TSYMVF 71

 Chapter 71

[Status abnormality immunity effect has been removed.]

[Health and Strength increase effects have been removed.]

[A new stat has been unlocked.]

[Name: Shasha Winchester (LV.7)]

[Class: Budding Savior]

[Trait: Mecius’s Key]

[Stats: Health 26 / Strength 18 / Psi 8 / Intelligence 39 / Vitality 21]

The word “Vitality” in red letters caught my eye.

Beside it, a small warning was written.

‘Vitality cannot be replenished with potions.’

‘Reference range for appropriate vitality in normal condition: 30–70’

‘If vitality drops below the normal lower bound, vitality will continue to decrease.’

Ah… so this is what it meant — using psi at the cost of one’s vitality.

“Cough, cough.”

“Miss… your forehead is burning hot.”

Maya changed the wet towel on my head with worried eyes.

I never imagined I’d feel this sick the moment the buff effects wore off.

“…….”

Othello was staring at me with a frightening expression.

I lost consciousness before he slipped from my sight; I came to in a hazy state with Othello carrying me into the room.

The doctor who had been tending Othello was grinding herbs into medicine beside me.

“Has Shasha caught a cold again?”

Jin entered and asked the doctor.

The doctor pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and said,

“It doesn’t look like a typical cold. It seems to be from physical exhaustion. Her throat isn’t swollen, but she has a cough and she coughed up blood.”

“…….”

“Has she recently been terrified, or experienced an extreme fatigue due to psi…?”

“……there was.”

Othello let his lips part.

He stared at my rasping breaths for a long while.

Long enough to be uncomfortable.

“You went where you shouldn’t have gone.”

Othello continued.

“You helped me with psi.”

A short, thick silence passed.

Was Othello feeling guilty about what happened that day?

The episode of me being on the snowy mountain had been interpreted as a prodrome of psi manifestation.

Othello had also wandered through the mansion sleepwalking around the time his psi manifested.

Still, the coincidence of him meeting me at that precise moment was hard to explain.

“Could the fever be caused by unstable psi?”

In response to Jin’s question, the doctor shook his head.

“I’ve examined many young masters and noble daughters of the Winchester family, and when psi is unstable there are always significant changes in heart rate.”

The doctor continued.

“But Miss Shasha’s pulse is very stable. I don’t think it’s from psi instability. Rather, it seems she’s sick because her physical strength has been depleted by the psi manifestation.”

“Then what should we do?”

“For now, stabilize mind and body with the Elixia and Paras incense Lord Jin provided, lower the fever, and monitor her condition. She’s unwell, yes, but it doesn’t appear to be a diagnosable illness right now.”

Jin nodded at the doctor’s explanation.

Othello, who had been looking at me in silence, asked the doctor,

“Is there anything I should do?”

The doctor flinched at Othello’s question.

He had observed Othello for days and knew his temper well.

He’d heard the doctor had been grabbed by the collar more than three times.

So it was unusual—almost striking—that he now asked calmly if there was anything he could do for his younger sister.

After thinking for a moment, the doctor opened his mouth with a heavy expression.

“There is something that comes to mind….”

Just then Jin spoke up.

“What about Sariya?”

At that, the doctor looked at Jin in surprise and asked,

“How does the young master know about that?”

Jin recalled a book he’d found earlier. It didn’t contain a recipe for a completed elixir, but it listed several special ingredients that might work.

Ingredients powerful enough, perhaps, to bring the dead back to life.

“What is Sariya?” Othello asked, and the doctor answered again.

“There’s a spirit-creature called Sariya that grows once every ten years in the Marihad Cave of the Halo Ice Valley. I’ve heard that if you boil and eat it, it’s effective against unknown, psi-related symptoms like Miss Shasha’s.”

“Sariya?”

“Yes, just a moment.”

The doctor took a thick book from his bag and flipped to a page with a mushroom illustration.

The fungus had a translucent cap like ice.

“It grows in terrain so harsh even mountain folk can’t harvest it.”

“Is there a taboo when harvesting it?”

“No, you just pick it like any fungus, but the cave’s terrain in the ice valley is brutal. Also, after the head of Halo passed away and the prison that kept the modified bahimoses contained was destroyed… bahimoses have been appearing around the valley.”

