Chapter 17.1

Chapter 17.1

Sorry for calling you over here, my friend.」

「Well, I pretty much figured you’d come, so don’t worry ‘bout it.」

After finishing their lunch on a seriously ominous note due to Haruna’s report, they had just begun figuring out their plans for the afternoon to take a breather when they were all called over by the king and Layotte.

「But what with this strange room here ‘n all, this is really quite the atmosphere for a castle.」

「Once again, I can never tire of all your unique observations.」

As if intending to soften the atmosphere, Hiroshi had gone for a full turn of the conversation, and Layotte couldn’t help but remark on that.

「Anyhow, there’s a strong magical barrier here, so there shouldn’t be an issue with getting somewhat reckless. Of course, to enter or exit requires either the king, one of his future successors, or the Priest Princess, so it is impossible to even think of setting up eavesdropping equipment on the inside.」

「What are you implying？」

「What I mean is that even if Haruna were to use the special magic that she inherited from Alfemina-sama here, there shouldn’t be any general issue. Plus I have Ernest and Julius here to observe in case anything goes wrong.」

Haruna couldn’t help but grimace at just how predictable this was. Even assuming that Douga and Julius were there, if you realized that there were tiers of magic that could blow away this entire castle regardless, she doubted their readiness and preparation for this situation. That was her honest opinion.

「So with that being said, could you teach us directly and precisely how to use the magic that you learned, Haruna-dono?」

「Yes.」

Urged by the king, she opened her mouth after lightly sorting out her thoughts.

「Although unfortunately, the majority of them are regular Healing Magic, Support Magic, Movement Magic, or Obstruction Magic. If you take out the quantity of the user, you generally do not need to fulfill any special requirements. It’s all magic that you can learn by training.」

「Could you be more specific？」

「Goddess’s Protection, Skanda, Goddess’s Healing, Long-Distance Teleportation, and the like are the majority. There were also some spells that I couldn’t use, but the users were all people who knew how to acquire it.」

Hearing some specifics, the king and Layotte nodded in understanding. It was true that Skanda and the like were major skills that were even used in the Knight’s Order a lot. Just as the name implied, Skanda made you quick, so in order to raise the army’s speed or strengthen their expansion ability, they would make sure to teach these types of magic to those who had even the slightest affinity with magic. They would acquire the spells as per their magical affinity.

When it came to Goddess’s Protection or Goddess’s Healing, that was when its learners became more rare. With that being said, even though they had the word “goddess” attached to their names, that only meant that they were spells used to borrow the power of one of the three goddesses: Time-Space Goddess Alfemina, Earth Mother Goddess Elza, or Ocean Goddess Lefia. It wasn’t like they wanted any sort of devotion. Therefore, even those who weren’t priests could acquire these skills, and at the center of any country were several people who could already use them. As far as Long Distance Teleportation was concerned, for advanced adventurer parties or teams, there was always someone mixed in who could use it. In fact, even Tatsuya in the Japanese team was able to use it.

The goddess-affiliated support and healing magic was certainly the best of the best, but such magic was not as rare as Hiroshi’s mere existence. To elaborate further, Healing of the Goddesses could go well over Level 3 potions at its peak, but would still not be able to heal broken parts.

「When you said “the majority”, that means that there were a few special ones in there as well, yes？」

「Yes. There were only four spells that I didn’t know about. More precisely, it’s like one spell was split into four different functions. One of them, I know how to use, but cannot currently activate it, while the remaining two are for healing and cannot be properly experienced here.」

「Hm. So then, does that mean the last remaining one is useable?」

When the king asked that question, Haruna’s blue eyes grew troubled as she fretted over how to explain it to him. Judging by that, the king figured that it must be fairly troublesome.

「Can you even use it？」

「If you mean whether I can activate it or not, yes I can. It’s just that I’m not sure if it has any practical use. If I were to use it right now, my body would probably be instantly destroyed.」

Haruna casually said something terrifying with a very troubled face. As soon as she said that, an indescribable silence filled the room.

Haruna’s body had enough specs to more than hold her own against one of the knights of this country. While she still wouldn’t be able to win in a pure fight against Julius, Douga, or Rayna, as long as she had no limitations for the abilities she could use, she could actually clench out a likely victory against someone like Rayna. This magic was enough to make even her instantly self-destruct. No matter whether that was an attack or something else, this particular magic was definitely not something anyone should play around with.

「But what does it do specifically？」

「It increases the target’s thought process speed as well as physical speed to an extreme level.」

「How much are we talking？」

「If we were to use my current power level, everything would accelerate by 100. That doesn’t seem to imply that you age quickly as well, but it also doesn’t lighten the burden on the flesh, so if you aren’t prepared to the max, I think you would self-destruct the moment you used the spell and tried to move.」

This magic was definitely nothing good, but such was to be expected of an extra skill. Further, Haruna had not normally had the opportunity to ride on grounded vehicles like bikes or roller coasters that enabled you to feel the air pressure and resistance, so she was mistaken in one aspect.

More precisely, this was not magic that accelerated. This extra skill would raise speed over 100 times while allowing the user to move in a non-accelerated manner. Therefore, any air resistance, friction heat, or the emergence of shockwaves could be entirely suppressed, but upon separation it was as if it deteriorated, and the damage that emerged in the body from moving as well as the side-effects from coming into contact with solid matter could not be reduced.

However, as Haruna had not yet considered the element of air resistance, she had made the mistake of assuming that the knockback from the damage and impact to the body not being reduced was the same thing as not reducing the burden on the flesh in the slightest.

「…Yeah, something tells me that it would be cruel to even try that…」

「Yes, it is after all the type of magic that would be guaranteed to destroy you and wouldn’t even seem like a fun idea to use against someone else…」

That being said, there was no mistake that it was powerful magic for whoever used it. That was even more worrisome.

