Recovery
It was a few hours later when Shirou awoke, He was in a soft bed in a house that looked unstable.
He was in one of the still standing houses from the town they had come to. It seemed like he was brought back somehow, he had hazy memories of Chloe and Nereth helping him just after he got out but apart from that nothing.
He felt a throbbing pain from his arm where he had got scraped during the battle, he turned to it and saw something strange; Metal fibres loosely inside his arm, holding back blood from the wound.
He had seen these before, but it should be impossible for them to be here right now. This looked like the healing of a noble phantasm he had once possessed but it shouldn't work without the mana from it's true owner. "Avalon: The Everdistant Utopia" the sheath of Excalibur, It gave healing abilities to someone who had it but it should only function for someone with access to the mana of king Arthur.
As he thought about what could of healed him, Nereth entered the room.
Once again Nereth was confused about Shirou, when she and Chloe had tried to heal him the wound started glowing softly.
The wound wasn't deep but she could see that magic was going on, the wound glowed then was covered in these thin strings of metal, covering and protecting the wound.
She would need to examine more wounds to see how this worked, not that she would cut him now of course. Maybe in the future she could "convince" him to help her discover the secret to his healing
She entered the room that he was staying in to see how he was doing and she saw that he had awoke. He was looking towards her and she saw the wound was glowing more softly and most of the metal threads had vanished.
Nereth sat down on a chair near Shirou's bed, she was looking at him as if examining a creature to see if it was dangerous.
"You fought a god" she said as if it were the most normal thing possible at that moment, Shirou simply nodded. Nereth continued "From what Chloe said you even came close to beating said god" it seemed that with each word she spoke a hint of curiosity and a little bit of suspicion entered her voice. "In most ways even dragon-blooded can't beat a god if it goes into hiding and only the most well trained immaculate martial artists can even hit gods", from her voice Shirou could hear the question that she wanted to ask, she wanted to ask how he had done it, how he a (from her point of view) normal human had come close to defeating a god.
"My magecraft offers a few useful options" replied Shirou, hoping that she wouldn't dig to much into it. To explain his battle properly it would require explaining a bit about Unlimited Blade Works, something that he still didn't want to do.
Nereth looked unsatisfied but instead of voicing her complaint she asked something else "Are you going to try that again?", Shirou could hear a note of sarcasm in her tone. Shirou considered the question, he had likely dissuaded the god from trying to attack the village any more but he didn't want to leave the village without help. He knew though that he couldn't offer any help himself. He had fought to his limit and had still fallen.
Nereth waited until Shirou was about to speak before containing what she was planning to say, when Shirou opened his mouth Nereth cut in "You should stay with my travelling party". Silently and carefully Nereth activated the charm she had learned while travelling, A simple thing that enhanced her manipulation. She then continued talking, making sure Shirou knew that it was the right thing to come with her.
After about a minute or two of impassioned speaking she stopped, Shirou was slowly nodding his head.
Shirou listened to Nereth, what she said made sense. He could join her and she would pass a message to those who can help this town better. He felt something was off however, the distinct feeling of being tricked into something hung in the air but he didn't worry about it.
Chloe sat by the window, listening to what was going on inside. She could hear the speech that had just been made and she knew what it meant, Nereth had convinced Shirou to come with them. Terrestrial exalts could be amazing speakers and charms could further increase it. While all exalted could do amazing at anything depending on what skills they learned you could always hear that something with a Terrestrial, they were not the best but with how little most of them knew they still continued on at full pace.
Shirou sat in the carriage as normal waiting to leave, Nereth was helping organise the followers in carrying supplies so she wasn't here yet. Chloe wandered over to his window and looked inside as if wanting to ask something. "In that cave, how did you damage that god" A simple question with a complex answer. Shirou considered what answer to give before simply shrugging and giving his normal answer, "It is simply something I can do.". As he had guessed she was unsatisfied with that answer but as it looked like she was about to ask for more details Nereth returned and seeing that Chloe wandered off inconspicuously.
The party began moving, the carriage and all followers began travelling further east. According to Nereth the journey would not be too much longer.
End of chapter
This chapter has quite a few changes from the original draft simply because the previous chapter ended better than I had guessed
Something funny that should be noted: Nereth has 0 in her medicine so when she said she helped Chloe she basically just sat back and let Chloe do it.
For how Avalon was activated for a short time, I have no solid idea but it was possibly just Dragon-blood mana that activated it, I will change this if someone has a better idea.
The charm Nereth uses against Shirou is a presence excellency if you couldn't guess, the attack following it used manipulation