"So you're sure this is something that developed later in life?" Teresa asked, back at The Mall. She was in a tent with George and Saylee, working on healing all of the people she could. Teresa had started out with multiple cancer patients, and now she was making her way through the tricky problems. Some of them were surprisingly easy. Hepatitis, chronic pancreatitis, and tinnitus were all pretty easy. Honestly, Teresa was more surprised someone else hadn't figured those out yet, maybe they just had to catch up in skill level.

Other conditions were unfortunately still out of her league. She didn't understand hypertension nearly enough to fix it, there were a lot of problems that could cause high blood pressure. Additionally, she had to explain to someone that while yes, she could cure cancer, she couldn't fix their scoliosis. There wasn't anything that could be considered "poisonous," by both Teresa and the patient's body in that scenario, their spine wasn't straight but it wasn't abnormal from their body's perspective. It was weird considering she could repair severed ribs, but she couldn't straighten someone's spine.

"Yeah, when I was a kid I could walk just fine." George responded. "My doctor said it was Multiple Sclerosis but I think he was full of shit, there's way too many inconsistencies for that to be the case. When I first started having problems they thought I was faking it and just wanted meds, it wasn't until I couldn't walk that he took me seriously. I don't trust that doctor one bit."

"Why would he even think that? Shouldn't he have at least checked you out or something?" Teresa asked. That was horrible, medical malpractice like that could have been what allowed his condition to worsen.

"Doctors can be assholes, it took forever for my endometriosis to get diagnosed for similar reasons." Saylee said. She was in charge of coordination, as Nikolas and his party were out hunting monsters. "I know that's not even close to being on the same scale, but it's not that uncommon for someone's medical issues to be dismissed."

"He was also the only one my family could afford." George explained. "If I wanted a different doctor, we'd have to travel and spend a lot more than what we had."

"Well, I'll give it a shot and see what I can do." Teresa said, activating <Healing Touch> and <Purify>. Restoration Mana flowed inside of George, and Teresa's general sense of her Mana immediately revealed several problems. There was a lump in his lower spine where the bone was drastically weaker and deformed. There was inflammation, a curve that rivaled the scoliosis patient, and even some sort of virus or bacteria that had spread to multiple organs. That… definitely wasn't good. "You're infected with something."

"'I'm what?" George asked, eyebrows raised.

"Like it's not just a condition, there's a virus or bacteria or something that I'm killing with <Purify>. I didn't even need to think about what would need to be <Purify>'d in the first place. It instantly recognized something as bad and it spread throughout your body." Teresa explained. "I'm kind of surprised no one else has used <Purify> on you yet."

"I'ts only been a week, and healers have a much harder time leveling up than anyone else." Saylee explained. "They can level up their class and skills somewhat, but a lot of them require use in combat. There aren't a lot of healers who can use <Purify>, and on top of that there aren't a lot of healers who can safely use it in a fight to level up. The healers that have been performing the best typically use buffs on their allies to gain experience, which leads them away from healing and more towards making others stronger."

"Huh, so we have a shortage of good healers, it sounds like." Teresa said.

"We have a few registered nurses, but no doctors. They've been performing extraordinarily well and they have a lot of experience being under pressure, but that doesn't make anything easy exactly." Saylee continued. "You are by far The Mall's best healer, and that's largely because of your ability to use your skills in combat. Most people either can't do that or are completely unwilling to, as leveling up healing skills almost always requires someone getting hurt in the first place during combat."

"I feel… better?" George said uncertainly. "I'm definitely not walking, but I feel like I just drank water and had some fruit after weeks of microwaved meals."

"I'm killing off the contaminants in your body, there's still a lot to go since I haven't encountered this before but once that's taken care of I can look at your spine." Teresa explained. "Even if I can help you, there's going to be a lot of curvature I can't fix, your spine is pretty deformed and there's a lot of inflammation. I can't promise you anything."

"Don't worry about it, from the sound of it I think it's tuberculosis." George said. "Inflammation of the spine, damaged bone structure, bacteria spreading to other organs, sounds like Pott's disease to me."

"Isn't tuberculosis super curable?" Teresa asked.

