Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 110
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 110
The situation was bad.
Rickson gripped his broken sword and swung it wide.
Screeeeech!
The shortened blade forced the claws back for a moment, but that was all. A shattered sword could not stop Varg.
But the young master stood behind him.
Rickson’s gaze settled into calm. What must a knight do in a situation like this?
There was only one answer.
‘Give flesh and take bone.’
The option of dodging did not exist.
Because he was a knight.
Because a knight existed to stand firm against any threat and protect, no matter what.
The young master, and Varg before him—both were people Rickson was sworn to protect.
Reasonless eyes filled Rickson’s vision, and then blood-soaked claws engulfed his sight.
Rickson raised his arm and took the blow head-on.
Shunk!
Something burrowed in with a sickening sound.
The thick scent of blood rose, closer than his own arm.
“Rickson! Get ahold of yourself!”
Rickshel shouted fiercely from behind.
“…!”
Rickson realized there was no pain in his arm.
Instead, the other set of claws, caught against a shield spell, had reached right in front of his eyes.
‘One hand was the decoy!’
Fearsome combat instinct.
If the young master had not cast that shield spell, the claws would not have taken flesh—they would have been a reaper’s scythe come to harvest his breath.
“…”
Rickshel stared with cold eyes at the claws that had pierced through his shield spell.
Try as he might to assess the board with cold reason, truthfully, his blood ran chill.
Those claws felt like the ice storm that had raged across the training ground.
No—each strike was heavier.
The shield had been pierced. That meant they were evenly matched, or the beastfolk Varg was exerting greater strength.
In other words, a single lapse would cost a life.
But Rickshel did not waver.
‘A foe without reason is trickier than I expected.’
At least when it came to training, he had never been coddled.
Sparring in House Asteri was built on the premise that status and authority did not interfere.
So sparring had been brutally harsh, and he had spent months laid up with injuries more times than he could count, regardless of winning or losing.
Young though he was, he was by no means a greenhorn with zero experience.
And right then, Rickshel felt it viscerally.
The razor-thin margin of resolve. A miscalculation in how mana was distributed. Focus.
If he dropped any one of them, victory and defeat would swap in an instant.
So he had to stay composed.
‘Keep calm.’
The shield impaled on Varg’s claws was slowly losing coherence.
Soon the spell would collapse and the shield would be torn apart like paper.
But if he recklessly attacked to try to stop it, he would only hasten the child’s death.
Think.
Right then, Rickson was disarmed.
No matter how exceptional a knight, he could not oppose a foe whose entire body was a weapon.
So they had to evade and move inside this cramped space.
Until his brother arrived.
But whether his brother could even bring the remedy was unknown.
What method could hold the creature’s movements, if only for a moment?
What would the family head have done in this situation?
Rickshel’s mind raced, but all he could think of was a way to buy a single breath.
‘In a pinch, I could cast a radiance spell and temporarily blind—’
The moment he thought it.
Varg’s gaze, fixed solely on them, shifted.
Then, abandoning the attempt to shatter the shield spell, the claws pulled back.
‘He gave up?’
That would mean he had found a target weaker than a mage.
Who around here could that be… No.
“Brother!”
The instant he shouted Danger!, Lion came plummeting from the sky.
“Whoa—aaugh!”
And then—KABOOM!
A crash rang out, as loud as a falling tree.
Dust that had already been stirred up once billowed into the air again.
“…”
“…”
The two who had witnessed the bewildering, absurd spectacle shouted belatedly.
“B-Brother!”
“Young Lord!”
Lion, on whom all their worry had converged…
“Ow, ow…”
was thoroughly coated in dust but, mercifully, still alive.
‘Good thing I asked Elvia to layer me up with shock-absorption magic.’
Hitching a ride on the wind with Nature’s help and getting here fast had been a fine idea.
It was an adaptation of Grandfather’s acceleration magic, but apparently he still couldn’t control it that finely.
As Lion was placidly brushing the dust off himself, a voice rang out from a distance.
“It’s dangerous!”
“It’s fine.”
Of course, he hadn’t come charging in with no preparations.
Lion grinned at Varg, who was plunging toward him through the dust.
“This isn’t ordinary dust, you see.”
From inside his coat, Lion produced a glittering powder and scattered it once more.
It was Moonlight Pill powder.
-When used by a beastfolk, permanently increases stamina. (However, adverse effects occur if the subject exhibits Eclipse symptoms.)
To a fellow suffering from Eclipse symptoms, powder steeped in lunar power would be nothing short of poison.
‘It’ll sting, I’m sure.’
But once a rampage had already begun, this was Lion’s only way to get close.
Even exposure to moonlight caused him agony. So if this entered his body through sensitive nostrils and open wounds…
“Yipe!”
Varg let out a pained whimper and crumpled to the ground inside the dust cloud.
‘My body…’
The pain was so intense it felt as if it were burning him away.
But maybe thanks to that immense agony, strength drained from his body in an instant and clarity returned.
The reason was pain more direct than moonlight itself.
“…!”
The two poised to rush over stopped at the sight.
They did not know the reason, but it seemed Brother had subdued Varg.
‘Now that I look…’
What they had taken for dust was glinting strangely.
Crunch. Crunch.
Lion slowly walked up to Varg.
Lion himself was covered in Moonlight Pill powder from head to toe, so Varg’s body writhed in agony and curled inward.
