"Uuuu.."

"Guuuu..."

Moans and groans sounded right into both my eardrums..

Swung on my shoulders, unconscious were two grown men..

On my right was a blonde-haired guy wearing light chain mail armor, with a sword dangling from his waist..

While my other shoulder was occupied by a lean man with a freckled face, wearing a cloak-like poncho..

Why am I carrying these unconscious men you might ask?

Yes, this might seem strange since I normally would not care for these types of people and leave them behind..

But since this was mostly my fault, I decided to take responsibility and carry them back to recover..

I was currently walking along the snowy path back to their village..

They meaning, the people I met when I accused them after dealing with the [Snow Wind Beasts]..

My head hurts just thinking about it..

The two women were leading the way..

One was walking in front, scouting the area around us from time to time. She looked to be a flaxen-haired woman with brown eyes and light-brown skin. Her personality, as I had observed, was the outgoing type. Always walking in a straight line, cheerful, bluntly honest, and straightforward..

She was wearing leather clothes and armor, with only a small dagger and traps dangling from her waist..

The other was looking at the map in her hands, navigating the route back. Probably finding one of the safer paths to take in order to avoid danger in moving towards the village. She was walking one pace behind the outgoing girl, and directing the way since the road was blanketed in snow..

She looked to be the frail type, glossy, long brown hair, flowing down her back, stopping at her waist, had brown eyes, and light skin. If this was j.a.pan, she would have been called a celebrity just basing on her looks and demeanor..

This woman was wearing a garb that nuns from the church would usually wear during those western medieval-age movies I used to see. On the right side of her hip, she was equipped with a short wooden wand with a silver cross at its tip. This led me to believe that she might be related to the church in this world..

It was strange that a religion close to Christianity was present in the other world, but since I didn"t have enough information, I decided to leave it at that for the present time..

Apparently they weren"t the ones who sent the beasts towards me, but they did lead them out of the forest..

I got strangely riled up for some reason that I didn"t calm down and look at the facts..

Since what happened a few hours ago was..

{"Oi, don"t clam up, answer the question!"}

I said in an angry tone..

It felt like I was doing an inquisition..

{"Ah, n-no, I, I mean we-"}

The girl was sniveling, trying to explain herself whilst wiping the tears from her face, while I pondered upon the situation. But suddenly, I felt an attack coming my way from a certain distance..

I moved my head back slightly, letting an arrow coated in green light whiz through the air in front of me..

When I followed its trail, I found a lean man holding a bow that had just been released, openly showing his displeasure at the sight of me dodging, clicking his tongue while he was at it..

I was impressed at the silent killing intent, to which I noticed later than usual..

As I was thinking that, a sword swing was coming at me from the side..

It seemed to be a warrior who had gashes and wounds, while bleeding from his mouth, showing an enraged expression towards me. He was holding his iron sword with both hands firmly, but I could tell that his legs were shaking and they were about to give out..

This one had eyes that said he was going to sacrifice his own self just to fight..

A burning pa.s.sion that believes that he was doing the right thing..

While the two combined their efforts in attacking me, I nimbly dodged every single one until they had exhausted their stamina and arrows, falling to the cold, soft, snowy ground..

The other girl that was crying on the ground was trying to chant a spell towards the collapsed two..

In total, four people..

Just as I was thinking of not getting involved..

{"U-um, I a-am Lena, a hunter, and these are my friends and party members, they did not know that you saved us, so please forgive us.."}

With those words that had stutters at the beginning, she proceeded to bow, dropping all of her body down, onto the cold ground, rubbing her forehead against the snow..

This was what you would call, a sincere apology..

Only most people would do this in j.a.pan, and I was one who saw these gestures everyday. But this, this was genuine..

Her apology was different from those who were just trying to save face, but had hidden agendas after. She was abandoning her pride in order to save her impolite and misunderstood friends..

I was somehow moved by this, so I decided to calm down right then and there..

After I did, I made the girl named Lena stand up from the freezing ground, and after, I made her explain the situation..

It turns out that they were just a hunting party that got attacked by those small fry, which they called one of the strongest demonic beasts. I was just caught up in the crossfire just when the beast was about to eat them..

