I ready my automatic healing, so that if I’m struck unexpectedly, I will be able to instantly start healing. Stopping in place, I turn to look at the woman.

“Actually, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you, young lady. Additionally, it looks like something has come up and I have to be somewhere else at this point.”

Turning on my heel, I spin in the other direction.

Briskly walking away, I leave the young lady in shock. A quick scan around reveals the woman not leaving that spot, confused and dismayed.

She begins walking towards me, but seems to lose confidence, biting her lip in frustration.

A twinge gets at me, but I stay fast to my decision.

I can’t risk this.

Especially, since it didn’t seem like a lethal STD. Just extremely disabling. Which in a less organized group, could lead to starvation, but I don’t get that feeling from this gang.

I continue walking down the alleyway, now extending the scan back to the group of women.

They haven’t moved either.

While maintaining that, I extend the scan a distance in front of me.

Oh no.

There is another group, now positioned on the other side of the alleyway.

A quick distance pulse shows that there are others closing in on the sides.

There’s no way to break out of this blockade, without revealing my abilities, or being even more suspicious than I already am. Shit.

Okay, I’m going to have all the surrounding insects come underground below me and stay right here. That way, if things get bad enough… maybe I can either pull off a mini-Gong or escape underground. Push comes to shove; I tame any big creatures that come after me underground.

Actually… why haven’t I done that yet? Question for another time, though.

With that thought, I position myself in the center of the alleyway junction. Looking left to right, as if I’m lost.

In actuality, I use this time to bring even more insects and other creatures under my control a small distance beneath me.

A directional pulse reveals the blonde young lady having an intense discussion, with one woman in the original ambush group. After their discussion ends, they all begin heading over here. I’m now completely surrounded, with only a quarter of the women hidden in the nearby area showing themselves.

I turn behind me to face the approaching group. As they approach, I fix my eyes on the blonde young woman. She seems somewhat embarrassed and at the prodding of the woman next to her, she walks forward.

“I’m sorry for stopping you and the pushiness, Senior. My friends are really sick, and even if you aren’t able to help, could you take a look at them?

“Here. Some of my friends are here, so you can see that this wasn’t a trap or anything.”

She waves back at a woman in the back and three women on carriers resembling stretchers are brought out. Laying them on the ground in front of me. I take the time to use my intuitive scan to get a general idea of what’s going on.

My eyes catch indicators: the fact that one of the woman’s fingers is caught underneath the bar of the stretcher she is on, but shows no discomfort or reaction to this obviously painful position; that both women seem to have difficulty breathing; or even the slight rash that can be seen on the underside of one of the women.

This leads me to a conclusion.

They look bad. Like, really bad.

It looks like they are completely paralyzed, probably quadriplegia, which includes a whole suite of symptoms… It’s clear that they have someone taking care of them at every step. It does look like they are able to eat, but not much else. Even though they look well taken care of, it is clear the quality of life for a disabled person is much different than a person from my world, in a modern country, would have.

I made a lot of assumptions on how well they could treat something like this.

However, a quick look at the aforementioned women, reveals an intense look in their eyes. A will to live and move past this. One that I suspect was there, even before they had heard about a potential treatment.

Sigh… Since I’m already in this situation, let me make sure I get this right. After all, it’s not like I have much of a choice at this point, without escalating.

“Do you mind if I touch them, to determine more about their condition?”

The young lady looks back at the woman, who nods. “Yes, you can go ahead.”

As I poke and prod to verify what I had previously seen, what I find is that it is the same STD illness that was affecting the blonde young lady, just in the later stages of the illness. My low-tier scan helps me with seeing the patterns and connections, to reach this conclusion.

With this in mind, I go through a quick mental checklist on the different symptoms and reviewing what I know about the treatment for this and whether it still holds. Popping up in my head are adjustments to make to the treatment, to compensate for the advanced stage of this illness.

I look up at the blonde woman.

