18 men, 4 men on horses plus Robin and Lili stood at the roadside in a loose circle formation. From these 18 men, 6 were wounded and lying on the ground in the center of the circle with Lili attending to their wounds.
While it was not Lili's job to see to the wounded she couldn't just stand back and wait. As a former police officer, it was her duty to help people in need even if they might not have deserved it. Also, the men's first aid skills were so bad that she just had to do something or otherwise the men would just bleed to death and die of their wounds.
First of all the boss man was bleeding heavily and all the men had been doing was putting some pressure on the wound which obviously wasn't going to work since the wound was so massive and deep. After all a freaking huge werewolf had just ripped a big chunk of flesh down to the bone out of his arm.
To combat this problem she first of all needed to stop the blood flow and to do that she needed a tourniquet. Sure there obviously was no such device here so she improvised.
First, the bosses chainmail shirt needed to be pulled back so that she could more easily access his bleeding forearm where the wound was located at. After that, she used her short sword to cut a long piece of his undershirt off.
Wrapping that piece of cloth around the bosses upper arm once, she then placed a small solid stick there and tied the two things together. After that, she could easily just spin the stick to tighten or lose the tourniquet. Once she saw that it was tight enough and the blood flow was stopped to the bleeding forearm, she then tied another piece of cloth around the stick to keep it in place.
Like so she possibly created the world's first makeshift tourniquet, an invention that in history was invented in the late 17th century. In the dim light of the night lit only by the full moon and the burning wagon, Lili looked upon her own work with pride until she heard the muscular brother say.
"Well, I'll be damned. I guess women are good for something other than just pleasing men, hahaha."
Hearing this comment Lili felt her eyes twitch in annoyance. Never once had these brothers or anyone else for that matter thanked her or praised her for anything she did. And now that she actually just might have saved their brother's life, that comment was the only praise she got.
Lili wanted to hit the muscular man and went out her frustration, but managed to control herself. At the very least the man's comment was sort of a praise and a good start. Maybe after this, they would finally look upon her more favorably, she hoped.
Carrying on her work Lili noticed 4 of the men with what seemed like some minor cuts here and there and a few broken arms and legs. These men could be saved but the fifth one seemed most critical of all.
The wounded man seemed younger than most in this group. Maybe around his early twenties, she guessed. He only wore a simple metal helmet and a crude iron breastplate that seemed to be caved in. It looked like a werewolf had just sent a devastating punch into the man or possibly pounced on him causing its weight to crush the breastplate underneath.
Nonetheless, the situation didn't look good as the man's face was full of sweat, he also seemed to have difficulties breathing and traces of blood could be seen coming out of his mouth.
She was no medical expert, but by the looks of it, the mans ribcage had been smashed which then probably had led to one of the bones puncturing his lung.
To Lili, the situation looked quite serious. Normally in such a situation, a person would need to be transported immediately to the nearest hospital. There a tube could be inserted into the lung to get the excess air and blood out and then there would obviously need to be an operation. But out here in the dark, surrounded by enemies that was obviously not possible and besides did the doctors of this world even know what to do in this situation?
The situation didn't look good, but she had to at least try and do something here. Before she started to do anything she took a quick look around. The men holding the circle were fidgeting in fear of the elusive werewoles who still hadn't attacked.
Only glimpses of dark shapes moving in the dark could be seen and the occasional sight of bloodred eyes staring at them from the darkness. Lili could sense them moving around them. She could also sense something different, something much darker and more primal emerging in the darkness of the distant forest. Something new was coming. If possible she needed to fix these 6 men up and fast before the enemy came in order to better their chances of survival here.
With this in mind, Lili went to work. First, she took off the man's breastplate by opening up the top and side straps. After that she cut open the mans white undershirt, revealing his not-so-muscular figure below.
There on the man's stomach area, she could see clear dark spots, indicators of massive internal bleeding. With each passing second she could also see that the man's breathing was becoming weaker and weaker. He seemed like he was drowning in his own blood unable to get in a good breath of air.
In seeming desperation, the man's hand reached out and grabbed a hold of Lili who was just sitting there in thought bit knowing what to do.
Alarmed by the man's touch Lili looked at him and saw tears forming in his eyes as he looked at her and through panted breaths pleadingly spoke to her and said.
"Please, h, help, help me. I, I, don't, want, to die."
Then the man's hand fell to the ground weakly. Lili could see that the man was extremely weak, his life was quickly fading into the afterlife as he struggled to get enough air into his lungs.
She couldn't help but feel extremely bad for the man. Her heart was breaking at the sight of his tearful eyes.
Lili clenched the sword in her hand. Maybe she could cut a hole into one of the man's lungs and let the excess blood flow out, hopefully giving him some more room to breathe. But this idea just seemed foolish, what if she just ended up killing him in the process and wouldn't cutting him just cause even more bleeding?