"Absolutely, especially if you diagnose it early. In other words, I absolutely should be able to walk, my doctor just sucked." George said with a smile. It was clear he was upset, but was trying to keep the mood light. "What would my doctor know about common illnesses anyways? He only went to school for it. I know most doctors are pretty solid, I just got terrible RNG or something, at least it didn't kill me. It was probably going to at this rate."

Soon there was no more bacteria for <Purify> to kill, leaving only a lumpy spine with years of atrophy. Teresa got to work reducing the inflammation, and once that was taken care of there was the hard part. <Healing Touch> began to work on the damaged spine, improving the weak bone density and repairing portions of George's vertebrate that felt eroded. It didn't take long as he was still low leveled compared to Teresa, but her Restoration Mana stopped doing anything as she reached the limit of what she could do.

"How are you feeling?" Teresa asked, nervous.

"A lot of chronic pain is gone, so I'm definitely not upset about that." George said, focused on his lower body. He pressed his hands against his legs, intent visible on his face. After a few moments, he smiled. "I think I just moved a toe."

"Oh?" Teresa asked. George laughed, breaking out into a grin.

"I'll take it, this is great! I don't think I'll be walking exactly, but give me a few months and some physical therapy then I might be able to take a few steps. It might be even sooner than that, if I can get a few more levels then maybe that'll help somehow. I'll put some points into Vitality or Agility or something, but at least it's possible now." George looked Teresa in the eyes with a wide smile. "Whatever you need, I got you. You're going south, right? I can come along, maybe I can be useful."

"Well…" Teresa hesitated. "No offense, but honestly I think you'd slow us down right now. Tell you what, you're the one figuring out how to manipulate monster migration patterns, right? You're needed here more than I need you, help out and get some levels, then maybe next time you can come along."

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"Next time then." George affirmed, nodding. He rolled his wheelchair out of the tent, looking back over his shoulder. "I'll catch up, just give it a bit."

Teresa continued on with her work, healing who she could. All around it was much faster and easier than healing the Albino Gorillas had been, and it provided a lot of experience for her skills. Within four hours she was done. Teresa's mind was spent after the recent events, but she needed to get going. She left the tent and looked around the settlement, searching for her party members. Jake and Thomas were pretty easy to spot, but it seemed everyone else must be in the forest. She made her way across The Mall at a walking pace, not wanting to cause a scene.

"Hey Jake, where is everyone?" Teresa asked, approaching her party member. He canceled his <Golden Anchor> before speaking.

"Thomas is still working on his <Mana Control>, Sarah and Mathew are practicing, and Preston should be on his way back now. There was a level 15 Portal that spawned right next to the settlement, so he went to take care of it real fast while everyone was busy. I woulda gone with but the goal was to take it out as quick as possible before it becomes a problem. Just relax for a few minutes and we'll all be good to go." Jake responded.

"Sweet, got it." Teresa said. She wouldn't mind a few minutes to herself, she had been on an unexpected healing grind when she had mentally been prepared for hours of uneventful travel. She walked along the edge of The Mall and laid down in the sun, letting herself relax again.

"Your trip didn't last very long." A voice said as someone approached. Teresa didn't need to even look to recognize who it was. Jonathan stood next to her, making sure not to block the sun. Damn it, couldn't she just get a moment to herself?

"We're actually heading out now, there was just a complication." Teresa replied. "Everything south is radioactive, and it's getting worse. Besides, I figured if I can help out in a big way then I should. We were still nearby, it'd be irresponsible not to turn around for a bit."

"Well, I'm glad you did turn around." Jonathan said. "You did a lot of good today."

"Thank you?" Teresa said, confused. She was waiting for the catch.

"If the south is radioactive, how are you going to get through?" Jonathan asked. "You have that kid with you, unless you want to be constantly healing everybody you'll need an actual plan."

"I'm going to try using my <Facilitated Restoration> to protect against it. Every form of Restoration Mana has its own purpose depending on the spell. <Healing Touch> accelerates healing and <Purify> destroys toxins and harmful substances. <Facilitated Restoration> is just a passive buff that provides some Restoration Mana, but it doesn't seem bound to any specific instruction. I can have it act as a weaker <Purify> while we travel, destroying the radiation passively. I just need to figure out how to make it last longer, preferably 8 hours so I can sleep." Teresa explained.

