be nothing to worry about. In any case, it was something important to understand but, in short, Luke got upset because I was watching him while he was working on building. He got upset and lost concentration, then hit his hand by mistake and lost his balance, it was just bad luck that he happened to fall on his hand that held the chisel”

“And you really expect us to believe that?” Ayumi, who can no longer contain her tears, lunges at me but Hiraku stops her at the last second.

“Stop dear, what young Ryu says must be true, after all he was the one who gave Luke first aids, otherwise he would be dead already. Plus, as soon as Luke wakes up we can ask him and confirm if what Ryu’s saying is the truth after all”

“But you saw the same thing as me, right? Ryu stared at him, he was right in front of Luke while he was bleeding to death, still he did nothing to help him. You know those two don’t get along, Luke has always been suspicious of Ryu!!! we trusted Ryu and look what happened! it turned out that Luke’s been right all along”

Then anne interrupts Ayumi raising her voice enough to draw everyone’s attention. It’s the first time she’s raised her voice to someone other than me.

“And what did you do, Ayumi? Didn’t you stand there paralyzed doing nothing too? Should we blame you for what happened? if what Ryu says is true, then Luke deserves what happened to him, let’s hope he recovers and learns his lesson”

“How can you say such cruel things Anne? I didn’t expect this from you!” Helena says while covering her mouth.

Although Anne’s words are hostile, she actually managed to calm Ayumi down. Helena didn’t seem to realize the situation and now argues with Anne. Luke’s situation is bad, but his life doesn’t appear to be in danger, at least not for now. However, dividing the group in this way could be dangerous for everyone, our survival is on the edge of a cliff.

“Stop! there’ll be enough time to discuss later, now the most important thing is to find a way to heal Luke, or do you not agree?

My attempt to calm them down was successful, the whole group now remains quiet and they look at me expectantly. I don’t know what they expect me to do, I already did everything I could for Luke. There’s still some medicine left, but even if we used it all, I’m not confident it’ll work.

“Helena, why don’t you tell us about your healing skill? anything you say could be useful”

“Ok! my class is priestess, I have the ability to heal wounds and increase health points, but it has no effect on adverse conditions such as intoxication or disease. If that was the case i would’ve helped Anne when she was sick. Before you joined our group, I had already used heal several times.

Back then, we captured a boar and Bob was severely injured trying to save Ayumi, at that moment my healing ability closed his wound and recovered some of his health points, but it completely consumed my mana. I’d say my ability has at least two drawbacks that I’m aware of. It completely spends my mana and heals one health point for every ten mana points invested”

“That sounds troublesome, how much max mana do you have and how much do you have left now?”

“Unfortunately, I completely used up my mana points when I healed you after the mochi incident, I’ve only managed to recover five mana points since then”

“Although that might make me fully recovered, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference for Luke. I have a theory, but putting it to the test has its risks and I don’t want you to end up blaming me if things go wrong”

“What is it about? As the situation is, I don’t think it can make things worse”

“Both our skills and our health and mana points increase with use. Bob has a higher amount of maximum health points than the rest and surely Ayumi has a higher amount of mana points than yours since she lights the fire every day. We will be able to check it if, once luke recovers, his maximum health points are increased.

About my theory, since health points represent the life of a person, if someone loses, for example, a limb, their maximum health points should be reduced. If it is a clean cut and bleeding is avoided, your health points should be at maximum. That is, a lower amount of health points, but he would be in perfect condition and his life should not be in danger.

If that’s the case, Luke must have been injured in a vital organ or must have lost too much blood, which is why his health points decreased so quickly, Hopefuly his maximum health points would be the same or higher than before”

“I don’t see where you’re trying to get with this”

“The thing is, if we now remove the chisel from his body, he will most likely lose more blood and we also risk further damage if, by chance, we happen to touch any vital organs by mistake. Since we don’t know if there will be any adverse effects from using your ability with the object still inside his body, it’d be best to wait for Luke to recover some of his health points before treating his wound, that way even if we make a mistake or lose blood , you will have enough health points to help him survive at least.

I think it’s the only alternative since you don’t have any mana left, but even if you used up all your mana, he won’t fully recover.”

