Valthar followed Emi through a different series of tunnels, twisting and turning till they reached a series of decorated doors deep inside Lamia’s burrow.

  The room Emi walked in was small, a bathroom with no door to the side and a small bed right by the entrance.

  The moment Valthar walked into the room his eyes instantly locked onto Damian.

  Sunk eyes, thin muscles and blueish skin, just from appearance Damian looked closer to a corpse than a human.

  Even before he scanned the poor sod Valthar could tell this would be complicated for one single reason, Damian’s blood shone through his skin.

  For a body to produce light was a common signal of the presence of elemental mana… a thing Valthar couldn’t directly detect through his life sense.

  “Can you save him?” Emi quietly asked.

  Valthar blinked twice as he stared at the almost corpse.

  “I’ll do everything I can.” He stepped closer to the bed as his life sense shrunk to envelop only Damian.

  ‘His life force is feeble, sparse and spread out, just from it I’d guess he doesn’t have many days left.’

  ‘Dense bones, with good structural integrity but lack of muscles to accompany it.’

  ‘Not a normal lack of muscles either, they feel withered, like dried branches from a tree suddenly transplanted in a desert.’

  ‘Large lungs and heart, but shallow breathing and alarmingly heartbeat.’

  ‘Tips of toes show signs of necrosis, yet something I can’t detect seems to be keeping the spread contained.’

  ‘Could be some sort of elemental mana, but it's way too early to make any conclusions.’

  Valthar pushed the thought away and focused back on scanning.

  ‘Corroded throat and signs of recent puncture on his stomach.’

  Valthar lifted the man's shirt and found a patch of skin with a tone much lighter than the rest of the man’s light brown skin.

  ‘No signs of damage on the nearby areas, so the puncture was probably healed in a haste.’

  With a touch to Damian’s neck Valthar confirmed the slow pulse but caught on a new detail.

  ‘His blood is flying through his veins and it is not his heart pumping it.’

  For a few seconds he tried to find the source of this anomaly, yet he found nothing.

  Gently he moved his hand up and opened the man's eyelids.

  ‘Irises shining with the same purple light, surprisingly intact even with fast moving blood and withered musculature.’

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  Damian's eyes twitched and his bloodflow lowered down a notch.

  Surprised by the reaction, Valthar brought his pointer finger close to the dying man’s eyes and moved it slowly from side to side.

  The eyes twitched when his finger passed by, but they did not follow its movement.

  ‘Unconscious, but not completely out.’ Valthar hummed with a nod, happy with at least one silver lining.

  “What do you think? Can your dark magic save him?” Emi asked again in worry.

  ‘I think he is fucked.’ Valthar thought to himself, but obviously didn’t say so.

  “He is not dead, so there must be a solution…” ‘I just have no idea what that solution is.’

  Having gotten as much information as he could from his life sense, Valthar then turned to Emily to gather what she knew.

  “I see a puncture wound on his belly, is that related to how he got infected with dark mist poison?”

  Emi shook her head.

  “We came from Deep Bonfire, which is inside the Darkmist Forest, so every hunter and adventurer who makes a living outside the walls and breathes in the mist runs the risk of getting dark mist poisoning.”

  “What about the mist inside the walls?” Valthar frowned a little glancing at Damian, Deep Bonfire suddenly seemed a bit more hostile than he expected.

  “There is no mist inside the city, the walls block it from seeping in.” Emi answered with certainty.

  ‘Magical runes maybe? Or a high level mage holding fort? What kind of element would they use to... Focus up Valthar! This is not important right now.’

  Valthar shifted his attention to the man’s lungs, thinking he might find damage done by prolonged contact with the mist, yet the organ itself was… completely intact.

  “So did Damian work inside the city?” He prodded.

  “No, he worked outside, as an E rank adventurer he went on week-long journeys to help skin beasts and carry the loot back to the city.”

  Valthar rubbed his temples.

  ‘Maybe whatever treatment he received cured the damage in his organs? Or maybe the mist just doesn’t affect the lungs…’ He theorized, yet these conjectures didn’t bring him any closer to a solution.

  Valthar clicked his tongue, he felt lost on what to do and annoyed with his lack of knowledge.

  ‘One step at a time Valthar… from this situation what are the most imminent dangers I should try to solve…’

  ‘The obvious three are sudden death due to lack of life force, heart failure and asphyxia due to withered muscles on his chest.’

  ‘Still, the main cause of all this really seems magical in nature since I can’t sense the problem directly with my life sense.’

  ‘I need more info, with my knowledge in magic theory I should be able to find a solution if I understand what’s happening.’

  “Emi, how did other healers describe his situation?”

  “They said that dark elemental mana from the mist invaded his blood and corroded his muscles. They tried to clear it for weeks but as time passed things only got worse.”

  Valthar nodded.

  This conclusion seemed plausible, though he honestly would have expected some damage to the lungs from long term contact with dark element mana.

  But then again he was new in the city and knew little about the effects of the mist.

  “Okay and what kind of treatment did they use till now?” Valthar prodded further.

  “One potion of light element mana a day, they said heal focused ones but… those are too expensive so I used light mana infused water instead.”

  “Okay… I can see it didn’t work in the end, but how well did this treatment work overall?”

  “The healers said it was working all the way till last week.” A sullen look appeared in Emily’s face. “Then suddenly it was terminal and there was nothing they could do…”

  ‘A dead end? But it sounded so plausible… Since the problem comes from the dark mana, getting rid of it should work.’

  “Do you still have light infused water? I want to see what happens when he drinks it.”

  “Yes but…” Emily hesitated, but still opened a drawer and pulled out a potion bottle, inside it there was a white liquid that shone brightly.

  “But?” Valthar asked after waiting a few seconds and not hearing the end of her phrase.

  “But I really hate what happens when Damian drinks it.”