Chapter 96: Chapter 90 – Helping the Victims

"For now, how about we get everyone cleaned up?"

As the murmuring started to calm down, I threw out that proposal.

Looking around, there were three things that were desperately in need. Clothes, or at least something to cover everyone's bodies, something warm and comforting to eat, and hygiene.

Of those three, hygiene. had to go at the top. It would effect the other two if it wasn't dealt with first.

"First of all..."

With some waves of my hands, I stretched out my aura and raised some low walls nearby. Four walls all at knee height connected at the ends to create a rectangular basin. Several of these were made and I filled each halfway with hot water.

Finally as a finishing touch, I placed a few bars of soap onto the ledges for use. I still had a bunch from back when we made them last time back home, but that was only presuming it was for Alicia and my own use. I could only hope that there was enough left for everyone here.

"Please wash your bodies in these bathtubs. You can use the soap provided as well."

There was a look of surprise when I created the giant stone tubs, but the mention of soap had somehow gotten an even bigger reaction.

"Soap?!"

"Really?!"

"But isn't that...?"

"As long as you share, you can use it as much as you want. Spread the word and make sure that everyone gets a chance to wash up. I'll go around and make more tubs and clean the room up."

Making my way through the room, I surveyed all the people I could find and matched them with the presences I could feel. All the while I scrubbed the walls and floor with magical water and made more tubs filled with hot water and left some soap along with them.

It was strange to be so thankful about making soap in batches when I just did that for convenience's sake. You never knew where something would come in handy.

"Hey, are you alright?"

As I moved away from the more lively women, I happened upon someone who was simply lying on her side. She looked to be older than most, but probably wasn't even in her forties yet. Despite that, she looked extremely haggard and emaciated. Aside from a moderate bulge in her belly, she was entirely skin and bones.

There wasn't any light in her eyes and she barely responded to me approaching her. All I got was a slight turn of her head and a little twitch in her triangular ears on top. Her slender, patchy tail didn't move in the slightest.

"Here, let me help you."

Not minding the filth that had encrusted on her skin over who knows how long she had lain in that position, I lifted her up into my arms and slowly lowered her into the closest bath tub. I lapped the hot water onto her body and gently rubbed her body and hair to remove the worst of the filth before lathering my hands up and going over her body one more time.

By the time i was finished, despite how large the tub was, the water had turned a bit murky.

It was probably a good idea to let her rest in the tub to stay warm rather than put her back onto the cold floor, so I opened a simple hole lined with stone beside the tub and transferred the water along with the gunk down into it. All the water that went in was immediately evaporated using one of my favourite spells to make room for the rest. Once that was all done, I plugged the hole then refilled the bath tub with magically produced fresh hot water.

I checked the woman's position one last time to make sure that she wasn't likely to suddenly roll over, submerge herself, and drown, I got up and turned to a woman that was experimenting with the soap I had left at another tub.

"Sorry, but could tell everyone to help those who can't help themselves?"

"Ah, yes my lady!"

"I'm not a lady, you don't have to call me that."

"Oh, umm, yes ma'am."

It felt weird being called a ma'am, but it wasn't wrong so I just let it be. A lady though, considering that nobility was a thing here, could get me into trouble, so I was going to refrain from that at least.

As the other people grew more active and enjoyed their first chance at getting clean in probably weeks, I finished up cleaning the room up.

I helped a few more mostly unresponsive people, but thankfully the others handled the rest, washing the unresponsives in small groups and giving them company.

Walking around the room really showed how dreary things were. All the surfaces were entirely plain aside from the tiny windows on one side. There wasn't really any other notable features at all. Aside from a single well in the middle of the room. But because it was pretty much just a simple pit with a roped bucket, I didn't even notice the thing when I first came in.

As I went around, I increased the size of the windows to allow more light in and blew some wind around to cycle the stale air with fresh forest air, then dumped the dirty water and went around once more to replace the bath water as well.

It wasn't a lot, but these little things made everything feel a lot better, and the people's mood increased quite a bit.

I also confirmed that all the presences I could detect were inside of this giant room. Thankfully none of them decided to take up my earlier offer and left on their own.

But still. A single room locking up almost two hundred women along with a few babies. I couldn't really understand what they had gone through.

