Arrows flew down at me from on high, while screaming men with pitchforks and torches charged with weapons lowered. As an aside, they really should have had separate torch bearers rather than double wield. I saw one of my eager attackers trip over his pitchfork, land on his face, and then his torch fell on him and set his clothes aflame. Ouch.
I grinned and let everything hit me, and even pulled the arrows that were going to miss towards me with spatial manipulation. They all bounced off me, even the magically enhanced weapons. With my already practically invulnerable body further enhanced with my Heroic Gifts, not even radiation would penetrate my hide. I was now more brick wally than an actual brick wall!
This display seemed to put a dampener on the 'murder the Hero' party, judging from the way my attackers were running in the opposite direction with the same enthusiasm and volume as they ran towards me. I couldn't just let them go, however. I needed to find out why they attacked me, and if I should expect assassination attempts throughout my stint as a Hero.
I put on a burst of speed, appearing before the youngest looking of the attackers. I didn't want to give anyone a heart attack, but apparently this guy needed to lay off the saturated fats. He gurgled, grasped his chest, and collapsed. After a stunned moment to reflect on how even the young needed to care for their health more, I leapt towards him to administer emergency health care.
When I reached him, I realized I didn't know a thing about first aid or CPR. "System, a little help here with a healing spell installation!"
"Of course. Based on the magic flows in this reality, it seems that only a flesh changing spell will work. There is no infrastructure to support intent based or transdimensional calculation based healing, so it has to be entirely manual. Downloading the necessary knowledge to cast flesh mending and sensing in concert... done. Good luck Father!"
I closed my eyes, remembering the information. It was just as eerie as before. "Thanks System! An excellent job as usual."
Then, ignoring the repeated blows to my back from some shouting lunatic, I placed my hands on the younger boy's chest and yelled, "Heal!" for effect and additional coolness factor. I guess it also helped me concentrate.
Huh. This wasn't a boy! My magic sense confirmed the feminine identity of my patient when it swept into her chest. It looked like she had been suffering from a weak heart as well as obstructed passageways. That, on top of the adrenaline high she was running on as well as the shock of my sudden appearance in front of her had combined to stop her heart.
First, I had to stabilize her. I punched through the obstructions in her veins and flexed my magical power in her heart to start it expanding and contracting. Once it was able to continue pumping on its own, I moved on to the structure itself. The weak musculature of the heart was genetic, and altering the total genetic makeup of the girl using this magic would take a whole day, which was more time than I wanted to spend, there being a demon incursion and all. So I replaced her muscles and blood pathways with stronger muscles and pathways of a more suitable size. Her muscles shouldn't weaken for a while before she has to worry about heart failure again.
The body of the girl convulsed, and she turned her head to the side and vomited. She drew her legs up to her chest and started to cry, shivering and convulsing. I could feel her fear and pain buried under overwhelming nausea. Apparently, having her body altered without her consent and in a short period of time created an intense feeling of dissonance. I wondered if magical rejection was a possibility when there were conflicting Definitions, and decided to soothe her to make sure she'd make it through.
I pulled her out of her vomit and tried to hug her. Hugs make everything better, especially when a powerful psychic is hugging you. She actually put up some resistance for a second, but inevitably succumbed to my calming influence. She smelled awful from accumulated sweat, dirt, and vomit, but also nice in a scented feminine sort of way. I was still a teenager, after all, and us guys tend to notice the nice things if we ever get to hold a girl.
I noticed the guy who had been enthusiastically beating out a drum solo on my back was now kneeling next to me and sobbing into his hands. "Robin," he kept saying. "Robin, no. Not my Robin..."
"She's alright now. Are you her father or something?" I asked. Conversing with others was definitely a lot easier when you're psychic. There's no language barrier or reading between the lines necessary. Just read their minds to integrate the new language, and keep reading to figure out their intent.
He nodded, still choking on his sobs. "She's alright? But how? What did you do to her?" He was screaming again now. This guy was clearly suffering from an ailment that gave him incredible mood swings.
I looked around while giving a mental push on the guy's mind to calm him. While I was there, I peeked even closer at his mind. It was as I thought. Everyone here had been fighting demons off for so long that they'd fallen asleep, and then kept on fighting. Their dreaming minds somehow carried on in the real world. I've heard off mass hysteria before, but this was the first time even the concept of mass somnambulism occurred to me.
I looked around. With no more demons to fight, everyone was now collapsed on the ground, snoring away. Robin was also now sleeping soundly in my arms; a rather nice feeling, that. I sighed.
First they try to kill me, then they ignore me. How rude.