Chapter 35

Chapter : 35

Perhaps it was because the liquor had been expensive, or perhaps my body was simply sturdy, but I rose from bed feeling refreshed and without a trace of a hangover.

Normally, after drinking and sleeping, one never fell into truly deep rest, yet my condition felt decent enough.

When I got out of bed and checked the time, it was two in the morning.

Because I had gone to bed earlier than usual, I had woken at an early hour.

When I moved my arms and legs, my body felt light and my eyes were bright and clear.

I went down to the training grounds, swung my sword, and lifted iron.

Separate from how much my swordsmanship had improved, my raw strength itself had grown noticeably stronger than before.

Some knights neglected physical training and devoted themselves only to mana.

To me, that was idiotic.

If one wanted to become strong, one had to work hard at everything.

“Hup.”

After taking in a great breath of air and bracing my core, I lifted the iron.

When I first entered the Academy, I could barely lift this weight once.

Now I could lift it seventeen times.

After doing weights for about two hours, I paused to catch my breath.

Then I went straight out to the parade ground and ran several laps around the track.

Before my lungs gave out, the muscles in my body began to fail first.

That was because I had just finished an intense weight session.

Every time I raised my knees and swung my arms, it felt as though my muscles were tearing apart.

I endured it and kept running until it felt as though my lungs would burst.

I returned to the dormitory drenched in sweat, washed, changed into clean clothes, and checked the time.

It was six o’clock.

The dining hall had just opened.

I went down and ate a simple breakfast, then entered the training room of the Magic Tower and practiced magic.

By now, I could fire a Flame Bullet even with my eyes closed.

It was tremendous progress, an astonishing rate of improvement, but I wasn’t satisfied and continued reviewing it to keep the sensation sharp.

“Ugh. This is exhausting.”

Yesterday, I had skipped an entire day’s worth of training because I went to drink with Agares.

To make up for it, I had been grinding my body from the crack of dawn, and now I still had to attend the Academy’s regular classes.

Today, my elective was Understanding the Thousand-Year History of the Ruin Empire.

As a noble, it wasn’t as though I needed excellent grades, but I still needed to meet the minimum.

Nominally, I hadn’t entered the Academy simply to chase after Bishot. I had come to learn and acquire something.

At the very least, I needed decent grades.

So I kept my ears half-open to the lecture, memorized what I reasonably could, and let the time pass.

“You look tired. I heard you had drinks with Lord Agares yesterday. It seems you must have been out rather late. Do you still have a hangover?”

Navier, sitting beside me, murmured softly without taking her eyes off the book in front of her.

This girl really does have sharp ears.

The fact that she somehow knew every little thing made me uncomfortable.

This wasn’t a world with mobile phones.

Where exactly did she keep hearing these things?

Even if someone had seen me walking with Agares carrying a bottle, how would they have gotten word to her?

No one would have gone running to Navier just to report something like that, and yet there seemed to be nothing she didn’t know.

“How do you know that too?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I have many connections. So, what did you discuss with the Grand Duke of the North? I’m curious.”

“It was nothing much.”

“You’re very tight-lipped.”

“I told you, it was nothing much.”

“Yes, well. I suppose it must have been.”

Come to think of it, there was something I wanted to ask her.

“And you? What happened with His Highness the Crown Prince that time? What did you talk about after I left?”

“I didn’t have anything much either. Just like you, Lord Raphael.”

“You can’t respond like that. We’re in this together.”

Navier smiled and said it had only been a joke.

“There really was nothing much. We simply exchanged a few pleasantries and then parted. That was all.”

“That’s not nothing. His Highness the Crown Prince isn’t the sort of person who approaches someone first. If it got that far, then things have already gone quite well.”

“Hehe. That’s true.”

Navier and I exchanged a few more words, and then, right at that moment, the professor uttered the word “exam.”

Navier cut off our conversation instantly, listened to the professor with complete concentration, and moved her pen across the page.

“Heh.”

It looked so unnatural and unfamiliar that I couldn’t help laughing.

When I laughed, Navier only shifted her eyes toward me for a moment, then resumed taking notes.

“Right. Let’s study hard.”

---

Bishot moved as though someone were chasing her from behind.

Or as though she were fleeing from disaster.

It was astonishing that a person could have so much energy.

Only a few days had passed since we last met, and already she had sent word for me to come, saying she had results.

After each of us finished our respective daily schedules and ate dinner on our own, we met in the Alchemy Club room.

“You came.”

Bishot received no support from the Puremoon family.

That meant she had no maid attending her, and it showed clearly.

It seemed she had burned herself entirely on alchemy during that time, because she looked exhausted in every way. Dark circles lay deep beneath her eyes, and her sunken gaze was hollow with fatigue as she pressed at them and greeted me.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Yes, I’m glad to see you as well. And I’ve completed the cure.”

She placed a potion bottle squarely on the table.

The pride radiating from her was so obvious that I clapped and answered in a quicker voice than usual.

“That’s incredible. I had no idea you’d finish it this fast. How did you do it?”

“Thanks to the support you provided.”

Pretending to marvel at what Bishot had made, I picked up the potion bottle and examined it closely.

“Wow. That’s amazing.”

I was deliberately exaggerating my praise, but only half of it was an act.

I genuinely hadn’t imagined she would finish this quickly.

There was one thing that bothered me, though.

The color of the potion.

It looked strange enough that I tilted my head.

In the Original Work, it had been blue.