Desperately Lili searched her mind for an answer to this problem. Surely somewhere deep in her mind there had to have been something of use. There had to be some kind of medical knowledge that she had overlooked. Surely she knew the solution to this, after all, she was a reincarnated person from the future. She just needed to remember.
Then at that moment, she remembered all the times she had gotten hurt in this life. Sure she had never seriously gotten hurt, but whenever she did the small cuts or bruises on her had healed in but a few hours time. She even herself had noted that her self-healing ability was extraordinary. If only she could just lend that ability to this man then maybe he could be saved.
Thinking of this she placed the sword down in front of her and then placed her hands on the man and closed her eyes. Looking deep inside of herself she was like a fisher using his fishing hook to feel around the darkness to find something her hook could latch onto.
For an unknown amount of time, she searched and searched, until finally in the core of her very self a familiar light was found. Once before she had already felt this faintly but thought nothing really of it. But now she without hesitation reached out to it and managed to touch it.
The connection was weak, but it was there. She felt like a thin line connecting herself to it was formed and in that instance, her body seemed to light up. She didn't physically light up, but she did feel her body becoming lighter and more energetic. She felt good like she had just won the lottery and had a sip of her favorite beverage.
Opening her eyes she focused on this sensation, she pushed it from her core and made it flow towards her hands. She felt like there was now a new heart made of pure light in her core and hundreds of veins made out of light traveling all across her body, but these veins she could control and so she did.
She focused on sending all of her magic light flowing in her body to move into the palms of her hands and out of them. To her amazement, small sparks of light, like electric currents came out of her fingertips and pushed inside the dying man.
In the darkness of night, it looked like Lili was simply holding her dainty little hands on top of the man's chest with only a faint, hardly noticeable glow of something on her fingertips.
Lili had no idea what it was that she was doing or how it worked, but for whatever reason she was healthy and she hoped the same healthiness could be given to this man also.
With the man's injuries being internal Lili couldn't see the effectiveness of her healing, but after a small while she could see his breathing becoming more stable at least.
Seeing this her eyes widened in disbelief. Had she just used some kind of healing magic to successfully heal this man? She could hardly wrap her head around this idea of her actually using magic. It all just seemed so unreal to her, but then again she was feeling a bit weak right after doing that.
Whatever this healing light magic truly was, it definitely did seem to drain her energy quite fast. She felt like she had just been swimming for a feed few minutes, leaving her out of breath but still capable of keeping this momentum going. And that's exactly what she then did.
With the man now stabilized she immediately moved onto the other men and started to heal them in the same manner. Right there before her eyes, she could see shallow wounds closing at a visible speed to her eyes.
While healing the men Lili still was quite cautious and didn't go too overboard with her healing. On one hand she didn't want to exhaust herself too much and on the other hand, she feared the men's reaction if they found out what she could do. So to cover up her magic she still remembered to tie the wounds up with bandages and use tourniquets if needed.
However, despite this new awesome healing power, she for some unknown reason wasn't able to heal up the bosses arm. All she merely managed to do was stop the bleeding and close up the wound.
She couldn't explain it, but she could feel something dark, and malicious inside of him preventing her magic from going any further. That something was like a dark pool that she might be able to overcome with her light, that is if she had enough light to give. Right now her body was just too weak and her core of light even weaker. Maybe in time with a possible increase in power and skill of using this magic, she might be able to do it, but for now, all she could do was stabilize the wound.
Wiping the sweat off of her face Lili finally came back into reality from her inner thoughts and realized that the battle had already begun.
She could hear men shouting in fear.
"Oh god! What's wrong with them?"
There in front of the shield wall, Lili could see half-human, half-werewolf type of monsters. They looked like humans in form, but their howl bodies were covered in thick fur, their mouths were half open with dog-like teeth showing and drool coming out of their mouths. Their eyes were an unnaturally bright red color and the creatures seemed hungry as they approached the line with a slow walk.
Lili could see that the monsters also were wearing the same armor as the soldiers who were dragged into the darkness just some time before had been wearing.
After realizing this, Lili couldn't help but say her feelings out loud.
"Holy shit! Are those zombie werewolves?"
But whatever they were they definitely weren't friendly and the defenders morale was definitely not helped by the sight of their appearance on the battlefield.
All and all she could see maybe 10 of them coming from all around with the werewolves staying further back and watching this scene unfold.
The muscular man being the second in command had now taken the thin man's place as he sat on horseback and barked out orders.
"Bold strong men and archers shoot those things already! Show those monsters no fear! Only show them the strength of our will and the power of our muscles!"
With that command the 7 remaining archers who stood as a part of the circle didn't hesitate anymore and released their arrows, even Robin joined in from the backline with his short bow. Lili could see one of the arrows fly straight into a zombie werewolves stomach. The zombie werewolf barely reacted to this as the arrow only managed to penetrate a few centimeters into its stomach as it then simply ripped out the arrow and roared. Then as if taking this as a signal, Lili could hear the others roar as well as their slow walks turned into a sprint.