Well, I could blame it on the fact that I was walking, while simultaneously thinking of trying out new aura skills..

If I look back, that time, I had my new skill, [Taunt Aura] in effect..

So, it was not entirely their fault, since I brought it upon myself..

After that, they asked me if I had any potions, since they would use it to heal their two fallen comrades..

I told them no, which made them dejected, and depressed..

But instead, I walked up to the warrior first, and examined his pulse, body condition, and wounded organs..

The other one just had a severe loss of stamina, so I payed him no mind..

This was the perfect situation to try out one of my theories, which I thought of while I was travelling..

Specifically, if I could use aura magic to transfer to someone else..

I told the others to stand back, and let me use my magic..

They were reluctant to part, but Lena told them that I was a trustworthy person..

This girl was too trusting of someone she had just met, that if I was a strange person, I would have taken advantage of her. But since I don"t have that type of hobby, I let it go as just naivety..

I invoked [Regenerative Aura] around my right hand, and proceeded to touch the warrior"s forehead..

Then, I proceeded to manipulate the aura in order for it to move towards the target. This took a while, and sweat started gathering upon my forehead, but I successfully made a pathway from my fingers into his body, through the use of my knowledge of nerves and blood vessels being covered by the layers of muscle and skin in the past..

Next, I released the healing properties of the aura into his body from the inside..

Causing a burst of magic power that made him uncomfortable at first, but slowly died down and he was now breathing peacefully. This was because the regenerative properties infected the cells, and they in turn, spread it around his bloodstream, thereby affecting the various damaged cells through touch..

It is quite complicated, so I made the process simple to understand for my alter-ego..

Since I know that he might be conscious right about now..

I just hope he doesn"t overreact to it as much..

After a few minutes of using magic, which barely put a dent in my overall magic power, which was instantly recovered a second later, the treatment was done. He was fully healthy, the wounds were closed, and no sign of scars were left on his skin, his ruptured internal organs were regenerated as if it was good as new, and his breathing stabilized..

Although he was unconscious, he was out of danger for now..

The scout-like man was just asleep from the lack of energy, so I didn"t use it on him..

As I confirmed that the experiment was a success, the girls were surprised at seeing me use healing magic, even though I wasn"t a healer cla.s.s. That just goes to show you that not all things are what they seem..

After that, they profusely thanked me by bowing multiple times..

It was getting repet.i.tive and annoying so I asked them to stop already since the intent was enough. I didn"t dare point out that I was the one who was needlessly angry at them for something that they didn"t even do..

Nope, my pride as a logical thinker would not allow that..

I will take this secret with me to my grave..

Since they seemed reluctant to part without showing their grat.i.tude, they suggested that they treat me to the meal in their village since it seemed that the distance to the border was too far away from here, such that if I started moving now, factoring in the snowfall, and occasional blizzards, I would make it there in 2 weeks at least..

This made sense because of the weather conditions and the paths being covered up by snow. I could cope with it using my [Aura Trace] to lead me into their direction. But because it would be harder to detect magic traces in the present climate, I decided to abandon the idea..

So, I decided to receive their grat.i.tude while finding shelter for the time being. Since no matter how strong and resilient my body was, I still felt cold and I would likely die from frostbite..

I was planning to develop these clothes I received from my teacher into a more durable cloth with even more effects..

It was to make travelling easier, and to avoid having to sew and st.i.tch ripped parts in the future..

This was mostly because I was a perfectionist in my past life..

When I said that I would come with them, they showed a smile in return, and started leading the way..

They tried to carry their unconscious comrades but it seemed they were too heavy for the girls..

Naturally, since I caused their present state, I offered to carry them..

And so, I slung them on my shoulders, barely feeling the weight, tied the rope to my waist, which was dragging the [Snow Wind Beast] corpses through the snow, and started moving..

The snow beasts looked heavy but I felt as if they weighed as light as a feather, thanks to my enhanced muscles..

Carrying men near your face is slightly traumatic, but I decided to ignore it, saving my mental health..

Which leads us back to the present situation..

Oh, I slightly sense the presence of people, humans to be exact..

It was coming from the direction of north-east..

I couldn"t clearly make it out even with my [Aura Eyes] both due to the distance, and the snowfall obstructing my sight...

