Chapter 9: The Mayor

Damian Hazel was the 5th Mayor of the town of Last Hope. He had become a mayor at a very young age and had been one for nearly 40 years now.

He had made decisions for the town for as long as he had been mayor, but he rarely left his mansion, so people rarely saw him.

He was only over 60 years old now but was somehow very frail to move around. Many people believed he was aging very fast because of the very useful power that he had which had helped the people in the town of Last Hope for a long time. 𝒃𝒆𝙣𝒐𝒗𝙚𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝒎

Damian had the power of healing.

Not many knew what sort of healing he could do, or just how his healing even worked. Did he have to touch the person? Did he need complete darkness?

No one knew what the specifics of his powers were, not even how they were activated. What they did know was that the Mayor was aging faster than he should be and it was all because he used his power of healing to help the people of Last Hope.

Because he was so old and frail and always remained in his mansion, the people were surprised and formed a crowd in the streets when they saw the man walking.

Stanley stared at the road and through some small gaps in the crowd, he saw the old man slowly walking behind the giant Illan. He wore simple white robes and brown trousers and used a metal cane to aid him in walking.

A few memories flashed in his head when he saw the old man.

Lights flashed in his vague memory with sounds that he couldn’t understand. He could barely open his eyes back then and when he did, he remembered seeing this old man.

He didn’t even remember the man himself, but rather his long white beard. The old man was healing him back then, back then when all of his limbs hurt like crazy and he was losing a lot of blood.

Stanley remembered the ringing in his ear and the dizziness in his head. He quickly shook his head and got rid of the memory.

That had been his memory back in the Mayor’s mansion, back when he and many others like him were taken over to the mayor to heal after they were attacked.

‘Right,’ Stanley thought. ‘I have been to that mansion before.’

If only he remembered anything from that place. Given how many people were curious about the mayor’s mansion to see how fancy it was, it was a shame that he couldn’t remember anything aside from the flashing memories of when he was going in and out of consciousness while being saved.

He took a deep breath so as to not think back to those times as doing so led him to another memory that was too painful to remember.

He sat there with his palm in the water and watched as the mayor walked away. The mayor was walking in the direction of the veil, which surprised not just him but many people.

‘He didn’t even leave his mansion 3 months ago,’ Stanley thought. ‘Why is he out now? And why is he going where the fight is happening? Has it already ended?’

“So that’s the mayor huh?” a voice spoke from next to him.

Stanley turned around to see the blonde-haired girl from the shop standing next to him as she watched the crowd too.

“That’s him,” Stanley said. “Is this your first time seeing him by any chance?”

“Yes,” the girl said.

That was a little surprising to Stanley. After all, he had seen the old man at least 3 times before, not even counting the time when he was wounded.

One of those times was quite a long time ago when he was just a kid and the old man had gone around the town.

The other two times were when the old man came to give a small speech during each time there was a batch of new Defenders-in-training.

‘Of course, she wouldn’t have seen him there,’ Stanley thought. ‘She’s a girl.’

Girls weren’t allowed into the Defenders at all.

Nobody questioned why that was. It was just the way things were. Only boys were allowed into the Defenders while the girls were forced to do other work that didn’t require them to fight or get into conflict.

“That’s enough, you can pull your hand out now,” the girl said, bringing Stanley out of his thoughts.

“Is it?” he asked as he slowly lifted his left arm from the water. He prepared for the burning pain that was going to follow, but to his surprise, it didn’t.

“Oh, you were right, sister,” Standley said, flexing his fingers a bit. “The pain nowhere near close to what it was before either.”

The red mark had faded quite a lot too and it no longer burned at all.

“What?” the girl grabbed his palm and pulled it up. “How is it already halfway healed?”

“Because I put it in water?” Stanley asked, but judging from the girl’s face, it wasn’t the case. “How long does it take for a burn mark to heal?”

“I don’t know, you can heal it in a—” the girl stopped in the middle of her sentence and moved her eyes around a bit. “A week, maybe? That should be enough.”

“Oh, so this must be fast then,” Stanley said. He wondered why it was so fast though.

“Is your power that of healing? You should have healed yourself sooner then,” the girl said.

“N-no,” Stanley said, a little embarrassed. “I don’t have any powers.”

“Huh?” the girl shouted in surprise, which was not a reaction he had been expecting from her. Usually, people acted disgusted as if they shouldn’t even be touching a Dull at all.

“Your powers must be one of healing. You should know about it already,” the girl said.

Stanley was a bit confused too. “Hmm, maybe it’s because of the mayor,” he said.

“The mayor? What about him?” the girl asked.

“The mayor healed me after I was injured in the incident 3 months ago,” he said. “Maybe some residual healing power of his remains in me, which is why I healed so quickly.”