[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 315
After Leon left for the Berner territory, Luna, who had remained in Cascadia to spar with lissa, suddenly froze.
She abruptly stopped, not even looking at the sharp sword lissa was thrusting at her with ferocity, but staring blankly into the air.
“What… what?!”
Recently, lissa’s swordsmanship had been flourishing, and she had gained so confidence in her skills.
In fact, during her spars with Luna, she had managed to surprise Luna here and there with her sharp sword techniques.
She had been growing proud of herself, so Luna’s current misjudgnt struck her as extrely dangerous.
Kaaang!!!
However—
lissa’s deadly thrust, even reinforced with sword aura, was effortlessly caught and stopped by Luna’s bare hand, who until just monts ago had been matching her blow for blow.
“C… crazy. She caught a sword wreathed in sword aura… with her bare hand…”
“I just felt… chills.”
“You’re the one who’s chilling ! Have you been playing with this whole ti?”
“If I overwhelm you too much, it hinders your growth. Leon and I share that judgnt.”
“Ah, yes. You’re both insufferable.”
“You said that out loud.”
“I said it on purpose.”
Instead of muttering inside, she just aired her complaint right away.
But Luna ignored her and spoke.
“Sothing feels wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Leon… feels like he’s seducing a woman right now.”
“Archangels can sense stuff like that too?”
“I heard won have this thing called intuition. I think that’s what this is.”
Luna’s body trembled.
“He’s more of a stone wall with won than you think.”
“Feels like sothing’s been unlocked in him since the thief pigeon incident.”
“No way. My brother is not the type of guy who’s kind enough to steal a woman’s heart.”
“That’s just because lissa’s family. You think Lispa Elde ended up like that by coincidence?”
lissa let out a hollow laugh.
“To , you sound paranoid. That’s all useless. In love, suspecting the other person only ruins it.”
“Mm…”
Seeing Luna seriously pondering this, lissa felt like swinging her sword earlier had been stupid.
Even on the academy’s day off, she’d been working hard… not to watch sothing like this.
She felt like if she kept pushing, she might finally glimpse a crack in her wall.
“No… but seriously, catching sword aura barehanded is just too much.”
“What can I do if you’re weak?” Newest update provided by novęlfire
At a loss for words, lissa sprawled flat on the training ground.
Watching her, Grivy, Sur, and Serqet huddled together and started waving little wooden sticks in the air.
Grivy held one in each hand.
Sur and Serqet, in their beast forms, clamped theirs in their mouths and swung them around, looking rather silly.
But—
Unlike Sur or Serqet, the stick Grivy swung made an ominous sound.
Her swing, powered by overwhelming strength, was already swordsmanship, already violence.
“Now even Grivy’s going to beat .”
“Did you think you could win?”
“Hey, I used to be Cascadia’s hope, and at the Imperial Academy, I’m still the top student!”
“Compare things that are comparable.”
lissa was left speechless by the blunt remark, her energy completely drained!
Just then—
Piii?!
Serqet, who had been carelessly swinging the stick in her mouth, suddenly shimred with light.
“A summoning?”
At the sa ti, the poison spirit Serqet’s body vanished instantly.
“Leon must have called her.”
lissa nodded.
“Maybe making the antidote isn’t going well? Well, Serqet is a poison spirit. She might be better at handling it than expected.”
“I don’t know how Leon picked up poison knowledge, but he clearly never anticipated sothing like this.”
“Sothing like this?”
“Needing to heal soone else.”
* * *
The Marquis Veolas, staying in the Berner County, honestly wanted to return imdiately.
But since it was an assignnt from above, he had no choice but to carry it out diligently.
His task was simple: investigate what was happening in the Berner County.
And, if possible, find fault with the fact that the Berner Countess had hastily requested imperial support despite it being a trivial disturbance.
If, by any chance, the matter really was serious…
Then they’d press the bla for failing to manage it properly.
In short, his goal was to stir up trouble just enough to leave no lasting stains afterward.
But after arriving and seeing it firsthand, there wasn’t any dangerous plague.
At most, just a light cold-like illness circulating—gone in a few days naturally.
It was only the speed of infection that seed odd, but such cases were recorded often enough in the dical texts he had read.
This one would simply go down as a particularly contagious example.
And yet, the Berner Countess was dragging outsiders into it and talking nonsense about Hydras.
“Well, what did you find out?”
Veolas asked the ard man who entered.
“They didn’t seem to be doing much.”
“Of course. Whoever he is, he’s only here to put on a show. There’s no such thing as a Hydra.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Swordmaster Kashiv, loyal to Veolas, nodded in agreent.
Who knew where the fellow ca from.
He looked like a noble-born, but had dared raise his fist to Marquis Veolas himself.
A thug.
“Shall I take precautions, just in case?”
“No need. What could the likes of him do?”
