The dim, incense-heavy air of the Nairn town church was a stark contrast to the crisp, rain-washed morning outside. Sister Theresa had hurriedly ushered Rebecca and the slouched, groaning form of Lencar past the main wooden pews and into a secluded back rectory reserved for tending to the sick and injured.
The room was modest, smelling strongly of dried lavender and old parchment. A simple, sturdy cot sat against the far wall beneath a narrow stained-glass window.
"Brother Aris!" Sister Theresa called out softly as she guided Lencar toward the cot. "We need your eyes here. Quickly, please."
From a small adjoining study, a middle-aged man emerged. He wore the simple, unadorned robes of the clergy, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows to reveal forearms covered in faint, pale scars. Brother Aris was the resident healing mage of the parish. He wasn't a powerful combat medic by any stretch of the imagination, but his gentle Plant Magic was highly effective at diagnosing ailments and soothing fevers, making him an invaluable pillar of the local community.
Brother Aris took one look at Lencar's pale, sweat-drenched face and immediately gestured to the cot. "Lay him down. Gently, now. Keep his head elevated."
Lencar allowed himself to be maneuvered onto the narrow bed, letting out a harsh, rattling cough that shook his broad shoulders. He sank into the thin mattress, his eyes half-closed, playing the role of the incapacitated patient to absolute perfection.
"Aris-san, please," Rebecca urged, her voice tight with a profound, unhidden anxiety. She stood wringing her hands near the foot of the bed. "He was perfectly fine a few days ago, but he was out traveling on the road. He came back yesterday, worked a full shift at the tavern, and woke up this morning looking like a ghost. He can barely breathe."
"Hush, Rebecca. Let me work," Brother Aris said, his tone gentle but carrying the firm authority of a healer in his element. He stepped up to the side of the cot and opened his grimoire, a thin, worn book bound in green leather.
Lencar remained perfectly still, but beneath the facade of his half-lidded eyes, his mind was racing with razor-sharp clarity. This was the true test of his alibi. Fooling a tavern owner and a waitress was one thing; deceiving a trained medical mage actively probing his body with mana was an entirely different challenge.
"Plant Magic: Diagnostic Ivy," Brother Aris murmured.
From the open pages of the grimoire, several thin, pale green vines sprouted. They moved with a slow, deliberate grace, hovering over Lencar's chest before gently touching down on his collarbone, his ribs, and his throat. The vines didn't break the skin; instead, they pulsed with a soft, warm light, sending microscopic tendrils of sensory mana directly through Lencar's flesh to read his internal physiology.
Lencar felt the foreign mana brushing against his own. It was a delicate, searching presence, looking for inflammation, infection, and erratic heart rates.
If Lencar did nothing, the vines would immediately register the terrifying truth: underneath the superficial layer of pale skin, his physical vessel was in absolutely flawless, peak condition. His heart was beating with the slow, powerful rhythm of a resting predator, and his lungs were entirely clear.
He had to fabricate an illness from the inside out.
Drawing upon the vast, eclectic reservoir of knowledge he possessed, Lencar focused his intent. In his past life, he had been a man of science and data. He understood the biological mechanics of a severe respiratory infection—how the bronchial tubes inflamed, how the body spiked a fever to burn out a virus, how the white blood cell counts reacted. He combined this modern anatomical knowledge with the countless magical tomes he had digested in this world to translate biological symptoms into magical feedback.
Lencar tapped into the Illusion Magic he had harvested from the bounty hunter Madame Vex. But instead of projecting an illusion outward into the room for Rebecca and the healer to see, he projected it inward, wrapping the illusion tightly around his own internal organs.
When Brother Aris's diagnostic vines probed his lungs, Lencar carefully fed them a fabricated, highly detailed sensory illusion. He made the vines "feel" severe swelling in his respiratory tract. He simulated the dense, heavy presence of fluid buildup in his chest. He manipulated his own localized blood flow, raising the temperature around his throat and forehead just enough to register as a dangerous, burning fever to the probing magic.
It was a masterful, microscopic manipulation of reality. He wasn't just acting sick; he was forcing the healer's magic to read a completely false set of biological data.
For several tense minutes, the only sound in the rectory was the heavy, labored breathing Lencar was purposefully acting out. Brother Aris stood over him, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, his eyes closed as he interpreted the feedback from his glowing vines.
Finally, the green light faded. The vines retreated, withering away into nothingness as Brother Aris closed his grimoire with a soft thud.
Rebecca immediately took a step forward, her hands clasped tightly together. "Well? Aris-san, what is it? Is it the plague? Is it something he caught from the wild beasts?"
Brother Aris let out a long, slow breath, wiping a bead of sweat from his own forehead. He offered Rebecca a reassuring, sympathetic smile.
"It is not a plague, Rebecca, so you can ease your heart on that front," the healer said, turning to look down at Lencar with a mixture of pity and mild reprimand. "It seems you, young man, were traveling a week or two ago and caught a rather severe cold out there in the damp elements."
Lencar let out a weak, muffled groan of acknowledgment from beneath his linen mask.
"This cold could have been easily fixed if you had just rested in a warm bed for a day or two when the symptoms first appeared," Brother Aris continued, shaking his head disapprovingly. "But I know how you young, stubborn men are. Instead of resting, you started working immediately. You threw yourself into a hot, stressful tavern kitchen, and as a result, your body simply wasn't able to resist the cold. It has settled deeply into your chest, creating a severe inflammation of the lungs and a high fever."
Rebecca let out a heavy sigh, shooting a glare at Lencar that was equal parts relieved and fiercely annoyed. "I told him! I told him he shouldn't have gone to work yesterday! He is the most stubborn person I have ever met."
"It is a common flaw among the hardworking," Brother Aris chuckled softly, moving over to a small wooden desk to write something down on a scrap of parchment.
"Aris-san," Rebecca asked, stepping closer to the desk, her tone shifting from annoyance back to concern. She knew the healer well; she had come to this very room multiple times in the past when the winter chills had gotten the better of her or her younger siblings. "Now what could be done for him to get better? Does he need a specific potion?"
The mage looked up at Rebecca, the warm, comforting smile returning to his face. "Do not worry, Rebecca. His condition sounds dreadful, and it certainly feels dreadful to him, but it is entirely manageable. He just needs to take these specific medicines from the grumpy woman down by the market square, and he must stay at home, locked away from others for a day or two to get well."