Chapter 68 - Spark

"I hope you don't mind waiting for a bit. I don't want to leave the stove unattended for too long." The young centaur woman was humming as she stirred the soup and added different ingredients. Gren wasn't hungry and he didn't want to be a bother to his client's family but it did smell like it'd be delicious.

Gren waited for a few minutes until she was finished cooking. The centaur woman placed a bowl in front of Gren and was about to fill it with some soup when he stopped her. "I've already eaten. Thanks for the offer though." She slid the bowl over to Denny instead and filled it up for him. "Is your grandmother not going to come to breakfast?"

"About that... my grandma got sick last night and is still in bed. I don't know what kind of business you've got with her but it'll have to wait until after I bring her some food." Her grandmother's sickness didn't seem that bad if she expected it to be helped by a bowl of soup.

If she was just sick with a cold then Gren could help but it would still take time for a fever to go away. "Can I go with you? I might be able to help." Hopefully she wasn't that sick since he still needed her help to fulfill the request.

"Um. Sure? Just carry the bowl behind me, I guess." She seemed a bit confused by his offer to help. "Be careful. It's a bit hot."

Gren could feel the heat coming from the bowl so he cushioned his hands with a thin barrier to prevent heat from passing. With the bowl in hand, he followed closely behind the centaur woman. The building they were in was interesting to Gren; it was clear that it used to be a stable but it had proper flooring and the stalls were rebuilt to be actual rooms. There wasn't even a hint of hay on the floors like you would expect from a stable.

The centaur woman stopped at a door towards the end of the stable and knocked. "Grandma, I've brought you food." She didn't wait for a response before opening the door. Inside the room was Carrie laying down on a feathered mattress with her human half resting on a raised platform. Carrie slowly lifted her upper-body and looked over to her granddaughter--her face flushed with red.

"Claire?" Carrie tried getting up but couldn't muster any strength.

"You don't have to get up, grandma." Claire stopped her grandma from trying to get up and pointed towards where Gren was standing. "Look, you've got a guest and he helped me bring you your food."

"Gren, you're here early." She seemed to be struggling while talking. Carrie began to cough, burying her face into her own arm.

Gren got close to Carrie, making sure that she saw him approach so that he didn't startle her. The platform that she was resting on before he came in was a good place for him to place the bowl of food. "I wanted to make sure that I got started as early as possible. I didn't expect that you would be sick. Do you want me to help you feel better? I'll need your permission to check your body."

Gren had been learning all of the spells from the first volume of the healing magic spell book. Most of the other healing magicians focused on healing wounds and didn't have the magic capacity to use magic all night and day like Gren did. This meant that he was one of the only magicians in Adierton capable of curing things like a cold.

"Check away. If you can help then I'd appreciate it." Carrie figured that Gren wouldn't try taking advantage of an older woman like her.

Gren activated the system's ability to scan people. He had been using it for healing people; as long as he got permission from someone once, he was able to scan them forever so it was pretty convenient. It was just a bit unfortunate that he couldn't scan his mother since she couldn't consent to the scan.

Carrie was currently suffering from a regular cold but Gren found something else in his scan. There were small cancerous tumors in her body that were located around her intestines. With Gren's current capabilities he wouldn't be able to treat her tumors. He had the magic capacity but the second volume of healing spells required more precise magic control than he currently had. Gren had no idea how long it'd take for him to become skilled enough to help people regrow limbs and remove growths without causing further injury to them. There was still time since her cancer wasn't serious yet but Gren didn't want her to die in such a terrible way; he was no saint but he didn't want to let good people suffer when he could help them. For now, Gren could only heal her cold and its symptoms that weren't a result of her body fighting the cold; her fever could only go down naturally as her body realizes that she's no longer sick.

Gren's use of healing magic surprised the two of them. "Whoooaaa." Claire's eyes became sparkles. "Was that magic? I've only seen it from a distance before." Magic was already rare for the commoners to witness and people living in the slums were able to see it even less. There were healers in the slums but most of them worked in disreputable organizations so it was best to avoid them. The soldiers also had healers but none of them would heal the people of the slums.

"Yeah, it was healing magic. She'll still need to rest for a bit but her cold should be gone now." Gren decided that it would be a good idea to tell Carrie about her tumors but didn't know if she wanted her family to find out. "Claire, can you leave the two of us alone for a bit? I'd like to discuss your grandmother's request with her."

"Oh, okay." Claire wanted to keep talking to Gren since he was the first magician that she actually met but she didn't want to get in the way of their business. It would be bad if he cancelled the request because she didn't leave them alone.

Gren made sure that Claire left before he gave her the bad news. "I'm sorry to have lied but I didn't want your granddaughter to hear this from me. When checking your body earlier I noticed that there was something else wrong with you. You've got small tumors growing inside of you. With my current ability I can't help you. I'm really sorry." Gren couldn't bear to look at her response; he was never good with depressing sights.

Gren had his head down when he felt something rubbing the top of it. He looked up and saw Carrie with a gentle smile on her face. "It's okay. It's not your fault that you can't heal me yet. You're still young and you've got a long future ahead of you. You'll definitely be able to treat illnesses like mine in the future and even if you can't heal me I've lived a long life already." Although her smile at the beginning looked genuine, it slowly started looking more and more forced.

"I promise that one day I'll be able to heal you. It's still early and I've got lots of time to improve. The world needs people like you." Although Gren didn't know Carrie for long, what he did know about her made her seem like a really nice person. So far, Carrie seemed to be a selfless person since she used her own money to help her neighbors. It wasn't much but if everyone in the world was like her then it would be a much better place to live; no more selfish Susans to harm the defenseless villagers. Gren couldn't allow someone good to die while terrible people were allowed to live.