Trash: Chapter 96 The Promise (Patreon)

Chapter 96

The Promise

We were cramped in tightly, the carriage that normally seated three people on each side comfortably was now stuffed with seven people. I didn’t even realize the fact that Mr. Yi had to stand up and effectively use his body to barricade us all from falling out the carriage door.

Despite the extra weight of having nine bodies crammed into such a normally tight space, the horses had no problem adjusting to the extra weight and began pulling us all and maneuvering us through the city like there were no issues.

Lucia sat across from me, Luna to my right, and the wall to my immediate left. Given how cramped we were it came as no surprise that Luna was right next to me, which normally would have been a great thing and something I would have cherished. Especially as she provided much needed warmth to my still exposed right side that felt more than a little breezy as we were currently.

But despite how close we were, it felt like a chasm separated us due to the grief and pain that were all but radiating from Luna and Lucia both. While I could feel Luna’s pain, the pain that was currently being expressed on Lucia’s face seemed to be running a full gambit of thoughts and emotions as her mind seemed to be processing everything that had happened. She had gone from being an orphan to possibly having a grandfather claiming her, to losing her father figure in the most drastic of ways. Seeing the look on her face, I could only imagine the look on Luna’s face. I tried to steal a peek at her, but my veil made that all but impossible.

Still, it felt like I could feel her emotions, her pain radiating off of her in waves. It was that sense of raw tangible pain that caused me to move to act. Before I had a chance to think about the implications of what I was doing, I just acted. My body moved on instinct, guided by her pain and our proximity, before I even knew what I was doing I reached my still gloved hand down and grabbed her hand in mine.

There was a pause, a moment of resistance as Lucia Kam, and Markan who were across from me all gasped in surprise at the act. Seeing their reaction I inwardly cringed, wondering if I had done some major faux pas, or crossed some unwritten taboo in this world. I was still getting used to the social dynamics of this world and this is something simple that I would have done instinctually to a good female friend in my past life, but did it mean something more here?

I could feel Luna shift slightly as she turned to better face me. If I looked up now, I could probably see her better, but I didn’t dare. Instead, I waited for her to move. At first her fingers seemed like they were trying to play dead, fully outstretched and unmoving. It wasn’t until a few moments later that Luna either seemed to forgive the faux pas or relax her tension and allow her fingers to relax and curl around my own.

As soon as she relaxed her fingers, I felt the sudden tension that had been building within me release as it was clear that Luna was not going to be angered by this act. In fact, Luna even had her body relax slightly as she leaned into me and away from the odd fighter who had somehow joined us. Slowly overtime Markan relaxed, followed shortly by Kam. It wasn’t until a few moments later that Lucia also relaxed, apparently seeing something in Luna’s face that told her everything was alright.

We rode like that for a few moments, moving until the quality of the roads started to change from smoother well-worn bricks to polished stones. Normally, such a transition would not be noticeable, as the ride was still just as smooth as ever. Instead, the only way I noticed was the distinct sound the wheels and hooves of the horses made going from one type of surface to the other.  Had it not been for the sound, I would not have noticed at all.

Mr. Yi seemed to have waited until we were here, just far enough away from the main industrial area, where commerce and the arena were located, towards the outskirts of the city itself to make his move. With one hand used to balance himself against the ceiling, he reached up his left hand that had been resting on the hilt of his weapon and reached up to pull on the call bell string, informing the driver to stop.

At that, the coach began to slow, as it did I could almost feel a wave of energy releasing around us. I was more certain than ever that some form of movement magic was being used to make the ride go so smoothly as I barely felt anything while going at full speed. Instead, it was only once we started to slow down that I felt any effects of inertia at all, and even then it was still minor.

Once the coach stopped, Mr. Yi opened the door and was the first to step out, gesturing for the boy, the second fighter to join him. With an odd form of reluctance the boy paused, looked at us and then nodded before getting out. The impression was clear, while he might have protested, he realized he had no room to stand on.

With him gone on the right side, Markan darted across, sitting on Luna’s right and faced Kam. Kam paused in confusion before he too nodded, and began sliding his way towards the exit.

“I should thank you,” Kam added.

“You all are still invited and covered under sanctuary, but your quarters will be closer from here,” Markan stated. Then turning to Mr. Yi he added, “I’ll see you back at the manor.”

Mr. Yi just stoically nodded before closing the door. At that action, Markan once again switched sides back on Lucia’s side that was now far less cramped than it was a moment ago. For a moment I thought that Luna would scoot over a bit, and give us a bit of space, but she seemed content to just sit there scrunched up next to me.

Even Lucia seemed to look at her with an odd look of confusion, but after locking gazes with Luna she just shook her head and let a faint smile crest her lips. Then with a slightly devilish look, she elegantly waved her hand out towards me, in the way a noble would have a knight or male escort grab it and hold it dearly. Not even realizing what I was doing, I reached out to grab the hand. With a shock, I soon realized that I was holding Lucia’s hand as well. In an attempt to not make this awkward, Lucia reached out her free left hand to grab Luna’s right and thus we created a triangle. In this formation, I could feel the life energy of both girls, well women as they were older than me, flowing into me.

