Chapter 16: Magic "Ouch."
Today wasn"t my usual cooking cla.s.s day, but I felt somewhat humoured so I was helping out at the dining hall.
The menu was already decided, so I was just cutting up the ingredients according to the menu.
I carelessly cut my fingers while cutting the vegetables.
It didn"t look like I cut it too deeply, but blood was oozing out bit by bit.
I secretly glanced around and the chefs were all busy preparing for lunch, so no one was looking my way.
"『Heal』."
I casted recovery magic in a small voice so that no one else could hear me. The cut on my finger healed in no time.
Magic is amazing.
I read the books I borrowed from the Royal Palace Library the other day and learnt how to use magic.
Cla.s.sroom learning just wasn"t enough in times of emergency, so I actively used it when the opportunity arose.
It"s called practicing.
It seemed that I made the right decision to practice magic. At first, I couldn"t invoke it very well.
I tried different things with a book in hand and I was able to use magic, so I decided that it was good to practice.
The potion deliveries were finished and the 2nd and 3rd Knight Orders headed to the Ghosh Forest in the West just as planned.
The preparation time was short but I pushed through with my MP. I managed to create all the potions somehow within the time frame.
After the Knights departed, I prayed for their safe return.
The 3rd Knight Order knights have been eating at the research inst.i.tute"s dining hall so I felt that the dining hall was less crowded now that they were gone.
However, that wasn"t the only reason why it was less crowded……
"I heard that the meals here were delicious but I didn"t think that they would be this delicious."
He said as he elegantly ate the meal in front of him while his eyes were shining.
Today"s set lunch was fried herb chicken with bread and mixed vegetable soup.
The dining hall was less crowded than normal and the bread was also different from normal, it was more extravagant, it was probably his fault.
"You"re not eating, are you feeling unwell?"
"No, I"m fine but……"
I wanted to question why you"re here, King.
He was wearing plainer clothes than when I met him last, but he couldn"t hide his sparkly aura.
I didn"t have the nerve to continue eating while being watched by the King, who eluded a lot of appeal, and his knights and chamberlain behind him.
"Mm…… Why are you here?"
I had finished a.s.sisting and decided that I should eat lunch so I moved to the dining hall and that was where the King caught me.
His single guard, a knight and someone who looked like a chamberlain was with him. They were probably there to reduce the number of people in the dining hall. People probably left in the first place because the King was here.
Therefore the tables around the King and I were all free.
I thought that I was remarkable for choosing a corner table.
I was concerned that if I had chosen a table in the middle then the dining hall would most likely be closed.
It was bad for the chefs who had prepared lunch today.
"I wanted to talk to you for a little bit."
"I, is that so?"
The King had said that he wanted to talk to me but he didn"t have any in particular that he wanted to talk about so we were just chatting idly.
I felt like we talked a lot about how I spent my days since coming to Slantania.
He asked me what I did on my days off and I told him that I spent my time at the research inst.i.tute or at the Royal Palace Library. He was worried about whether I was resting or not.
I told him that I was originally interested in cultivating herbs, aromatherapy and cooking so the things I did during my days off weren"t that much different. He seemed to have understood.
After we finished talking and eating, the King said these unwelcoming words, "I"ll be back again", as he returned to the Royal Palace.
Then the subjugation mission at Ghosh Forest to the West of the capital finished without any problems and the 2nd and 3rd Knight Orders returned to the capital.
It was further away from the capital than the East and South Forest and two weeks had pa.s.sed since they"ve left.
The potions seemed to be useful. When I heard that no one had died in the subjugation, I sighed in relief. That was a week ago.
Although no one died, there were still a few people who were injured. There were also people who needed to go to the hospital once they returned to the capital.
Immediately after coming home from the subjugation, there were various proceedings. I heard from the Captain that he was busy, so I decided to visit the hospital after a few days had pa.s.sed.
Because I heard that some of the Knights from the 3rd Knight Order, who I had become friends with, were hospitalised.
I brought the cookies I always baked when I went to visit them in the hospital.
"h.e.l.lo ~."
"Oh ~, isn"t that Sei?"
"How are you feeling?"
"Just fine, I"m fine."
"What"re you saying? You looked like you were at death"s door when you came back."
"Shut up ~."
The building that I entered to visit everyone certainly felt like a hospital. The room that the Knights were in was big enough to fit 10 people.
There were many people still suffering from lacerations and puncture wounds in the first room I found the Knights in.
