Benches faced each other along the walls, a sturdy door set into one side, and a broad window on the other that framed the outside world like a moving painting. The whole thing screamed noble transport, the kind you'd expect to see pulling up in front of a castle gate while guards snapped to attention.

  Then his eyes drifted again and he spotted a woman lying stretched along the cushioned seats.

  She was thin. Painfully so. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her white gown—nearly identical in style to the other woman's, just lighter—hung off her frame like it no longer belonged to her. Her cheeks were hollow, her lips faintly cracked. One hand rested limply over her stomach, fingers curled as if grasping for something that wasn't there.

  Her breathing was shallow, uneven, each breath a tired effort.

  Austin's chest tightened.

  This has to be Lady Lira, he realized, remembering Darrik's earlier words.

  The woman who had dragged him into the carriage spoke again, her voice lower now, stripped of its earlier urgency—but every bit as sharp. She planted one hand firmly on her hip, the gesture less casual posture and more accusation given physical form.

  "If you can heal our lady," she said, each word clipped and precise, "then do it. Now." Her gaze hardened, drilling straight through him. "But if you so much as twitch in a way that harms Lady Lira, I will end your life."

  There was no exaggeration in her tone. No threat for show. Just a simple statement of fact.

  "Not a problem," Austin replied, far too casually for the situation.

  Inside, his thoughts were a tangled mess.

  Wow. Okay. Straight to murder threats. Cool. Very cool.

  Normally, this was exactly the kind of moment where he'd crack a joke. A bad one. Maybe a really bad one. Humor was his go-to defense mechanism—it smoothed things over, bought him time, made people relax. But one look around told him everything he needed to know.

  This room did not want jokes.

  There was a pale woman in a white gown barely clinging to consciousness. And there was another woman—clearly exhausted, clearly desperate, and clearly strong enough to fold him in half if he tried anything stupid. Austin had already learned the hard way that she was way stronger than she looked, and pressing his luck further felt like an excellent way to die again.

  Alright, he told himself. Serious mode on.

  This was not the time for sarcasm. Not with death lounging on the cushions beside him and its personal bodyguard staring him down. He swallowed and focused, pushing everything else aside.

  A stray thought still slipped through anyway.

  I mean… if she does kill me, at least she's gorgeous.

  He immediately shoved that thought into a mental box labeled Later.

  Forcing his face into something calm and professional, Austin took a careful step forward toward Lady Lira, every movement slow and deliberate, as if sudden motions might shatter what little hope remained in the carriage.

  "So… what's wrong with her?" Austin asked, keeping his voice steady even as his stomach twisted.

  The woman answered, her tone clipped but tired. "At first, we thought it was a disease. Then poison. We tried everything—every potion, every healing spell, every charm we could get our hands on." Her jaw tightened. "Nothing worked. The scroll was our last option."

  "The healing skill you now possess," Darrik added as he ducked into the carriage, clearly trying to calm the rising tension, "has cured countless afflictions in the past. Sickness, grievous injury, curses thought incurable. If it works as intended, it should restore Lady Lira."

  The woman whirled on Darrik as he entered the carriage. "By the way, why would you allow a boy like this to obtain something so vital, Military Leader Darrik?"

  Austin didn't miss the way Darrik's jaw tightened, even in the dim light. The muscles along his mouth jumped as if barely holding back something violent.

  "It was not by choice," Darrik said, his voice low and unyielding. "And now he is our only option." His eyes locked onto hers. "Would you truly have preferred to stand by and let her die without giving him a chance?"

  The woman let out a bitter laugh—empty of humor, heavy with accusation. "Don't you dare put this on me. You're the one who let the scroll be stolen in the first place." Her words cracked through the cramped space like a whip. "If you'd done your duty properly, none of this would have happened."

  Darrik turned fully toward her, his stare sharp as drawn steel. "And you," he shot back, voice hardening further, "should have hidden it better. Don't pretend you're blameless—half the fault lies with you."

