Ch 235: What she says is true, but... immature? Me?

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"Okay, I'm done with Alessia..." says Delia, with the professionalism of someone who is used to dealing with injured people.

"....Now let me see that head of yours, which, from the blood you're losing, looks like you could pass out at any moment."

"It's okay; it's nothing. It's just a superficial wound," I say, calmer than I was a few minutes ago, forcing a smile, even though I feel terribly weak.

I feel like I could pass out at any moment, that my legs have no strength, and that my gaze sometimes becomes blurry.

But it doesn't matter how I feel.

I'd rather die than admit in front of my girls that I feel weak.

"Don't talk nonsense! This is no time for that..." says Delia, pulling back my blood-caked hair to get a better look at the wound.

"...Alessia, lay him face down. I think he's injured on his back too, and I need to analyze the wounded areas well in order to heal him. Be careful with his broken arm"

"Hey, more gentleness with the wounded! You're a savage," I say, feeling a whiplash of pain in my back as Alessia slips out of my grip and, with nimble movements, manipulates my body to lay me face down.

Now that Alessia is healed, the relief I feel at seeing her safe and sound greatly mitigates the physical pain I feel, and so I can afford to tease her a little.

Despite the complaints, I don't resist the blonde girl's hands in the slightest, as, deep down, I know that Delia is right and that I need her skills as a Saint.

If it were only for the cut on my head or the lacerations on my back that the Teriar gave me with its paws as a result of my frontal lunge, I could easily heal myself with an HP potion.

But a potion would not be enough to heal my broken arm.

That's why healers are so important.

And it's one of the main reasons why the Solus temple is so rich: they can get as much money as they want by charging high sums of money for the services of their healers.

That's also why they tightly control all information related to religious classes and why most people with healing-related classes are under the temple's careful control and scrutiny.

"Don't be a whiner..." says Alessia with a certain tone of irritation.

"...I'm moving you along as gently as I can."

'It seems her concern for me was short-lived, now that she knows I'll be getting treatment soon.'

"Agh, I- I can't breathe," I say, pretending to run out of breath to take it out on Alessia.

"Delia!..." says Alessia with renewed desperation.

"...how much longer do you need to watch his wounds to heal him?"

"Don't worry. He's pretending," says Delia earnestly, unfazed by the exchange of words between Alessia and me.

As soon as Delia exposes me, a silly giggle escapes me involuntarily, which is quickly stifled by the waves of pain I feel through my back due to the movement.

However, teasing Alessia somehow makes my head clear, and I no longer feel as if I could pass out at any moment.

'Yep, I knew it. There's nothing like teasing Alessia in order to heal my spirit.'

"If you weren't hurt, I'd give you a good punch..." says Alessia through her teeth, her face red with fury and clenching her fists tightly.

"...you're insufferable."

"I can't heal him in this state. I need to remove all the elements that are covering the wound on his back, but for that he would have to be able to move his arms, and his left arm is broken...." Delia says with concern, which quickly makes Alessia's face change from red to white in panic.

"...The problem is that I can't heal his arm without healing his back at the same time, and that would cause some of the skin on his back to close over the fabric and steel of his chainmail and clothes. If only we could cut his chainmail with something."

"I think I can fix that problem," I say, quickly stowing my ruined clothes and damaged chainmail in my inventory, whereupon I now feel the cold floor of the no man's zone with my bare chest.

"Ahh, right. Sometimes I forget you can do that..." says Delia with a noticeable relief in her voice.

"...Great healing!...Great energy recovery!"

In quick succession, showing how much practice she gained from doing her work in the war zone, Delia performed the spells corresponding to each skill.

A few moments before, my body was in a pitiful state, and now, milliseconds after Delia used her abilities, I feel super healthy, like I've never felt before.

I feel like I could fight for hours if I wanted to.

'The power of a Saint will never cease to amaze me. I was very fortunate, in more ways than one, to find Delia that day when I was trying to get the Traveler class.'

"Good. Now that we're all healed, I think someone owes the rest of us an explanation," I say, looking meaningfully at Alessia as I sit down, after which I pull the magic item I got in the war zone from my inventory and set it down next to me.