“I-It hurts. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”
“Varg. It’s all right.”
“I don’t… don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Just kill me instead. I did wrong. I’m sorry.
Varg let out whatever rose to mind.
He was, quite literally, in a state of panic.
He had reason to be—this was no different from rubbing salt into open wounds.
‘Still, to get him to recover quickly, I had no choice.’
The thought made Lion feel somewhat sorry.
He examined Varg’s body.
His clothes were rags, and his whole body was riddled with wounds.
Even a cursory glance revealed this much, so what must the rest look like?
‘Still, larger surface areas are easier to treat, so…’
Lion took out a Honey Potion and poured it over Varg’s curled-up body.
The liquid had been viscid inside the bottle, but once the lid was opened it trickled out smoothly like an ordinary potion.
And the potion that fell sank at once into the wounds.
At the same time—
“…!”
Varg’s eyes, squeezed tightly shut, flew open at the unfamiliar sensation spreading through his body.
Strange.
The wounds that had only pained him, the mind that had been murky—they were returning swiftly.
Instead of the cloying iron scent of blood, a sweet honey fragrance rose.
The powder that had made it agonizing even to breathe was now restoring his body, as if he had drawn on lunar essence.
The torment was vanishing.
The fear that he might hurt someone was settling.
Instinctively, he knew.
I’m alive.
I… didn’t kill anyone.
A single tear rolled from Varg’s eye and fell to the floor with the moonlight powder clinging to his face.
“You’ll be all right soon.”
Get some sleep.
The young master’s kind voice reached his ears.
‘I have to say thank you.’
An overwhelming drowsiness washed over him.
His thoroughly spent body refused to obey.
The very last thing he could manage was—
Sway.
—a few weak flicks of the tail he had been holding rigidly aloft.
* * *
[With exceptional talent, you have saved a life.]
[You have earned the achievement ‘Surpassing the Master’!]
[You have acquired 50,000 Shillings.]
[Alchemy Proficiency has reached Skilled Lv. 4.]
“Phew!”
As the notice signaling the end of the incident floated up, Lion heaved a deep sigh of relief.
‘Alchemy didn’t budge even when I made a hot spring, but this did it.’
And on top of that, the enormous sum of 50,000 Shillings.
That might be the largest amount he had ever received from an achievement.
Saving a life seemed to be the reason.
‘Well, it is hard to save someone with life skills.’
Saving people as a combat class was relatively common, but saving people in such a conspicuous way as a life-skill class was genuinely difficult.
“…Not that I aimed for that.”
Lion chuckled softly at the sleeping Varg, then turned to the two who had dashed over to him.
“Sir Rickson, Knight Commander. You held out well.”
“Not at all. But are you unhurt, my lord?”
“As you can see.”
Lion waved his arms around to show he was perfectly fine, and only then did Rickson sink to the ground as if finally relieved.
“Fortune upon fortune, that’s what this is.”
“You must have been quite alarmed.”
Alarmed was an understatement. When the young lord had plummeted from the sky, he’d truly thought disaster had struck.
No healer in the world can bring back someone killed on the spot.
If the fight with Varg had chilled his blood, the young lord falling had felt like his heart dropped clean out of his chest.
“Hey, now. I’m the sort who looks after his own body better than anyone.”
Brushing it off as having been in a hurry, Lion patted the sleeping Varg on the shoulder.
“Treatment is safely finished. He’s asleep now, so you can take him with you.”
Rickson, whose expression had been tight with concern over Varg’s condition, let out a long sigh of relief at Lion’s words.
“Truly… thank you, Young Lord.”
“You’d best give your thanks to Rickshel. Rickshel! All of this is thanks to you. I made the remedy from your moonflowers, after all.”
“…”
“Huh?”
When sudden silence fell, Lion looked at Rickshel.
And then—
‘Oh, no.’
Lion swallowed a gasp at the affronted expression on Rickshel’s face, which he was seeing for the first time.
He had really stepped in it this time, hadn’t he?
But no—there had been reasons for everything.
He had to fall from the sky to spread the powder evenly, and Elvia had cast shock-absorption magic…
He’d intended to explain it all like that, but facing that expression, he couldn’t make the words come out right.
“Er, little brother?”
“…”
“I-I’ll explain on the way back to the mansion! Why I had to show up like that.”
“…I shall report this matter to the family head in full and explicit detail.”
“Hey.”
He couldn’t even begin to guess how much nagging he would suffer once Grandfather found out.
“Ahem. I shall carry Varg and take my leave first.”
As expected of the Asteri Knight Commander, Rickson had finished reading the room. He heaved the fallen Varg onto his back, finished his farewell, and then faster than anyone, silently, doing his utmost to be invisible, vanished.
“…”
Soon, only Lion and a sulking Rickshel remained in the ruined clearing.
Whooosh.
For some reason, a cold wind blew.
…No, it was a warm wind, but thanks to Rickshel, it seemed to have turned cold.
“…”
On top of everything, Rickshel spun on his heel and left first by himself.
Inhale.
This would not be easy.
The truth was, once they got back, Lion had been planning to check whether the malt was properly dried.
Somehow, it felt like a tribunal awaited him instead.
That evening.
Exactly as he’d expected, Lion found himself delivering an endless string of excuses in front of the entire family.