Chapter 474 155 - Perserios territory - part 4 - Countering the plan that was thirty years in the making (part 6)
"Haa... sure. But after it will show that noting changed – as it always is you better help me out with stopping him from doing anything stupid."
"Sure."
Burushi sighed and declared in a tired voice, pointing at the helmet-wearing girl, who nodded casually and moved away from Zoemi to not interfere with the spell that the blond-haired girl was about to cast.
"Private visit."
Burushi reached out her hand and closed her eyes, awaiting the results of her spell.
"Nothing out of... eh...? EEEEHHHH?!"
At first, she shrugged her shoulders as if her assumptions were confirmed, but then she flinched and gasped in utter disbelief.
"Burushi...?"
Zoemi leaned back, looking at the blond healer girl with worry.
"...!"
And to his great surprise, he had her mere inches in front of his face the moment later.
"..."
Burushi was biting her lips and hastily but carefully examing the black-haired boy, prying open his eyelids to have a better look at his eyes, checking something about his neck, and chest, and then raising his arms slowly...
"Are you feeling numb or faint in any way...?"
She asked in an extremely concerned voice, glancing over at his face while moving to check the pulse in each of his arms separately.
"N-no...! Besides the pain in my stomach, I feel fine."
The surprised Zoemi shook his head and assured, confused about the girl's behavior.
After using magic to check his condition, was there really a need for an actual physical examination too...?'
"Fine? Not normal?"
"...huh...?'
But then he flinched at the very specific question the healer girl asked.
"I mean... like I said.... well... You know I regained consciousness not that long ago – of course, I would not feel completely fine, but besides the pain in my abdomen..."
"Lay down."
Zoemi hesitated and spoke in hesitation, slightly unnerved and very confused about the whole thing – and then Burushi grabbed his shoulders and began pushing him from sitting to laying down.
"It's not that bad."
...It was not going so well for her since physically, the black-haired boy was far stronger than she was...
"That is not a friendly suggestion, this is an order from your medic! Lay down! You might get a heart attack any moment, moron! Fuck! I am so stupid!"
"...!"
Burushi didn't take kindly to Zoemi's opposition, scolded him – and herself – and used the chance his shock gave her to force him down.
"Listen. If I use private visits on a patient multiple times, their results get saved within the spell and I can access them and compare them with the newest ones. But usually, I don't because I can heal up most of the wounds and sicknesses I come across without them returning."
The blond girl said with a strict face while putting her palm on the black-haired boy's forehead.
"I didn't check yours either, because the results were always within the norm that I am used to seeing – but here's the thing. I just checked the results of the earliest private visit I did to you. Your results were that of a professional athlete in their peak condition. But the results from the one just now show that your condition is within the average of a moderately active person."
She said and raised her other hand, and began drawing a jagged, slightly declining line in the air with her index finger.
"You had incredible results up until the moment your mana began skyrocketing! The moment you started getting overpowered as a magician..."
Burushi announced and slid her finger down.
"Your actual health started plummeting, but I stupidly didn't bother to check! I am a quack after all...!"
She scoffed, furious at herself.
"What? Wait! What?! It started happening when I began getting stronger? NOT after getting messed up by William?!"
Zoemi's eyes widened and he asked, taken aback by the revelation.
"No! The decline started while you were still in the Aspakeony Academy! It got much, much worse after the tournament, of course, but the wound you got from the semi-final fight wasn't the start of it."
Burushi shook her head and declared.
"...this is insane... I do not want to believe that something as stupid as the vision in a dream can be real – and correlation does not always mean causation – but there might be some truth in the statement that mana is poisonous for you... By the way... how stupidly strong were you before? When compared, those results seem like taken from completely different people... The more I look at those, the more ashamed I am for not realizing anything sooner."
She muttered more to herself than to Zoemi or anyone else in the room.
"...well... I was told that it was impossible for me to survive in the slums the way I did it. Especially considering that not a single bone in my body broke after getting pummeled by Edung... so I guess I was always a bit more resistant than average..."
The black-haired boy furrowed his brows and said after a moment of hesitation, glancing shyly at the blond heroine.
"Back home, Zoemi was always weaker than magicians using enchantments, but in training, he had to be put against them because after he was eight years old, the adult magicless knights weren't able to defeat him with the training weapons and would get depressed."
"Excuse me...?"
Miriette laid down right beside Zoemi and said while reaching out and grabbing his hand with both of hers while revealing casually, making Burushi gasp and stare at her, waiting for her to say it was a joke.
"I was just held to a higher standard because I was supposed to become your attendant."
"No. It all began before my father officially approved you for the position – and even before your forced awakening too."
Zoemi turned his head to Miriette and said in a troubled voice, but the helmet-wearing girl casually refuted his explanation.
"Forced awakening...?"
The last part picked Burushi's interest and she looked between the two of her friends, wide-eyed.
"Oh. Right. Sorry, I forgot that you were raised as a commoner. It was a story that made rounds amongst the nobility back then. Zoemi was near the first prince Horeo when his highness went through awakening, and the unleashed power ended up stirring up Zoemi's mana."
"...I think I remember teacher Kros talking about it while I was healing him... If that is the case... hmm... Gah! Nevermind! I do not have access to your prior health history, so I can't say whether that was the beginning of your decline or not! Back on the subject! You are banned from using magic, and after we will get out of this whole messed up situation, we will look into the mana poisoning your body!"
Miriette gasped and nodded apologetically at Burushi before providing the context, making the blond girl squint her eyes and mutter in realization.
In the end, Burushi straightened her back and pointed at the black-haired boy while making a stern expression.
"I was kind of doing that anyway, parts of it at least. So. Can we stop talking about me and get back to the problem with the spell that brought back the dead Perserios family members and their servants? And about this particular corpse puppet too."
Zoemi shrugged his shoulders and gently caressed the top of Miriette's hand with his thumb and turned towards Burushi, without getting up – like an obedient patient.
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