  They squared off, voices rising, blame flying back and forth in sharp bursts. The air grew thick, heavy with old failures and unhealed wounds. The carriage seemed to shrink with every accusation, heat building until Austin half-expected the argument itself to tear the fragile space apart.

  They launched into a heated exchange, words overlapping like clashing blades—arguments about past decisions, missed chances, who should have done what and when. Most of it went straight over Austin's head. He stood there awkwardly, feeling like an unwilling audience to a very intense debrief that had nothing to do with him.

  Eventually, he gave up trying to follow it.

  Instead, he turned back to the woman lying before him.

  Lady Lira's chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. Each sound she made was thin and papery, like something fragile being crushed over and over again. Seeing her up close made his chest tighten.

  Man, this is insane, Austin thought. I'm standing over someone who looks one breath away from the grave… and somehow her life is in my hands. His hands. Or, more accurately, whatever passed for his abilities now.

  A super-high magic stat of… one.

  Yeah. Very reassuring.

  His lips pressed together.

  The real problem hit him all at once. I don't even know how to use this so-called great healing skill.

  He glanced toward the woman in blue, briefly considering asking for help—but she was still locked in verbal combat with Darrik, neither of them slowing down anytime soon.

  Guess I'm on my own, he decided, inhaling deeply.

  He smacked his palms against his cheeks. Focus mode.

  "Alright, Austin," he muttered under his breath. "I. Am. Great. Healing."

  He repeated it in his head, like sheer confidence might brute-force reality into cooperating. This wasn't like his RPGs. There was no controller. No glowing button begging to be pressed. Maybe it was voice-activated?

  "Skills," Austin said aloud.

  A glowing blue interface blinked into existence in front of him, crisp and digital, wildly out of place in the dim wooden carriage. Two neatly framed boxes hovered before his eyes.

  Limit Break.

  Great Healing.

  But that was it.

  No helpful tutorial window. No glowing arrows. No cheerful Press here to heal! message blinking in the corner of his vision. Just a few names floating in calm, indifferent blue, as if the system had decided that was explanation enough.

  "Damn it," Austin muttered, the frustration slipping straight into his voice. "What kind of system doesn't come with instructions?"

  He paused, then sighed.

  Okay. A lot of them, actually, he admitted to himself.

  More times than he could count, Austin had jumped into games that explained absolutely nothing, dumping him into chaos and expecting him to figure it out. Usually, that was half the fun. He'd learned to piece mechanics together through trial and error, mentally writing his own tutorial as he went.

  The problem was—this wasn't a game.

  This was another world.

  A world where mistakes didn't mean reloading a save file. A world where experimenting too freely could get him very permanently killed. There were no checkpoints here. No undo buttons. No testing risky builds just to see what happened.

  And yet…

  Austin felt a familiar spark stir in his chest.

  He thrived on this kind of thing. On discovering hidden mechanics, on understanding how systems worked beneath the surface. On finding clever ways to bend rules without breaking them outright. That was how he cleared games efficiently. That was how he won.

  Honestly, he'd always wanted to play games for a living. To make strategy and problem-solving his job. But back on Earth, making money that way was about as likely as winning the lottery—possible in theory, laughable in practice.

  Here?

  Here, the stakes were higher. The consequences real.

  Lady Lira's breath rattled again—thin, uneven, barely there—and it dragged Austin's attention back to her like an anchor snapping tight around his chest. His heart clenched. He swallowed hard, forcing the panic down.

  "Okay," he whispered to himself, voice barely steady. "Focus, Austin."

  The blue HUD still hovered in front of him, indifferent and silent. His eyes locked onto the words Great Healing. No instructions. No guidance. Just a name and the unspoken expectation that he was supposed to know what to do.

  Austin stared at the glowing text until his eyes ached, as if sheer intensity might force it to cooperate. C'mon, he thought desperately. Work. Maybe it was all about concentration. That had to be it, right?