We stayed like that for a second, until Lucia said probably the best line to defuse the awkward tension that was rising.

“Let us pray,” with that we all lowered our heads, and I tried to calm myself. Yet it wasn’t until I had my eyes closed and being this close to the two that I was physically connected with that I felt odd. Rather I didn’t feel odd, but I felt odd lumps of energy around me. The most obvious was in my left hand, as I could feel a dark mass pulsing and seeming to grow cause my hand to tingle. It was only at this moment that I remembered the black skin that coated Lucia’s hands and part of Luna’s face. I also remembered the way I was able to heal one fighter’s arm. A fighter who seemed to be suffering from this exact condition.

Once the others raised their heads, I too raised mine and locked gazes with Lucia. Somewhere during this we had started to move, but it wasn’t until I heard the distinctive clopping of hooves against stone that I realized we had started moving. Not that it mattered, right now I sort of wished that this moment would last, that we could be like this, even if it was praying to the gods of this world. Gods that I didn’t quite believe in.

Looking up, I activated my Divine Sight and truly took in Lucia’s body and face. As our eyes locked, I could see her tremble ever so slightly at the contact. Seeing her reaction, I felt I should at least ask.

“Can I try?” I ask, then feeling stupid I raise my left hand that is holding hers. Even now I can see the illusion fading away. An illusion that apparently everyone with this type of condition can get. I too got it, again, my body recognizing that I was infected yet again, with this rot. But I managed to remove it from myself, which apparently gave me the next stage up of a Skill related to either hiding or preventing the effects of the strange disease going around.

New Skill Possible: Z-Rot Resistance (Epic): You can passively resist the effects of Z-Rot and other derivative infections.

That message was huge as it showed to me at least that Z-rot was the core, but there were variants of the strain going around. Variants that I could encounter. At this moment, the Skill felt like a waste of a Skill slot. As I felt that I could already resist the rot by just carving it out of my body and removing it entirely. Also, the idea of a resistance Skill, particularly one like that seemed to imply the only way to level it up would be to expose myself to Z-rot over and over. Not exactly the best way to live my life, in opinion. No, I actively rejected that Skill, though I am fairly certain that most citizens of this world would call me crazy for doing so, as it meant that I could eventually fight off the disease. Eventually I might be able to weaponize my blood, by distilling out the antibodies and providing that to the masses to help prevent the future spread of Z-rot. But that was a lot of time and effort away.

Also, I was big on the idea of using my two Free Skill slots for Skills that I didn’t have currently. While it would be nice to have one Skill that grouped together a bunch of my other Skills and made me Resistant to Z-Rot, I felt it was best for now to focus on a Skill or Skills that could help me remove the effects and traces of Z-rot, not just from me, but from everyone.

“Try what?” Lucia asked.

“To cure you,” I asked, then with my glowing eyes I glanced from her to her slightly raised hand between us.

At the question, Lucia trembled slightly, it was subtle. Had I not been holding her hand, I might have missed the entire reaction altogether, but it was there. A moment of fear, or maybe more. Opening her mouth to respond, Lucia tried to speak, but just ended up nodding her consent as her words seemed to be caught up for the moment. That was all I needed as I turned to focus on the hand and began to sing.

“Ooooh,” I began, letting the golden light of Holy magic fill my words and get carried into my veil. At that, I paused. Normally I would just lift the veil up over my head, but I was focused and I didn’t want to let go of either hand I was holding currently so I did the next best thing. Realizing that the veil and covering was already ruined I just decided to continue the process by using my Trash Skill to remove the thin veil from my face and eyes entirely.

With it gone I turned to face Lucia. I shook my head a bit to try to get the fragments of the veil off my head. As I did this, I felt not one, but two different hands reach over and help remove the veil entirely from my face. A quick glance told me that while I didn’t have to let go of either hand I was holding, Lucia and Luna were more than happy to release their grips from each other and help me remove what remained of my head covering.

“Thank you,” I said and then focusing back on Lucia’s hand I blinked once got in the right head space to work. Then I sang.

I sang and proved to myself and others that it wasn’t a one-time fluke that I could remove the Z-rot from people. With each note, a wave of golden energy fell, coating the hand, causing the fungus like organism to kill the skin, and dig deeper. Skin that was removed with Trash and healed back with my Streamline Healing* Skill. Once again, I saw how this rot was drawn to the healing component of my Skills, which made burning it away with my song all the easier.

Sing, remove, heal. That was the process, the steps that my mind broke down all these complex operations into, to make the results easier to achieve and above all repeatable. Before I even realized it, we had long since stopped. The door was open, but I didn’t stop. My obsessive-compulsive traits kicking in. I knew I wouldn’t be able to heal all of her, but this hand, I could do that, I didn’t need to heal all of her today. I had time.

Time that I would take and practice on her, so that by the time I got to Luna, I was better and more precise. I knew for Luna that I would be angrier with myself for failing her, than she ever would be for me trying to heal her.

Finally, it worked, I got the entire rot that had resided within Lucia’s right hand for years removed. All it took was a lot of her bone density and a cavity to form. A cavity that I began trying to help heal and regrow the bone.

Seeing the results, they were less than ideal, but they were a start, and I would get better. That is the promise I made to myself.