A Day of Rest and Unexpected Hope
Today’s lecture shall conclude here.
Please review the first-aid techniques you’ve learned today until the next session.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
The professor for the Medical and First-Aid course.
A middle-aged woman.
After Professor Shadgol’s class ended, the students all touched the red marks on their own arms.
Medicine is important.
There is healing magic, priests, and paladins.
Yet in any battlefield, their numbers are always absolutely insufficient.
Soldiers and knights.
And countless wounded patients, including injured mages, wait for recovery magic or holy power.
But those blessed with holy power are always terribly few.
And among the few mages, only dozens at most have properly learned healing magic.
Wounded patients number in the hundreds or thousands.
It is only natural that their numbers cannot handle them.
Many wounded cannot hold on until they reach the healers, and they pass away.
Ensuring wounded patients can endure until the Saintess, Saint, or mages arrive was the meaning of medicine on the battlefield.
Simply, to prevent a scratch from becoming a worse injury that would require amputation, the purpose of this class was to study preventive herbs and methods of stopping bleeding.
Therefore, today we learned how to stop bleeding using cloth easily obtainable anywhere.
The problem was the instruction to tie it too tightly.
The result was bright red marks left on the students’ arms.
“Hey, why did you tie it so tightly?! I still can’t feel any circulation!”
“The professor told me right next to you to tie it even tighter—how was I supposed to do it?”
“If you tie it this tightly, aren’t you going to cut off my arm?!”
The students whispered their various trivial complaints and finished today’s final class.
Today had been quite a day with many classes, so everyone was tired by this point.
Yet the students’ enthusiasm had only just begun to stir.
“A few days?”
One student rolled his eyes upward and spread his fingers to count.
“Four days. We can finally rest for four days!”
A day of rest.
The academy’s usual week schedule was quite demanding, but occasionally a holiday called a rest day was inserted in the middle of the week.
It was given to encourage the students’ autonomous activities or external activities.
For the students who were depleted by countless trainings and assignments, it was nothing short of a drop in the desert.
“Daelk, what are you going to do?”
Lir had no particular plans.
As usual, he would train and wander the streets to pass the time.
Not knowing what to do in this situation, he asked the closest person, Daelk.
“I’m going to visit my parents. The Lagraund territory is reachable in a day by carriage.”
Ah, he was a noble.
Lir had never thought of him as one because he was so natural and unpretentious.
…Or perhaps because there were so many nobles around him that he hadn’t noticed.
“Lir, what about you?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet. I’ll think slowly while heading home.”
“All right. Then I’ll prepare to head to my family estate first. See you later?”
When he waved his hand, Lir waved back and gave a light greeting.
Family and relatives.
As someone with no such ties, it was not something to mention.
The faces of his parents were also not remembered.
The only memory left of the region where he had lived was the name of the place.
He had been raised by neighbors and then, upon regaining consciousness, entered the knights’ order.
“I’ll think about what to do slowly. First, I should go see Professor Helahem.”
After class ended, Lir stepped away from the line of students exiting the corridor and turned down a different path.
This was because a message had arrived after today’s lecture requesting a brief meeting with Professor Helahem.
A professor at the academy and a renowned knight.
One could believe it, but Lir had been a little disappointed that no contact had come in the meantime.
This was good news.
After walking for a few minutes, Lir stood in front of Helahem’s office and knocked on the door twice with the back of his hand.
“Enter.”
Opening the thick iron door, Lir entered.
Helahem’s gaze was clearer than when he had visited last time.
Wearing glasses, he was looking at the scattered documents on the desk.
Upon noticing Lir, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.
“I can finally tell you good news.”
The moment he heard those words, Lir’s chest felt a little relieved.
At last, was he about to grasp a thread?
Naturally, the corner of his mouth also rose.
“What happened?”
“I already informed Professor Remediela to examine the student.
She didn’t ask me deeply since I asked as a favor.”
“Oh…”
It was quite a success.
“When should I go see Professor Remediela?”
“Now. She said to come before the rest day, so there is no better time than now.”
It was sudden.
But it was not bad at all.
Lir was eager to find the thread and restore his original body as quickly as possible.
There was no need to waste time.
“I’ll follow you. Professor Remediela’s research room is in the Mage Faculty.”
The Mage Faculty.
The moment he heard those words, Lir felt uneasy.
But what could he do.
Since Professor Helahem was with him, he would not stare openly.