The difference probably came from the fact that the process of creating the cure had been different this time.

Because the Bishot before me had different studies and experiences from the Bishot in the Original Work, the result had changed as well.

“Look.”

Bishot brought out a laboratory mouse and poured a blue liquid over it. Judging by the faint glow and the blue petals mixed into it, it seemed to be a potion related to mana.

The mouse’s eyes immediately turned blue, and its fur took on an overall bluish tint.

“It’s a mixture of Forget-Me-Flower and several other reagents. In this form, it can artificially reproduce effects similar to Elzenic Disease, even in animals.”

“Ah.”

“Now I’ll administer the cure.”

Wearing gloves, Bishot pulled open the mouse’s mouth and poured the cure in through a funnel. Immediately afterward, the mouse’s eyes and fur returned to their original color.

“The effect of the cure is simple. It dissolves the mana inside the subject’s body and changes the body into one constitutionally incapable of producing mana.”

“What? That’s possible?”

At my question, Bishot blinked once and answered,

“Yes. It is. If someone had already accumulated a large amount of mana in their body, there might be rejection symptoms, but for patients suffering from Elzenic Disease, it should be fine. They can’t store mana in their bodies in the first place.”

“That means they become unable to use mana forever. Won’t there be patients who hate that?”

“Mages, perhaps, since the ability to handle mana is tied directly to their livelihood. But among people suffering from Elzenic Disease, how could there possibly be any mages?”

“That’s true, but…”

“I believe this should suffice.”

Because the raw materials of the cure were different, even its effect had changed.

In the Original Work, it had simply cured the illness itself in a clean, convenient way.

The principle of how the cure worked had never even been mentioned.

To think it dissolved the mana inside the body.

It was a violent method.

“All right. Then what about the trials? And what about compensation for the volunteers?”

“If side effects do occur, I want to take responsibility myself as much as possible.”

“I’ll help with anything that can be solved through money.”

This was not something Bishot could handle alone.

She nodded reluctantly.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s say that handles the matter of compensation if side effects occur. Then what about the participation reward?”

“I would like to avoid unconditional payment if possible. If people already suffering from the disease volunteer only for money, then I would rather avoid them.”

“All right. Let’s do it that way.”

The cure had changed from the one in the Original Work.

Honestly, that much I could have let pass.

The medicine hadn’t lost its effectiveness, so there was unlikely to be any real problem.

But there were still people who might be harmed by the change in development.

Patients who vaguely thought, If my illness is cured, then I want to learn magic.

I didn’t have the room to worry about them as well, but there was still something about it that sat uneasily with me.

In the Original Work too, Bishot had created a cure for Elzenic Disease.

Why?

Was it merely because she had the ability to?

No.

She had moved under a sense of duty, convinced that she absolutely had to develop that cure.

Why was that?

Noel.

She was someone who would later become Bishot’s friend.

Noel had inherited her mother’s illness.

Noel suffered from Elzenic Disease.

It had been an episode in which Bishot, saddened by that, worked desperately to develop the cure.

And Noel had said this:

“If I recover, I want to learn magic.”

If this cure were released as it was, Noel would never be able to fulfill that dream.

Seen coldly, it wasn’t something I needed to consider.

No one could afford to care for every person in the world.

There was nothing I could do about that.

Even for Bishot, her bond with Noel was, for now, still only an unrealized future friendship.

Wouldn’t it be all right to release the cure just as it was?

If my relationship with Bishot collapsed, and she ended up with one of the male leads, I would die.

That was why I was already doing everything I could to survive.

For the sake of some stranger’s dream, for the sake of a friendship between Bishot and Noel that didn’t even exist yet, I had no wish to walk a dangerous road.

Bishot smiled, which was rare for her, and let out a small sigh. With the affectionate gaze of a parent looking upon a child, she stroked the cure gently.

“There’s still a great deal left to do, but in a sense, one could say the development of the cure itself is complete, and that feels refreshing.”

“Yes. You’ve worked very hard.”

“Thank you for saying that. Even so, there’s still much remaining, so I have to keep doing my best.”

“Then I’ll have the trial notice posted at once.”

Ordinarily, there were many procedures involved in posting a notice for a clinical trial of a new drug, but once I asked Gilbert, things moved in a straight line.

Through the notice, we recruited volunteers for the clinical trial.

There was almost no participation payment at all, and it was stated clearly that side effects might occur.

Perhaps because of that, even after quite a long time had passed, no volunteers appeared.

“There’s nothing necessarily wrong with compensation itself. Isn’t it possible you’re thinking of it too negatively?”

“Yes, I don’t believe it’s inherently wrong either. Even so, I can’t help disliking it. Would it be all right if we waited just a little longer?”

“So long as you’re fine with it, I don’t mind.”

Bishot and I debated whether we ought to revise the notice. We went back and forth over it.

And then, at last, a volunteer appeared.

“Hello? Are you the developers of the medicine? Wow, I was imagining elderly grandmothers and grandfathers, but you’re both incredibly young. You developed a cure at such a young age too. That’s amazing.”

Her cheekbones protruded sharply, and her large eyes, so wide it seemed the entire pupil might show, were deeply sunken. Her crimson hair was so damaged that it looked like a broom.

The volunteer entered swinging her spider-thin arms and legs like a toy soldier.

The volunteer’s name was Noel.

She was a girl who dreamed of becoming a mage.

And she had come to participate in the trial herself.