[Sedation confirmed, operation start point marked.]
Hearing Mac's voice from all around her as she glanced at his unconscious body sitting on the ground in front of her, Anastasia's gaze quickly returned to the screen in front of her. Through the screen, Anastasia could see into the next room beside the one she was in, it had been transformed from a guest room into an operation's suite and massive machine with countless needle-like arms now hovered over an operating table where Mari lay sedated.
[Run final scan and confirm neural handshake.]
[SCAN CONFIRMS EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO T8, T9 AND T10 VERTIBRE, 45 FRAGMENTS COVERED IN EXTENSIVE SCAR TISSUE AND A MINOR OBSTRUCTION IN THE TARGET'S LEFT VENTRICULAR HEART CHAMBER.]
As the machine listed off the list of the evenings operation, Mac received scans and data directly through his neural uplink.
[NEURAL HANDSHAKE CONFIRMED. OPERATIVE SLAVED TO SYSTEM.]
Feeling his vision shake and shift as he suddenly gained 256 new 'arms', Mac's mouth was filled with the overwhelming taste of peanut butter.
[Overflow in buffer #39, recalibrate and reslave please.]
[STANDBY, CALIBRATING LINK… LINK CALIBRATED, SYSTEM READY.]
Feeling the sense of vertigo and phantom taste disappear, Mac stretched his new temporary limbs and confirmed their operation.
[There we go, that's better.]
Shaking his head sensor like shaking off a dizzy spell, Mac glanced out through the wall of the operation room and addressed one of the spectators.
[If you get sick watching this then please use the bucket.]
"Just focus."
Not in the mood for jokes, Anastasia folded her arms as Mac went to work. All at once, 256 mechanical arms came alive as scalpels started cutting while cramps secured veins and redirected blood flow as the operation continued on at lightning speed. After making entry, Mac started directly printing new tissue into Mari's body, while removing damaged tissue and regenerating fresh tissue.
"Aren't you going too fast?"
Slightly stunned at the astonishing speed which Mac cut into her little sister's body, Anastasia took a half step back.
[This is actually going slow, if I could've landed a medical unit like I wanted to it would've been faster.]
Mac had originally proposed landing a medical craft and conducting the surgery there, but as the Victoria family wasn't officially involved with Mac they couldn't afford that outlook.
[Of course bringing Mari up to the Omnis would've been even faster… Look, as I said, the medical field of my world developed very differently from this world. We didn't have magic, so we had to make do without it, and in time, develop our own magic from scratch.]
The amount of medical progress, missteps and atrocities Mac's old world had committed barely made up for the advances they'd brought, but in this case Mac was happy he could make use of the technology and developments.
Not just to further his own goals, but also to allow someone to walk again.
-
Deep down in the belly of the planet Mac had recently set foot on something stirred. Whether it was a biological response, hormones in form of stress stemming from a particular stimuli, or a mechanical one, a treat assessment algorithm redlining and arming its strongest countermeasure, something didn't like being visited by people from beyond the stars. Something stirred, reported, signaled and released hormones, it didn't like the visitor from beyond the stars, it disliked that it was digging around in the planet's star, it hated the visitor for their need to prospect and prod and poke at its resource satellites, it abhorred the visitor for simple fact that they came from beyond and invited themselves in.
This invader had no claim to this world, this tourist who used gravitational forces like a child, this unwelcome visitor who spread primitive eyes and ears everywhere, this blind child waddling around where it didn't belong.
A response was warranted. Like a person swatting a fly, like a body exercising a foreign parasite, like a computer removing malicious code.
To remove this invader a production was started, long dormant chambers stirred and pulsed to life, gestating a counterforce, antibody and antivirus all in one. This new creature with an old mind became aware immediately, even as its body was still nothing more than strands of biological matter and magical particles, even as its neurons were growing, even as its consciousness was still being unfeathered it proclaimed itself to be the end of all life. A blunt instrument it was, its higher functions lost as the womb which was gestating it had mostly decayed. A powerful instrument it was, for even as the fabricator constructing it was barely functioning its power remained unblemished, for even as the program executing code to compile it this program was unbeatable. People of this world knew well of this creature, they feared it, worshiped it and abhorred it all at the same time.
Given a million names with one common denominator it was a Demon King, and now that its creation had begun there was nothing on this planet that could stop its eventual destructive reign.
"Welcome back, young ma-"
"Where is she?"