"Were close, so let"s just walk a little more, um.."

She seemed to have been talking to me, but suddenly stopped when she was about to confirm..

Oh, that"s right, I haven"t introduced myself..

"Orion, it"s Orion Fullbringer.."

With my reply, her face showed a slight smile, but then it suddenly turned into a curious look..

"Fullbringer? You have a last name? Are you one of the n.o.bles?"

Apparently, on the "Human Continent", only n.o.bles have last names..

That explains Jim, and why the other people I"ve met never mentioned their last names..

But wait, does that mean that my foster-father, Derek, was a n.o.ble?

Strange, if that was the case, shouldn"t my alter-ego found a clue to their whereabouts already?

This new information was registered in my mind, and simultaneously inputted into the [Aura Archive] pa.s.sive skill so that I won"t forget it, since this needs further investigation..

For now, I needed to reply..

"Ah, no, my father was a n.o.ble, but our house has been stripped of its n.o.bility, but I still use it in introducing myself.."

Technically, this wasn"t a lie. Since the one who was my biological father in this world, seemed to be a high n.o.ble by the name of Astrum. But since I didn"t particularly have a reason to tell them the truth, I said this instead..

"I see, that must have been hard, I"m sorry.."

They suddenly had apologetic faces that seemed they regretted ever asking me about it..

Such troublesome culture this world has..

"No, no, it"s fine. Everyone asks me that when I introduce myself, so it"s alright.."

I try lying once more to appease the girls, but in fact this was the first time that they asked this..

Were the other people my alter-ego met not normal? 

Or were they people with such consideration to not ask about the details?

Either way, this is mysterious..

After about half an hour, we made it to the entrance of the village..

There seemed to be town guards on standby near the gate..

When they saw me, with two grown men on my shoulders, dragging around demonic beast corpses, one would naturally think that I was a suspicious person with purple hair..

This is so annoying..

I would have liked to blow all my problems away with violence, but alas, I needed to control myself since I needed a place to stay. I should think about developing a skill that lets me build a home or something in the future..

With renewed vigor, I reluctantly let them question me..

I told them about the incident, which made their faces pale, and when Lena vouched for me, one of the guards fainted..

Seeing this, I was holding back the urge to laugh at the spectacle that was likened to a slapstick comedy from j.a.pan..

The man who fainted was being slapped and yelled at by the other pale-faced guard, while his eyes were rolled back, showing the whites of his eyes, drooling a bit. The slapping man was yelling things such as..

"Get it together man!" and "Look, it"s dead you know? Don"t be afraid!" and many other things I"m reluctant to mention..

After about a few minutes, the town guard captain came to check on them, only to find them doing that..

Naturally, they got reprimanded and got sent back to the guard house..

I felt no sympathy since I didn"t care about it anyway, albeit an amusing show..

When the captain heard the whole story, he also went pale but immediately returned to a serious expression..

What a professional..

Were the thoughts I had while being permitted to enter the village..

The village was apparently called "Glimmer Village". When I asked why it was named like that, they told me that a pa.s.sing fairy G.o.ddess saved this village once before, shielding it from harm in the "Heavenly War" and provided food, warmth, and water for the villagers, thus naming the village after her in grat.i.tude..

It got me slightly curious when the word "fairy" was mentioned, but I considered that this wasn"t important right now..

We walked through a number of houses that seemed to look the same..

Probably because there was no major development inside a village..

Although it was understandable that people would not come out during this weather, but I was sure some would likely walk around, making sure their homes were safe and ready for the storm..

Much to my dismay, there was no one except the guards and our group walking outside..

I thought it was because of the weather but it was slightly unnatural, due to this, I asked Lena again..

It never hurts to have too much information..

Apparently, most of the children have gotten sick with a strange disease where their body parts turn blue and they had lost all feeling when it comes to the infected area, causing them to either cut them off for good, to avoid the spread towards the body, but some have a high chance of dying..

This disease was rampant every winter for some reason, said Lena. But this year, the children were infected, which was a first. And since they couldn"t find it in their conscience to amputate little kids, they decided to make time to take care of them in their respective homes instead..

