Lucimia’s words hit like cold water, clearing the fog and forcing Anjelo to take a hard second look at the girl before him.

On the black‑haired girl’s neat face, no smile lines, no tease; her eyes were night water, still and deep.

Yet her features were tender, a spring bud barely opened; someone that young mastering Healing Magic? Was that real, or a painted lantern?

Of course not; that claim was paper pasted over a window.

Lucimia couldn’t weave true Healing Magic; her words were smoke by design, so why set that incense burning?

Remember this: Lucimia once devoured Elyssus’s [Disguise] Authority Power, swallowing its spark like a star falling into a well.

She wore its scent like a borrowed cloak to whisper with its followers.

Exactly so: she used the [Disguise] Authority Power to dress a Devouring Fuzzy Orb—or her shadow—so it gleamed like Healing Magic.

She had seen Bazeroth shape Healing Magic before; with a model in her eyes, forging the mask was as easy as tracing frost.

She couldn’t care less about Anjelo or Desty’s creeds; like an arrow to a mark, she only wanted Dori healed.

Unless Anjelo refused Healing Magic itself, but she had a wedge ready to split that knot.

It’s just curing an illness, right? Still, what a briar patch.

Brow knotted, Anjelo thought a spell, then drew a cage from under the table like a fish from a dark stream.

A cloth veiled it, a pale cloud; nothing inside could be seen.

He tugged the cloth free; the veil fell, and the cage’s truth lay bare like stone in sunlight.

Lucimia peered in: a gray rabbit, ash‑colored and still, breath like thread, life guttering like a candle.

She saw a knife line across its belly, a red mouth leaking life like rain from a torn gutter.

Anjelo pointed at the fading bundle. If you heal it, I’ll believe you can work Healing Magic; stone‑plain terms on the table.

“Alright,” Lucimia said, nodding once like a falling leaf.

Calm as a still pond, she stepped to the cage and lifted her hand.

Disguise and Devouring braided together; black shadow turned to spring‑green light that poured like rain.

It washed over the rabbit; in moments the wound knit shut like grass closing after wind.

“How is it?” Her voice was light, like tapping a bell.

Anjelo checked the rabbit, fingertip to fur; he found no seam, no flaw, only smooth meadow after storm.

“Impressive,” he said, nodding with a craftsman’s respect, like bowing to a well‑forged blade.

Truly, people aren’t their covers; jade sometimes hides in mud.

“Since that’s so, I can use Healing Magic to treat Dori’s illness, right?” Her words hung like a simple bridge.

She’d thought he’d agree at once, but he sat like a rooted pine, lost in wind, and gave no answer.

Irritation pricked like sand. What now? Still no? Don’t tell me even Healing Magic is off‑limits—did his head get fogged?

His index finger drummed the table like rain on eaves, and silence stretched; impatience flared, and Lucimia said, “You’re debating Healing Magic for Dori, aren’t you?”

He looked up, met her gaze, mouth parting like a door, but she raised a hand and stilled him.

“Listen first,” she said, voice steady as a plumb line.

She cleared her throat; the card she’d palmed was ready to turn like a leaf in wind.

“You push medicine because you refuse to let humans lean on a Dark Deity’s crutch. And Healing Magic’s monopolized, bottled like spring water, never shared. Right?”

He listened with temple‑quiet patience and nodded once.

“Then tell me this: the precondition to spread medicine to every hearth in this world—what is it?”

He searched his mind like a lantern through a storeroom, found nothing, and shook his head.

Lucimia tilted her chin. “The answer is a world where no Dark Deity exists at all, a sky with no thunderheads.”

“If you want medicine to grow like in my original world, soil needs that clearing.”

His eyes opened a shade wider; comprehension broke like dawn over roofs.

“Oh? Looks like you see it,” Lucimia said, smiling like a sliver of moon.

“Your medicine thrives only in a world without Dark Deities.”

“In a nation under divine shelter—plague answered by Purification—the people won’t need you; that aid is swifter than any clinic.”

“In a nation without shelter, with countless Dark Deities prowling outside, your medicine won’t touch their pollution.”

Put plain, Dark Deities are real here, with concept‑level, law‑twisting force, like names carved into stone.

Build medicine like my old world, and it slides off them like rain off oiled silk.

Unless you forge a special medicine with a touch of the unreal, a draught brewed with star‑stuff.

“Or—technology?” she allowed, a pebble tossed into the pond.

“But there’s no foothold yet. Humans can’t independently face Dark Deities and Evil Entities; almost all strength is borrowed from the Purification Deity.”

“If humans gain a way to stand on their own, you could craft special medicine to cleanse Dark Deity pollution, and hammer out special tech to face them.”

Anjelo was sharp; a few of her lines and his thoughts linked like constellations across a night sky.

Even so, one knot stayed. “So, what are you driving at? Why tell me this?”

“I’m saying you should agree to let me use Healing Magic on Dori.”

Before he could press, Lucimia let the words flow like a clear stream.

“If Dori’s sickness is a plain virus, your growing medicine can cure him.”

“If a Dark Deity’s hand is on him, your medicine—no matter how refined—won’t bite; only a Dark Deity’s power counters a Dark Deity.”

“My Healing Magic will tell you cleanly which river you’re in.”

“If I heal him, it’s the first; you can chase medicine with a steady heart, your path clear as a trail after rain.”

“If I fail, the illness carries Dark Deity pollution; no ordinary craft will cure it.”

“Then you pivot: seek a human way to resist Dark Deities on our own two feet.”

“Find that way, and your creation will tilt the world’s axis.”

“Not just medicine will surge; armies will rewrite their drills; new disciplines will bud—mm, mysticism?”

Lucimia’s analysis drew Anjelo like a lantern in river fog; shock rippled across his face.

He could barely imagine such words coming from a girl barely half his height, a sparrow speaking thunder.

He studied her again, guessing a noble house with tutors tight as drumskin.

In truth, Lucimia’s “tutoring” had been mostly play, a kite on the wind.

“Makes sense, makes so much sense,” Anjelo said, nodding like a woodpecker, fists sometimes knocking, then fingers interlacing, excitement sparking like flint.

Desty, off to the side, understood none of it; she stood there a walking question mark, then faked a sage nod. “Although some parts escape me, it sounds amazing. Mm!”

Lucimia shot her a sidelong glare, sharp as a paper cut.