Once I finished my rounds, I stripped and joined the others in the bath. I was still feeling dirty with some of that grimy ash from that bastard still on my skin.

"So most of you are from that village that was attacked, right?"

As I washed my body, I tried out a bit of conversation. Hopefully it would help them get to trust me and I could figure out what really was going on.

"Most of us are."

Several of the women I was sharing the tub with nodded with the first's words.

"I'm not. I was an adventurer escorting a merchant. But after we were attacked by a bunch of people in black robes, I was separated from everyone."

"...I see..."

"Did you find anyone else? I haven't seen the rest of my party in five months! If any of them are still alive..."

"My husband! Did you see a tall man with short brown hair and a thin beard?"

"Or my brother?"

"My parents? I haven't seen them since I was put here!"

"I'm sorry! This is the first room I found anyone in on this floor."

"Then maybe on another..."

"I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. I haven't searched everywhere yet, but at the same time..."

"I understand. There's a good chance that the vampire ate the others. He only seemed to want to keep the women."

The former adventurer grimaced as she put a hand over her belly. I didn't notice it earlier, but there was a definite bump there, even if it was still small. The others as well looked down and a few quietly wept.

I wanted to make them feel better, but considering the fact that I didn't feel any presences here, anything I said to bring their hopes up would likely backfire later on. That was especially true if they realized that I lied to them.

"Hey, is anyone hungry?"

Desperate to change the atmosphere, I raised the only thing I could think of.

"Huh? Oh, yea."

"I am too."

"Yea, me too."

It sounded like everyone was hungry.

Considering how things were, that wasn't a surprise at all.

"Alright, gimme a sec and I'll fix up something for everyone."

Rising out of the bath, I dried myself and put my clothes back on. I didn't bother with my robes in case that putting it on would make me feel more distant from them. I did have some spare clothes and some scrap cloth, but it wasn't nearly enough for everyone, no matter how I tried to divide them up or modify them.

I moved over to a wide open space. There were over a hundred people here needing something to eat, so I was going to have my work cut out for me.

Food that was easy to make for large people generally came down to two things: soups and stir fry.

Both were the sort that scaled well for large groups, and while it was possible to make ones that go well together, in a place like this it was better to only go for one, as there wasn't any amenities to make it easy to eat that sort of dish.

And while both were about equally easy to make as well as delicious, if I had to say, only one provided a nice little bonus that would be much appreciated in this situation.

And so, soup it is.

More than just a hearty meal, but should also warm them up from the inside. Much more than what stir fry could do at least.

As this was cooking on a scale I haven't even attempted before, I had to get even my equipment ready from scratch.

But as always, that was simply a bit of creative use of magic.

With a simple wave of my hands, a giant low stand made of stone rose up from the ground along with a massive pot half as tall as me and twice as wide. Beside it went a pan just as wide.

Placing a magical flame under each, I went through my magic bag and came up with a recipe. I had quite a lot of different things from stockpiling in the last two cities so my options were quite wide for once. Especially since I had a good amount of the more difficult things to acquire back home like oil, flour, butter, and cheese.

Since I had these, I was damn well going to use them.

I put in a large block of butter went into the pot and a small amount of water into the pan, just enough to have an even layer.

From there, I took the whole charge boar carcass and quickly removed its hide and cut strips of meat off of it using my claws, which were further diced into bite-sized pieces. Since hiding my vampire features wasn't an issue here, I was going to take full advantage of my biology.

I evaporated all the water from some onions and garlic and crushed them between the palms of my hands into a fine powder, then added some crushed mustard and salt to the mix. All that was put into the pan with water and stirred until it became an even consistency and I added a generous portion of honey and let it simmer for a bit.

On the other side, I added flour to the melted butter in the pot little by little until I had a nice, thick sauce. Milk was added little by little as the two liquids mixed together evenly.

Next I took the stack of charge boar meat bigger than myself and added it to the pan of sweet and savoury sauce, mixing it thoroughly with a giant stone spoon I made to let the sauce penetrate as much of the meat as possible then let simmer at as low of a heat as I could manage.

