episode_0048

“So, what kind of dream did you have?”

Only after my emotions, which had been shaken by the terrible nightmare, had somewhat calmed down, did Killua release my hand, which he had been holding. Mixing sap with crushed herbs, he asked about the nightmare I had experienced.

“You didn’t dream I died, did you?”

Killua recalled my dazed gaze at his appearance and my request to hold his hand, then tried to deduce my dream.

“No. It was a sight where dying would have seemed preferable.”

Hearing her deduction, I recalled Killua’s appearance from the nightmare.

In the nightmare, Killua’s mind and soul were shattered, leaving her as nothing more than a living doll.

She was unable to live, yet unable to die, resigning herself to everything while even refusing the help of others.

“She was completely broken.”

I carefully summarized my impression of Killua’s appearance in the dream into a single sentence and told her.

“Ahahahah! Broken? Me?”

Contrary to my worry that she would get angry or offended, Killua stirred the crushed herbs and sap with a wooden spatula, letting out a small laugh.

“Interesting. What kind of despair and pain could possibly break me?”

Killua gave a small eye-smile, looking at me as if the question was directed at me.

“W-well, I don’t know?”

Escaping the quagmire of the terrible nightmare and returning to reality, I thought about it again with a cool head and realized something was strange.

Killua, the White Witch, despairing and breaking to the point of giving up on everything?

Even after being sealed and losing all of her world-class magic, Killua had not wavered at all, thanks to her strong will.

Although Rai’s betrayal, whom she once loved, had dealt a considerable shock, she hadn’t let go of reality and had tried to find and implement a way to overcome the hardships.

Even in a situation where Rai was after her life, she had calmly accepted everything and even comforted me, who was worried about her.

At my dazed, ambiguous answer, she tapped the wooden spatula, which had mixed all the herbs and sap, against the bowl, letting the remaining sap fall into the bowl, and then asked.

“Could it be a sign that your trust in me is weak?”

“N-no, not at all!”

In response to her playful, mischievous question, I reflexively expressed strong denial.

Then, as if it had been a joke, Killua let out another small laugh and, holding the bowl of herb and sap mixture, approached the bed where I lay.

“Don’t worry, I’d be too ashamed to let that happen, so I’d end my own life before it came to that.”

“P-please don’t say such terrifying things.”

“It’s just an expression. Lie comfortably on the bed and stay still.”

Approaching the bed, Killua nodded her chin, telling me to lie down on the bed, apparently intending to treat me with the mixture in her hand.

First, following her instructions, I lay my upper body comfortably on the bed, which was softer than I expected.

Was it due to the horror of the vivid nightmare, or the joy of facing a healthy Killua, so contrary to that nightmare?

Only after lying comfortably on the bed did I realize that my upper body was bare, without a single piece of clothing.

“C-can I cover myself with a blanket?”

In belated embarrassment, I wanted to pull up the blanket and cover my completely bare upper body, but…

“No.”

Killua stopped my action with a firm voice.

Soon after, she placed the well-mixed herb and sap bowl beside my head and answered with a bright smile.

“It’ll be a little cold.”

After giving a unilateral warning, Killua abruptly scooped a spoonful of the herb and sap mixture with the spatula and dropped it onto my chest.

“Ughh!!”

As the cold chill, shocking enough to make me jump, gripped my chest, my startled body twitched.

Killua, letting out a small laugh at my intense reaction, rubbed and spread the mixture she had dropped on my chest with her bare hands.

“I-I… I’ll do it myself!!”

As her soft, small hands rubbed my chest to apply the mixture, I hastily tried to apply the mixture myself, instead of her, out of embarrassment and bewilderment.

“Tsk. I told you to stay still. It’s not just about applying the medicine.”

Killua lightly clicked her tongue, as if my actions were getting in the way, and furrowed her brows, as if telling me to lie still.