Cutting immediately to the chase, Will looked rather frazzled, like he had just up and left everything behind when he heard the news.
Because that's exactly what he had.
"Out in the rear garden."
Getting directions from the servant, Will pressed ahead to the rear garden, there he found something he had only dreamed of seeing. Standing in the middle of the garden, unsteady as a newborn fawn wearing a sundress, Will's younger sister noticed him just as he spoke up.
"M-Mari, you're standing."
"Ah, Will!"
Walking over unsteadily, Mari fell into her older brother's arms with a hug as she started pulling him in a new direction.
"There's someone you need to meet, he's the one that cured me!"
"Okay, slow down a little!"
Getting dragged along while also supporting his little sister, Will imagined meeting some white beaded wise healer, or an unrivaled young eccentric genius.
He found none of that.
"Yo, what's up?"
Having spent the past two days after finishing up Mari's surgery having tea with Veronica, strategy talks with Tia and half awkward talks with Anastasia, Mac hadn't expected to meet Will again so soon.
"Why the fuck is he here?"
Last Will had seen the outsider who called himself Mac he had threatened himself into being acknowledged by the country, creating a legislative clusterfuck and throwing the nobles into a heated debate where long-time allies found themselves splitting from each other and bitter rivals finding common ground Will had not expected to see Mac having tea with his mother.
"Mind your manners."
Getting chastised by his mother aside, Will continued staring at Mac until he explained himself.
"I received a request to help, so I came to help."
After repairing Mari's spine, Mac wanted to leave her rehabilitation to her family and return to his normal operations, but gratitude and hospitality from most of the Victoria family kept him from doing that, hence the mini vacation and copious consumption of tea.
"What's your angle?"
"Angle? Do you expect me to do things only for some sort of personal gain?"
Being accused of politicking shouldn't really annoy Mac at this point, yet it did.
"If I wanted political power, I would be home on my own planet. If I wanted wealth beyond my wildest dreams, I would be home on my own planet, and if for some sick reason I wanted to overthrow this country do you think I would be here, having tea?... I have no 'angle', when I said I was here to help, I meant it."
Wanting so very much to continue ranting, Mac nevertheless held his tongue as Mari came to his defence.
"That's right, Mac came here to help me, healed me even though I was being rude and asked for nothing in return."
"Seaking of which, it's time for a check up."
Seeing his opportunity to escape, Mac hurriedly rose, thanked Veronica for the tea and swooped Mari off her feet before she could protest, leaving Will and his mother behind.
"..."
With just the two of them left, Will sensed a sermon rapidly approaching and tried to retreat.
"In that case, I'll-"
"Sit. Down."
At least he attempted to.
"... Yes, mother."
Finding another place to sit in the eastern part of the rear garden, Mac sat Mari down and gave her a few moments to calm down.
"Let me see your wrists."
"Eh?... O-okay."
Presenting her arms still slightly frazzled, Mari waited for Mac to grab them before she asked.
"Is everything okay?"
"Hmm, yeah, sounds like it is… Excuse me."
Placing a hand on Mari's stomach, Mac checked on the condition of the tissue regeneration he had done, as well as the printed vertebrae.
"Looking good, your body has accepted the bioprints and the regenerated tissue is active and functioning. From now on I'll only need to check up on your condition once a year."
As expected things were functioning well, and as he had only grabbed Mari to escape her older brother Mac's check up quickly ended.
"Will will come around, just give him some time."
Having also figured out the reason for Mac's check up, Mari tried to boost her family's reputation in Mac's eyes.
"Besides big sister has already accepted you and your help, she's even talking with mom about how to pay you-"
"Who's doing what now?"
"AH!"
With her older sister appearing out of nowhere, Mari was spooked to her feet and quickly hid behind Mac.
"N-nothing, anyway you should talk to Mac about that, bye!"
Pushing Mac towards her older sister, Mari tried to walk away fast, had a cramp in her leg and promptly fell on her ass.
"P-please help me."
Getting help with her leg, Mari eventually walked off with the grace of a newborn fawn, leaving a stunned Mac and Anastasia behind.
"Well, in all my years that's the first time I've seen that."
"She's a good kid at heart."
Although she was painfully awkward, Mari had created an opportunity for her older sister.
"Can we talk for a bit?"
"Sure."
Feeling like he was starting to be stuck in a liminal space of eloquent gardens and flower plots, Mac nevertheless sat down with Anastasia.
