DMS Chapter 125

“My mother is sick and needs healing. The cost of healing her was astronomical, so my mother kept telling me not to bother with her sickness and just let her be. I tried my best to persuade her, but she knew that if I paid the priest the healing cost, it would cost me my trading post,” The large merchant said.

Flinx wasn’t surprised at the priests' or clerics' greed in this city. According to the information broker he spoke to in that unnamed town, people who lived in dark cities were ruled by their desires. That meant that even the clergy, who were supposed to advocate for kindness and help those in need if the deities they served were the good ones, were extremely greedy and would only cast their spells if they received an enormous amount of payment from their patients. Besides, according to the information broker, most clergies in mildly dark cities like Evenor were neutral, leaning slightly towards evil.

“My name is Ruiz. What’s your name, and what are the symptoms of your mother’s sickness?” Flinx asked the large merchant.

He had chosen to use the name Ruiz. It was the name of a co-worker back on Earth.

“The priest who examined her told me that there was strange flesh growing inside my mother’s breasts. The flesh would kill her in three months. My name is Menard, and that’s these two kids are my nephews, Nuel and Peter,” The large merchant said.

Based on the description that the priest had said to Menard regarding his mother’s sickness, it sounded like it was breast cancer.

Flinx suddenly thought of an idea. He could try to heal Menard’s mother, and the payment that he would ask from the merchant was information about the Torbal Slavers. He would ask Menard to search the whole city for information about the wizard enslavers. He thought that having the merchant find the information for him would not only serve as a layer of protection but would also allow him to search for the information that he needed without bothering to do it himself.

Flinx wasn’t afraid for himself. He just didn’t want any news to spread that someone specific was searching for them. He thought that because of the attack by those religious nuts, the Torbal Slavers would be much more sensitive when it came to people trying to find them.

“I can use my spells to try and heal your mother. You don’t even have to pay me, but I would like for you to do something for me, regardless of whether I’m successful or not. Do we have a deal?”

“What do you want me to do?” The merchant asked nervously.

“It’s not something bad. I just want you to use your connection in this city to find a group called Torbal Slavers. I would accept any information.”

“I know about them. They were a group of wizards who liked to enslave creatures from other dimensions to mine mana stones for them. They were destroyed by the Paladins of the Church of Norbal.”

“They survived and resumed their business of using slaves to mine mana stones for them.”

“May I ask why you’re searching for them?” Menard asked, and Flinx replied that it was none of the merchant’s business.

Menard spoke with his nephews, then led Flinx to the back of the shop. Before they left, Flinx handed a copper coin to one of Menard’s nephews and asked the boy to give the coin to the street rat outside. After that, he followed the merchant.

“My house is at the back of my shop, and my mother’s there.”

“So a priest examined your mother but didn’t heal her?” Flinx asked while they were walking.

“The examination alone cost me 150 gold coins,” Menard replied.

Flinx shook his head at the amount of coins that the priest was asking from the merchant to heal his mother. Because of that, he had an inkling that more than likely, religious organizations in this world were rich.

He didn’t know if his Cleric spells could heal cancer. According to the quick search that he did on the internet, his second-level Cleric spell, Lesser Restoration, should be able to do the job. To make the spell more powerful, Flinx decided to slot the Lesser Restoration spell in his wizard's sixth-level spell slot.

The merchant’s house was fairly big. It was two stories tall and consisted of several rooms. Menard led him to the second floor and to the room where his mother was staying. When they entered the room, Flinx was a little surprised. The room was bright and clean. Menard’s mother, although she looked very sick, was obviously very well taken care of. There was a woman who was sitting beside Menard’s mother.

“This is Vera, my wife,” Menard introduced the woman who was sitting beside his mother.

The lady stood up and asked who Flinx was, and Menard told his wife that he was a cleric. Vera glared at Menard, but the merchant ignored his wife’s glare.

“Do you need us to leave?” Menard asked, and Flinx simply shook his head while examining the old woman.

Menard’s woman was extremely thin, and she looked like she was about to die. Even though the old woman looked clean, there was a rotting smell coming from her that lingered in the air. He wondered if that was the smell of cancer.

Flinx didn’t delay any longer and cast the second-level Cleric spell Lesser Restoration that was slotted in his Wizard sixth-level spell slot. After a few seconds, everyone could see that the old woman was restored to full health.

Everyone was hugely surprised at the effect of Flinx’s Cleric spell, even Flinx. The spell description did state that the Lesser Restoration spell could heal diseases, and cancer was a form of disease. Not only that, since Flinx used his Wizard sixth-level spell slot, the spell was greatly empowered. He also immediately cast several Prestidigitation spells to clean the old woman and all of her things, like her clothes and bed, thoroughly until the rotting smell was completely gone. Flinx did it because the smell bothered him greatly.

After a while, the old woman opened her eyes. She immediately sat up, but instead of rejoicing, she glared at her son.

“Menard! What did you do?! How much did you spend on the healing spell?!” Menard’s mother shouted at her son.

The fact that Menard’s mother was now lively enough to shout showed everyone that Flinx’s healing spell was extremely effective.

“Mother, Ruiz is not a priest from this city. He’s a traveling Cleric. I did not pay anything for his spell. I just need to find some information for him,” Menard tried to pacify his mother.

Flinx was surprised to see that the fact that Menard didn’t pay any coins for the spell that healed his mother calmed the old woman.

“Menard, go ahead and talk with your mother. Can your wife lead me somewhere where I can wait for you?”

Menard nodded and asked his wife to lead Flinx to the sitting room. Vera led him to a room with comfortable seats and waited for Menard there. In the meantime, Vera asked someone to serve him some drink and snacks. While they were waiting for the snacks to be served and for Menard to arrive, Vera told Flinx that the Trading Post used to be larger and that their family used to have more than one branch in the city. That was when the business was being handled by Menard’s mother. Apparently, Menard’s mother was an extremely strong merchant, but also never neglected her son; that was why Menard was extremely devoted to her.

Menard was even willing to sell the last Trading Post of the family and put himself into debt to heal his mother.