[リᔑᒲᒷ; !¡ꖎᔑᓵᒷ]

I awake to my sister jumping onto my bed.

“Come on sleepyhead, it’s time for breakfast!”

Still groggy, I respond, “Five more minutes.”

Evidently, she isn’t happy about that as she begins to pout. “I guess you don’t want an omelet, then? Mom’s only making them for people who are awake.”

That gets my attention. I get up, change out of my nightclothes, and head downstairs for my favorite food. I walk into the kitchen to see Mom standing over the stove with an assortment of ingredients out, ready to make us omelets the way we want them.

“Well, look who decided to finally wake up. リᔑᒲᒷ, what do you want in your omelet? ʖᔑ╎ℸ ̣got us all some milk, so they’ll be extra fluffy today.”

I’m not in the mood for anything special at the moment. “The usual, Mom. Plenty of greens and diced tomatoes, no meat. Light cheese and a bit of salt.” As much as I’d like a pinch of pepper with it, the import costs make it a luxury good out here, so I refrain.

Breakfast comes and goes without much fanfare. Mom has to go to work now, leaving me and ʖᔑ╎ℸ ̣to do our own thing. We play around with the other kids in the fields just outside town, enjoying the nice summer day.

“Tag, you’re it!” One of the other children calls out, having caught up to ʖᔑ╎ℸ ̣. Her small stature makes her an easy target, so we tend to go slower when chasing or running away from her to compensate. We all get so caught up in various games that none of us notice the approaching trio of slimes until it’s too late.

ʖ𝙹|| gets nailed in the back of the head by one, face-planting into the ground, instantly falling unconscious. This causes everyone else to flee in panic, leaving only me to rescue him from a beating. Slimes aren’t very dangerous in smaller sizes, but they can still leave you with a nasty burn should their insides come into contact with your skin. I learned this the hard way when I went to hit one of them only for my hand to sink into it. I proceeded to kick the thing away, but the damage was already done. Crying out in pain, I continued to kick the slimes away from ʖ𝙹|| for what felt like half an hour but in actuality was probably only around five minutes.

Eventually, the blobs took enough damage for their membranes to burst. Spraying directly into my face.While I managed to close my eyes in time, the rest of my face got covered in acidic gel. Writhing in pain while rolling around on the grass, I find myself losing consciousness.

I wake up in my bed some time later, seeing Mom, ʖᔑ╎ℸ , and a third figure standing in my room. My vision is slightly blurry, and both my face and hand sting horribly. Looking down at my injured hand, I see it wrapped in bandages. What happened to me? Mom then speaks to the newcomer.

“Will リᔑᒲᒷ be okay? Those burns looked pretty bad.”

“It was only a low-level slime. Even if I didn’t do anything she’d recover. All I did was apply a salve to soothe her burns, nothing more. Just change her bandages and apply more salve daily for the next three days and she should make a complete recovery.”

Now I remember. Those stupid slimes got me after I beat them, the cheaters.

“Thank you lady ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣ for helping my daughter. Now, about payment…”

“I was only passing by, and I feel it is my duty to help. The three slime cores will suffice. They’re useful catalysts for my experiments, so I can always use more of them. By my estimates, she should be waking up around now. Why don’t we take a look?”

Both Mom and the new lady, whose name is apparently ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣, walk up to my bed. I turn to them, head still on the pillow.

“Glad to see you’re awake, リᔑᒲᒷ. You were out for almost an entire day! Why did you think engaging slimes on your own was a good idea? If it weren’t for ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣ passing by, you and ʖ𝙹|| might have been seriously hurt! I know you wanted to protect him, but why couldn’t you have run to get an adult? They would have taken care of things without getting hurt.” Mom pauses, having realized she’d raised her voice at me. “Still, I appreciate you trying to help. Just don't be so reckless next time, okay? For now, just rest. I don’t want you hurting yourself any more than you already have. I’ll bring up breakfast when it’s ready.” And with that, Mom and ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣ leave the room, leaving me and ʖᔑ╎ℸ to talk.

I can see the tear marks on her face. “I’m so sorry for running away yesterday. I… I was so afraid of getting hurt myself that I left you. I don’t *sniff* want you to leave us. Seeing you like that, it… it scared me.” She’s tearing up again as she says this. I let her cry on my bed for a few minutes before she manages to calm down enough to leave. “I’ll be back later to read you a story, okay? Just hang tight.” She says, turning to face me as she walks out.

The next three days pass slowly. I’m not being allowed to leave the house until I’m healed, but it’s not all bad. I can tell Mom has taken time off to watch over me, and that ʖᔑ╎ℸ has been frequenting the town hall getting new stories to read to me while I recover. Easily the worst part comes when it’s time to change my bandages. The salve applied to my burns stings horribly, if only for a few minutes until the bandages settle down. Still, by the morning after my fourth treatment Mom removes the bandages to see I’ve made a full recovery.

She brings me to our mirror so I can see my face as well. There’s not even a bit of peeled skin left hanging, and my face looks just like it did before I got burned. I ask Mom where I can find ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣, since I want to thank her for the medicine she gave us. Upon hearing she’s probably walking around town, I head out to find her.

It’s mid-afternoon when I find her at the village market looking for produce. I politely wait until she’s finished shopping before approaching since I want to leave a good impression.

“∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣, right? Thank you for helping me a few days ago. The medicine you gave Mom made me heal so much faster, it’s incredible! Is there anything I can do to repay you for this?”

She smiles at me, evidently pleased. “The payment has already been taken care of, don’t worry about it. Besides, it’s my calling to help the sick and injured. I wouldn’t want to ruin somebody’s livelihood in the process, either. If you still want to help, how about bringing some of the food I just bought back to the inn? I ended up buying more than I intended to, anyway.”

On the way back, I ask her more about what she does for a living. Having never seen another part of the world, my curiosity gets the better of me. Looking back I would recall being quite obnoxious here, but ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣ didn’t seem annoyed in the slightest.

“As I hinted at before, I’m a traveling healer. I go from place to place helping the sick and injured recover. !¡ꖎᔑᓵᒷ is simply a stop on the way to my next big location.”

“The world is incredibly vast, even I’ve only seen a small part of it. But that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying my travels.”

“I’m not good at storytelling, you should ask someone else.”

“I plan to leave in a few more days, once I’ve finished helping out the people here. I’d feel bad knowing I just up and left people.”

“You’ve got a kind heart, リᔑᒲᒷ. Perhaps… no, forget about it.”

Before long, we arrive at ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣'ᓭ inn room, and I say my goodbyes for the day. On the way home, I think about our meeting and what it means for me. The world always felt so small to me, and now I’ve met somebody from far beyond the borders of it. And what she said about wanting to help people struck a chord with me. Perhaps I’ll follow in her footsteps when I grow up, becoming a healer myself.

Before long, the day for ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣'ᓭ departure arrives. I’m surprised to see that so many people came to see her off, but it makes sense. She helped all these people, and like me, they are thankful to her for it. As she mounts her horse, ∷ᒷ↸ ⍑ᒷ∷∷╎リ⊣ turns to us and smiles at a job well done. A few minutes later, I notice something on the ground near where she left. It’s a small pendant, which I decide to hold on to for her. After all, I have a feeling I’ll see her again someday, even if I don’t know when that will be.