“What young Ryu says makes sense, as long as luke’s condition doesn’t get worse there’s no need to take unnecessary risks. If, on the other hand, he begins to get progressively better with the use of medicine, it will be much safer to remove the chisel from his body. But why do you say it is risky?” Hiraku says intrigued

“because if Luke doesn’t wake up, or if he dies, you guys will blame me for his demise” I say with my head down.

“Don’t worry Ryu, it’s not your fault, you really saved luke’s life. Don’t take ayumi’s words into account. So what you’re basically proposing is that we wait before using my ability. Regardless of whether or not I fully recover my mana, because my ability won’t be enough to get him out of harm’s way.”

“Exactly, not only that... what would happen if your skill seals his wound with the chisel still inside? removing it will be a lot harder. Anyway, we must move Luke, it’s risky to move him but he can’t spend the night outside. Perhaps the best thing would be to make a stretcher taking advantage of the fact that there are still a couple of hours before nightfall”

Everyone’s morale is low, normally when I give my ideas more than one usually offers to help immediately. This time not even Bob, who’s the most enthusiastic, offers to help me.

I originally intended to tie a pair of skins to two long poles, so that it would be easy to carry, but this might cause the wound to open. it is best to assemble a rigid stretcher.

With the limited time we have, I have no choice but to improvise. I take one of the boards from the construction site, cover it with a couple of skins tied with plant fiber and that’s it. It’s not a big deal but it should work.

.....

Bob and Hiraku carefully lift Luke onto the board, then carry him to the cabin and lay him on the bed. When disarming the stretcher, the skins that are now free, are used as blankets to cover Luke.

Although he remains unconscious, from time to time some moans are heard, he must be in pain.

Helena stayed by Luke’s side the entire time, I’m not proud of this, but it makes me kind of jealous. Helena has been paying me a lot of attention since we met, and she’s also been nice and kind to me all this time. It’s not like she wasn’t like that to everyone, even to Luke, but I felt that she was nicer to me than anyone else.

Even during dinner, everyone was silent, although it’s not obvious I feel like there’s a wall separating me from the rest. More so now that Helena, who usually eats by my side, is now on Luke’s bedside.

How would they react if they knew that Luke actually considered killing one of them? No, I can’t tell them that because then they’d know I did the same thing to him.

Usually, at this time Ayumi gives us her daily report, then we talk for a while to finally go to sleep late at night, because the days have been getting shorter little by little.

This time everyone went to sleep early, one by one they went to lie down in their usual places. Since Luke is occupying Bob’s bed, Bob lies down in the corner where Luke usually sleeps.

I lie on the skin of the jackal leader of the pack and I realize that I had more space than usual to sleep. everyone keeps their distance from me, it feels bad that they distrust me like this. I’m positioned at the corner and Anne is by my side, keeping her distance.

I can take full advantage of my nightvision now, Helena is by Luke’s side, resting her upper body on the bed, grasping Luke’s hand with both her hands. She looks worried, even though I can only see her back, somehow I know she’s frowning.

By this time every night, a loud snoring noise fills the silence inside, but tonight everything is quiet. I think everyone’s having trouble sleeping.

I can see Anne, she’s staring at the roof with a void expression.

After everything I’ve done for them, I still feel like an outsider. Even though this is my home, my place, and I invited them over, this place doesn’t feel my own anymore. I’m a stranger for them, even if they’ve only known each other for just a month longer than they’ve known me, at least they come from the same world.

Everyday I listen to them talk about their marvelous lives, how well they were doing until they were brought in here. How plentiful their lives where, how much food they had, and they even name every possible flavour there is. well, Ayumi is the one who talks about food the most.

But the point is, they had stories, families, friends, and all I have now is a weird cat that tried to kill me and a group of ungrateful freeloaders that are just starting to carry their own weight.

Perhaps I was better by myself after all, maybe I should just endure until after winter passes and look for a town or city to move in. It’s not like I need them anyway, even leaving this place behind seems like a small price to have some peace of mind.

Lost in my thoughts my mind drifts away into a peaceful dream.