Chapter Text
Let me set the scene!
It’s been several boring hours filled with very important lessons, all ignored from the beautiful classrooms that this academy had to offer.
But now, as the bell finally rings, it is time. For lunch.
Miss Claaiireee~!” I rush packing up both her as well as my own books so I can head to lunch with her. Claire ignores me with that beautiful nonchalance that I love her for. “Waait up!” I ask as I dramatically run over to where Misha and Claire are walking now.
I nearly trip when I hear the roof creak above us. Loudly.
They call it a 'history rich magic academy' but I'm pretty sure that it's just an excuse to explain the building being old.
Right as I’m about to make a clear attempt at hugging Claire that the beautiful angel will dodge, Rodd comes up next to me.
“Rae, Misha, Claire. Are you three available during lunch?” He asks with a smile that is charming I’m sure.
Claire thinks for a moment and I struggle not to boop her on the nose. “I believe I and Rae are, why, Prince Rodd?” She asks as we turn a corner, my multitasking Queen is unmatched!
Misha nods with her. “Whatever you need, Prince Rodd.”
Rodd smiles. “Great! I’ve been asked for knight business and I’ve asked but my siblings are busy.” He explains.
“And what do we need to do for this task?” Claire asks ever gracefully as I try my hardest not to complain about missing lunch.
Rodd dramatically points at the ceiling as he exclaims “We need to goooo… To the slums!!”
At this point I openly mourned my stomachs daily deliciousness getting cancelled.
At least I won’t be able to throw up due to the smell..
We got a carriage ride over and before I could think out the full process of making tiramisu, we had already arrived at the slums. Funny, traffic is substantially less during lunch, who could have thought?
Rodd was a bit more eager than literally everyone else and shot out of the carriage the moment it came to a stop. He instantly spins around to face us and points at me as I calmly exit the carriage.
“Rae!” He yells.
I help Claire out of the carriage without looking his way. “Prince Rodd.” I say as I help Misha despite her not being my employer.
“I want to have a bet!” Rodd continues to say. I close the carriage door slower than usual, mostly to stall answering him. Unfortunately there is no denying the first Prince of the country.
“I’d love to have a friendly competition with Miss Claire~.” I sigh dreamily.
Claire huffs and crosses her arms, making my heart flutter. “Prince Rodd can play for me.” She answers easily. “D’awh!” I have been defeated by the love of my life in a matter of words. Woe is me!
Rodd makes a small jump. “Alright! Here’s the gig, according to the rapport, people have been getting sick with unusual symptoms. We need to figure out how.”
He smiles devilishly. “If you can find the source before me, I’ll owe you a favour, if I win, you have regular chess sessions with me.”
He’s smiling with so much joy, part of me wants to see how long I have to wait with answering before it fades. But that’d displease Claire.
“What if I don’t agree to the terms?” I ask, feigning to inspect my nails.
“Then you better win!” Comes Rodd ever energetic response.
I sigh and start walking past him, I hear Claire Squawk in indignity on Rodd’s behalf while Misha shakes her head. “I accept.” I tell him with a pat on the shoulder as I continue walking.
I feel him jump in celebration before he passes me running into the slums.
I stop and sigh, Misha catches up to me.
“You want me to use wind magic?”
Looking over at her I smile gratefully. “Thanks Misha.”
As she starts casting, Claire angrily taps me on the shoulder.
I turn to face her. “Yes Miss Claire? What can I do for you my love?”
She cringes in the adorable way she does. “Stop that. Also you cannot be treating Prince Rodd like that.” She tells me as she crosses her arms, unknowingly copying one of my favourite poses of hers, the one best seen on a rare alternate poster. It’s also a sprite in the game, which always shows up when you successfully thwart her plans. It’s so CUUUTEEE~.
“Are you mad with me~?” I ask, probably far too pleased for her taste. “If I say yes, will you cheer?” Before I can confirm that, Misha walks over. “Found the source of the sickness.” She tells us curtly before walking off into the presumed direction of the source.
