Hiroshi had been wrong about his injuries.
He'd thought broken ribs, acid burns, and deep lacerations were manageable. Painful, yes. Serious, definitely. But manageable.
He'd been wrong.
The healers at the healing house had taken one look at him and immediately called for backup. Three healers working simultaneously for two hours straight. One of his broken ribs had punctured the lining around his lung. The acid burns on his arm had already begun showing signs of infection. The rat bite on his shoulder had introduced something into his bloodstream.
Without immediate treatment he would have been dead before morning.
The head healer had told him this plainly, without softening it. "Another hour and the contamination would have reached your heart. You understand that? One more hour."
Hiroshi had understood.
He understood it even better three days later when they handed him the bill.
His fifteen Gold reward from the mission. Gone entirely. Plus another eight Gold he'd scraped together from what little remained of his Church stipend. All of it gone, handed over to the healing house without a word of complaint because what was the alternative? Arguing with the people who'd kept him alive?
He lay in the healing house bed on the second day, staring at the ceiling.
Marcus's healing spell he thought.
During the E-rank dungeon, Marcus had cast a minor heal on multiple times. Small spells, barely enough to close surface wounds. At the time Hiroshi had barely registered them as significant.
Now, lying in a healing house bed while professionals worked to keep infection from killing him, he understood exactly what those small spells had actually meant.
Without them he might have died in the dungeon before even reaching the boss chamber. The accumulated damage from the earlier fights would have slowed him down, clouded his judgment. Those minor heals had been the difference between functional and non-functional.
He'd been taking it for granted without realizing it.
A healer wasn't just a support role. A healer was the reason everyone else got to come home.
He made a mental note and filed it away.
On the third day he was cleared to leave.
The walk back to the Castle was slow. His ribs were healed but tender. His arm still itched where the burns had been, new skin tight and sensitive. His shoulder felt stiff. The healers had told him to rest for another week before any strenuous activity.
He gave himself one more day.
The Castle was busy when he arrived. Soldiers running drills in the yard, Church officials moving between buildings with armfuls of documents, servants carrying supplies. The normal rhythm of a functioning institution.
He reported his mission success to the administrative office. The clerk recorded it, stamped the form, and filed it away without looking up. Another completed mission.
Hiroshi was leaving the building when he saw Aria.
She was crossing the courtyard heading toward the eastern gate, a travel pack on her back and a scroll case tucked under her arm. She noticed him at the same moment.
They both stopped.
"You're back," she said.
"Just now." He looked at her pack. "Solo mission?"
"Yeh. Courier assignment. In Eastern district." She shifted the scroll case under her arm.
"Good."
An awkward silence settled between them. Not the comfortable kind that came from familiarity. The uncomfortable kind that came from something unspoken sitting between two people who didn't know how to address it.
Hiroshi looked at her. Same Aria. Same cool expression, same way of holding herself like she was perpetually unimpressed by her surroundings. But something was different and he couldn't name it.
The distance. That was it. She was standing ten feet away and felt like she was standing across a field.
"Heard you nearly died in the dungeon," she said.
"Almost."
"G-rank dungeon."
"It was misclassified."
Something flickered across her expression. Surprise, maybe. Or concern. It was gone before he could read it properly. "You cleared it solo?"
"Yes."
Another silence.
"Kenji and Marcus are on a joint mission," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. "Came back yesterday from the E-rank run. Taking a day then heading out again."
"I know."
She looked at him then. Brief, searching. Whatever she was looking for, she either found it or decided to stop looking. "I have to go."
"Safe travels."
She nodded once and walked away.
Hiroshi watched her go, trying to identify the feeling sitting in his chest.
Everyone was moving forward. Growing stronger, growing apart, growing into whatever they were going to become.
And that was fine. That was how it worked. He understood that logically.
It just didn't feel particularly good.
He went back to the dormitory and slept for fourteen hours.
---
The next morning a Church official knocked on his door before sunrise and informed him the Archbishop wanted to see him.
Dominus was already at his desk when Hiroshi arrived, working through a stack of papers with the focused energy of a man who'd been awake for hours. He gestured to the chair without looking up.
Hiroshi sat.
"How are your injuries?" Dominus asked, still reading.
"Healed. Mostly."
"The healers filed their report. The bill was substantial." The Archbishop set down his pen and looked at him. "The dungeon was misclassified. That's a Church administrative failure. Your treatment costs will be covered retroactively from Church funds."
Hiroshi blinked. "I already paid."
"You'll be reimbursed. Money will be returned to you by end of week." Dominus folded his hands on the desk. "Now. There's another matter."
He pulled a document from the top of his stack and slid it across the desk.
Hiroshi picked it up and read it. Guild letterhead. Official seal. Signed by someone named Cedric, Guild Representative.
"The man who visited me three days ago," Dominus said. "Guild representative with significant authority. He became aware of your solo clearance and requested you be assigned a Guild-supervised mission."
"What kind of mission?"
"Retrieval. A merchant caravan lost contact with a border village three days northeast of here. You'd be sent to investigate, locate the caravan, and retrieve the cargo if possible." The Archbishop paused. "The reward is fifty gold."
Hiroshi's hand tightened slightly on the document.
Fifty gold.
That was more money than he'd seen past few months. More than enough to fund training, better equipment, supplies for future missions. It would solve every financial problem he currently had in one assignment.
"It's above your current level technically," Dominus continued. "But the Guild representative believes you're capable based on your recent performance. You'd have an assigned observer accompanying you."
"And if I decline?"
"Then you decline. I won't force the assignment." Dominus leaned back. "But Hiroshi, opportunities like this don't come often for someone in your position."
Hiroshi set the document back on the desk.
He thought about it for a while.
Then–
"I'll take it," he said.
Dominus nodded and picked up his pen. "Report to the eastern gate in four days. The observer will meet you there."
Hiroshi stood to leave.
"And Hiroshi." The Archbishop didn't look up from his writing. "Try not to nearly die this time."