Chapter 314
Kamibarez's bleeding magic landed perfectly.
The scorpion crashed onto the sandy floor, spraying blood from all over its body in agony.
"Grrk!"
But Simon's complexion was rapidly worsening, as if the poison was spreading.
"Simon! Are you okay?"
He wasn't okay at all, but he forced himself to nod.
"It's trying to escape, let's finish it for good right now."
The moment Simon spoke and reached out his arm, the monster turned its back.
From the end of its tail, the armor split open and a thick cloud of poisonous smoke hissed out.
Simon had no time to dodge and was engulfed in the smoke. The poisonous cloud was also rolling toward Kamibarez, who was a little farther away.
'Both of us can't get poisoned!'
At least one of them had to remain unscathed to make the antidote.
Simon swung his arm roughly, and a skeleton's Bone Armor shot toward Kamibarez like a beam of light, attaching to her body and pushing her back.
"Kya!"
By a hair's breadth, the poison cloud covered the spot where she had been, and Kamibarez, clad in Bone Armor, was flung far away and collapsed to the ground.
"Huff, huff!"
Breathing heavily, Simon looked ahead. Because Kamibarez had been startled, the 'Blood Thread' had come undone, freeing the scorpion, which was digging into the ground to escape.
"Kami…!"
Simon dropped to one knee and shouted.
"Chase…!"
"Simon!!"
At last, Simon couldn't hold out and collapsed.
Kamibarez, who had been about to pursue the scorpion, rushed to Simon with a shocked face and knelt in front of him.
"Simon! Wake up! Please, Simon!"
Her eyes brimmed with tears. Simon forced a smile to reassure her, then moved his hand.
"…Let's collect the poison first."
"Ah, yes!"
Hunting the scorpion could wait until later, but making the antidote had to happen right now.
She hastily pulled out the antidote kit, pressing something like oiled paper to Simon's poisoned wound. The paper absorbed the poison and turned green.
"Please, hold it down."
Her voice trembled.
Though she was confused and worried with Simon collapsing, she still moved according to priority, just like a necromancer should.
'I have to make the antidote for Simon to survive!'
Fortunately, the poisonous smoke hadn't completely dispersed yet.
Even while lying poisoned, Simon summoned a skeleton from subspace, took out paper from his kit, and handed it to the skeleton.
Unaffected by poison, the skeleton rushed into the poisonous smoke, collected the toxin, and returned.
"Kami, here… the poison cloud's components."
Unlike the struggling Simon, the skeleton he controlled with thought moved with crisp efficiency.
"T-thank you."
She respectfully took the paper from the skeleton and placed it on the kit box.
"With this… I've collected both the blade poison and the smoke poison."
"S-Simon, just rest now!"
"I'm fine."
Even when poisoned, his mind was clear, so he could move undead freely.
While treating Simon, Kamibarez kept glancing around nervously. She didn't know when or where the scorpion might attack again.
"L-let's get to a safe place first!"
She shoved the antidote kit into subspace, wrapped her arm around Simon's waist, and slid her other arm under his knees.
Then, with a sharp breath, she lifted him up.
'…Haha.'
But the difference in build left her with no choice. Her posture was extremely unstable.
Shaking with effort, Kamibarez endured using internal Darkness control.
"S-Simon, I'll save you!"
She took one slow, shaky step after another. Even in his poisoned haze, Simon smiled faintly at the sight of her struggling and grunting to carry him.
"…Put me down, Kami, I'll walk on my own."
Above all, the way he was being held was exhausting. At this rate, his back would break before the poison killed him.
"How can you walk in that condition!"
"I have a way."
Simon dismantled two skeletons and attached them to his own body. A full-body Bone Armor.
The true strength of Bone Armor was in its exoskeleton-like enhancement effect. Simon's body was weak and limp, but he controlled the armor with thought, slowly rising to his feet.
Then, step by step, and soon moving naturally, he began walking.
"Let's go, Kami."
Kamibarez stared blankly from behind as Simon walked in Bone Armor.
'…Simon is really amazing.'
Poisoned with deadly venom, in a situation where collapsing at any moment wouldn't be strange and where he might even die, Simon still calmly analyzed the situation, formed solutions, and acted on them. That made him seem so mature and incredible.
'Hmm.'
Simon, on the other hand, felt a headache coming on. He thought about sending Kamibarez away, placing the video-recording pendant on his chest, and secretly using holiness, but…
'With my Cure right now, I can't neutralize the poison of a rank 5 hazard-level monster.'
Among white magic, there was the Healing Studies technique 'Cure', which removed poison and various status ailments. But Simon had focused heavily on healing and neglected Cure somewhat.
He had relied on the partial immunity to poison gained from the Belya Toxicology classes. Looking back now, that was a bit of a painful mistake.
'…If I think of it as choosing focus, then it can't be helped. For now, I'll trust the antidote from Toxicology.'
They passed through the desert and entered the relative safety of a forest.
Simon lay on the grass, only controlling skeletons, while Kamibarez focused entirely on making the antidote.