Ahh, Misha. Always so reliable! I platonically love her so much, if Yuu ever hurts her even slightly then the Church gets a new angel~.
Claire and I, gosh look at that we sound like a couple, follow Misha through some streets and alleyways before arriving at a well. A smelly well.
“Oh this is just swell.” I comment with a grimace.
Claire groans and Misha turns to face me. “Is that a pun or sarcasm?” She asks with her usual poker face. “Double pun served with a heavy helping of sarcasm!” I happily inform her. She lifts an eyebrow but says nothing.
Claire stomps up to the well like an angel and looks down.
Misha sighs. “At least I won you the bet. You owe me one.” I nod feverishly. “Oh yeah, definitely.”
“Guys this water smells bad.” Claire observes.
Me and Misha walk up to the well and we both check for ourselves.
Phewie! Smells like molten rubber mixed with a pile of rotting garbage. It's not even helped with Claire standing next to it, it's that bad.
"Yikes, think we found the source huh?" I ask rhetorically. Misha nods with me.
"Well, you know what to do, go fix it Rae." Claire tells me before walking a good few steps away from the smelly well.
I'm about to complain about Claire walking away from me when Rodd arrives.
"Ha-oww... You found it before me?" His happiness wilting looks quite good. That should do me for healing this mess.
"What? Like it was hard?" I quote as I get my wand ready to start healing.
Which, by the way, healing one poison takes a good few minutes even with full concentration if the body of it is the size of a well.
And this well has.. Ooh I dunno. Fifty??
Something in that direction.
So anyway, I started blasting my magic energy on it.
"Are you healing it Rae?" Rodd asks as he looks over my shoulder at the well, before cringing away at the smell.
"Not if you distract me, I need focus for this Rodd." I tell him crudely. Royalty.
Rodd walks away without another word, to join Claire in standing at the side, I presume.
Right as I get done with.. I dunno, maybe 4 poisons, Misha starts casting a wind spell almost breaking my focus completely.
After another few poisons later and Misha ends the spell and calls Claire and Rodd over.
"I can sense a lot of sick people around here, it'd be more efficient if we have more healers than just Rae, maybe you two can go get some more people to help?" Misha asks.
"Why not you and Prince Rodd?"
"Because I can use wind magic to find them and guide them all to a singular building and you two have the status needed to get healers to follow you over here." She makes an excellent point. Oh shoot, the well.
Rodd and Claire think over her logic for a moment before agreeing that it's a pretty good plan, and beat me to death with a pogo stick but I think Claire sounded a little disappointed about having to leave me~! I push to heal the well faster to make her proud, even if she can't tell.
"Fine." Claire huffs as she starts heading back to the direction we came.
"Yeah sure, let's go!" Rodd enthusiastically shouts as he happily bounces after Claire. He's in my spot.
I sigh and heal more poison with as much pace as I can handle. There's a lot of the stuff in here actually. Like, a lot a lot.
As in, this amount of poison wouldn't really make a person sick as much as it would just kill them.
And another thing, how stupid does a person have to be to drink from a well that smells this rank?
Misha starts heading off, presumably to get the sick people situated in the same space, like she mentioned she would.
But real quick? The poisons I'm healing go in order from easiest/one's I know to hardest/ones I don't. And so far this stuff would kill a person in less than 10 seconds. If Misha isn't carrying dead bodies I'd be surprised.
And how would it even get to this? What fell into the well? A dead assassin with a tasting's worth of exclusive poisons?? It certainly feels icky enough for it!
Another few down, I feel uncomfortable. My whole body feels jumpy and shaky like I've been getting poisoned myself, but I know that that's not the case. I'm not touching it after all.
By the end and after a recovery period, my mana is going to go through the roof!