[Pseudo Dimension: In this small pseudo dimension, both the bearer and those in his team will be invisible to monsters belonging to the No Man's Zones. Effect valid for monsters under level 50.]

As soon as I send some mana to the object, which has the shape of a small crystal ball, a kind of transparent bubble of 6 meters in diameter surrounds us with the small crystal ball in its center, making us invisible to any enemy outside the bubble.

I don't see on the map that there are enemies nearby, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

While in the war zone, I learned that I cannot always rely on the map displayed in my interface.

"I don't know what you want me to explain to you," says Alessia defensively.

'- It seems he doesn't plan to make mention of the obviously priceless magic item he just pulled out of his inventory as if it were nothing. Haa... he never explains anything, but he has no problem demanding explanations from others.'

"Erm, I don't know. Maybe you could explain to us why the hell did you go off by yourself to fight those teriars?! We're supposed to be a team, remember?" I say with irritation, remembering my anger, which I had momentarily forgotten due to how weak I felt, and the relief of seeing Alessia safe and sound.

'- I would never have expected this kind of complaint coming from him. I just did what was best for everyone in that kind of situation... He's insulting my honor as an adventurer by questioning my judgment in this way. But he has no right. I have far more experience than he does when it comes to labyrinths.'

At my words, Alessia's face turns tomato red again, although this time I don't know if it's because of anger or because of the shame she feels.

Or maybe it's a bit of both.

"Emir, I don't think that's the best way to talk about what happened," Delia says with concern, looking alternately at Alessia and me, not knowing what to do in this kind of situation.

"No, Delia. Let him talk. He's too immature to realize what a hypocrite he is," Alessia says, her hands shaking slightly at the sides of her body as her eyes begin to water.

'- Wawawa... Blue wind, help me! What can I do to make them stop fighting? We shouldn't fight each other, especially not in a place like this'

'- Don't worry, Delia. It's just a couple's fight... eventually they'll stop fighting and make up. And if they don't, so much the better for you. Sorry, but I can't and don't want to help you with this.'

'- Bad Blue wind!'

"Hypocritical? me?..." I ask surprised and hurt.

But that's not what hurts me the most.

'Did she just call me immature?'

"...do you intend to explain what you mean, or are you just going to insult me without giving any proof of the truthfulness of your words?"

"I mean you never explain anything you do, yet you complain when someone does or says something you didn't expect! How many times did you insult my intelligence in the past by telling me that you knew all those things that you shouldn't have known under normal conditions, simply by your intuition??!! But I never complained, did I?..." says Alessia as the first tears begin to stream down her cheeks.

'What she says is true, but... immature? Me?'

"... Just so you know, while you were doing who knows what with who knows who, I fought many, many teriars in the war zone along with Zia, Miria, and Irina. That's why I thought I could take care of them without problems, or at least with fewer problems than we would have had if the magic of the teriars and the speed of the wind cheetahs combined against us...." says Alessia, starting to sob.

Seeing this, Delia drops her spear on the ground and rushes to hug the blonde girl.

"...I also knew what kind of magic they could do, as I faced a Teriar mini-boss together with my friends. Again, while you abandoned me in the war zone without giving me much explanation. And what bothers me the most..." she says, sobbing harder and harder.

'Shit... Maybe I went a little overboard with my anger. At the end of the day, if I really trust Alessia, I can't question her decisions the way I did.'

"...Is that you might have known about all this because I offered to talk to you about it. But you t-told me you didn't want to know anything about what I had done with my friends because you l-liked me to have my privacy. Now I see that was a-another one of your lies, and you only said that because you d-didn't want to hear me talk to you about me."

"Emir, say something to her!" Delia urges me to, noticing that Alessia is now crying uncontrollably and unable to continue speaking.

"Alessia, forgive me. You are right to call me a hypocrite; of course you are..."

'Although you could've kept the 'immature' thing to yourself.'

"...But I didn't lie to you when I said I liked that you had your secrets; it's just... It really bothered me to see you suffering like that. But I shouldn't have talked to you like that. I... what can I do to make it up to you?" I say, not knowing what I can do in this kind of situation.