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Chapter 315

After Leon left for the Berner territory, Luna, who had remained in Cascadia to spar with Melissa, suddenly froze.

She abruptly stopped, not even looking at the sharp sword Melissa was thrusting at her with ferocity, but staring blankly into the air.

“What… what?!”

Recently, Melissa’s swordsmanship had been flourishing, and she had gained some 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 misjudgment struck her as extremely dangerous.

Kaaang!!!

However—

Melissa’s deadly thrust, even reinforced with sword aura, was effortlessly caught and stopped by Luna’s bare hand, who until just moments 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 me! Have you been playing with me this whole time?”

“If I overwhelm you too much, it hinders your growth. Leon and I share that judgment.”

“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.

“Something feels wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Leon… feels like he’s seducing a woman right now.”

“Archangels can sense stuff like that too?”

“I heard women have this thing called intuition. I think that’s what this is.”

Luna’s body trembled.

“He’s more of a stone wall with women than you think.”

“Feels like something’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 Melissa’s family. You think Lispa Elde ended up like that by coincidence?”

Melissa let out a hollow laugh.

“To me, you sound paranoid. That’s all useless. In love, suspecting the other person only ruins it.”

“Mm…”

Seeing Luna seriously pondering this, Melissa felt like swinging her sword earlier had been stupid.

Even on the academy’s day off, she’d been working hard… not to watch something 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.net

At a loss for words, Melissa 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 me.”

“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.”

Melissa 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 shimmered with light.

“A summoning?”

At the same time, the poison spirit Serqet’s body vanished instantly.

“Leon must have called her.”

Melissa 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 something like this.”

“Something like this?”

“Needing to heal someone else.”

* * *

The Marquis Veolas, staying in the Berner County, honestly wanted to return immediately.

But since it was an assignment 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 blame 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 seemed odd, but such cases were recorded often enough in the medical 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 armed 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 agreement.

Who knew where the fellow came 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 medicine 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.”

“Remember 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 mere trifling sickness. Poison? Hydra? Ha! Even a novice wouldn’t make such a poor judgment. They’re overreaching.”

Sometimes it wasn’t bad to remind others that the world rarely went the way you planned.

Just then—

“Marquis, sir! One of the young men admitted to the infirmary just collapsed, foaming blood!”

“Why panic over that. Aside from the mild sickness, that man had a grave illness. Something no commoner could pay to treat in a lifetime. Leave him, and check the others instead. As soon as someone shows improvement from the simplest medicine, 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.

* * *

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I’ve never studied medicine.

But I’ve done something similar: experimenting 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 same drug works well for some, 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 method 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 me 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 accustomed 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 shimmered 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 me.

“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 gleamed like a cat spotting a treat, making me 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 me, which I then collected and channeled into an artifact, a black obsidian-like stone tethered to threads of mana.

Every time she helped, she got a treat.

She hoarded them and ate them whenever she wanted.

That went on for about three days.

In that time, 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 extreme.

Useless for direct detoxification, but it could help mass-produce antidotes.

If rejection occurred… it’d just mean 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 Meryl 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 name, 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 some 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… me 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 Meryl’s resentful glare.

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