Convinced

"According to Mala, the demon was not exhibiting enhanced healing properties."

Aru took a moment to ponder.

However, Mala was unwilling to wait; she began to walk away.

"Stop. I think I have some ideas about why that might be," Aru quickly approached Mala and said. "But before drawing conclusions, could you provide me with more information about his condition?"

"This is a waste of time. I could use this time to treat more patients."

"Please."

In the end, upon seeing Aru's pleading gaze, Mala relented. She began to describe the details related to the patient.

"The patient is a rank 2 warrior of our tribe. He was in a terrible condition when he was brought in. Most of the bone in his four limbs was fractured in some places, causing swelling all around his body. The wounds were injuries that caused external bleeding was also just as bad. And to make matters worse, he was showing signs of internal organ damage. It was a death sentence, and he should have died..."

As Mala spoke up to that point, she began to feel a little doubt herself.

A patient who should have died was still living.

It was a positive development as a student of medicine, but when considering the existence of demons, it was not as reassuring.

"Nonetheless, he doesn't have much time to live. Even if my teacher was here, he could not save him." Mala gave her opinion. 

"How long has it been since he was brought here?" Aru inquired. 

"More than an hour." 

"And you didn't see any signs of him being a demon?"

" Absolutely no."

The information provided to Aru became a jigsaw puzzle he was trying to solve. He began to piece it together one by one, finally reaching the full picture.

"Let me explain my thoughts," Aru said while turning to his audience.

Mala and Kora looked at him intensely as he began speaking. 

"The mud pig was also critically injured before it was parasitized like that patient. At that time, the demons could only choose these inferior-quality hosts. This might explain why they took so much time to heal. If the injuries were simple, they would have healed immediately after parasitization and would have come under the control of the demons."

"We assumed that the parasites, or as we call them, the demons can miraculously heal any injury. But we have to break away from this assumption to understand more." 

His statement sent a chill down the spine of people hearing it. They never expected a six-year-old child to think so meticulously and logically. 

"If demons can't heal all injuries, what are the injuries that it would prioritise to save its and its host's life? This question becomes relevant when we discard the previous notion."

After saying that, Aru paused. 

Mala began to think deeply about his words before saying, "The demon would prioritise healing critical injuries to the host body." 

"Exactly, critical injuries are taken care of first before the less critical ones. And you know by now what happened to the not-so-critical injuries." Aru nodded and pointed out.

Now, Aru's reasoning was making sense. If what he said was true, Mala could understand why the surface-level wounds remained the same when the patient was brought to her.

'The demon was healing the internal organs and critical wounds inside its body when I took care of the flesh wounds and other injuries outside. In a way, I was the reason why it was difficult to detect the demon.' Mala realised this horrifying fact. Her face turned grim. And Aru seemed to have realised this too.

"Should I really unwrap the bandages and check it?" She thought.

Nonetheless, before doing so, she decided to ask the last remaining question in her mind. After all, without checking the patient's body, there was no conclusive evidence, right?

"How did you know he was a demon before having all the information?" Although his reasoning seemed logical, she wanted to know the real reason why he could detect demons.

Aru was stumped. It was an unexpected question. He couldn't say it was due to a system, could he?

So, he did the next best thing.

"I encountered a demon myself. I killed it and extracted the corpse from the body of a mud pig. I remember the feeling I had when I saw it. The aura around it was horrifying and dangerous. When I came here, I sensed a similar aura. That's how I concluded that the patient is a demon."

Bullshit.

It was pure bullshit.

He didn't sense any aura nor did he have any odd feelings when he handled the demon. He was just running his mouth to hide his system.

However, that was effective. His words became even more trustworthy due to his claimed experience.

All this forced Mala to finally believe in Aru. Even if his guess was wrong, there was no problem testing it out.

—

Shortly after, Mala sent someone to inform the chief about the situation.

The chief and a batch of warriors returned, carrying their weapons, to the shelter housing the injured.

The family member of the patient was escorted away from the shelter, while the rest were instructed to silently leave the perimeter.

The chief and Mala were doing everything they could to secure the place and prevent unwanted panic.

Even if it was just a test, they were being cautious and taking the right precautions.

Previously, they believed that no humans inside the camp were infected by the demons. However, that belief was about to change. It was the first time they were about to face a demon in a human host. And they didn't know if there were more in the camp. A headache was brewing in the mind of the chief.

"Tor was a great warrior of the tribe. As a rank 2 warrior, I never thought he would become a demon. He was stronger than most of us and yet…" one of the people nearby said.

"These demons, I want to kill them all," another person commented.

"That's right. We should kill all the demons," the chief agreed with them. He could see the potential danger it would place his tribe in.

He began to reconsider joining the people from Artha on their conquest of hunting demons in the north.

But that was for another time. Now, he had to deal with the current problem.

"Das, you will go with Mala to unwrap the bandages. If you sense anything wrong, you are allowed to attack," the chief said somberly.