“True, but… he seems oddly confident. If it’s not just a simple illness…”
“Ahem! I’ve been in dicine for 30 years, 30 years! Who was it that cured your daughter’s illness? Who did what even the priests couldn’t do?!”
“I apologize.”
“Rember this. I treated your daughter because you’re valuable. But most people out there aren’t worth it.”
“…”
“So stop your grumbling. Even if the Berner County did have a serious problem, it must be treated as if it doesn’t exist. That’s what matters.”
Veolas chuckled.
“Though results aren’t in yet, the examinations already say enough. It’s a re trifling sickness. Poison? Hydra? Ha! Even a novice wouldn’t make such a poor judgnt. They’re overreaching.”
Sotis it wasn’t bad to remind others that the world rarely went the way you planned.
Just then—
“Marquis, sir! One of the young n admitted to the infirmary just collapsed, foaming blood!”
“Why panic over that. Aside from the mild sickness, that man had a grave illness. Sothing no commoner could pay to treat in a lifeti. Leave him, and check the others instead. As soon as soone shows improvent from the simplest dicine, the Berner family will pay the price for deceiving the Empire.”
Veolas’s conviction was unshaken.
So much so, he didn’t even bother to investigate further.
* * *
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
I’ve never studied dicine.
But I’ve done sothing similar: experinting on my own body.
[You once cut open your own stomach to study human anatomy.]
“Quiet.”
But without a sample, how should I proceed?
The problem was, my knowledge was limited to my own body.
And humans all differ by constitution.
The sa drug works well for so, hardly at all for others.
If it only worked poorly, fine.
But with poison like this, a single misstep could kill, so I had to be cautious.
Still, it wasn’t like progress was blocked.
The thod was simple.
Split the poisons my body produced into dozens of variants, draw them out, and fuse them with blood.
Then test them against the blood of those infected with Parcola poison.
If problems arose, I’d adjust.
But I wasn’t yet used to controlling poison with this body.
It wasn’t just that my body had changed—the new white power that had settled inside caused a rift.
Tenant.
Are you listening?
Annoyed, I prodded the white power, but it was as prickly as a teenager in the worst phase of puberty.
Thanatos’s deathly authority, which I’d grown more accustod to, was probing it little by little…
But power on the level of authority was difficult to control from the start.
“This thing can’t be removed, can it?”
[Currently judged impossible.]
The biggest problem: it interfered with my poison control.
Of course.
No helping it.
I’d have to borrow the new guy’s power.
“Serqet.”
At my call, light shimred in the air, and the poison spirit Serqet appeared in the form of an otter.
Whip, whip!!
She was still swinging a little stick in the air when summoned, and now dropped it with a plop, staring blankly at .
“Good. I need your help, Serqet.”
I had already prepared a list of poisons to combine using the Hydra’s gland.
–Piii?
“Do well and I’ll give you snacks. Deal?”
–Piii!
Her eyes glead like a cat spotting a treat, making chuckle.
A poison spirit.
One born from the poisons of the Hydra—a bizarre spirit from the start.
Serqet obediently reshaped poisons into droplets for , which I then collected and channeled into an artifact, a black obsidian-like stone tethered to threads of mana.
Every ti she helped, she got a treat.
She hoarded them and ate them whenever she wanted.
That went on for about three days.
In that ti, I’d had great success in adapting the Hydra’s vicious poisons to my body.
This altar was much harder to draw power from than the others.
The catalyst was mana-infused crude oil compressed to the extre.
Useless for direct detoxification, but it could help mass-produce antidotes.
If rejection occurred… it’d just an endless grinding ahead.
But fortunately, things steadily improved, proving my worries unfounded.
Of course, because I had to extract large amounts of samples, rumors spread through Berner County that I was a blood-drinking vampire.
The pace only quickened thanks to the materials ryl supplied.
The first clinical trial was successful.
A cat that had been languishing perked right up after receiving a dose of the antidote—an antidote in na, but poison in form.
“It’s done.”
I raised my hand to high-five Serqet.
But she just flopped onto the floor, scratching her belly, and lazily extended one paw.
Bring food.
She looked like so middle-aged man.
Only after I gave her a snack did she return my high-five.
“Any progress?”
“And you?”
“I found hidden tunnels full of Hydra traces. They’re like a labyrinthine underground waterway. But this all but confirms it’s there.”
“Good. Then.”
“What?”
“You want to live, right? Then you’ll cooperate.”
We’d tested on animals.
Now we had to see if it worked on humans.
“You want… to do it?”
“Or die!”
“Wow… you’re this unreasonable?”
Looking exasperated, she held out her hand.
“Give it!”
I handed her the antidote, MK-1.
“By the way, there may be side effects. Baldness.”
“W-what?!”
“Lying. Just a headache.”
“Urgh!! My… my head!”
“Okay. This poison’s no good. Serqet, next batch.”
–Piii!!
I ignored ryl’s resentful glare.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
User Comments
0 comments from readers