"..."
Then when it came time to talk Anastasia clammed up once again.
(Oh so she's just going to continue to be awkward?)
Over the past few days Anastasia had repeated a pattern of striking up a conversation with Mac, getting awkward and quieting down before she would use any opportunity to leave.
"You know, I liked you better when you were trying to kill me."
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah, you heard me correctly, I liked you better when you were trying to kill me. If you have something to say, then just say it."
Anastasia realised she was being rude, but what she was thinking of was equally so, leading to her current predicament. But since she was bothering the man who made her little sister walk again, Anastasia decided to just swallow her pride and embarrass herself.
"I would like to know more about you Mac, where you're from, what you've seen in your journey and who you really are as a person."
(Curiosity? Well, it's better than nothing.)
"Sure, I'll answer your questions… But in return you'll have to answer my questions, let's say you get two questions for every one of mine."
Seeing the opportunity to turn this into a game, Mac's expression lit up as he started using his head for once. Somewhat aware of where Mac was thinking of taking things Anastasia nevertheless proceeded, there was this casual interest she just couldn't seem to shake, she wanted to know more about Mac.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself as she realised she was asking something rude, Anastasia posed her first question to Mac, aware of how it was sounding.
"What happened to your arm? Since you have that thing instead?"
Ever since Mac showed it off to cement his argument a few days ago Anastasia had found herself staring at the seemingly perfect replication, wondering what had gone wrong in Mac's life for him to lose an arm.
"Nothing really happened to it… Or wait, something did."
Thinking back through somewhat unpleasant memories, Mac spun up a convenient lie that would shorten a lot of explanations and save time.
"I got into an accident that cost me most of my body, instead of regrowing everything like I did for Mari the decision was made to simply build replacements."
"Replacements? How much was that?.. If that's not too much to ask."
"Everything non-essential… Let's just say I'm more modified than original by this point."
Vastly underplaying how artificial his body truly was, Mac saw worry spread over Anastasia's face.
(Yeah, that's the part I wanted to avoid right there…)
Acting quickly, Mac's smile grew as he realised it was his time to ask a question, either he would see something interesting, or Anastasia would stop digging.
Both worked for Mac.
"Then, my turn~"
Seeing Mac's expression a feeling of dread started setting in, like a pit forming in Anastasia's stomach as she remembered what kind of person he was.
"Oh no."
"Oh yes~ When we talked at the arena how did you know what I was referring to? I imagine a lady such as yourself shouldn't know about stuff like that."
Speaking about the 'sit on my face' incident, Mac maintained his smile as he watched Anastasia's face turn bright red, still she did her best and answered.
"I-I'm a grown woman! While I didn't know about such v-vulgar expressions before, I am also a knight, and when in the field modesty and manners tend to disappear."
Remembering her embarrassing and innocent past before that one deployment where she unwillingly overheard a lot of vulgar talk between the other knights, Anastasia felt her face burn, and so she hurriedly redirected with another question.
"My turn. Isn't it strange then, having a mostly artificial body?"
"And there lies the crux of the issue. Artificial components are far more efficient, but the brain remembers what wind feels like, and great as they are, new components can't perfectly replicate that sensation. What would you do about that?"
"You're answering my question with a question now…"
Seeing Mac had started lecturing, Anastasia nevertheless taught about this fictional scenario and came to a quick conclusion.
"I would limit the amount of 'new components' installed, so the patient remains comfortable in their own body."
"A great response, but in my case it was simply a question of raising my aptitude and comfortability with new components."
"... How would you do that?"
Although she found herself asking, Anastasia was sure she wouldn't like the answer.
"You can't be uncomfortable with the slightly off sensation of wind on your artificial skin if you've forgotten the original sensation altogether."
"What?"
Not really paying attention to Anastasia's expression, Mac continued explaining the horrors just within human comprehension he had endured, speaking as if it was just a stroll through the park.
"Sensory deprivation. I went through a virtual eternity where I could feel nothing, sense nothing, experience nothing. After losing all reference to reality, this new body that had been created for me fit like a glove."
While Anastasia had had moments in her life where pain or anguish seemed overwhelming, she was well aware that sensation and experience was what gave life colour. Hearing Mac talk about being deprived of this base experience, and to speak of it with a smile on his face made the pit in Anastasia's stomach expand, before she knew what was happening tears started flowing down her face.
"T-that's horrible…"