Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

Sasha had been to brothels before. Not as a customer, and definitely not as a worker, but she’d met up with people who frequented such places often. It was a place police rarely raided, and they often liked giving warnings some days ahead, which made it the perfect area for various types of criminality other than the obvious. Buying and selling substances, illegal gambling, and getting favors were standard, but that was what you could get from those places. It didn’t describe how they looked.

Her usual way to describe the places was that they looked decrepit. They were hives of diseases, and most areas other than the gambling tables were never being cleaned because those who used those areas were usually too out of their minds to notice anything amiss. It disgusted her even back then, seeing people lying in filth while having the time of their lives. That only luck stopped her from joining them only made it worse.

In another life, I’d be either dead or down there with them still.

She wondered how many she knew from back then were still alive. Couldn’t be many, with what they’d been injecting to reach the highest of highs.

Regardless, this place… it was different.

“You like the decor?” the one called Mia asked her, as Sasha paused at a painting. It depicted what looked like some long-eared folk fooling around with properly drawn people. Weirdly detailed but clearly costly. Just like everything else in this place. “We have more like it down where you’ll be staying, though I think they’re from a different artist.”

Sasha wasn’t bothered by that, the painting itself was not worth much to her. It was the meaning it carried outside of that, the money required to have it hanging in a random hallway meaning they had money to spare. Everything else certainly implied as much, with the wooden floor clean and shining, while the pink-and-white wallpaper that remained consistent through most of the floor was without tears or any signs of aging. Everything was bright and alive, unnaturally so.

An effect of that magic that Jack wouldn’t shut up about if he saw it, or was this place just more luxurious than every other establishment like it she’d visited?

Maybe it was both.

The brightly colored lights did dim when they reached the staircase into the basement, the cold smell of stone seeming much more familiar to her. The massive area below was still clean and well-organized, but it didn’t match the glamorous fantasy above.

“Are we matching your mood a little more now?” Mia asked, laughing at her words while Sasha kept her silence. “Huh. You’re even less of a talker than Elijah. He at least comments on some of the stuff I say.”

“If you have questions worth answering, I’ll talk,” Sasha replied bluntly, noticing there were multiple rooms. The first one they stood in was mostly meant for storage, with dozens of long shelves containing just about everything you needed to run a business for pleasure. She barely gave it a second look, moving towards the door nearby. She could hear some thuds from inside, so, despite Mia’s warning when the worker noticed where she was going, she opened and took a look inside. “... Huh.”

Those slaps and moans really had been weirdly familiar to her strained ears. Despite not clearly advertising that they had it, another part of the old brothels was also there in this one.

A fighting ring.

Despite Mia trying to nudge her back into the other room, Sasha kept herself in place while watching on with deep interest as two men beat the absolute shit out of each other. It seemed closest to kickboxing, with cloth wrapped around their fists and just above the ankles. Not enough to truly absorb hits but enough to lessen the pain a little.

“We’re not really meant to interrupt while they’re training,” Mia whispered into her ear after giving up on pulling Sasha away. Good that she did, as somebody their size should’ve known not to try. “The Madame promises them a few hours without anybody going in here and distracting them.”

“If you don’t want to be distracting, then stop talking for once and observe,” Sasha replied with the usual bluntness. There might’ve been some anger from having to listen to them for the past twenty minutes, but she didn’t care enough to delve into that as one of the fighters managed to get a kick on the other’s side.

A perfect shot to the liver, though it didn’t seem instantly debilitating. A slight hunch and then the second man tried to counter it with a quick jab that was blocked.

Another kick and he’s down.

That was the magic of kicks to the liver. They were ticking time bombs waiting to go off at the slightest provocation. Sasha had felt both sides of the coin with that one, able to see it coming as the first man tried again and again to set up another opening for a kick. The other knew what he was trying to do, however, playing defensively in the hopes that would do anything.

There were rarely any magical moments coming when just allowing the hits to rain down on you. The second might’ve known that, might’ve been taught that lesson many times, but the fear of that one kick caused him to panic.

And when he finally pushed himself further, side-stepping a wide swing and going for a lead and rear hook, it was sloppy.

Because he had expected to miss, to scare the first man.

Yet they accepted the blow in favor of going through the kick already halfway. It was too late for either to avoid the blow, a fist getting the first man in the chin. A blow that would hurt by the looks of it, but nothing like what the second suffered.

The magic of liver hits was how easy the first one could be withstood, while the second more often than not threw a person to the ground instantly. It certainly did as much here, the second man crumbling into a ball while trying their best to breathe.

Was the trade worth it? Hard to say, the first man certainly standing straight, but the blood starting to run from their nose hinted that some tissues were needed.

Like the ones on the ground not far from Sasha’s feet. Seeing that the man was already wiping away drops with the padding on his hands, she thought it good etiquette to pick up the tissues and bring them over to the ring.

