Survive in the parallel world, please!

240 Survive the mana season, I beg you! part The gates leading to the goblin city creaked when the soldiers on the side spun the gears to open them. Heavy rain was pouring down and dark clouds obstructed the sky and not even sunlight was able to pass through.

Two tall figures rushed to the entrance, trying to cover their eyes from the rain with a hand.

“It’s them! they’re back! hurry up and help them!” Anne shouted with a huge smile on her face.

She didn’t like the idea of being left behind, but she had actually enjoyed her stay at the goblin city more than she allowed herself to admit. Goblins were smart creatures and, despite their lack of manners, they were considerate hosts.

Sera’s mood contrasted heavily with the woman next to her. She stood idly with a twisted smile that didn’t bode well with her beautiful face. All sorts of feelings flooded her heart in rapid succession, rendering her calm mind skill useless. Normally, the skill would have given her enough time to think things through, but time passed and all she could think of were her memories of being left behind by the man who not long ago had swore to her he would never do something like that.

Last time she saw Ryu was when he left the cave in a hurry, just after the most beautiful moment of her life, when they merged their bodies and shared their most intimate desires. Of course Ryu’s perspective was a lot different, being tied and ‘tortured’ wasn’t necessarily on his bucket list. Unfortunately for them, Sera had misunderstood Anne’s advice and led her to believe that certain practices were common when sharing intimacy and she let her inner most desires run free without even caring for how Ryu would feel about it.

After Ryu left, she had spent most of her time daydreaming of how their next encounter would develop. She was enraged, irate, mad, but more than anything, she was experiencing emotional pain beyond what she ever experienced before.

All the sweet memories, all the selfless acts that both her and Ryu performed for the other, stoked the fire of her anger instead of bringing her comfort.

She thought of so many different scenarios. In some she would walk up to him silently and burn him to a crisp. In others he would come back begging for forgiveness, it was particularly in those kind of scenarios that he let her imagination run free again, seeking for some pleasure inside her mind, but it was all ruined once she remembered their short encounter in the cave.

.....

She had given her all to Ryu and in return, she received soft kisses, delicate strokes that resembled that of a painter waving a brush, warm embraces.

‘How did things come up to this point? why did he have to run away from me without so much as an explanation?’ she wondered, but deep inside her mind she knew the answer already.

Dark desires that crawled from the bottom of her soul would more than often take control of her own actions, leaving her like a passenger inside her body. Worse of all, she knew it was her own fault, her own weakness.

A tear ran down her cheek, disguised by the rain pouring down her face. She did her best to remain with her back straight, her chest puffed out and her chin lifted to emphasize her beauty and noble appearance, but she crumbled down like a sand castle the second she gazed upon Ryu.

He was being carried on hand by six goblins because they didn’t have a stretcher ready. The shaking movements made blood gush out from Ryu’s wounds that not even Lea was able to treat.

“No, no, no, nooooo! This isn’t how I pictured our reunion! Mister Ryu!” Sera shrieked uncontrollably stomping the ground. Two goblin soldiers held her arms trying to calm her down, but she was able to advance despite their best efforts.

Anne’s only reaction was to place her hand covering her gaping mouth, her eyes wide open uncaring of the rain.

As soon as they got Ryu into the goblin medical hut six soldiers stood on the entrance preventing anyone from entering.

To them, medicine was considered the most sacred activity and not without reason.

Goblins were short lived creatures, but their short lifespan wasn’t because of old age, most goblins found an untimely death by the hands of adventurers or the maw of creatures. It was an important part of goblin’s culture to protect the young and live by honor, the older a goblin the more inclined they were to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the younger ones, making it impossible for a goblin to even reach four years of age.

But to even reach such age was something really difficult. First, they had to survive on the battlefield, then they had to be treated on time and finally, they had to survive the long period of recovery. As if that wasn’t enough, even after recovery they would eagerly jump on the battlefield to, again, protect the younger ones.

Their slim knowledge of medicinal herbs and their lack of skills meant nothing because they mostly relied on surgeries and stitches, procedures that were of a physical nature and they were mostly cheap.

Ryu had already been treated by goblins once, when he fell after his battle to the death against the outlaws that lured them deep into the forest to capture them. But now things were entirely different.

Thanks to Ryu’s guidance, the medical hut was fully stocked with medicinal herbs of all sorts, different tools, comfortable beds and everything was clean.

Bardun was left flabbergasted when he pushed past the soldiers and entered the medical hut. As their leader he was the only person, besides medical personel, allowed to enter.

Ryu had made several changes during his stay. Now goblins had assigned jobs allowing them to excel at a single task instead of being jacks of all trades, this alone caused a huge spike in their skill levels pushing the goblin civilization one step further in less than a week.

After all the time that passed since he took control and then left the village looking for Bardun, though, the population also increased greatly. It was an unintended side effect of having better conditions and skills on the medical hut. This forced the goblins to expand their village, giving way to a densely populated city but none of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for their newly acquired knowledge about agriculture and cattle.

Now Ryu wasn’t being tended by unskilled and unprepared regular goblins, but by the best goblin doctors available in the whole city.

“Make way!” someone yelled from outside the medical hut and the soldiers split immediately, allowing Saba, the greatest goblin doctor, to get inside the hut.

“What’s the diagnose?” He asked with a low grunt.

“He’s been poisoned, judging by the symptoms this happened about an hour ago and he’s already received some treatment. His body seems fine but his health points are nearly depleted.” One of the goblins explained the situation to Saba.

Although Saba’s appearance wasn’t remarkable in any way, he wasn’t taller nor shorter than the regular goblin, his wrinkly face and deep eyes made evident that he was wise beyond his age.

He quickly took a scalpel from the tray next to him and made a deep cut on Ryu’s artery, draining the blood and letting it fall on a bucket. Bardun almost jumped on top of the medical doctor, but even the goblin leader was nothing but a guest inside that hut.

“What are you doing to my brother!?” he yelled in outrage.

“What am I doing? what you should have done, you need to let him bleed or the poison will corrode him from the inside.” Saba replied grumpily.

If Anne was present she would have stabbed the goblin without hesitation. Back in her world she was an experienced traveler, she had been to a continent where venomous snakes and spiders were so common people saw them on a daily basis, and she learned that bleeding out a venom was impossible.

But that only applied in a world without magic. If Ryu had received an opportune treatment a simple antidote would have sufficed, but now the only way of saving his life was impossible without draining the leftover venom from his bloodstream.

Each pump of Ryu’s heart kept him alive, but at the same time drew him closer to dying.

The goblins drained Ryu’s blood mercilessly, he looked almost like a carcass and his body heat was so low it was impossible now to tell if he was alive or undead. Then, when the last drop of blood dripped on the bucket Saba closed the wound he previously inflicted with a sticky paste.

“Administer the blood herb.” He commanded. Two of his assistants took a clay bowl that contained a red herb that had been previously ground, and they squeezed it directly on Ryu’s mouth.