Judging on the symptoms, and the way they dealt with it, and factoring in the season, I drew an easy conclusion on what the sickness was, what caused it, and could probably find a method to deal with it, given the chance..

But for now, I had to drop off the group at the village chief"s house located at the center of the village..

We reached a house that looked bigger than the others, and was greeted by the village chief..

He was collecting firewood for his heat source inside, so we helped him out, and he led us in..

We entered a simple living room, with the minimum furniture needed..

Long, wooden couches, covered with soft cloth, and a wooden table in between..

I guess people in the village do have a rough time, considering the chief"s house was like this..

Were the rude judgmental thoughts that swam in my head at the time..

When we made it to the center of the room, we were asked to sit and make ourselves comfortable..

So, I placed the two on the couch while we sat on the opposite side..

I left the corpses outside because they were too big to fit through the doorway. Plus, they were starting to smell..

I rea.s.sured the chief that it would be safe, and there was nothing to worry about..

There was also no danger of it being stolen, since there were no other people loitering outside of their homes..

Even if someone did try to steal it, my senses would pick up their movement before they could even come close..

When we were all seated, surrounding the small table, the chief sat down on a big chair at our side, and started to talk..

His name was Germundo, a pretty overbearing name if you asked me..

Germundo looked to be an able-bodied old man with intelligence in his eyes, his muscles looked like he was a combatant in the past, although I wasn"t interested in the least..

After introducing ourselves, well, mostly me, we talked about the incident..

Naturally, this got the chief interested and at the same time, excited, very much so that he started telling stories and legends about the past, being pa.s.sed from generation to generation..

The chief blabbed on and on about this and that, so let"s omit it..

We got to the main point of the discussion after a while, to the fault of the oblivious village chief, Germundo, which derailed the entire topic from progressing with his tales of whimsy..

I asked if there was a vacant inn or somewhere I could stay for the time being..

But the chief said there wasn"t anything like an inn inside a village..

This was understandable, but yet I was slightly disappointed..

Even so, the chief said that as thanks for rescuing the hunters, I could stay inside his home for as long as I liked..

I automatically said yes, since there wasn"t any other choice, and it would be the most logical thing to do considering the pros, cons, and the present situation considering the weather..

I told him that I would pay for my share of the food, and the days I spent here, but he would have none of it..

He didn"t care about money, which slightly raised my impression of him. Only slightly though..

Only thing is, I would have to not mind the sick child inside one of the rooms..

When I further inquired about this, he talked about it with us with a gloomy face..

Turns out, his only daughter was sick with the same disease that was afflicting the children..

He couldn"t bear to cut his own daughter"s legs off, so he decided to care for her, and pray to his G.o.d, Solaris..

But waiting for the inevitable isn"t going to do anything..

He also said that recently, he couldn"t stand the look and cries of pain coming from her room, and started to look away from her most of the time. It might sound cruel, but it was one of the better choices in order to keep his peace of mind..

While he was now depressed, and talking lethargically, his face seemed at a loss and absentminded..

This was getting irritating for some reason, so I decided to do something to rectify the problem..

"I can heal her.."

I nonchalantly said towards the despairing old man..

He was shocked by my statement, but then went back to his self-depreciating expression, saying things like..

"It"s fine, it is an incurable disease anyway, many priests have researched healing this, but their findings only led them to the theory that the cure is somewhere on the Elven Continent. But I appreciate the thought.."

With a bitter smile, he said these things, trying to cheer me up, but at the same time, irritating me more..

I don"t know why, but when I see someone who has given up on trying in front of me, it reminded me of my past self, the me who had given up on humans, and did not care about anything anymore..

If I hadn"t met Mizuki, I would leave this problem at this, and move on with my life..

But since I did, the teachings she gave me shone more brightly even more now..

"You don"t believe me? That"s fine, but I still want to earn my keep here, even if you want me to or not.."

With those words, I turned around and moved towards the weak presence I felt when I searched the vicinity..

A surprised face were evident on the faces of the trio, as I walked away making excuses to myself..

After a while, they started to follow my back, and I opened the door to the room..

The room was dark..

The atmosphere had a dreary feeling, a feeling I knew all too well, the presence of death..

I had no time to lose..

I moved slightly faster towards the child laying on the bed..

