Lukan straightened, his wolfkin presence suddenly filling the room. The fur along his neck bristled slightly as he squared his shoulders. "We're builders and healers, not bandits," he stated, his deep voice carrying the quiet authority of someone who builds things to last.

  Nora laid a calming hand on his arm, feeling the tension in his muscles. Years of corporate negotiations had taught her that defensiveness often escalated suspicion. "We understand your caution, Mayor Suthan," she said, meeting his eyes directly. "But right now, there's a child in pain. Perhaps we could address your concerns after Kaia has been properly tended to?"

  The young bearkin whimpered, drawing all eyes back to the immediate situation. The sound seemed to shift something in Suthan's demeanor—practicality overcoming caution.

  "Of course, of course," Suthan's tone softened, but his eyes remained sharp. "You understand my position. A village's safety requires caution." He glanced at the child, then back to Nora. "Though I admit, bandits rarely heal broken bones."

  The tension in his shoulders visibly eased—not from complete trust, but from recognizing potential value. "A healer..." he continued, almost to himself, the mental calculations practically visible behind his eyes. "Do you know how many minor injuries we suffer each season? How many childbirth complications we've lost mothers to? How much productivity vanishes to fevers and infections?"

  "Yes, I can guess," answered Nora. "But it's not like I planned to advertise my services like that. I'm only an Apprentice and the intricacies of the healing magic are still new to me."

  The girl's mother and the village mayor exchanged surprised looks before stepping back in awe, their eyes fixed on Nora with reverence.

  "Of course," the mayor said, his voice filled with wonder. "We won't tell anyone. But even an Apprentice healer is a big deal for this end of the country. We rarely see any mages at all. Blessings of the gods are upon us on this day!"

  "I guess it's a bit late for keeping it quiet," chuckled Nora, "after what happened on the market square. So, considering your explanation, it's not likely that you have an experienced healer in the village?" she asked.

  "Not like you," answered the mayor. "Not with magic. Only a herbalist."

  "We need to set this leg straight. And then I can help with healing. But if you can invite this herbalist here, I'd appreciate any support they can offer," explained Nora.

  "Ah, that we can do." He turned to the girl's mother. "Anaya, would you please go and fetch Kadara?"

  Minutes ticked by with painful slowness as they waited. Nora kept her palm on the girl's forehead, monitoring her vital signs through her Sensory Enhancement as the young bearkin floated in the dreamless sleep Nora had induced. Though the child's features remained relaxed, Nora could sense the trauma beneath—bone fragments sending urgent distress signals, inflammation building, the body's own healing processes working overtime yet insufficient for the severity of the break. She caught herself tapping her foot with impatience, an old habit from conference rooms and tight deadlines that seemed ridiculous here when stakes were measured not in quarterly profits but in a child's future mobility.

  After the distressed Anaya had left the house, Suthan addressed the remaining people: "I hope you understand why I wanted to have a private moment with you. It will take around twenty minutes for Anaya to bring Kadara here."

  "It truly was a huge commotion there in the square!" He continued excitedly. "Do you know how often we get a proper healer here in the village?"

  "You're overstating my abilities," Nora countered. "What I can do is limited and unpredictable. In my w…" she caught herself, "…where I trained, they'd barely consider me qualified to bandage a scraped knee."

  "Never mind, we are glad for whatever we get." It looked like gears were shifting in his head. "Where, you said, do you live?"

  "Just a couple of hours walking distance from here," said Lukan before anyone else could reveal their location.

  "Good, good. All the possibilities! People in other villages would be happy to hear that we finally have a proper healer in the area!" Suthan was quite excited, changing his attitude toward secrecy on the dime.

  Nora simply closed her eyes momentarily, a familiar frustration rising within her. Back home, she'd always valued precision in language—whether with friends or colleagues. Being consistently mislabeled felt like having someone repeatedly call her by the wrong name, each occurrence a small but irritating reminder of the gap between how she saw herself and how others perceived her.

  "But we must find a means of communication," said Suthan. "What if another emergency arises and we require your aid?" He started walking nervously around the table.