Some bushes rustle and my whole body is so on edge that I almost stop healing the well, but I persevere! I will prove to Claire that I can keep my focus! I just choose to focus on her whenever she's around!
Right as I finish another couple poisons and reconsider checking out what made the noise, Misha comes back carrying a very pale child, followed by what I thought was a zombie for a second, but is probably the kid's mother. Is Misha fast or am I just that focused right now?
"Follow me, we'll be basing here for now." And Misha points at one of the many houses that look like they're about to sneeze an OSHA violation, but I suppose their odds of dying won't get any bigger from that.
I wisely don't comment on Misha's decisions and valiantly continue my healing duties in silence.
Another few poisons down and I’m getting pretty close to the most dangerous of the poisons. I'm also bored out of my mind and a little tired. Don't tell Claire.
Where is Miss Claire? What's taking her so long?? Going so long without my Claireium is agony!
Though, I do have to admit that it's pretty nice and quiet here without Prince Meddly.
How long is a ride to the capital anyway? Like.. 15 minutes?
I'd start naming prime numbers but I might mess up my healing if I do that. So I guess I have no choice but to just power through the aching boredom and do my job. No matter how much my brain tells me to focus on anything else. And no matter how much my arms ache from being outstretched like this and no matter how much I can feel my mana start to strain.
Just to spite myself I push myself to start healing faster than I already was, I want to let my arms down!
Misha leaves the house again, to get more victims if I were to guess. She'd tell me if she wasn't worried about my casting getting compromised.
She's barely gone long enough for me to finish healing a poison before I hear movement to the direction from which she left. Strange, the previous sick were further away than that. But before I can even consider asking Misha about it, A man in robes clutching something walks up to the well and drops it in. In the brief flash where it falls, I can tell that it's a young girl.
Splash!
I can tell the instant she touches the water before the sound even reaches my ears, I switch from healing the well to healing her to keep her from dying on the spot before I can even think.
It costs so much focus that I can't even tell just who is standing right next to me, let alone comprehend what they just did.
I continue to heal the little girl even though I'm starting to feel a little close to my limit, a small part of me hoping furiously that Misha is on her way back and can deal with the madman who just dropped a small human being down a pretty deep well. The fact that she only broke two ribs is a miracle. One I can easily heal too!
The man walks closer to me, I can tell, but I still can't see him, he's in my range of vision but if I take a moment to take in how he looks then I'll have a dead body on my hands.
He leans into my ear but I don't even blink, I can't.
"You're amazing, Rae Taylor." His voice purrs softly. I struggle to keep my focus, I can't afford to slip, I need that little girl out of the well because I can't fight the poisoned mess she's in while she's in there.
And because if this keeps up then I won't be able to fight much of anything.
The man continues like I'm a statue, though between my lack of blinking and not-having-moved since I started, that's only accurate.
"A heavily poisoned well isn't enough to keep all your focus, and even now, with a child to fight for, you can still hear me, can't you?" He says with unrestrained glee.
Hey Misha, now would be great.
Actually, scrap that, Claire would be great!
Aaand we're gonna focus again, my thoughts of Claire just nearly killed the girl.
Guess you're a beauty of mass destruction in more ways than- NO!
Okay, gotta stop doing that.
"Now, if you come with me peacefully, the girl will be fine, I promise."
Huh..?
Is he, trying to blackmail me??
By the way, none of this is in the game, the game has a minigame where you help the kingdom for brownie points and that includes a poisoned well, but there's no one trying to do anything like this.
I can't break focus, I can't attack him and heal the girl, I can't heal the well before the girl dies.
Buuuuutt-
Right as the man puts a hand on my shoulder to presumably take my silence as agreement, I turn and look him dead in the- mask??
Oh, right.. Him.. Doucebag extraordinaire.
Anyway, I grab his arm and use my leg to pull him over, effectively tripping him onto the ground.
