Chapter 32: Discord

Sol saw as nobody moved to intervene between the two women, so he decided to see what he could do and walked towards them.

"Hey, what's the problem?"

The two looked at him a bit annoyed at first at someone intervening, but the woman with brunette hair answered.

"I put my stuff in this room, and when I left to talk with someone, I saw her coming in and taking it like her own."

The other woman with light blue hair responded to her claim.

"Yeah, but that's because I called that room, and you went and took it anyways!"

"And I told you I never hear any dibs! I already put my stuff there; can't you find another room?"

The two women then began arguing again right in front of Sol.

"Hey! Hey! Calm down, I'm sure we can solve this."

Hearing this, the two women quieted down to hear what he had to say.

"I get that you both want the room, but is there a specific reason why you want this one?"

The brunette shook her head.

"No, I just put my stuff in the first room I saw."

Sol then looked at the other blue-haired woman, and she nodded.

"I have insomnia, so I tend to walk outside at night as it helps me sleep later. This room is close to the exit, so I don't have to worry about waking others up at night."

Hearing her response, the brunette felt guilty.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm sorry; I overreacted and should have led with that."

"No worries, I'll get my stuff and choose a different room."

The brunette then went into the room and picked up her personal belongings and placed them in her bag. The blue-haired woman saw this and looked towards Sol.

"Thank you, what's your name?"

"Sol, and no worries; we are all on the same boat."

The brunette walked out with her bag in hand and also thanked Sol.

"Yeah, thanks. Fighting with each other is not how I wanted to start this quest. See you around, Sol."

Sol smiled in response.

Diana, watching the entire interaction from afar, showed an expression of approval and walked away to attend to other matters.

Sol, having diffused the situation, also left to go find his own room and quickly chose from one of the few available rooms.

He entered the room and dropped his bag on the ground. The room had no decorations, and it was even smaller than his old home back in Initium. It had just enough space for a bed, a desk, and a closet. Sol unpacked all his things which took not long as he didn't bring much to begin with.

Once he was done, he left and joined a small group of healers who invited him to check out the other areas of the fort. The small group, consisting of 8 of the healers, explored different parts of the fort, gaining a better understanding of their surroundings and each other.

The brunette and blue-haired woman were also part of the group, and Sol learned their names while talking with them. The brunette is Nataly, and the blue-haired woman is Caroline. Both women got along surprisingly well. After their argument got resolved, they started talking and found out they had a lot in common. They chatted about many different subjects, and eventually, the other healers were curious and asked Sol about his sword.

"Hey Sol, so are you a magic swordsman? If so, why did you choose to join us healers?"

When Sol accepted the quest to join the battle, he initially chose a healer to avoid the chaotic battlefield, but now he isn't so sure that's the sole reason. Still unsure of the real reason himself, he just gave a noncommittal answer.

"I wanted to take this as an opportunity to practice my water magic."

They weren't fully convinced that was the reason, but no one questioned it.

Eventually, their conversation led into spellcraft and healing knowledge, which Sol felt completely out of the loop on.

"So you modified [Life Dew] to make more sap? How?"

"At first, I thought it was just a matter of increasing the amount of mana I put into the spell, but that just made it stronger. It was only until I started changing the chant by including the keyword bountiful to the spell that it produced more. Still haven't figured out the mana consumption part out because now it costs way more than what it should."

"Have you tried…"

As their conversation went deeper into spellcraft theory, Sol couldn't keep up. While [Siphon] does give him the spells and the unconscious control over the spell, he does not know anything about the fundamentals. He thought one just had to say the chant and move the mana to where it needs to go, but apparently there is much more to it. Eventually, Sol just tuned them out as he paid more attention to the layout of the fort and committed it to memory.

As the group made their way throughout the fort, they saw many different professions being briefed on their tasks, and some of them were learning basic drills to get in the flow of working with their group. They even stumbled into the first healer group, and they seemed to also be going over their positioning and responsibilities. Some are able to directly heal people in the middle of combat, but others have spells like Sol's [Aqua Ring] that are more effective but hinder movement during the healing process.

As the evening came, all the healers of the second group met up once again in the medical ward. The reason for their gathering was because Diana summoned them for an announcement.

"Good evening, everyone, I have some important news. Our scouts have spotted the Orcs advancing down from the mountains, we expect them to arrive tomorrow. As we discussed before, I will be joining the first group to assist the more urgent cases. Rest up; tomorrow is going to be a long day."

Everyone was then dismissed and was left to their own devices to prepare for tomorrow.