  "Let's not get our tails in a twist over future emergencies just yet," Sumi said, stretching languidly against a wall, her tail swishing with casual grace as she addressed the mayor. "Today we're just dipping our toes in your lovely village pond." She flashed a golden-eyed wink at Nora, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr. "Though I'll admit, we do have a tendency to make quite the splash wherever we go."

  "Good, thank you very much! You don't know how excited I am!" exclaimed the mayor.

  "You'd be surprised," answered Nora sarcastically, but she stopped as her Empathic Sensing suddenly flared. Beyond Suthan's genuine enthusiasm, she detected a ripple of something else—a complex web of emotions spreading through the house and beyond. Relief, yes, but also desperation, hope, fear... It radiated from multiple directions as if the very walls absorbed years of medical urgency with no resolution.

  "How many people would you say need a healer's attention in your village, Mayor Suthan?" Nora asked carefully, already suspecting the answer would be significantly higher than they could manage in a single visit.

  Suthan's smile spread wide across his weathered face. "How many stars are in the sky, my dear Healer? How many trees in the forest?"

  ***

  Nora was saved by the girl's mother, returning with the herbalist. They briefed Kadara really quickly, and she was all business preparing the table for the procedures: "Ah, I see that the girl is already sedated. Good. Is it a skill?" she asked Nora, no nonsense.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Yes, it is," answered Nora without giving out any details about her Dream Manipulation and Emotional Influence skills. "But I need the bone to be set in place before I can do anything else. I don't have enough experience to do it myself."

  "Alrighty, no time to lose! It's a clean break. I'll wash the area and will snap everything in place in no time. So good that the girl isn't conscious for all the pain!"

  Kadara's weathered hands moved with the precision of decades of practice, her fingers probing gently around the break. "Hold her steady now," she murmured, positioning herself. The room fell silent except for the girl's shallow breathing. Kadara's eyes narrowed in concentration, her hands hovering over the swollen limb. With a swift, decisive movement—accompanied by a sickening crack that made even Lukan wince—she snapped the bone back into alignment. The young bearkin's body tensed reflexively despite her unconscious state, a primal response to trauma that magic couldn't fully suppress.

  Nora placed her palms over the injury, drawing a deep breath as she closed her eyes. Warmth flowed from her core down her arms, manifesting as a soft amber glow that seeped into the girl's flesh. Beneath her touch, she could sense fractured bone growing back together, fragments seeking their companions like puzzle pieces recognizing where they belonged. She silently thanked the Goddess for whatever had awakened this ability within her—back on Earth, the best she could have offered this child was a call for an ambulance.

  Sumi knelt opposite, her foxkin ears twitching forward with intense focus as her own hands were surrounded by a complementary silver-blue light that washed over the inflammation surrounding the injury. "The tendons here—they're torn," she whispered, her words creating a physical sensation in Nora's mind, almost like fingers pointing directly to damaged tissue she couldn't have identified alone.

  Their energies intertwined, amber and silver-blue braiding together like living threads, creating patterns neither could have woven alone. Nora felt Sumi's magic complementing hers—where Nora's energy rebuilt, Sumi's soothed and prepared the way, a wordless dance of complementary powers flowing between them like they'd been healing together for years, not days.

  Sweat beaded on Nora's forehead as the hours passed, her awareness tunneling to the microscopic dance of cells regenerating under her influence. Just when her reserves began to falter, Sumi's energy would bolster her own, their healing rhythms falling into perfect synchrony.

  Nora turned to face the girl's mother, her expression calm and reassuring. "Your daughter is fine now," she said. "But if I correctly guessed her mischievous nature, I wouldn't be surprised if I see her tomorrow jumping from rooftops again."

  The mother, Anaya, let out a laugh mixed with concern. "No, no, over my dead body!" she exclaimed, looking at her sleeping daughter with love and protectiveness. As she did everything she could, Nora asked Lukan to take the sleeping girl and bring her home with her mother.