As he lays there like the pathetic little dirtbag that he is, I summon my earth magic and turn it into a fine dust before throwing it at him, with the full intent of burying him then and there.
Outta sight, outta mind!
Right, the girl. I had braked from healing her to throw her up using water magic, followed immediately by a slab of earth magic catching her from falling back down. Then I went back to healing the little things despite how tired I felt. Specifically so I had my hands and mind free to throw some hands to Mr. Miserable.
Am I starting to sound like Miss Claire?
Oh my goodness I AM!! WE'RE THE PERFECT LOVERS EAT YOUR HEART OUT TWILIGHT!
Yes, I did a little happy dance.
Right after that I went to go get the girl out of the well, promise.
"Very impressive indeed." Wait-
I can hear him walking over but before I can turn around he already has his arms snaked around me.
How did he get out of the dirt pile?? That was supposed to bury him alive!
He holds me down and pulls me back, forcing me to drop the little girl back into the well, not as far down as last time, luckily. I am about to cast another spell, tiredness be damned, when he tears my wand away from me and throws it into some bushes. Before I can curse over losing arguably my only weapon, my priorities change as I hear the tell-tale sound of a cork getting popped and feel a bottle put to my lips.
Instantly I shut my mouth to keep anything from entering my system, but he simply uses his legs to force me to the ground, straddles me, which by the way, only Claire gets to do that! And uses his free hand to cut off my air until I have to open my mouth.
"You're about to turn from a thorn in my side, into the biggest boon I could ask for~." He whispers huskily into my ear.
I flinch, but even that is already feeling muted under whatever this fast acting liquid is.
If only I hadn't been healing before this, I'd kick his ass so easily.
My last thought before lights-out is hoping that Miss Claire comes back before anything bad can happen.
Convincing the academy to let the first Prince borrow 10 healers is more difficult than I had anticipated, but possible none the less.
In less than an hour since our arrival, Prince Rodd and I left with 10 healers to assist Rae in healing the commoners affected by the poisonous well.
After another 20 ish minutes from travelling back, we're not having lunch by the way, Prince Rodd, 10 healers and myself are back in the slums, headed straight for the well.
We come across Misha carrying some very sick kids in the same direction we were headed.
"How's everything coming along?" Prince Rodd asks her as we continue our walk, with both me and Rodd having taken one child from Misha to ease her burden.
"Slowly, but now with these healers it should all be a lot easier. I presume that Rae is also nearly done with healing the well." Right as she says that, we arrive at said well, and Rae is nowhere to be seen.
"Guess she's faster than we thought, makes sense. It's Rae after all." Prince Rodd grins as we continue moving towards wherever Misha had set up for the healers.
Once inside the building, we got to ordering the healers around. But I still couldn't find Rae.
I had assumed she'd be inside, but I suppose I was wrong.
I sigh. "It looks like Rae is slacking off again, I'll go find her." I tell everyone, but before I can head for the door, Misha stops me.
"She's probably tired from all the healing so I don't think she'll be able to do very much here without causing herself harm. I think it's better we leave her be and focus on gathering more sick instead." She explains calmly.
Part of me doesn't sit right with the idea of leaving Rae unsupervised. Because I'm her master! But I can't argue with Misha's logic, so I nod and follow her outside as she shows me more houses with sick we can move.
There weren't nearly as many sick people as we had previously thought, some of the people we healed at the start also told us that everyone here were the people who had eaten from an abandoned carriage of cabbages a few days ago, so not the well.
Which begs the question, why was the well poisonous?
Also, it's been a good hour, where's Rae?
"Maybe she went back to the academy?" Prince Rodd proposed, though he didn't seem to believe that himself either.
"On foot? Unlikely." I huffed, the carriage hadn't left without us after all.
Misha looked around, clearly also uncomfortable with not knowing.
Wait..
"Misha, can you look for Rae with wind magic?" I ask maybe a touch more hopeful than I really should be. What? I simply cannot wait to get back to class!
