Chapter 483 158 - Perserios territory - part 4 - Countering the plan that was thirty years in the making (part 15)
"Dehydration. Extreme exhaustion. Surprisingly enough - mana depletion, not a severe one but it looks like she used a few of her spells... to name the surface-level problems that can be dealt with easily enough – except mana depletion of course... I'm more worried about the fact that her health regressed a lot from where I left her off... which should not happen in such a short amount of time... Hmm... About that mana depletion - her mana seems to be turning against her... That might be one of the reasons for that – although I can't deny the possibility of the experiments she went through taking a huge toll on her body."
Burushi opened her eyes and said, making a sour expression.
"Hold on. Did you say that her own mana is turning against her? Is she just like me then...?!"
Zoemi stepped forward as his eyes widened when he thought he found a connection between him and the acid-wielding girl.
"Sorry. It is not the same at all. In your case, the mana is constantly flowing out. In her case, it looks like her mana is slowly devouring itself... It might be that her attribute was never supposed to exist in the first place, or maybe..."
Burushi shook her head, scrapping the idea before revealing her own take on the matter, although she ended up hesitating by the end of her sentence.
"What is the other option? Is it something that much worse or something...?"
Zoemi and Miriette exchanged surprised glances and the dark-haired girl asked, raising her brow.
"It's simpler, but a bit more gross."
Burushi shrugged her shoulders and sighed.
"Your air emperor said something about this girl having an accident or a few – if that was an acid too, her current state might be very similar to how it is with darkness magicians who spend too much time hidden within the darkness."
She added, pointing around the well-fitting hazmat suit of the acid magician, especially the waist.
"...should... should we poke a hole in her outfit, or cut it up just a little bit too, you know... drain it...?"
"It would be best to remove it altogether... but I would prefer to not do that for everyone to see Enemy or not, a bit of decency should not be too much to ask."
Zoemi asked hesitantly, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, to which Burushi nodded with a sigh as she looked around the at the scarred villagers giving them worried looks.
"We can help~!"
"Master, we will help~!"
In a timely manner, the two corpse puppet sentinels cheered out and walked toward Burushi and Miriette, raising their hands like polite schoolchildren.
As Zoemi was raising his brows, a wall of darkness showed up, surrounding the air emperor, Miriette, Burushi, the acid magician, and of course the two corpse puppet sentinels.
"Little ones! Make sure that the air can move through! The vapors from the acid must be dangerous too!"
"We know, master. It's okay~!"
The black-haired boy called out, worried that his sentinels created an air-tight space unaware of the possible consequences of such actions, but thankfully that didn't seem to be the case as one of them responded cheerfully, and nothing changed about the darkens encompassing them.
*ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit* *splash*
*kshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*
The next moment, a sound of a rubbery fabric getting cut was followed by the liquid spilling on the ground and then the sizzling of acid.
"...!"
"We are okay!"
Right when Zoemi was opening his mouth to ask whether everything is fine, Miriette called out to him reassuringly, so he ended up only nodding and relaxing a little bit.
"Little ones, can one of you help me out with cleaning her up a bit? Also, you can use all different types of magic, right? can you clean up and fix this outfit so she can wear it again? It doesn't look like anything else withstands contact with her boy."
Burushi asked the corpse puppet sentinels, but they did not respond as fast as they would usually do to Zoemi's requests.
"Okay, I will see what I can do."
"Make it prettier~!"
Still, it turned out they weren't going to refuse, they just needed a moment to think about it and responded with their usual cheerfulness afterward.
Then, the sound of flowing water followed by the sizzling of the acid was continuing for a while as the black-haired boy and the brown-haired corpse puppet were standing idly on the outside of the darkness.
"Should we do something or..."
"I understand that you want to be helpful and prove that you aren't the person we thought you were but I don't believe Buruhi would appreciate you moving around barely clothed girl, considering what you have said and done to her under the hex."
After a couple of minutes passed, Xeonith motioned at the darkness with his chin, but Zoemi merely looked over at him and shook his head getting to the point without holding back his words too much.
"Exactly! You want to make me believe you are not a creep, stop acting like one!"