  He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, shutting out the carriage, the arguing, the fear. He pictured what great healing should look like—golden light pouring from his hands, warmth flooding broken flesh, sickness dissolving like smoke caught in the wind.

  Why golden? Honestly, because that was the color of the healing skill in the last anime he'd watched. Simple as that. The protagonist had blasted out these dramatic streams of glowing gold energy from his palm—pure, radiant, heroic-looking stuff.

  Austin snorted internally.

  He'd always called that effect hand farts.

  Not because it was gross—well, okay, maybe a little—but because it looked like magic was just spraying out of someone's hand with absolutely no dignity involved. Golden hand farts. That was the term. Once you thought of it that way, you couldn't unsee it.

  Now that the power was supposedly his, he couldn't help but wonder what his version would look like.

  Would it be elegant? A smooth glow, holy light spilling out in tasteful rays? Or would it be more chaotic—sparks, flares, maybe a weird mist puffing out like his hand had sneezed? The thought made him glance down at his palm with faint suspicion.

  Please don't be embarrassing, he thought. I can handle glowing hands. I cannot handle magical jazz hands.

  Still… golden seemed like a solid choice. If he was going to shoot mysterious energy out of his body, it might as well look cool while doing it.

  He imagined Lady Lira whole again, breathing strong, color returning to her cheeks. He pushed every ounce of hope and determination he had into that image.

  When he opened his eyes, reality slammed into him.

  Nothing had changed.

  Lira still lay there, pale and fragile, her breathing shallow, her skin waxy in the dim light. The sight hit him like a punch to the gut.

  "Crap," he muttered, frustration slipping out before he could stop it.

  His gaze softened as it fell back to her. Up close, she looked impossibly delicate, folded into the carriage cushions like a porcelain doll already cracked. He leaned in, lowering his voice to a whisper meant only for her, as if speaking softly might somehow matter.

  "Great Healing," he murmured, almost pleading, trying to breathe meaning into the words. Maybe it had to be spoken aloud. Maybe it needed intention. Maybe—just maybe—the right words, said the right way, could spark the miracle she needed.

  Nothing happened.

  Beside him, the argument sharpened, slicing through the fragile stillness he was trying to hold onto.

  "It was your job to fend off bandits!" the woman snapped, fury thick in her voice. "And you couldn't even do that!"

  "My men and I were surrounded!" Darrik shot back, his tone strained. "We were overwhelmed!"

  "You should have at least kept the scroll safe for Lady Lira!"

  Austin shut his eyes for a moment, blocking them out. Ignore it. Block the noise. This wasn't about them. It was about her.

  His hands hovered over Lady Lira, trembling just slightly. He clenched his jaw, forcing the doubt down, forcing his breathing to steady.

  "I got this," he whispered stubbornly, as if saying it enough times might make it true.

  He placed his trembling hand against Lady Lira's chest, right where her faint breaths fluttered beneath his palm. He drew in a deep breath and shoved every scrap of logic out the window.

  "Great Healing!" he shouted.

  The words tore out of him, fueled by frustration—at not knowing how to use this skill, at the endless arguing beside him, at being thrown into a new world with no instructions and no safety net.

  The effect was immediate.

  The carriage fell dead silent.

  Darrik and the woman froze mid-argument, mouths half-open, eyes locked on Austin's hand.

  Soft, golden light spilled from his palm, glowing brighter with every heartbeat. It spread across Lady Lira's chest and up her throat like warm sunlight burning away shadows, gentle and radiant.

  Austin blinked, stunned by the sudden hush—but then—

  Pain detonated through him.

  It surged from his hand up his arm like a lightning strike, flooding his body with far too much power. It ripped through his chest and slammed into his head, as if he'd been punched from the inside. His body convulsed violently. Every nerve screamed. Every muscle locked. His vision flared white-hot.

  Agony roared through him, sharp and merciless, drowning out everything else.

  His knees buckled.

  Shit, he thought faintly.

  Then the darkness swallowed him whole.