「Oh yeah, you said that the remaining two were of the healing variety, but what precisely do they accomplish?」

「Both of them directly focus on intervening with wounds, poison, illness and the like, controlling time in order to heal. One of them is magic that accelerates time in order to make such things disappear, and the other one rewinds time to before receiving such negative effects, basically acting as if one’s body had never been altered in the first place.」

「…So would they also work on loss of parts or handicaps？」

「If I were better at it, I think that they can heal nearly anything. However, we can’t revive the dead, as their souls will have gone out of their bodies.」

The king nodded in comprehension. When it came to the revival of the dead, not just the king, but any decent person in the world regarded it as the highest taboo. There had been three examples up till now of success, but every time, a terrible amount of miasma would envelope the world, and at a minimum one country would be destroyed.

As a memento of that in the present day, the places where these people had been revived had become underworld dungeons. The worst of them all was the dungeon known as Purgatory.

Incidentally, in the case of the game, death was more like being incapacitated, and anyone who fell down would be taken into protection by the gods right before death. Any revival method other than taking them back to a safe area would involve something far more involved, such as Healing of the Goddesses or Level 3 potions and above or Yggdrasil potions, which were all unique, so for most players, it was customary to immediately return to a safe zone upon being rendered incapable of battling.

It should also be mentioned that the potions and Healing of the Goddesses could only be used outside of battle, and the Yggdrasil potion was dropped a rare amount—only about once per month in real time in Great Spirit Cavern. Recovering from battle was in general not a very realistic option in this game.

「Hm.」

After hearing Haruna’s answer, he pondered this for a bit. Haruna could only feel a bad premonition from such silence.

「Would you happen to be able to cast that healing magic on yourself？」

「It isn’t impossible, but you have to at minimum be able to move.」

「We have Level 3 potions here. Would this amount be enough？」

The king asked, and she became deep in thought. Level 3 potions in-game—in other words, Level 6 potions had a 30% chance success rate to revive people on the battlefield. After revival from such potions, the target would come back with 1 HP and would become poisoned if they drank another potion. Thinking about it now, it was only reasonable for potions as advanced as these that could repair body parts.

Healing of the Goddesses was similar in its success rate for revival, except it didn’t have any particular penalty for continuous use.

「Tatsuya-san, what about Healing of the Goddesses?」

「I’ve barely trained with it, but I can somewhat use it.」

「Then might you be willing to use your own body as a test subject…?」

「Wait a sec! C’mon, rethink this!」

After wryly smiling at the panicking Tatsuya, they took out a small stone the size of a BB bullet—more like a broken piece of something—to be used after the activation process in the experiment, and as an extra precaution cast support magic for strengthening one’s resistance before constructing the aforementioned magic. As expected of extra skill magic, the mana depleted during the process was above the normal toll. Still, as it didn’t take off as much as Elemental Dance, there shouldn’t have been much of an issue with activating it.

「Time to give it a go! Over-Accelerate!」

Ending about ten seconds of recitation, she activated the aforementioned magic on herself. The next moment, all movement around her ceased.

（Was it a success?）

Concentrating on the result, she flicked a fragment as a test. The next moment, tremendous pain emerged in her fingertips, spreading through her entire body and causing her to reel over. At almost the same exact time, the small stone that had been flung made a terrifying sound as it dug into the wall, creating a flashy fissure. Unable to bear the pain any longer, she immediately dissolved the magic and soon found someone supporting her body and one moment later, the smell of a liquid potion coming into contact with her head. The chemical spread throughout her golden hair, absorbed by her body before it even reached the ground.

「Haruna!?」

Makoto was apparently the one who had been supporting her body. The potion that had been poured over her head was of the Level 3 variety, and Hiroshi was responsible for that. Hiroshi had reacted quicker, but since he had more to do and she was faster, Makoto had ended up acting first. Furthermore, the act of covering someone’s head was yet another way to use a potion. In actuality, it didn’t have to specifically be the head as long as it was somewhere on the skin. The healing itself was a grade lower than the more conventional method, but it was the quickest way to heal someone in an emergency. Even when reviving someone from the brink of death, this would be the method used, so Level 3 potions probably wouldn’t be able to have anything past a 30% success rate.

「Haruna-san, can you move alright?」

Hiroshi asked worriedly after putting the emptied bottle back into the bag and keeping his distance. Haruna couldn’t help but feel exasperated that even in this situation he stepped back as soon as he was no longer needed. All that being said, she was still happy that he was caring for her in his own way.

「It still hurts here and there, but it should be fine…」

「Then ya better drink a mana potion ‘n heal up quickly. From that explanation earlier, healin’ became more difficult the more that time passes.」

「…Right…」

「We only got Level 5 here. Is that fine?」

Nodding at Hiroshi’s question, she took out a mana potion from their luggage and gulped it down, immediately beginning the preparations for the healing magic. Judging from the sensation, she would barely be able to make it in time without any lingering effects with her current strength.

「Return Heal!」

Her head went faint for an instant with the hefty amount of mana that was again demanded of her. When using Elemental Dance, the strain on the body was tougher so it hadn’t made much of an impression, but exhausting a large amount of mana was also pretty taxing on the body. That being said, the magic seemed to have made it in time, and the pain throughout her body disappeared in the blink of an eye. Moving her body around for a bit to check for any irregularities, she breathed a sigh of relief when she confirmed that nothing major had happened to her. She had readied herself for potential impairments, so she was truly thankful that nothing had happened at all.

With everyone relieved that nothing major happened to Haruna’s body, the entire party decided to temporarily suspend the process in order to take a breather.