"I think I can actually help with that." Jonathan said, shocking Teresa even more. "When we were making the skill registry of everyone in the settlement, there was a guy who figured he could make his buff skills last longer by slowing the Mana down in the spell itself. He said it made his buffs weaker, but they lasted far longer."

"What do you mean he slowed the Mana down?" Teresa asked.

"Hell if I know, you're the wizard." He responded. Teresa cast <Facilitated Restoration> and tried slowing the Mana traveling to the spell down. It didn't seem different at all, if anything it was just weaker.

"I don't know, if slowing it down makes it last longer then when I was low level it would have had a much longer duration." Teresa said, trying to think about how it could work. When her Intelligence stat was lower, the Mana in her body flowed much slower similar to what she was trying right now.

"He just said to make the Mana in the spell slow, I don't know what else to tell you." Jonathan said. Shit, that was different from what Teresa was doing. She was slowing down the Mana going to the spell, but she hadn't considered the speed of the Mana within the spell. The green ball of fire was made of Restoration Mana, but if she focused on it she could still manipulate it. Was the Mana there what she was supposed to slow down?

"Okay, I think I kind of get it." Teresa said, toying with her magic. She was surprised that Jonathan of all people had been the one to help her with something.

"You know, that shit kind of pisses me off." Jonathan said.

"What?"

"Healing magic, or Restoration Magic or whatever." Jonathan continued. "All of this pisses me off, it's all bullshit. You get to mess around for a while and suddenly you fix multiple problems that have plagued humanity for all of history? Makes it feel like everything pre-System was for nothing."

"Would you rather there be no magic at all? This is great, so what if it solves a lot of problems that should be a positive not a negative." Teresa replied.

"I would rather there have been magic the whole time. We live in a universe where it didn't exist, we are so spectacularly shit that literal gods are trying to harvest us for a goal we don't even understand yet. I don't get how you aren't pissed." Jonathan explained.

"Yeah magic totally would have been cool, but there's no need to be bitter about it, that won't solve anything."

"Are you kidding? It would have been cool? It would have been world altering, and I'm supposed to just accept that magic is the norm in the multiverse and we got the short end of the stick? We're special enough to warrant unwelcome interest but not special enough to benefit from it. If we had magic before all this bullshit, we wouldn't be having half as many problems. Instead, we had to wait until the apocalypse before we got the proper tools to defend ourselves, and it came too damn late. I had a son not that long ago, and now I don't. Just a random fucking car crash, put him in a coma for a month until he was brain dead. Where the hell was Restoration Magic then?"

"Oh, I'm so sorr-"

"Fuck off, I've got some crybaby backstory and now you're gonna feel bad for me? Everybody here has lost someone, just from different circumstances. They lost people from the apocalypse, and I lost everything because the apocalypse didn't happen sooner. Now I'm supposed to just accept that literal magic could have saved my kid, but it was a few months too late? I don't see how more people aren't angry. People are dying, we've got a goddamn dog as President like it's all some kind of sick joke, aliens are invading, and no one is mad? Where's your fucking rage?"

"What good would it do?" Teresa replied. "Running around all pissed off calling everything stupid isn't going to solve anything. Being critical is fine, you don't have to like things the way they are. You don't like how I handled the dictator situation? Guess what! That's called a political opinion, emphasis on the opinion part. I don't know how governments are going to work with the System, I don't know how anything is going to go. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe dictators are the only real option when everyone has superpowers, but I did what I believed to be the best course of action. You want to be angry? Fine, be angry, but getting all pissy with it won't solve shit. You have the potential to be a good critic Jonathan, but when you're a dick about it then it doesn't matter how right you are. At the end of the day, you'll just be a dick. I'm sorry about your crybaby backstory, but you've got to get your shit together."

"I've got to get my shit together?" Jonathan asked. "You know what, fine. I'm okay with that, but you've got to as well. Like it or not, you're responsible for a lot of people, get used to it."

Jonathan turned and began to walk away, only pausing for a moment.

"Thanks for the constructive criticism." He said before continuing.

"Thanks for the magic tips." Teresa replied as they went their separate ways. She spotted Preston back in the settlement, and got up from the ground. It was time to head out, for real this time, and Teresa had some practice of her own to try.

What better way to improve her abilities than in combat?

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