Seeing this the muscular man yelled to the men in a somewhat of a fearful sounding tone of voice.
"Come on shoot them, shoot them, shoot them!"
With only 10 or so meters between them and the archers, they managed to only let loose one more round of arrows. Lili could see the zombie werewolf in front of her being struck in its head by the arrow, but it didn't seem to care as it merely increased its speed. The bowmen quickly dropped their bows and took out their small round shields which lay at their feet and small axes that they held at their waist side.
Then the zombie werewolves slammed into the men's shields creating a bone-chilling sound as they blindly smashed their zombie heads into the solid wooden shields. Nonetheless, Lili could see all the men hold as they then frantically lashed out with swords and axes.
Quickly the scene turned into a mad melee with either one-on-one duels or fights with two men against a single zombies. Despite the favorable odds, Lili could see that the zombies hides were extremely tough, almost like tree bark, but luckily the men also were quite tough with their metal and chainmail armor.
From the backline, the 3 brothers along with another singular remaining rider used their blades and spears to strike at the zombies as Robin also helped by firing a few well-placed shots into the zombies heads.
That's when Lili noticed one of the zombies being hit straight in the middle of its head by Robin. The arrow seemed to travel quite far which seemed to turn some kind of a switch off in the zombie as it almost immediately fell limply to the ground and seemed to die.
Having seen Robin's well-placed shot and seeing the zombie finally fall Lili couldn't help but excitedly yell to Robin.
"Oh my god Robin! You did it! Good job! That was amazing!"
Hearing this Robin turned to her with a smile and said.
"Thanks, Lili. Now how about a kiss on the cheek as my reward."
Hearing this Lili for whatever reason didn't feel disgusted or annoyed by the boys comment, instead a spark of excitement at the boys words rose up in her. After all the boy had just now on two separate occasions proven himself to be quite capable and trustworthy. She definitely wanted him to continue being on her side protecting her.
With this in mind, Lili immediately ran to Robin and grabbed him by his collar. Robin didn't resist her pull and just got lower to her level as she then planted a quick kiss on his cheek and then pulled away saying.
"There, now go get them my hero."
For a moment the boy held a hand on the spot where Lili had kissed him and he seemed quite stunned but after hearing her words he quickly recovered. Robin pushed his chest out confidently and looked down at the short figure of Lili as he placed one hand on his chest and said.
"As you command my love. Robin Loxley will slay all your foes."
Immediately Lili noticed a massive difference in Robin. All of a sudden his hands were completely steady and his aim was improved as she could see him immediately hit another zombie in its head.
With her sword in one hand, Lili was jumping up and down in joy as she cheered Robin on.
"Go Robin, go Robin, you can do, you can do it!"
With the number of enemies quickly decreasing the men took note of Lili's antics. The sight of her happily cheering Robin on almost immediately pushed their fear to the side as they started to smile and some even laughed.
But the happy moment was quickly ended as they all felt the ground tremble a little as the 6 massive werewolves attacked. Their bodies were so large and heavy that it almost sounded like 6 horses charging towards them from the dark forest.
Seeing this the muscular man quickly implanted his spear into one of the few remaining zombies heads and pulled out his sword as he yelled.
"Finally the cowards attack, hahahaha! Come on men kill them all! Charge!"
Hearing this Lili could help but feel worried. Why was this meathead all of a sudden so eager to break formation? Sure some zombie werewolves had been killed but the original problem still remained which was the big ass werewolves.
Behind her, she could see the 6 wounded starting to get up. They seemed quite weak and shaky but at least they seemed like they could were just about ready to join the fight.
Then she noticed the 3 brothers riding past her with swords in hand followed by the one remaining horseman. They headed straight toward the dark forest from where 5 werewolves could be seen coming toward them in an unorganized line.
Encouraged by this sight the other remaining men cheered and also charged towards the forest.
Just then a feeling of dread came to her from behind. Turning around to look at the source of this feeling, Lili noticed a large gray-furred werewolf coming from behind the burning wagon with its eyes set upon the 6 wounded men.
Seeing this she quickly turned to look towards Robin for help only to see the boy foolishly charging with the other men. In desperation, Lili yelled to him.
"Robin! Help!"
Immediately Robin stopped and took note of her voice, but Lili didn't stop and wait for a response. She turned towards the wounded men and hesitated. She only held a short sword in her right hand and nothing else, her chances against that massive werewolf seemed quite horrible. Despite this, she broke into a sprint and charged towards the werewolf with a mighty high-pitched girlish war cry.
"Huzzah!"
In her mind, she kept on repeating the same few words of encouragement to herself as she charged.
"There is no courage without fear and no heroes are made without some sacrifices having to be made."