“Okay. I’ll need a few ingredients, in order to heal them. Can you provide some?”

She pauses, “Weren’t you able to heal me without…”

“No, that was simply a misunderstanding on your part. However, I will be able to help these women here using my alchemy skills.” There are a few shifts and murmurs from the ladies around.

With a quick look back at her boss (I assume), who gives a nod of affirmation, she takes down the list of items, as I dictate them to her. They seem to emerge from my mind, like water from a ground spring.

As she writes them down, a spider approaches.

I look down at it.

Big anxiety vibes coming from it.

I send back positive, good vibes through the connection.

All is good. I’ll let you know if I need help.

After some time, the woman comes back with the items, including a mortar and pestle I had requested.

Another woman, average looking with brown hair, brings a mat that I could sit on, which I didn’t request, but appreciate.

The boss lady gives a squinted look to the woman that brought the mat, but doesn’t say anything.

It’s the little things.

“Thank you, I appreciate the kindness.”

The woman nervously nods, glances at one of the women, and heads back into the alleyway.

They brought plenty of the ingredients and additional tools for alchemy. Of them, is the mortar and pestles, as well beakers, tubes, and a cauldron with some kind of heat source below it.

With these, I was able to get right to work. I used my ‘instinctive’ low-tier scanning to help figure out the best way to work the ingredients.

As I continue, my movements start to become more and more proficient and I begin mixing in different ways, allowing for different parts of the concoction to react differently.

The ingredients are simple, but if mixed incorrectly can have the opposite effects. I’m not totally sure how it works, but it appears to be because there are slight elements of qi in each of them that need to be balanced and react in certain ways. That’s not even considering the chemical reactions between them and their other properties.

Without knowing the specific ways and pressure to mix them, it could be only slightly beneficial, at best, or kill them painfully at worst.

I can hear a gasp during this process, which causes me to look up at one of the woman in the original ambush group.

She appears to be unassuming and average, but a brief glance at her hands shows that she has worked with chemicals and ingredients regularly.

She must be an actual alchemist. Or at least have knowledge of its techniques.

Looking back down at my work, I continue to synthesize small elixirs of sorts. This takes a good 20 minutes of work. After I finish distilling the last solution and pouring it into a bottle, I look up at the young woman.

“Am I okay to give these to the women and give them acupressure treatment?”

This time, instead of looking at her boss, she looks at the woman who gasped earlier. The woman steps forward and reaches out her hand to me. “Do you mind if I test it?”

I nod my head and hand them to her.

“Feel free to use a bit for your testing. I made a bit more than was necessary, in case there was any spillage. She gives me a strange look, but takes the bottles. I wonder how she’ll be able to tell, especially without using it on someone.

She actually pulls out what appears to be a talisman with black swirling ink upon it, the first I’ve seen in this world. At first glance, it appears to be a paper with normal words on it. However, as I look closer, the words turn into pictures that are seemingly swirling within themselves.

I can tell from this and my intuition, that this talisman is meant to determine the efficacy and purpose of an elixir. The result still needs to be interpreted by a skilled alchemist, though.

With a slight bit of apparent concentration, the talisman lights up and she pours a single drop onto it.

The drop shines a bit and the whole talisman shines a bright, throbbing, bluish green. She freezes in place, almost in shock. After a while, her head nods slowly, like in a trance. Okay, I have no idea what’s going on, but I assume that’s a good thing.

After a tense moment from everyone, she slowly puts talisman down and bows her head to the ground.

“Senior, I am sorry for doubting you. Please… please heal these ladies with this elixir and whatever else you may need to do.” Many women in the group suck in a breath of cold air, now looking strangely at me.

Even the boss seems to have a different look at me, at these words.

Well. I’m still unfamiliar with the nuance of the term, ‘Senior,’ for this culture, but it seems like this is quite significant.

I’m going to try to not think about what is going on too much. Let me just heal these ladies and get out of here safely.

If I can.