Misha doesn't look me in the eyes as she shakes her head softly. "I already have, I can't find her anywhere near, though it's very difficult to tell people apart like this."
Hm.. Well that makes things more complicated.
I'm considering asking all the healers to go help us look for Rae, but they're completely drained after healing for roughly half an hour. Fair enough, constant casting like that, even for simple healing, would take a toll on anyone.
After another sweep of the surrounding area, confirming what Misha had already said, we agreed to go check if Rae hadn't decided to head back already, and take off.
She's not there.
She's NOT there.
SHE'S NOT HERE!
After not finding Rae at classes, the nurses office or her own room, I ran through every hall I could find looking for her.
Prince Rodd was kind enough to ask the Headmaster about if he might know anything regarding the well, and Misha handled the paperwork for the healers. And while that was supposed to leave me free and clear to go yell at Rae for heading off without us, I can't find her.
And it's freaking me out.
It's cold, it's dark, it's damp.
The classic trio for a second location, to the point where one could argue it's almost a checklist for any trying supervillain.
Unfortunately, unless it's Claire's dungeon, I'm not interested in being chained up here.
And yet, here we are.
I woke up to screaming, which really set the theme, and also gave me a headache.
That might also be due to skipping lunch and maybe more and then casting for anywhere between 1 to 2 hours straight at full throttle. Considering my stomach pain, this is a conservative estimate on all counts.
The screaming sounds to be coming from a boy roughly my age if I were to guess, behind shady door number #1 at the far end on my left. To be fair, it's also the only door here.
These chains suck by the way, I can't quite sit but letting my arms hang is also not comfortable. I'm just stuck either holding my arms up or letting my wrists get cut off from circulation.
It's tiring. And painful!
The screaming stopped, or.. Well. This time it just didn't start back up again. I'm not sure if it was the same person the whole time, I mean.. Probably, right?
The door opens and I get a brief look of what's behind it before some weirdo in a lab coat that looks a little out of place here comes through. I try to grab for my wand out of instinct, but my arms do not cooperate due to being chained up, and my wand is not here with me anyway.
He squeals in joy and happily walks over to me, which snaps me back to him, if only to look at him in disgust.
He looks at me like I'm a display case and he softly touches my cheek. Yuck.
"Oh yes, you will do splendidly, I can smell the scent of a dual-caster on you." He mutters under his breath as his eyes hurry to scan me. His breath smells.
The masked man from earlier knocks on the shady door, from the sound it makes I'd guess it's made of metal. In his other hand he holds a dead snake that is faintly glowing. A snake from the mana family. I tell myself.
The masked man guides the weirdo back out, still holding the snake right under the head tight enough like he's trying to squeeze it right off.
There's a few types of snakes that can affect mana.
The least dangerous is the mana snake, can only drain a person of mana, this one can still kill you, but as long as it's removed on time, it's fine. Once upon a time it was used in medical procedures, but not anymore.
Then there's the elemental snake, it starts by draining mana and upon the death of the victim it will also drain the element of that person (should they have one), making it into a different kind of snake, an elemental snake.
Then there's the lure snake whose bite just instantly kills its victims and takes their element in its entirety, which it then converted to mana and uses it to lure new victims. Part of the danger is that it can also move elements to another human, which overloads the body and causes them to either turn into a demon, or combust on the spot.
And finally there's the soul snake, whose bite isn't immediately lethal, but it'll tie the victim to the snake. The snake will leach mana off of the victim, the victim will slowly go insane from the poison in their system and if the snake is killed, every victim will go down with them.
The family of them are nearly extinct and are free to be hunted in every kingdom.
In the game these snakes show up three times, all of which are part of a game over screen. But two are quick time events.
…
I've never seen exactly what the ‘wrong choice!’ game over version meant, or how it would have to be triggered...
That's actually what I had started my latest playthrough for..