Back to my bunny shaped bag, I took out sack after sack of potatoes and a small pile of onions. All of the potatoes were cleaned quickly with some well water then they were diced into large chunks. I was careful to remove any green or otherwise bad looking bits. The onions were diced into small pieces as well.

Once the thickened milk in the pot came to a nice simmer, I added the potatoes and onions to it. The sheer amount meant that doing it by hand would cause uneven cooking, so I simply levitated it all and slowly lowered it into the pot.

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As I let that simmer for a while, I went and checked the charge boar meat here and there. When I was satisfied, I levitated the meat out of it and while spreading it out in the air, I applied a little bit of flames to them to char the outside nicely. When I was satisfied with the results, I mixed in another heaping of honey to the remaining sauce before lowering the meat to the pan and liberally applied the even sweeter sauce to the outside.

With how little of the sauce was left, it couldn't really be called dipping, but rather glazing at this juncture, but that was kinda the point.

Stirring occasionally with another giant stone spoon, I added some salt, pepper, and a pair of giant cheese blocks once I diced them into thin slices with my claws. The soup had thickened quite well and had a very nice scent to it.

[Mmm...I wish you made this for me before Scarlet. It smells really nice.]

[Yea, it does. I wish I had it before I became a vampire as well.]

That wasn't to say it wasn't similar to things I've had before, but due to a lack of ingredients, I was forced to make do with what I had. But the results smelled very good.

"Sorry, but I need some volunteers to help serve the food!"

I turned to call out to everyone within earshot, but to my surprise, everyone was keenly watching me the entire time.

Or rather, that shouldn't have really been a surprise considering the lack of things to do. And due to how good the food I was making smelled, but I didn't want to stroke my own ego too much.

At my words though, there was a big rush of bodies making their way towards me.

Even though I called out for servers, the resulting crowd looked more like people trying to get free stuff at a giveaway or something.

"Wait, wait! There's enough for everybody! Can some of you also help bring servings to those who have trouble making their own way to get a serving?"

"Yes yes! I'll do it!"

"I will! Just let me have some too!"

"I'll help! But can I get some at the same time as well?"

Simply speaking, I gave up. The look of hunger in their eyes were too much and my words obviously weren't getting through properly. It made me wonder if it was because they were fed that little or if they were simply starving for something decent to eat.

Generating a stack of large bowls as well as a bunch of spoons from the stone below, I also made a stone ladle and filled the bowls with the potato soup and added some of the sweet charred meat on top.

It was supposed to be baked potato soup, but frankly I didn't have bacon nor sour cream. I hoped that faux char siu with extra cheese and butter would do just as good of a job. I've always been a fan of loaded baked potatoes when I felt like I could afford to splurge on things like bacon and sour cream, but having the soup variant wasn't something I've done before.

I handed the bowls over as fast as I could as a horde of naked women with glisteningly slick skin crowded in front of me.

If I still had my junior, this would've most likely been a very happy sight for me, but as things stood right now, my mind was more occupied by the fact that some of them might get hurt if I didn't serve this food fast enough.

Or maybe I've just always been this way and my new body had nothing to do with it. My sexual orientation shouldn't have changed so quickly all things considered. At least the mental aspects shouldn't have changed at this point considering how little I've even thought about sex in the last few years.

Or maybe it has and the fact that I've barely thought about it had nothing to do with how occupied I've been and reflected the aspects of being a vampire or something.

But it wasn't like this was the sort of thing that I could do rigorous testing on. A sample size of one was hardly no different than not doing any testing at all. It was nothing more than theory-crafting.

As the women went back with their bowls of soup, many of them returned to the tubs they were soaking in earlier and enjoyed the residual heat of the now lukewarm water as they ate.

But the reception, from what I could catch what they said to each other over the noise of the people waiting to be served, was very good.

Overall the mood of the place seemed to be going in a positive direction. It was to the point that it felt like I could realistically believe that the dark gloom that pervaded this place would be entirely replaced with smiles by the time the adventurers got back.

As I served, I had a feeling that I recognized a few of the faces as returning for a second bowl without bringing their empty first back, but I didn't bother calling them out or anything. There really was enough for everyone to the point that a bunch was likely to be left over for lunch or something and I wasn't about to antagonize anyone here if I could help it.

