Chapter 1226 Chapter 1226 Marching by their Side
Something odd clicked in Lily's mind once Burgandy was finished. "Hey March… if Burgandy's got a healer in the family why didn't your Mum go and see her?"
March waved Lily off, "I did see her. That's why I was under the 'mistaken' impression I'd gathered enough money. I suppose it was clear to the old woman I wasn't going to just accept a handout, because apparently I'm a bit too much like my mother… so they quoted me what I thought was a ridiculously high price.
"When I eventually made all that money… well I found out that it wasn't enough. Sure the old lady probably still would've done it, she was the one to give me the quote after all… but my mother still wasn't willing to accept it. Which is stupid, in my opinion… but I wasn't sure Burgandy would want me mentioning it, and I was… somewhat embarrassed myself because it took me a bit of time to even think about asking her to heal my mother,"
"Why wouldn't Burgandy want to talk about it?" asked Lily.
Marigold looked ready to jump in, but so did Burnice and Oditr. Apparently this was something that was really obvious for everyone else. They girls all looked at each other with Burnice shrugging first and waving her chance away. Oditr and Marigold stared at each other for a bit before Oditr scoffed and went back to her food. "Awesome, I just won a staring contest with the dwarf queen!" said Marigold happily. Everyone else rolled their eyes.
"Right, so now that I'm secure in my victory I can explain. The basic reason is that healers are… kinda weak. Your friend Nixilei? She's really weird for being that strong. Healers are already rare, but healers that can defend themselves? Even more so. For some reason, a lot of healers don't ever learn to fight, though if they do dedicate themselves to healing they tend to get to higher ranks earlier then other affinities.
"The problem of course, is that it doesn't matter what rank you are if you've never been in a fight. Plus, healing yourself is always a bit wonky for some reason. You need regeneration affinity for that. So with those two facts combined it's sort of seen as a taboo to announce you've got a healer in the family. It's basically like shouting to the world that you've got an undefended chest full of gold just sitting under your floorboards.
"Now, it's not always that bad. Healers also usually manage to get a few favours from powerful people. So it's not like they're completely helpless… but it's really not something you spread around you know?"
*That makes sense. I can follow the logic there. Though I would've thought that being Rank 3 would make her pretty safe.*
[I think it's a bit like telling people you have a gun but not actually knowing how to use it. Anyone who decides to attack you ANYWAY is coming in expecting a close fight so they'll shoot to kill you straight away instead of going into a stand-off because they've got the weapon.]
*Ok… I can sort of see it? I guess my perspective is too skewed. With my regeneration and power… honestly I'm not sure a normal bullet would hurt me anymore, even without my regeneration. Actually… how tough IS my skin these days?*
[Don't you dare.]
*Fine.*
"Thank you for that," said Lily. "Though… now I have another question. If Burgandy didn't join till later, how did you end up on their team March?"
March sighed and said, "It's a bit of a sad story, nobody died luckily, but it is the story of how a young couple had their dreams destroyed. I believe I mentioned that my father and mother worked for the sawmill, yes?" March received a round of nods, "Good. The town in question is just called 'Loggermill' because we have a deal with a dryad to come around and replenish the forests every time we cut down all the trees in exchange for a share of the profits.
"While that's nice, it's not enough for a town to form by itself. That being said, there was a lot of open space nearby and so farmers moved in. This was all long before I was born so I don't know the specifics. Still, it's a small town that doesn't actually have too many families that live there. A lot of the lumberjacks come out for a few months, then head back to nearby cities and towns where their family live.
"It's considered a decent source of income for the off-season of the harvest. A lot of the lumberjacks are sons of farmers you see? It's also probably why we've got a few farms around town. Anyway, my father knew about my goal of gaining strength and heard from his colleagues that two teenagers were starting up an adventuring party, and that I might like to join them.
"I had no problem with this, so I did. I was… thirteen at the time? No wait… I might have just turned fourteen? It's not important. Anyway, I met up with them and talked. They had such big dreams. They wanted to form a big mercenary company, lead by two main teams. One lead by the guy, one by the girl. They were also dating at the time, and for some reason thought it would be romantic.
"For some reason, I didn't think there would be any problems joining a party consisting of just myself and a couple, but it wasn't actually that bad. It could've been, but that was never the problem. The issue was that there was only three of us, and the town was small. So first, we started to do 'adventurer jobs' around town. Which was really just whatever we could get paid for.
"You know, basic stuff. Taking wagons of food across town. Helping move the harvest into storage, fixing up various problems around town. Honestly, I was more of a carpenter and labourer than an adventurer for the first year. Eventually we saved up enough money to rent a room in the inn at a nearby town. The idea was, from there we could do proper jobs.
"Which… eh? I guess so. The teens, they were called Alex and Alice by the way, were just farmers with big dreams. They kept wanting to push forward. To actually 'do something' but I was pretty content with the jobs we had. I was getting stronger and earning money. That was all I needed. I was even managing to perfect my 'Steam Engine' technique but they wanted to leave so I went with them,"
"Job quality didn't really improve. I struck an intimidating figure, and I could take out a lot of low level problems with a good kick… but those kids…" March sighed. "Alice and Alex had big dreams… but no training, and a drive for all the wrong things. They were rarely training with their weapons, instead focusing on trying to guess magical sigils so they could be sword mages," March shook her head.
"I doubt you'd know Lily, but we're tested for that sort of thing. If you can actually become a mage? Some lord is willing to finance your education for a few years of service. They were never going to get it… but they had a dream yes? A powerful thing for the foolish," March slowly licked her dry lips as she tried, and failed, to prevent herself from sighing once again.
"One day… one day one of the older adventurers said to Alex, 'hey kids, you want a real mission?' and poor Alex missed the sadistic gleam in his eyes. I saw it, and asked 'Why are you handing it over?' and he explained 'One of my team members got sick so we can't… but if you can? Then our record will stay clean' which… heck might've even be true, but it was just an excuse.
"I tried to warn Alex but… well… he said that him and Alice had a dream. That they were going on this mission with or without me, and I had to make the choice," March sighed again. "Gotta stop sighing. Anyway, for some reason those two thought I was older then they were. Probably the muscles and the height. Now… despite my younger age… it's not like I could just let the two of them go and get themselves killed now could I?"
"The mission was allegedly simple. A pack of wild wolves had been causing problems for the merchants along on of the roads out of town. Someone else had been paid to scout out their lair already. So we just had to follow the map. Find the wolves… and then take them out? Alice and Alex were convinced it would be simple. That half the work was done for us. That it would be easy…
"Those fools never stopped to ask two important questions. Why is it, that merchants with GUARDS needed someone else to deal with the wolves? The other question they forgot? Was to ask how many wolves we were likely to be dealing with…"
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