I had been expecting to get kidnapped, however that was supposed to be along with Prince-of-choice. And not for another two events. We've skipped a duel competition and a circus.
Then again, there is no Prince Boring with me, so I suppose I've succeeded at throwing the game off the rails at least.
The masked man looks in my general direction, can't tell anymore with that stupid looking mask in the way, and he grins. "Hope you're comfortable, we'll pick you up once we've set the table." He tells me before leaving. 'Set the table'? Am I finally getting lunch?? Or dinner at this point.. Or maybe breakfast….
Everything is fine.
Totally.
It's only just that Rae's been gone for a day and Prince Rodd has been quite obnoxious in trying to convince me to sign up for a set of duels.
"Come on! There'll be a prize pool and everything!" You've mentioned, Prince Rodd. Also do I look like I need things?
"I'm so sorry, but I will be continuing my search for Rae this afternoon." I tell him as I walk away.
"I can't let you do that, Claire." He tells me somberly. I consider stopping, it would be the better move when it comes to paying respect to royalty. But right now I couldn't be less concerned about etiquette.
"Claire." He calls after me, I don't stop. "I've already got search parties out, it wouldn't look good if you joined them." That makes me stop.
"What do you mean?" I ask, not turning around and instead focusing intently on a tile in the far distance.
"She's your maid, how would it look if a noble is looking for their missing servant in person?"
Not good. I know.
I sigh, he's got a point. It wouldn't do for a noble to be looking for a commoner, no matter what they are to them. "Where can I sign up for that duel competition?" I ask him before turning around and walking back over. Prince Rodd looks relieved and I resist the urge to glare at him for it. He means the best.
"Follow me! We can sign up together!" He cheers as he runs off.
That guy never changes..
It was not lunch, dinner or even breakfast.
They had indeed 'set' the table, an operation table to precise.
Without a wand, and pretty much no mana that I can find, they had zero issue with moving me onto it. Heck the bigger issue was helping me walk over.
I was stumbling like it was my first time on a dance floor.
Once on it, they made sure to strap me in, not sure why, certainly don't have much energy to move, have I mentioned how tired I am yet? I'm tired. I'm 'I could probably fall asleep right here, right now' levels of tired.
Anyway, the masked man brought another mana snake over, guess this is the game over screen then, I'm dying to one of the most preventable magic deaths ever. Cool.
The mad scientist takes the snake and positions it up to my neck, which would make the draining far more efficient than most other places, guess they do know their stuff, huh?
I try to move away, and as a result the masked nuisance makes sure to hold my head to keep me from doing anything.
I want to ask them not to do this, beg for my life, promise cooperation, anything to give me a chance. But much to surprise, my lips doesn't let pass a single word.
How long was I out for if my voice isn't working?
The mad scientist lets loose the snake on my neck and my body finds the energy to thrash around and my voice finds itself fast enough for me to scream. Wonderful.
A surprisingly large amount of me feels emotionally numb to all of this. I'd always imagined to be panicking hard if I'd ever get kidnapped. But so long without Claire makes the world go grey I suppose.
I wonder if that's really the reason.
Huh, I'm still screaming, weird.
I can feel my conscious fading away, slowly unlatching itself from this body that it has called home for this past while.
I think I should be sad about this, but I can't feel much of anything anymore.
Mostly I just feel grief, for leaving Claire alone again.
Right before I fade back to black, I feel a strong wave of fear, like my potential death only just caught up with me.
I fall into an uneasy void.
These duels are an insult to my capabilities.
I've been defeating opponent after opponent. None of them measure up to me.
At this point some of my challengers are starting to shake in their boots once they find that they've been paired up with me next.
Rae would have destroyed this. And she'd probably compliment me all the while too, completely ignoring her own abilities in favour of mine.
Gods I just want her back. I want to leave this place.
I'm going to beat these losers and then I don't care what Prince Rodd says, I'm going after her.