Raven Healer

"Ash Hiss, if you're awake, leave on your own. Otherwise, you'll miss dinner. We don't provide meals for patients here."

Ash, whose eyelids had long been scorched by the incandescent lamp, swiftly sat up and touched his face and abdomen. There was no swelling or pain at all, as though Igula's brutal beating had been nothing but a dream.

This was not the first time he had witnessed this world's healing techniques, yet they amazed him every time—back in his previous life, the wound the Bloodfury Hunter had pierced straight through with a sword would have put him in intensive care for over ten days without any guarantee of survival. Yet here, it had been healed before he was even interrogated.

Ash had thought they wanted to heal him first, then put him through a complete interrogation wellness package.

He looked around. It was nothing like the treatment room he had imagined. There was no disinfectant smell. Although the place was clean, with no clutter or Blood Traces, its tones were dominated by gray, black, and brown, creating an impression of "filthy chaos."

Not to mention the Healers here: they wore full-body black robes, masks that resembled terrifying Ravens, and carried gleaming short blades.

They looked less like doctors and more like Cultists preparing to use Ash as a sacrifice.

The Healer speaking to Ash was slightly short. Her gender could not be discerned from her voice, and her Mask seemed to distort it, making her sound even more frightening.

Noticing Ash looking at her, she asked, "Is there a problem?"

Ash casually said, "I think there's still something wrong with my face."

"Hm? I've already healed all your injuries." The Healer sounded puzzled. "Could a blood vessel inside have ruptured?"

"I feel like I'm not as handsome as before. Did you fail to heal me? By the way, do you offer cosmetic surgery here?"

Ash had merely intended to make some small talk and build goodwill, hoping he might get some fruit during future treatments. Unexpectedly, the Raven Healer became excited and leaned close. "Of course we do! Eye-corner widening, nose bridge adjustment, bone shaving, chin fillers—I can perform all kinds of Spell Formulas. I can make you look however you want, even turn you into another race! I highly recommend this Kazilan Dai Technique. It can effectively enlarge your eyes..."

Ash shoved the Healer away with a look of disgust. "Your Raven beak is poking me!"

"Ah, sorry. If you want cosmetic work on your mouth, I also have the latest White Rabbit Candy Technique. It can give your lips a natural sweetness..."

Seeing the Healer's fanatical expression, like an insurance salesperson making a pitch, Ash became a little scared. "I don't have any money!"

"I don't want your money. I only want your body!"

Ash shuddered delicately. "So fast? We barely know each other! Wait, are you a man or a woman? Wait, what race are you..."

The Healer also realized her slip of the tongue and waved her hand. "What I meant was, as long as you're willing to let me operate on you, that's enough. You don't need to pay me. It's completely free!"

"Hmm..." Ash asked, "What if I want you to pay me instead?"

"Uh... how much do you want?"

Seeing the Healer actually pull out a wallet, Ash hurriedly stopped her. "Stop, stop. I was just asking. I don't actually want you cutting up my face. But are all Healers this kind? You don't ask for anything in return when performing surgery? Seeing how you're dressed, I thought you were the type to suddenly raise the price halfway through an operation."

The Healer said, "Ah, isn't that perfectly normal?"

"Huh?"

For a moment, Ash could not tell whether she meant "doing it for free" or "raising the price during surgery."

"So you really don't plan to get cosmetic surgery?" The Healer tried her hardest to persuade him. "I'm a Silver Healer with three Spell Spirits. Outside, you won't find another Healer as capable as me who works for free! Meeting me is your lucky day!"

"What if you suddenly start charging me halfway through the surgery?"

"Do you have money?"

"No."

"Then what are you worried about!?"

That actually made a lot of sense. As long as I have no money, you can't scam me out of it... Ash still shook his head. "There's a saying in my line of work: free is the most expensive. If I take advantage of this little freebie, I'll definitely have to pay the price somewhere else."

Seeing that Ash simply would not take the bait, the Healer had no choice but to tell the truth. "Fine. If you're willing to let me operate on you, there'll be a tiny bit of risk."

"A tiny bit?"

"Mm, a tiny bit." The Healer gestured with her fingers. "After all, I'm not very skilled with these Spell Formulas, so I need to perform more surgeries to build proficiency. But I have three Spell Spirits, enough to ensure your life won't be in danger..."

After the Healer explained, Ash finally understood why they were willing to let patients freeload: a Silver Healer's treatment results were not guaranteed.

Unlike the empirical medicine of his previous life, medicine in this world had developed from Spell Spirits. The Spell Spirit most commonly used by Healers was Hydrotherapy from the Water Art Faction.

As long as there was water inside a patient's body, this Spell Spirit could be activated to rapidly regenerate the patient's wounds.

Bloodletting and scraping away flesh, then activating the Spell Spirit to rapidly regenerate the body, was the most common treatment method.

As one could imagine, this method had many flaws. However, all Spell Spirits possessed the trait of evolution, and this was especially apparent in the Hydrotherapy Spell Spirit: any ailment treated by Hydrotherapy would be remembered and optimized, allowing it to treat the same ailment more efficiently the next time.

Not only that, once a Healer had treated enough different ailments, Hydrotherapy could even evolve into a Two-Winged Art Spirit!

Thus, Silver Healers desperately wanted patients but could not get them, while patients would rather spend more money on better Gold Healers than seek out Silver Healers—the weaker the Healer, the worse Hydrotherapy's effects, and the more likely something would go wrong with the patient.

To Healers, Broken Lake Prison was a gold mine—every day, prisoners beaten to the brink of death came in for treatment. The Healers could grind experience here to their hearts' content, and doctor-patient relations were extremely stable. Even if they treated a patient to death, there would be no trouble whatsoever!

A Healer like the one speaking with Ash would not even have had the chance to come here to grind experience if she had not had connections!

Well, damn. Deathmatch Club wasn't merely an Open Conspiracy to incite prisoners into competing against one another. It also turned prisoners into renewable resources, letting Healers use them as experience fodder. This Prison really knew how to do business. The Prison had won so hard it was numb.

Still, treatment was actually free and did not consume a death row inmate's Contribution Points. That alone showed the Prison still lacked vision; it was a little worse than Ash's company. His company had not only sold him sudden-death insurance, but had directly deducted from his salary the electricity costs consumed by his Malicious Overtime, crushing Ash's grand plan of getting rich through overtime, mining, and crypto trading.