Her grades in Toxicology were in the top tier overall, second only to Haematology, with a wide gap from Simon's. Simon could only rely on her for antidote preparation.
"I'll begin."
She placed both hands on her chest, took a calm breath, and started the work.
First, she had to hurry with the poison analysis. She placed the poison-soaked paper on a sheet of triple-layered, three-colored paper.
The poison spread across the paper, changing it into new colors.
"…The red paper turning yellow means a chemical route of the neurotoxin type."
She opened the Toxicology textbook and began analyzing rapidly.
"The blue paper turning black means a sodium route. But since the red paper came out as a chemical route, in this case…"
Kamibarez muttered quickly while layering different papers over the poison.
She noted the color changes in her notebook, dropped a bit of solution, and placed fatty tissue from the kit to see if it decomposed in the poison.
If she knew the components of any poison, she could make a counteracting antidote somehow.
Meanwhile, Simon, lying there, moved skeletons to fetch wood for a fire.
They brought branches and dry leaves, set them to one side, built a support, and hung a magic cauldron over it.
"Analysis is done!"
In the meantime, she had finished analyzing both the blade poison and the smoke poison. Sweating from concentration, she turned around—
"S-Simon!!"
At some point, Simon had collapsed, as if unconscious.
Startled, she threw her notebook aside and ran to him. Placing her hand on his forehead, she found it burning with fever.
"..."
Simon was in danger.
No matter how important the performance assessment was, nothing was more important than Simon's life.
Just as she raised the pendant hanging from her neck to press the button and declare forfeit,
Tap, tap.
From behind, a skeleton tapped Kamibarez on the shoulder. Then it drew an X with its arms, and began jotting a small note in the textbook with a quill.
"…Simon."
She carefully leaned forward, placing her ear against Simon's chest.
As he had taught her, his breathing was steady, and his pulse was still fine.
"Ah!"
Realizing she was pressed up against his chest, Kamibarez's face flushed bright red, and she quickly pulled back.
"…If it really looks like I can't hold out, I'll press it myself."
At that moment, Simon's voice came.
"Go make the antidote."
"S–Simon."
Her pupils trembled. After a brief hesitation, she rose, brushed the dirt from her knees, and set her expression with determination.
"J–just wait a little! I'll be right back!"
"Mm."
Kamibarez picked up the Toxicology textbook lying on the ground, tucked it into her waist, and began running through the forest, panting. She even loosened the sealing magic circle on her abdomen to awaken the blood of the Ursula family.
'Just like Simon has always saved me!'
She stepped onto Darkness and dashed forward.
'This time, I'm going to save Simon!'
Recognizing plants and leaves by their shape, she immediately harvested detoxifying herbs, plucked flowers, and neatly placed them into a basket before storing them in subspace.
— Growl! Bark!
A hindrance appeared.
'Hound Dogs', common monsters of the forest, approached her growling, but she was too focused on picking detox herbs to care.
With one hand she yanked out the herbs, and with the other she swung behind her head, firing a Bloodshot without even looking.
Bang!
Struck by the Bloodshot, the hound dogs yelped and fled.
"Next!"
She flipped open the textbook.
"Werewolf gallbladder… would there be werewolves in this forest?"
Creating a 100% perfect antidote on-site was impossible. She had to at least find things with similar effects.
— Screech! Squeal!
This time, a horde of goblins appeared.
"Move!"
Kamibarez unleashed black magic of blood in a wild flurry, devastating the surroundings.
The monsters, overwhelmed by her ferocity, retreated. Some goblins thought to chase her, but the others stopped them, muttering that the human was crazy.
But with such a ruckus…
— Grrr!
It was inevitable that a leader-type would appear.
The master of this forest, a massive bear, the Crimson Bear, blocked Kamibarez's path.
"Move!!"
With her eyes blazing crimson, she shouted.
As murderous Darkness surged from her body, the Crimson Bear's expression faltered, and surprisingly, it began backing away slowly.
'Found it!'
Seizing the chance, Kamibarez dashed forward, plucked the white lotus flower — a crucial antidote ingredient — and stored it in subspace.
'Simon! Please wait for me!'
* * *
'Mm.'
Half-conscious and reeling from the poison, Simon discovered a new training method.
In this half-fogged state, he could feel the inside of his body and the flow of Darkness more deeply.
Sure enough, thanks to the lessons from Belya, the elements in his body were resisting the poison. It even felt like his body was adapting, slowly producing antibodies.
In this state, Simon could control the elements resisting the poison. They began pressing in, driving the foreign substance to one side.
'This way.'
Gripping a shortsword, Simon made a shallow cut in his abdomen.
'Cure.'
He felt the poison rapidly neutralizing. Then, he closed the wound with Heal, and resumed fighting the poison.
'Lying down just because I'm poisoned is a waste of time.'
Simon was, by himself, awakening to the higher stage of "Blood Poison", the ultimate goal of Belya.
On top of that, he was also training Cure, which he had been neglecting.
'So getting poisoned can be used for training, huh. The more I do it, the more fun it is.'
Truly, an addict to effort.
Simon's body trampled over the ordeal with pride, heading toward an even higher realm.