What lay there was a pet.i.te girl with dark-brown hair, and light bangs, sickly pale skin, and weak, scrawny limbs..

She was unconscious at the moment, and was breathing roughly..

Her legs were almost swallowed up by the black and blue hue of the disease..

"I was right.."

In conclusion, this was, in fact, a sickness from my world, "Frostbite"

The main cause of this, was the cold weather, adding to the fact that the people in this world have not learned how to make cold-resistant clothes. And even if they did, a village in the middle of nowhere like this, would not have any access to it anyway. Another factor was the houses..

The houses here were built like huts, sure there was firewood to keep warm, but not insulating the house from the cold by building stone walls, and gla.s.s windows was a mistake in and of itself..

Without proper protection against the cold, you are susceptible to various diseases that the immune system by itself could not fix. Frostbite caused the blood vessels to cramp up and stop the blood flow towards the affected area, thereby making the part feel numb due to the coldness of the missing blood..

This gets worse over time, so the more it is left alone untreated, the higher chance there is for a need to amputate the affected body part..

So, the first thing I had to do was to warm up her body temperature..

After I explained all this to them, they were surprised..

They were about to get some heating apparatus but I told them there was no need since I was going to use a different method to bring warmth..

I invoked [Dragon King"s Aura] on my fingertips which made the others draw back slightly because of the sheer pressure it exuded, but it was only a fragment of its true power..

Since my teacher"s sin was related to flame, this got me the idea to use it for warmth..

I applied my ma.s.sage on both feet while transferring the heat into them..

After what seemed to be minutes, I finished, and I sensed that the inside was thawed out, but the blood vessels were still broken, so I had to regenerate them by force to completely heal her..

About some time, I had finally finished treating her, and did some final checkups..

After that, I told the chief that she would be better in the morning, and he suddenly teared up and dropped to my feet..

Seeing his daughter"s pleasant sleep, and calm breathing filled him with emotions he thought he never had, and everlasting grat.i.tude, towards yours truly..

I didn"t like people groveling to me, I never did..

So I commanded him in a slightly irritated tone to stop and that his thanks was enough..

He didn"t believe me and told me that he would do anything to repay this kindness while still groveling..

I hated this part, since it made me feel awkward..

So, I told him that he would start to be my informant on whenever something strange happens in the village..

In exchange, I would heal everyone in the village..

He was overjoyed when he heard this, so to stop him from showing his grat.i.tude again, I gave him a crystal..

The small purple crystal with black edges displayed a twinkling shine, when put up towards a light source..

But this wasn"t an ordinary crystal, it was the one that I made out of [Oricalchum Ore] copying the properties of the [Voice Crystal] Rose gave me..

On my travels, I did more research than you might think, including studying the items in my possession..

I a.n.a.lyzed the crystal and turned it into a base for transferring my aura between another crystal..

After hours of experiments, I developed a new way of communicating..

Using my [Aura Gift] skill, that allowed me to make many different skills related to aura, I named this item..

[Aura Telepathy Crystal] or an [ATC] for short..

This allowed me to talk to people"s minds no matter where I was in the world..

The only drawback was the requirement that the crystal had to be connected to the main crystal in advance, and I was the only one who could use it instead of the other party..

In other words, I could call him, but he couldn"t call me..

I explained how the crystal works in slightly changed terms to Germundo, but I guess he wasn"t listening that intently since he was looking at the crystal with shining eyes, saying stupid things like.."Glimmer-sama.."

I naturally got irritated at being treated as another person, so just as I was about to explain it one more time, I sensed a presence at the door in front of the house..

Which wouldn"t be strange, since this was the chief"s house, except for the fact that this presence wasn"t human..

I prepared myself for battle, while warning the others to back away, and to leave this to me..

As I opened the door, I was greeted with a surprising sight..

Instead of a gigantic demon beast, it was a little boy with sad, rounded, blue eyes, that looked like he had wolf ears on his head, and a drooping tail..

I was going to ask who he was, but the boy suddenly opened his mouth when he spotted the chief behind me..

"He-help..chief, mom is in danger...*Thud*"

After those words, the boy collapsed on the cold ground while tears were flowing from his eyes..