Soon after, as if to prove her words that it wasn’t just about spreading the medicine, she lightly wiggled her fingers in the air.

With that slight wiggle of her fingers, a faint magical energy flowing from her body gathered in her hand, beginning to emit intense heat.

As she slowly stroked my chest, where the mixture had been spread, with her heat-infused hand, the sap and herbs applied to my chest began to melt smoothly like cream and rapidly absorb into my skin.

“The heat makes the medicine absorb quickly. Originally, I would need to prepare hot charcoal, but this way is simpler.”

“I-I see.”

Lacking medical knowledge, I couldn’t help but be amazed by how the mixture, which had just moments ago boasted its presence by emitting a cold chill, rapidly absorbed into my skin and vanished.

Once all the medicine spread on my chest had absorbed, Killua stirred the mixture in the bowl with the spatula again, as if planning another application.

I looked at the stirring mixture in the bowl and asked.

“What kind of medicine is that? You’re not planning to apply all of it, are you?”

“It’s an antidote to neutralize slime poison. Your body was in real danger.”

Again, Killua scooped a large spoonful of the mixture from the bowl and dropped it onto my chest.

Although I was already tense and prepared, my body still flinched from the astonishingly cold chill of the mixture.

“The slime poison was injected deep near your organs. It was probably due to you absorbing that slime’s magic.”

“Ah…”

When I was buried by the slime, I received a large amount of Ariel’s will and magic.

Given the slime’s characteristic sensitivity to magic, when I absorbed the magic, it seemed the slime’s tissue was also naturally pulled into the flow of magic, permeating deep into my body.

“I managed to extract all the toxins injected into the skin surface, but the toxins that had permeated deep couldn’t be removed by physical means. In the end, there was nothing to do but apply this antidote and wait for it to naturally detoxify.”

With a face full of concern for me, Killua gently rubbed the mixture into my chest again with her heat-infused hand, making it absorb.

Watching the mixture rapidly melt and absorb into my skin from the artificial heat created by her magic, I asked in a trembling voice.

“You mean Killua-nim continued to treat me until I regained consciousness?”

“What choice did I have? I’m the only one who can use magic, aren’t I?”

Killua answered my question in a calm voice, as if she had simply done what was obvious, and began stirring the spoon in the bowl again.

“I’m sorry. To waste Killua-nim’s precious time because of someone like me…”

Closing my eyes tightly in apology and humility, I apologized to Killua in a trembling voice.

Regardless of how it happened, Killua had now, as a result, regained one of the four shattered pendant fragments.

It wasn’t the absolute magic of the past, but she had regained about a quarter of that magic.

Even with just that, Killua, who now possessed magic comparable to other mages praised as Arch-mages, wasting her time to save someone as insignificant as me, would not be compensated even with a hundred apologies.

“……”

Perhaps displeased with my apology, Killua merely stirred the remaining mixture in the bowl with the spatula, a sulky expression on her face.

“This position is a bit uncomfortable after all. Just lie still.”

Stirring the spatula and thinking for a moment, Killua ignored my apology as if it wasn’t worth answering, and got up from her spot.

“Ki-Killua-nim?”

Having risen, Killua abruptly climbed onto the bed where I lay.

And, straddling my waist, she bent down slightly and picked up the spatula from the bowl placed beside my head.

“When you were unconscious, I applied it by straddling you like this.”

Killua, watching my flustered face and letting out a chuckle, dropped a dollop of the cold mixture, full on the spatula, onto my chest, as if telling me not to think anything strange.

“Huk!”

As the sudden cold chill gripped my chest, I let out a stupid gasp, and my body twitched again.

“Eek?”

Then, Killua’s body, straddling my waist, also lifted slightly from the recoil of my body twitching, and she let out a strange yelp without realizing it.

“Ah… Ahahahat..”

“Pfft…”

We both looked at each other, having let out similar stupid gasps and strange yelps, and let out small, disbelieving laughs.