  As the final traces of healing energy dissipated from her fingertips, Nora discreetly checked her progress:

  ========== Updated Skills ==========

  Healing: 8.64% (+0.72%)

  Dream Manipulation: 7.52% (+0.50%)

  Sensory Enhancement: 8.41% (+0.21%)

  Nora was getting closer to the ten percent threshold with more and more skills, and the complex healing had pushed her much closer. She glanced at Sumi, wondering if her mate felt the same building potential beneath her skin—that sense of approaching a breakthrough that seemed to linger just beyond reach.

  ***

  What had begun as a simple trading expedition had transformed into something far more consequential. As sunset painted Whispering Pines in amber and gold, Nora leaned against a weathered fence post, observing the village with new eyes. Thatched roofs clustered around the central square where children played despite the late hour, their laughter carrying on the evening breeze. Smoke curled from stone chimneys, carrying the scent of hearth fires and cooking meals that reminded her how far from modern conveniences she truly was. No electricity lines, no street lamps, no ambulances—just people surviving through community and whatever meager skills they possessed.

  Mayor Suthan approached, his shadow stretching long across the packed-earth street. "You look dead on your feet," he observed, his earlier calculating demeanor softened by genuine concern. "Both of you." He nodded toward Sumi, who was sitting cross-legged beneath an ancient oak, her eyes half-closed in exhaustion. "My home isn't grand, but I insist you stay the night. However, I only have two guest rooms, I'm sorry about that."

  Nora's warm smile was quick to reassure him, "No need to apologize, two rooms will be more than enough for us. Sumi and I will happily share one room and we can offer the other to Lukan."

  With heavy eyelids and weary bodies, all three gratefully accepted the generous offer and soon found themselves in their assigned rooms. Lukan, accustomed to physical labor but drained nonetheless by the day's emotional intensity, fell into sleep almost immediately. Through the thin wall, Nora could hear his deep, rhythmic breathing as she stared at the ceiling, her mind still processing everything they'd encountered.

  The village's desperate need for healing had confirmed what she'd already begun to suspect. In this world, magical skills weren't just interesting abilities or personal advantages. They were essential services, matters of life and death in communities too small or remote to attract formally trained practitioners. The responsibility weighed on her, yet alongside the burden came a strange sense of purpose she'd never felt debugging code for faceless corporations.

  As the night wore on, exhaustion began to consume Nora's body and mind. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, her thoughts racing with memories of the day's events and worries about what tomorrow would bring. But just as she was about to succumb to sleep, Sumi slipped into the room like a gentle breeze, bringing with her a sense of calm.

  Sumi sat on the bed next to Nora, her hand tenderly brushing away sweat-dampened strands of hair from Nora's forehead. "You did an incredible job today," she whispered, her voice filled with admiration.

  Nora managed a tired smile, lifting a weak hand to clasp Sumi's. "I couldn't have done it without you by my side," she replied gratefully. "Your support means everything. I need… I need someone to rely upon."

  Sumi leaned down with a gentle brush of her lips against Nora's forehead before settling in next to her. "Let us make tonight solely about us," she murmured softly, her words like a warm caress against Nora's skin. "We must recharge and prepare for tomorrow, if you still have the energy for it."

  Nora nodded eagerly, feeling her heart swell with affection for Sumi. As Sumi's lips moved from her forehead to her own, Nora felt a surge of warmth spread through her body. The kiss deepened, filled with tenderness and an unspoken longing.

  Sumi's hands moved gently over Nora's body, igniting sparks of pleasure with each touch. Nora responded eagerly, her own hands mapping out every curve and contour of Sumi's body. The connection between them was electric, their emotions and desires perfectly intertwined.

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  They lay together, their bodies entwined in a tangle of limbs and soft sheets. The air hummed with the magical energy they had created, a warm, comforting cocoon that wrapped around them like a blanket. Through her drowsy contentment, Nora sensed something familiar in the resonance—the same harmonic signature as the Shrine that had appeared after their first true night together. The realization sent a thrill through her: they weren't just making love; they were weaving magic into the very fabric of reality.

  Nora pressed a tender kiss to Sumi's temple, her heart filled with gratitude and overwhelming love for this woman who had brought so much joy into her life. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice filled with emotion.

  Sumi smiled, her eyes shining with affection and understanding. "Always, Nora," she replied, her own heart overflowing with love for the woman in her arms.

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