“... Thanks,” the man said, walking over and pulling out a few from the box. Sasha put down the box by the side of the ring, letting them have easy access to it later if needed. She knew how long nosebleeds could last when you had a high pulse. “Didn’t expect to see you standing around silent and proper, Mia. Cat finally cut your tongue off?”

There was a mild accent to the words that Sasha couldn’t place. It reminded her of the more southern provinces, with their foreign influences and movies that made them put pressure on the wrong words.

“No, I was just told to stick with the new girl, and she didn’t want to obey the rules about staying out while you trained,” Mia replied, putting a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “She’s a temp, before you ask. Just here for protection and nothing else.”

“I can tell,” the first man said, climbing over the ropes and jumping down onto the floor. With the bloodied bandages off, a hand was offered to her. She took it. “Nice to meet you, Sasha Petrova, Protector of Kids and Beater of Idiots. I’m Cas.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Don’t mind him,” Mia tried, somehow reading her body language before she could move. “He does this to everybody. Says your name before you can open your mouth, and then he goes above and beyond and puts some more words on it. Very annoying.”

Very.

Bothering to look at more than the man’s form, Sasha studied the fighter’s appearance. The right ear was permanently swollen from hits, the left eye was gray while the right was brown, buzz cut on top and a full beard at the bottom that had some gray streaks mixed in. Then there was the rest of the body, the chest and arms riddled with scars. Some were short in length while others traveled from one end of the chest to the other. A few on the side seemed to match those weird letters these people apparently wrote in.

All in all, what looked like a more muscular drug addict who took up fighting to pay for addiction. Not a rare story to see, though most others didn’t fight nearly as well as what she’d seen.

“You didn’t predict what he was going to do,” Sasha finally commented, narrowing her eyes further when Cas mouthed the words a second before she could say them. “You knew it beforehand.”

“Wait, you knew the trick already?” Mia complained. “Who told you? Elijah? Aleksi? Can’t have been one of the other girls since I made them keep quiet.”

“She didn’t know until ten seconds ago,” Cas corrected. “My new friend here is just quick on her feet.”

Hmm.

Eyeing the man again, Sasha had an idea.

Internally, she made a promise to herself. In five seconds, after staying still as a statue until the time ran out, she would swiftly get into the proper footing before throwing a wild shot toward the man’s stomach.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

Cas flinched, a hand going over his stomach as his eyes widened a little.

Too obvious.

“Oh, you catch on too quickly,” the man said, laughing as he took off the rest of his bandages and grabbed a bottle from under the ring. “Hey, Joel! Take an hour to get your body working right again. Relax your core, take a bite of something, and then get back here.”

The second man, who’d just barely gotten out of the ring on the other side after lying on it in a ball, threw a strained grunt back before hobbling away to another door. Likely out into a common room with more people, if the talking heard as the door opened was any indication.

“I’d invite you out there as well, to get some of the cakes they made this morning, if you didn’t have that look on you,” Cas commented, the man’s eyes studying her hands for a moment. “Mia, any rules on how she can spend her time here?”

“She—”

“Excellent!” he exclaimed, cutting her off before she could get past the first word. A groan of frustration left the woman beside her at that, but it looked to be a more common thing than she’d expected. “I’ll keep watch of her, teach her some basics, and you can go out and hang with the others. I know Toki was able to get a good batch this time.”

“And has he tested them yet or am I going to be waiting an hour?” she questioned in response.

“You can have them in five minutes,” Cas promised, Mia still not moving from her spot. “Tell him he looks blue and he’ll hand one over.”

The ridiculous comment was somehow enough for Sasha’s guide to leave her behind, moving to follow Joel over to the other room. She thought it strange how little needed to be said before Mia went away. Madame Cleo, as the others called her, had seemed rather adamant that she needed to be watched constantly.

She wasn’t meant to have heard it, but those were the orders regardless.

“Again, it is nice to meet you, Sasha,” Cas mentioned when the two were left alone in the room, only the echoes of their own steps along with their voices being heard. “I’ve been waiting to have a chance to talk to you.”

She pulled off her outer shirt when he pointed to a roll of bandages like the one he’d been using before. An invitation to show off.

“Creepy,” Sasha replied, taking the roll and wrapping her hands with it. The coarse feeling as it settled on her skin was nostalgic, the reused material not properly made. The cheap stuff, as some of her peers would call it. “Is that your ability?”

“To be creepy? No, that’s all-natural,” Cas promised, laughing at his own words as he rewrapped his hands as well. The nose bleeding seemed to have stopped, and even with the recent fight over he seemed more than ready to go into the ring once again. “Cleo will have my head if you fight in that outfit of yours. There’s a few spare sets your size in the corner there if you’d rather not get burn marks.”