Promise with Elena

 

The Female Thief, with her neck snapped, collapsed, and I stood there calmly gazing at her as the magical armor diffused from her body, and then I sliced her throat with my knife, to finish her off once and for all.

 

“…Keho”

 

Blood spilled from my little coughing. Whether the stab to the stomach had injured my internal organs or the poison had started to work, I heard a shriek as I collapsed to my knees and fell on my back.

 

“Aria!!!”

 

I turned my gaze slightly in the direction where my name came from and saw Elena, who was still unable to move properly, but probably because the poison had faded considerably, she was crawling towards me.

 

Elena was safe…. and there were no serious injuries. I exhaled thinking that my mission was completed, but I used [Heal] to regain some of my strength, which was most likely on the verge of collapse, though I did not recover much from [Heal] as I was still having a difficulty breathing making it seem like I was on my last breath.

 

Considering the magic and Combat Skill I used, I had about half of my magic power left. With [Heal], I would have about 30-40 points left. That would be equivalent to my remaining “life”.

 

“Aria, what a terrible wound…”

 

Elena, who had finally reached my side, turned pale when she saw my injuries.

 

“…Are you okay?”

 

“It’s you that you should be concerned about, rather than me! You fought so recklessly…with wounds this deep, [Heal] is impossible. I will [Cure] you immediately…”

 

“That’s… fine. Can you use [Treatment]?

 

“I can use it, but… but I don’t know what kind of poison it is! If I don’t know what kind of poison was used, I won’t be able to eliminate it!”

 

Elena shook her head with a pale face, knowing that I was poisoned.

 

“…Kilig Grass… Rock Snake Poison Glands… Sacuar Fruits… Shigure Tree Flowers…”

 

“…huh?”

 

I thought… one of those herbs… might have been used.

 

I had been reading the [handwritten wildflower book] that the woman had stolen from her Master’s place repeatedly to read and write the letters.

 

Since I planned to learn alchemy eventually, I read it so much that I memorized even the most detailed notes.

 

According to the book, these were the four ingredients for this kind of painful poison, which were likely to be available in the southern part of the continent where this country was located. There were other types, but I figured that if I wanted to apply it to the dagger and keep it available at all times, I wouldn’t be using a rare material that would require a lot of time and effort.

 

One…or more than one…of the materials I just mentioned were used. Maybe they were mixing other materials to increase the effect, but if the root toxin material was eliminated, it should be eliminated in time.

 

“Ki, I know about Kilig Grass and Sacuar berries. But I’ve never seen Rock Snake Poison Glands and Shigure Tree Flower!”

 

“…Then…imagine…Sacuar Seeds…and Lavender Flowers…with…sorcery. That’s the… opposing ingredient…”

 

“Aria… you, where did you get such knowledge…”

 

“Quickly…”

 

“I understand. But even if you remove the poison, the wound…”

 

“Pocket, search…”

 

“Your Pocket? Is this yours?”

 

Elena took out two ceramic potions from the pocket at my waist.

 

“The clean… bottle is the cheap one… the old bottle… is the strong potion…”

 

“So this is what I should use?”

 

That was another thing that the woman had stolen from her Master of Magic. I would have returned it if I could, but I couldn’t return it if I was already dead in the first place.

 

Elena removed the seal with a shaky hand, pulled out the wax cork, and poured it directly on my wound, causing a sharp pain and an involuntary moan to escape my mouth.

 

“This potion alone won’t heal! I knew I had to [Cure] first…”

 

“Elena…[Treatment]…use it. I’ll use the [Cure].”

 

The maximum use limit for potions was about six months. I didn’t think it would heal the patient completely, since healing potions were not regenerative, but restorative in nature.

 

I had yet to succeed with [Cure] magic, but even so, in my current state, the only way I could survive was to have Elena remove the poison and use [Cure] on my own.

 

“–[Treatment]–“

 

“…[Cure]…”

 

Elena cast the spell [Treatment] on me. I also made use of the intense pain to hold back my nearly lost consciousness and chanted a spell to use [Cure], but there was only a slight glow, and it too soon disappeared.

 

Elena looked at me anxiously. But I shook my head and let her continue with the [Treatment] spell.

 

[Treatment] was not a magic with immediate effects. It required concentration to understand and erase foreign objects, especially when they were not fully identified, as in this case.

 

I had been wondering why [Cure] didn’t work… and why there were so few users of it and most of them ended up in failures.

 

The [Cure] spell was spoken as [rittischwarbolden ostreisten]…commonly known as [restore the body], but when the spell was deployed, the words [regeneration] and [true form] were hidden within it.

 

Perhaps it was a lack of knowledge. Biological knowledge, to be exact.

 

Those who had mastered the [Cure], like Sera, probably dismantled people, understood the vital points, and knew the structure of the human body very well, right? I believed she must have learned this in the past, but even if she knew the location of the heart and brain, she did not know the exact location of the internal organs.

 

For me, there was a way to compensate using that knowledge.

 

I failed once because of not making the proper calculations of magic remaining in my body, however, I never failed after that one time.

 

Earlier, I used the magical elemental light reflections of dark vision to draw the structure of the body in my brain. But that wasn’t enough.

 

“–[Feel]–“

 

Instead of [giving the sensation of being touched] by scattering magic elements, I used the original method to draw the structure of the internal organs in my brain and matched it with that woman’s knowledge.

 

The injured parts were the internal organs…the stomach and the liver.

 

“–[Cure]–“

 

Finally, the magic was activated, and the imagined internal organs began to regenerate to their uninjured state.

 

To activate this spell, it was necessary to identify the wounded parts to be regenerated to be treated, rather than using it vaguely.

 

The scope of [Cure] was quite narrow. As I repositioned my hand to hit the internal organ I had drawn in my brain, the pain began erasing and my consciousness sank into darkness as I listened to Elena’s voice calling my name.