***
It did not take long for the view tinted blue to shift to red.
Farike Academy, divided into two large sections.
The western building used mainly by the Knight Faculty and the eastern building used mainly by the Mage Faculty.
Entering the eastern building, Lir’s presence in the blue cloak drew covert glances.
Fortunately, they were not hostile stares.
Lir was simply following Professor Helahem, so he only received the gazes one would give for seeing a rare species.
Due to the academy’s vast size, he received those gazes for nearly thirty minutes.
“Why is this academy so huge?”
It was better than open hostility, but it was still somewhat uncomfortable.
“Hey, them… I mean, those guys…”
Then, in the distance, a group of Mage Faculty students approached from the opposite direction.
There were familiar faces.
Two of them, who had once spouted nonsense and received a proper lecture from Lir.
Just a little longer.
As he was thinking of confronting them, the two noisy guys chatting around him suddenly met Lir’s eyes.
“…G-get lost, a-uh…”
When Lir glared with both eyes while passing them, the two paled and lowered their gazes.
Yes, that guy Ferdan had lost to Lir over a matter of honor.
Are you guys still not giving up?
“So now they know what they did wrong.”
A laugh came out naturally, and a light pleasantness filled his steps.
“What’s so good about it? I can feel it trembling behind me.”
“No. There’s another good thing.”
A smile spread across Lir’s face.
When he looked back once more, the two guys met his eyes again as if checking his mood.
After that, bright smiles appeared on Lir’s face once more.
***
“Welcome. Professor Helahem. And the student is… Ah, Lir student?”
“Hello.”
Remediela greeted Lir with the same smile she had shown in the other classes and led Helahem and Lir into her research room.
Inside, it was quite complex and messy.
Numerous magic formulas filled the blackboards covering all the walls.
Various research materials were placed on the tables.
Flasks and other potions were scattered haphazardly, making Lir cautious so as not to snag his cloak on them while turning.
“I was thinking. Professor Helahem gave you a recommendation letter, right? What’s the relationship?”
“I just found someone with that much talent and recommended him. What else is there?”
“I’ve been watching the student since the practical exam. I thought Professor Helahem would recommend him. Well, Lir student, the examination won’t take long.”
Tap tap.
She tapped the chair and gestured for Lir to sit, then extended her hand.
And she pointed a sharp knife at his hand.
“The examination requires blood. Don’t be scared.”
“…Ugh.”
When she cut his flesh, a clear red blood stain flowed from his finger.
Remediela collected the dripping blood in a glass tube.
While Lir tied his bleeding finger with a bandage after a “swish” sound, Remediela busily prepared something with various reagents and blood.
She mixed different reagents with each portion of the divided blood, shook it a little, injected mana, and debated before writing something on paper.
After waiting about thirty minutes.
Remediela sat quietly, tilting her head several times, and then sat in front of Lir.
“I understand why Professor Helahem asked you to keep it secret.”
“…How is it?”
Tap tap.
Remediela tapped the paper with her pen a few times, fell into thought, and then looked at Lir’s face and spoke.
“Something other than mana or magi is flowing in your blood. Most of what flows through the body is mana… but…”
Other than mana or magi?
At that time, was she referring to the thing that seemed to be flowing inside his body right before he lost consciousness?
“It’s strange. The essence is mana, yet it also has a very slight feel of magi. Really, very slight.”
“Is there a problem with my body?”
“I can’t confirm that for sure. As far as I know, there were similar cases…”
Upon hearing about similar cases, Lir swallowed hard.
“It’s from an experiment related to magi. The result here is similar to what was detected in Lir student. The only difference is that Lir student detected it from inside the body.”
“…Is there no way to fix it?”
Lir grabbed the thread that had transformed his body with that “unknown something.”
Sluggishly.
That thing had entered his body and controlled his mana to eject it, but because it could not be completely removed, this body had resulted.
“There is follow-up research on that. It’s not publicized… but…”
Remediela rummaged through the documents and spoke of various things.
Of course, as someone who was a layman, Lir understood none of it.
“…The conclusion is that it cannot be neutralized by any ordinary potion or magic. However, there is a delay, so it’s not impossible, but…”
Tap, tap.
Remediela’s hand tapping the paper with her fingers moved to her lips, and she fell into deep thought.
Then, with her crimson eyes glancing at Lir, she slowly opened her mouth.
“Lir student, do you know it as Elixir?”