  ***

  Lira lay there, half-aware, half-lost, her body little more than a fragile shell of what it had once been. Pain wrapped around her like chains, tightening with every shallow breath. She knew she was dying. Not suspected. Not feared. Knew.

  The sounds of the world drifted to her as if from the far end of a tunnel. Voices—familiar ones—hovered just beyond her grasp. Selvara. Darrik. They were arguing again. They always seemed to argue when she was like this, their words sharp with worry and helplessness.

  It's my fault, she thought dimly. If I hadn't fallen ill, none of this would be happening.

  The guilt pressed down heavier than the sickness. For the briefest moment, a dangerous thought crept into her mind—Maybe it would be easier if this just ended. The idea had surfaced before, quiet and unwelcome. But even that escape was beyond her reach. She didn't have the strength. And even if she had, she knew her people would never help her take that path.

  Footsteps approached. Someone drew near.

  She considered asking for help—forming the words in her mind—but before she could even try, warmth bloomed across her chest.

  Light.

  Brilliant and golden, it flared through her body, bright enough that she could see it even with her eyes closed. Heat spread outward in a rolling wave, flowing through her veins like rushing water. The sickness that had strangled her for weeks simply… dissolved. Gone. Erased, as if it had never existed at all.

  Her breath caught—not in pain, but in shock.

  Her eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened. The world beyond was blurred and indistinct, but she hardly cared. Her entire focus narrowed to one impossible truth.

  A moment ago, I was certain I was about to die.

  Now… I feel alive.

  Her fingers twitched, curling weakly into the fabric of her gown. Each breath came easily now—smooth, deep, effortless. Her chest no longer rattled. Strength flowed back into her limbs, unfamiliar and startling.

  She didn't just feel better.

  She felt whole.

  Before she could even sit up, a sudden thud echoed beside her. The sound startled her, making her flinch.

  Her hearing was still muffled, the world distant, but voices cut through the haze.

  "He's unconscious," Selvara said, her tone heavy with concern.

  "Can you save him?" another voice asked, urgent and unsure.

  "Move aside," came a firm command.

  Lira turned her head slowly, her vision sharpening just enough to make sense of the scene. Selvara knelt on the ground nearby, hands pressed against the chest of a young man lying motionless at her feet. Faint light shimmered from Selvara's palms as she forced magic into him.

  Who is that? Lira wondered, confusion knitting her brows.

  Selvara's jaw tightened. "He's being drained rapidly," she said grimly. "He didn't have enough magic to cast that spell."

  Before Lira could fully grasp what that meant, another surge of sensation rolled through her, and she gasped sharply, sitting upright as air rushed into her lungs like she had just surfaced from deep water.

  "Lady Lira!" Darrik exclaimed, relief and disbelief written plainly across his face.

  Selvara hurried to her side, forgetting all about the stranger, eyes scanning her for any sign of weakness.

  "What happened?" Lira asked.

  "This man," Selvara said quickly, gesturing toward the unconscious figure, "risked his life to save you." Her expression darkened. "But now… now he's dying from magical drainage."

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I can keep him alive for an hour. Perhaps two." She shook her head. "But he won't last long enough for us to reach Viregrave."

  Without hesitation—without even allowing herself the luxury of thought—Lira slid from her seat and knelt beside the stranger. The movement sent a faint wave of dizziness through her, but she ignored it. Her hands hovered over his still chest, fingers trembling as her heart hammered hard against her ribs.

  "Lady Lira, what are you doing?!" Selvara cried, rushing forward, eyes wide with alarm. "You've just woken from your illness—you need rest!"

  "I will not," Lira said.

  Her voice cut cleanly through the protest, calm and unyielding. She lifted her gaze to Selvara, then back to the unconscious man before her, and something fierce burned behind her eyes.

  "If this man was willing to risk his life for mine," she continued, her words steady despite the lingering weakness in her body, "then what kind of person would I be if I allowed him to die when I have the power to repay that sacrifice?"