When the lineups were finally done, I filled up a few bowls and put them on a carrying tray and went around looking for people who haven't eaten yet.

"Excuse me, but have you eaten yet?"

I asked a woman quietly sitting in one of the tubs. It didn't look like she moved from that spot in a little while, most likely connected to the fact that she looked like she was nine months pregnant.

"Ah no, someone brought me a bowl. Thank you."

"Was one enough for you? We still have a lot extra if you want more."

"Oh, well, if it's alright..."

"It was made for everybody, so of course it's alright."

I handed over a bowl and took the empty that was sitting on the ground behind her before moving on.

When I really looked around, it looked like all of the people who couldn't get a bowl themselves were being cared for by someone.

The heavily pregnant, the unresponsives, the injured.

Frankly, I was pretty curious about what had happened to those unresponsives and why they were like that, but the more rational side of my brain told me that I just plain didn't want to know the answer.

"Hey, are you alright?"

I found a woman sitting on the lip of bath tub, facing the outside. She was hiding one foot behind the other, but I could clearly smell the scent of blood from her. I was pretty sure that it wasn't because she was on her monthly either. Unless if things were different over here, there was no way I was going to mistaken the scent of normal blood to that blood. Not when my nose was so much more sensitive to the scent after all.

"Yea, I am. Thanks for the food. It was really good."

"Ah, well, thanks. But what I meant was, are you hurt somewhere?"

"Oh no, it's not a big deal. You're doing so much for us already..."

"I came here specifically to help. There's no need to hold back if it's something I can do. I know a bit of healing magic, so if you're injured, I want to help."

"If, if you insist..."

She shyly showed me her foot and I saw what was wrong in an instant.

There was blood clotting the backside of her ankle, but even with that in place I could see what had happened: her Achilles tendon had been severed. That was the source of the smell.

"This might hurt a bit, so please bear with it."

"You can fix it?!"

"Well, we'll see. I don't have to heal others too often, and my body's pretty different from anyone else's. But I'll give it my best."

She gave me a stern nod.

Looking at it more closely, there wasn't just scabbing, but I could see signs of an infection as well.

I gently scraped away at her scabs then gently squeezed out all the pus I could before I washed her wound. Next I tilted her foot back to press both sides of the open wound together. The woman grimaced and her clenched fists grew white.

With my other hand, I let out my aura and channelled my mana into a mist of green healing magic.

After a few moments and a bit of testing the movement of her ankle, I let go.

"Try it now."

Holding on to a hand for support, she warily got up to her feet.

Then her eyes opened wide.

She took a careful step, then switched back and forth between her feet. She then stood on one foot for a bit before switching back and testing her range of movement.

"Incredible! There's no pain nor discomfort and I can move it so freely! Its like it wasn't cut in the first place! Just how high is your level in [Light Magic]?"

"Ah, no, it's not [Light Magic]. Our kind doesn't do well with that sort of thing."

"Oh right. Then [Water Magic]?"

I nodded.

"This is incredible. Not many people can heal wounds so completely and so quickly."

I had no idea about that as I didn't have a prior frame of reference, but my magic skills were very high, so that bit wasn't too much of a surprise.

"I saw how you cooked our food with magic. Doing all that and even healing my leg. Not just your [Water Magic], but your level must be incredibly high, isn't it?"

"Ah, ummm, well, I guess."

"Oh, I guess that's a given. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to beat that vampire."

Well, that was pretty obvious when one thought about it for a moment.

"If you don't mind, could you tell me how your Achilles tendon was cut?"

Considering the position of it, normally it wouldn't happen by accident nor through regular combat. The answer didn't sound like a good one, but I was curious.

"Ah, well, I'm not the only one like this so it's fine. When I was taken from my home, I tried to run away from those robed minions of that vampire. After my second attempt, they cut my tendon right before they threw me in here."

"Is that so...in that case, can you help me find anyone else who needs healing? I'd like to move on to that since it'll be a while before the others get back."

I didn't know how far my healing could go, especially for old wounds that have healed over already, but I wanted to do what I could since I was already here.

"Of course! You've done so much for us already, it's the least I could do."

Even though that was true, there was still a lot of things that needed to be done. But all I could do was take things one step at a time.

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