"See...?"
"..."
Burushi's annoyed voice revealed that she heard everything all too well, which caused Zoemi to shrug his shoulders and glance at the silent Xeonith with a faint smile.
"...Miss healer...? What... what are you doing here...?"
"!!!"
Just then, another voice joined in, but this one did not belong to any confirmed friendly person within the area, making Zoemi and Xeonith flinch.
The acid magician regained enough senses to react to what was going on around her.
"Hello, Miss Mirienne. You have been through a lot, haven't you?"
Burushi responded to her in a friendly manner, although her voice did not lack cautiousness now that the acid magician seemed to get better.
"Miss healer... You should not be helping me anymore. I am no longer someone worthy of that..."
"!!!"
The acid magician said, and even without any visuals, Zoemi could notice Burushi flinching at those words. Well, he and even Xeonith reacted the same way too, after all.
"And why is that, Miss Etwistrall?"
And then there was Miriette, as always unbothered about anyone whom she did not consider her friend or at least an ally.
She wasn't there for vague self-deprecating words of remorse or anything – she wanted a proper answer without the acid magician beating around the bush.
"I... eh...? EEEEEHHHH?! L-l-l-l-lady Miriette?! I-I mean...! Young lady E-Espine...?! It is really you?!"
For a moment it sounded like she was going to get just that, but then the acid magician must have looked her way and lost her cool, freaking out like a long-time fan finally meeting their idol.
"Young lady Espine, pardon my rudeness...! I was not aware that you are in this place! Ah! But your attendant was here, I should have known... although he is a former attendant now but still... wait...! WAIT! Oh dear heavens...! My lady...! Could it be that you were the girl in that ugly helmet...?! NOOO! I and Roiso were so rude to you...! Please accept my heartfelt apolo... eh...?"
By the sound of it, it seemed that Mirienne jumped right up to her feet and began speaking very fast, unable to stop herself at the sight of Miriette – and yet, words suddenly seemed to get stuck in her throat, making Zoemi worried that she switched to Roiso and things would not look nearly as positively as they were up until that point.
But...
"KYAAAAAAAAAAH! Why am I naked?! NOOOOO! My lady, please, I bego fo you, do not think that I am doing this on purpose...! Noooo...! I am going to die from shame...! Why is it happening right in front of young lady Espine...?! It's such a nightmare...! Roiso – what did you do when I was out of it?!"
The acid magician cried out in extreme embarrassment – she must have been trying to curtsy to Miriette as was a proper thing to do, just to realize that, well, her apparel was missing, causing her a great deal of worry.
She even called out to her other personality – which to be honest was exactly what Zoemi was worried about...
"...don't get me into this, I passed out too. The only person I would do that for would be lord Zoemi, and only if he asked. Although I would probably vomit from nervousness first ruining the mood..."
"...?"
Surprisingly enough – or not – the acid magician answered herself with a timid murmur that sounded as far from the personality that Roiso showed during her first appearance as possible.
"If you stop talking about vomiting all the time and acting crazy, then maybe you would have fewer reasons to be ashamed of?"
"What do you want from me? I have no social skills. My so-called family pushed me onto an alcoholic maid to raise me, I was never given proper lessons of manners like you! Ugh, this sucks so much – can we get dressed already? I'm going to throw up from shame..."
The acid magician had a proper conversation with both personalities, which kind of went against Burushi's idea of the girl having a multiple personality disorder, but was right on the money with them being joined together due to the experiment performed on them.
"Here~!"
"Eh...? Ah! Th-thank you..."
Zoemi's corpse puppet sentinel joined in, undoubtedly passing the repaired hazmat suit back onto the acid magician who sounded very timid once again while taking it from them.
"Hmm...? Hold on, this isn't how it looked before, isn't it...?"
"Little ones, it's okay to drop the barrier already."
The acid magician sounded confused, but Miriette seemed satisfied with the current state of things and called out to the corpse puppet sentinels who listened to her without a moment of hesitation.
The veil of darkness dropped revealing everyone inside.
R𝑒ad latest chapt𝒆rs at freew𝒆(b)novel.c(o)m Only