I listened to their story. It seemed that a lot of demons had acc.u.mulated in the West Forest because no one had subjugated there for a while, so there were a lot of casualties this time.
There was a limited number of potions and they used it when they needed to so luckily no one died.
The people in the room used the potions to stop the bleeding and returned to the capital.
It had been a week and they looked healthy, but as a matter of fact, there were still a lot of people who needed to rest.
They were taking a break from subjugation since a reasonable amount of people were hospitalised, but the people who could work had already left the hospital and returned to the Knight Order.
They said that it took them twice as long to catch up on training if they skipped.
It was normal for me, but I had a hunch that the Knights were also workaholics.
"It must have been tough."
"Even so, I"m glad I could return alive."
"Yeah, it"s all thanks to Sei"s potions."
"I"m glad the potions were useful."
I felt a little shy since everyone was thanking me.
I"m glad that no one died.
We talked about various things and I found out that there were Knights from the 3rd Knight Order in other rooms as well. So I said my goodbyes to the people in the room and moved onto the next one.
All the rooms I went to felt the same. Everyone was thanking me, so I was glad I worked hard on producing potions.
I wondered how many rooms I"d visited carefreely like this.
I found a Knight I knew in the room and lost my voice.
"Oh, did you come to visit me?"
He greeted me with his usual grin but his left arm wasn"t there.
I managed to nod in reply, but when he saw how different my att.i.tude was from normal, he put his right hand on his head.
I never thought that I"d be so shock to not see something that was always there.
What can I say? My words aren"t coming out.
"Your arm……"
"Oh, I made a blunder."
He smiled largeheartedly and told me it was taken by a demon.
When I asked him if he could heal it with potions and he told me that even with Advanced HP Potions, the most it could do was heal lost fingertips. Healing a lost arm was impossible.
Therefore, he laughed and said that the Captain got lucky that time with the Salamander.
"If you couldn"t heal it with potions, then what"s left is healing it with recovery magic?"
"Yup, well yeah but."
I heard before that recovery magic was more effective than potions, but when I talked about it, he had a strange expression on his face and he hesitated.
"Is something wrong?"
"It"s hard to heal the lost limbs even with recovery magic."
According to him, level 8 holy magic attribute was needed to cast recovery magic that could heal lost limbs.
The problem was that no one at the Royal Palace had higher than level 6 holy attribute magic, so no one could heal lost limbs.
"Is there no one?"
"There are only a few people who could use holy attribute magic within the Mage Division."
There were only a few mages in the Mage Division in the first place and their magic attributes varied. Recovery magic couldn"t be used with most magic attributes, so only those who had an apt.i.tude for holy attribute magic could cast recovery magic high enough to heal lost limbs.
If magic attributes were equally distributed amongst the mages, then just how few could use recovery magic?
"I"m just glad that I could use the potions to stop the bleeding. If not, then I probably wouldn"t have made it."
It"s painful to listen.
"Thanks for coming today. I"m glad I could see you in the end."
"Eh? In the end?"
"When I"m able to move, I decided that I would quit the Knight Order and go back to my hometown. It"s hard to be a knight with this arm."
I agreed with what he was saying.
But I didn"t want to agree with it.
I stared at his arm that disappeared halfway down his upper arm.
Is it because the potion stopped his bleeding? Flesh beautifully covered over the opening and I couldn"t see his bones.
I couldn"t agree with what he had said, just because it was gone.
He must had been a former commoner who entered the Knight Order after he graduated from the Royal Academy.
If he quit the Knight Order, then he would be a commoner once again, and he wouldn"t be able to come to the Royal Palace anymore.
When I thought about that, I got really lonely.
I softly touched his arm and his body shook in response.
"If…… If you can heal your arm, would you?"
"That……"
His smiling face up until now scrunched up at my question.
Well yeah.
No one likes to lose their arm.
Level 8 holy attribute magic was needed to heal a lost limb.
I fulfilled that condition perfectly.
I thought that it would be difficult to insist that I was an ordinary person if I healed him here.
If he was a stranger then I could just pretend that I didn"t see anything and walk away.
No…………
Perhaps even if he was a strange, I"d end up healing him anyway because I already saw him.
Even if I pretended that I didn"t see anything and left, I"d probably worry about it so much that I"d return.
I"d feel gloomy.
I"m quite the coward.
I concentrated magic power into the palm that was touching him.
I could adjust how well he healed, depending on how much magic power I concentrated.
This time, I was healing his lost arm, so I concentrated more magic power than usual.
Please heal.
I prayed as I casted my magic.
Translator: Blushy