Trouble at the inn Part 3

But Kyle had no intention of voicing those thoughts out loud and fanning the

flames. He had enough of these two troublesome drunks before them, and just

wanted to go back to his room and rest. To him, Zen and Benstokes weren't

opponents worth fighting, so he didn't want to get any more involved in their

troubles than he already was.

Ah, well. If they're going to attack, I wish they'd do it quickly. That way, what

ever I do would be in self defense, at least.

Kyle's thoughts were starting to take a disturbing turn, but his words could

only bring disaster. He could probably provoke them into attacking with some

generic taunts, but claiming self defense wouldn't fly too well after inviting the

trouble himself. The fight would be deemed both their faults that way. To

establish the situation as an undeniable act of self defense, he had to ensure

Zen attacked him without provocation in a clear way.

That was why Kyle turned the corner of his mouth up into a sneer in a way that

only Zen would see. Zen gave a spiteful click of his tongue and threw himself

at Kyle at full force.

"Mr. Zen!" The proprietress Claire's yelled, but Zen did not stop. He

thrust the knife in his right hand forward, aiming to stab it through Kyle's

shoulder.

With a small sigh, Kyle stuck his right hand out towards the incoming knife.

Zen's knife and Kyle's hand crossed, but not a drop of blood was spilt. Instead,

Zen's large frame soared through the air. Kyle had brushed away the hand with

the knife and tripped the man's feet up, before throwing him over his shoulder.

Zen crashed into Benstokes, sending the two of them to the floor. Of course, Kyle left

both Zen and himself unharmed, but — "Gah! Oww..."

Zen's knife was stuck in Benstokes' thigh. The momentum of the fall had

probably flipped it in Zen's hand. Ben groaned in pain, holding down the

injured area with a pale face.

"M-Mr. Ben! Are you all right?!" Claire's motherleft the counter in a panic.

"Ben? I-I'm sorry!" Zen apologized through his shock.

"Oww, oww..."

Seeing Ben's face twisted in agony made both Claire's mother and Zen lose their

calm. "Y-You brat! What did you do to Ben?!" Zen turned the brunt of his

rage to Kyle.

"What? It was an instance of proper self defense. You're the terrible one

here, stabbing your friend like that," Kyle replied in an earnest voice.Though it had been an instance of self defense

Kyle felt a strong sense of

repulsion from crossing the line of murder — because of his memories from Earth within him. However... He was tainted enough by the values of this world to

overlook just a little bit of unavoidable damage. That was why he couldn't find

it in himself to pity men who got hurt picking on others for their own

amusement.

"What? You're the one who did it!" Zen flared up at Kyle's words, unable to

accept them.

"The knife was in your hand. Since you were the one who decided to thrust it

at me, my self defense was more than justified. Or are you telling me to shut up

and just let myself get stabbed?"

"Wh... N-No, but..." Zen hesitated, pressured by Kyle's indifferent tone and

gaze.

"You should stop the bleeding quickly. It's not a fatal wound, but it's not

something you should ignore, either," Kyle said, causing Zen to turn back to

Ben with a gasp.

Claire's mother was trying to perform emergency first aid on him, as she had ordered

Claire to fetch some alcohol and a clean cloth.

"I'm going to remove the knife and sterilize the wound. It'll hurt, but you'll

have to endure it," Claire's mother said, before pulling the knife out of Ben's thigh. He

yelled out in pain.

She then washed out the wound with alcohol, then wrapped it with the cloth,

instantly staining it blood red.

"W-What should we do? The blood..." The inflexible rule of stopping

bloodflow was to put pressure on the artery closest to the heart. However,

amateurs tended to fall into a panic and end up only placing pressure on the

wound itself. She was a classic example of such an amateur, as the sight of

the bright red cloth sent her into a fluster.

...This lot got what they deserved, but I suppose the owner isn't at fault...

The only ones involved in the fight were Kyle, Zen and Ben— She was

an innocent third party. Seeing her desperately attempt to stem the flow of blood, despite her lack of involvement, was more than Kyle could bear.

With a

sigh, he pointedly approached Ben.

"Please move."

"Huh?"

Ignoring Claire's mother's confused voice, Kyle easily lifted Ben's larger body up. He

was only able to perform this by secretly enhancing his physical body with

essence. But to everyone else around them -- including Zen and Claire -- it

made Kyle look like he had a tremendous amount of strength, making them all

freeze in confusion.

Kyle carried Ben to a corner of the room and untied the makeshift cloth

bandage, locating the proper point of pressure to stem the blood flow and

retying it tighter. Then, he placed his hand over the wound and chanted the

spell for healing.

A mystical, faint light emitted from Kyle's hand. However, no spell formula --

no magic circle, that is -- appeared alongside it, because Kyle's peculiar

constitution prevented him from performing magic. Instead, he imitated the

flow of essence in a magic formula to perform the same phenomenon as the

magic itself. To anyone with even the slightest knowledge of magic and sorcery,

Kyle's actions would seem extremely suspicious. No matter how few commoners

could handle magic, using such supernatural abilities in front of others was

enough to cause concern. That was why Kyle had carried him to this corner,

where the onlookers couldn't get as clear of a view of his treatment.

Thankfully, Ben was squeezing his eyes shut to avoid looking at his redstained leg, giving Kyle a chance to heal him just enough to close the wound.

Once more, he carried Ben to where they had been before and laid him down,

untying the cloth that had been putting pressure on the blood flow.

"I've stopped the bleeding, but you'll need to refrain from any vigorous

activity for at least a week. Otherwise, the wound will open again. It'll hurt, but

you should be fine to walk again starting tomorrow," Kyle explained indifferently

to everyone there. They were barely listening with their jaws dropped in shock.

A silence fell over the room for a moment.