At the mention of bahimoses, Othello’s eyebrows twitched.

“So even regular mountain folk won’t go near the valley….”

“In other words, you can’t get it in Rozento’s market,” Jin muttered.

Othello, who had been watching me with a cold expression, turned away after a short while and said,

“I’ll bring it within three days.”

That day Othello was supposed to return to Tellarus.

“Hah… but Lord, your own health….”

“I’ll be watching over Shasha. If anything happens to her, you will die by my hand.”

“Ah… uh… understood.”

After Vanessa’s death, it seemed the misunderstanding between the two houses would be resolved and the hostage exchange concluded, but the Tellarus house had refused.

They wouldn’t give Evan, whose psi had manifested, to the Winchesters. It would be a loss for them to keep Evan, so their motive was unclear.

“Ose—” Cough.

I wanted to call his name, but Othello hurried out.

I remembered, only briefly, that Jin kept looking at me.

“Trust me — it’ll be fine.”

“But….”

I had been so preoccupied with Othello that I’d momentarily forgotten Jin was still watching me.

“I told you. I won’t let anyone take what I treasure.”

Jin’s cold gaze made my head spin.

“Jin….”

Only wheezing noises came from my throat.

My heart thudded rapidly, thump-thump.

“I’ll be back.”

A short while after Othello left, Jin followed, and I stayed behind in the room with the doctor.

Knowing Jin was coming along didn’t ease my worry about Othello, but I still felt heavy with concern.

The two of them were going off to do something dangerous and troublesome for my sake.

Evan sat atop the northern tower watching the quiet scenery.

The power known as “Azure Obedience” lets the recipient keep their usual reason while still acting in accordance with the caster’s will.

Chenoa Tellarus currently had no memory that she was under Evan’s psi.

“…….”

The tranquil autumn sky drifted by and a winter filled with snow-dark clouds approached.

Winchester’s winter would surely be harsher than Tellarus’s.

It would be even worse for Halo, which had lost its house head.

Halo was said to be struggling for a successor.

They might soon face the weakest head in their history.

The balance of the four houses would be disrupted in one way or another.

Was this all part of Persetos’s plan? Who knew.

Evan stared up at the gray sky.

He remembered the moment on the snowy mountain when a strange psi flowed through Othello’s body.

At the same time, he felt as if Shasha Winchester’s source was wavered.

If that was due to Shasha’s psi, would she become a moth that burned her own life away?

— This time, I’ll live longer than you.

Shasha’s voice suddenly passed through his mind.

That emotion — sharp enough to wake every sense — slightly disturbed Evan’s mood.

He didn’t know the source of that feeling. He probably never would.

When he heard those words, he felt as though something had bound him.

“…….”

His gaze drifted around Shasha.

Evan furrowed his brow, spun around the tower, and leapt down.

Azure Obedience controlled his falling speed, and Evan landed on a third-floor windowsill.

— Bring all Rozento’s doctors and apothecaries.

— The young lords have already gone to fetch rare herbs.

Through his link with Chenoa, Evan heard Recardo talking with his subordinates where he was.

— I will go. I must see it for myself.

Recardo rose as if to leave; his voice was low and strict.

— But the discussion about Halo’s disposition is—!

— We will return later to discuss that.

That curt voice and the expression with it needed no sight to be understood.

In that moment, Recardo could care less about other house heads.

Then another sound drifted up.

“Miss, in this situation you ask for books to be borrowed?”

“Here, bring this… bring this, please.”

Shasha and her maid’s voices floated up from a lower window.

It seemed the doctor had stepped away for a moment.

“There’s a doctor here. There’s no need for Miss to know about these herbs—”

“Even if there’s a doctor, the medical standard here… anyway, I’ll do what I can. There’s a book grandfather told me to read. Cough.”

As always, a small cough punctuated the end of her sentence, but her clear voice didn’t sound like someone about to die.

“I really have to live a long time. Cough.”

There was something solemn in Shasha’s voice.

A complex smile flickered for an instant at the corner of Evan’s mouth as he sat on the windowsill, leaning back.

“……It will turn out that way.”