Chapter 44 - Treatment

Despite heavily coughing, Princess Iris remains in an unconscious state. Her body is heavily weakened after suffering from multiple afflictions within her body, in addition to the lack of nutrition from the time in her comatose state. As a result, she remains completely unaware of Senna’s assault on her lips.

King Victor and the others are greatly surprised as Senna steals a kiss from Princess Iris. However, they choose to patiently after constantly begging for her help. Irene stands behinds Princess Liliana, and covers her eyes waiting for things to finish. However, a cramped smile quickly forms on their faces as Senna’s hand drifts down to Iris’ chest. They unconsciously avert their eyes seeing her hand press flatten Iris’ breast as she exerts more force.

However, the awkwardness quickly disappears from their minds. Upon a second glance, they see a visible change in the Princess' condition. Her shriveled, malnourished body begins to expand returning to its original state. Her skin regains some of its color as Senna's magic takes effect.

"Ah." Liliana is the first to catch sight of the new change in Iris’ condition. Iris' arms and legs gradually shift as they begin to shrink. Her height barely changes with the spell, but her blonde hair retracting back into her skull easily catches their attention.

After a few minutes pass, Senna opens her eyes briefly before breaking the kiss. She pushes herself to the side and tumbles off the bed. Landing with an inelegant crash, the noise causes them to wince just from the sound. Senna ignores the impact and pulls out a large bottle of . She quickly consumes the potion without a second thought.

"Senna, are you okay?" Liliana asks crouching down next to Senna's head. Senna lies on the ground panting heavily once the potion disappears. She doesn't respond immediately, but focuses on composing herself.

After five minutes of waiting and heavy breathing, Senna finally responds. "...Okay. Draw...curtains...open...window."

"Ah! Yes!" Iru and Irene jump hearing Senna's request and draw all the curtains illuminating the dark room. As they open the balcony window, Mika swoops in through the opening.

The Empress and Iru are surprised at Mika’s sudden appearance. Her flaming red body reminds them of the stories about the mythical Phoenix, but they discard that thought believing that Phoenixes are merely a myth. The others are far less surprised at Mika's sudden appearance because of how frequently she flew off and returned during their trip. Mika flaps her wings floating in place sending a strong gust of wind throughout the room. Instead of landing on Senna's arm, Mika chooses to land on the ground next to her.

{Sis! Are you okay?} Mika yells telepathically into Senna's head.

{Mm. Okay. Tired...} Senna responds calmly. She slowly sits up groaning at the movement. She turns to Liliana. "You should stand back a bit."

"Ah. Okay." Liliana quickly complies taking her distance.

Senna gives a strong cough while hitting her chest. She spits out a faint blue orb. Within the orb, a yellowish mass and black fog float about trapped. She stretches out her hand in front of her body. "Mika, burn it."

{Okay!} Mika stretches back her neck gathering flames within her mouth. Her neck snaps forward as she opens her beak letting out a concentrated stream of fire. With their constant training, Mika's control has improved greatly allowing her to accurately strike the orb of magic on Senna’s hand. The flames pass through an opening thoroughly burning the contents of the orb in Senna's hand leaving nothing behind. The intense heat causes the others to back away, but Senna stares at her flaming hand without flinching. Senna shakes her hand dispersing the flames and magic orb after confirming there is nothing left.

"Haaa...That's it for now." Senna leans back against the side of Iris' bed and rests her head.

Princess Liliana approaches Senna, but stays back a bit after feeling the residual heat. "Senna~ Are you okay?"

"Yes. I used too magic, so I'm a little tired." Senna replies with her eyes shut. She continues sitting there without lifting her head.

"Then we should get a room ready for you." Liliana claps her hands happily suggesting.

"No, it's fine. I'm just recovering magic. I don't intend to rest that long." Senna waves off the idea of getting too comfortable. "Before that I should continue my explanation. I suggest you get comfortable first for a long talk."

"Understood." King Victor responds. Some shuffling occurs as they grab several chairs for the King, Queen, and Princess. Iru, Irene, and Lewis remain standing to the side.

"Well whatever." Senna gives a light sigh lifting her head up to look at them. "Now where did I leave off? ...Oh yes. Princess Iris is suffering from four afflictions. The first one is similar to what many of the castle servants and Queen are suffering from. Namely this yellow mass latching onto your magic core. It’s normally called a tumor." Senna brings back out the blood bubble with the yellow mass. "It looks like they did not use much on the Princess because it is far less than this. Only about 15% of her core was covered. The worse would be Iru's sister with 40%. I expect those three I pointed out will collapse soon, but their lives aren't in danger yet, so there's still time."

"How much time does she have?" Iru reluctantly asks.

"Probably a little under two months as its current pace. Enough time for me to figure out a cure." Senna casually replies.

"Senna, is the poison only meant to kill?" Lewis replies scratching his head.

"From what I can see... I would bet on these transformed cores being the base for creating new monsters." Senna replies. The others suck in a deep breath hearing about her words.

"Are you positive?" King Victor asks with a firm gaze.

"My information is based on how this was created... If the mastermind scrapped his plans since then, but his subordinates continued the work unknowingly then I would not know." Senna shakes the blood bubble slightly drawing their attention to it.

"There's not much else I can say about it, so let's move on. The second illness is related to the black mist you saw. Princess Iris received much more of this poison compared to the first one. The first affliction was weakened and didn't seem to grow very much as a result. I have the feeling that they changed their plans partway through and decided to focus on infecting her with the second poison. Rather than using her core as a base for a new monster, they wanted to directly transform her into a monster. I'm guessing something similar to that hand monster you saw?

Their gazes immediately snap towards the unconscious Iris. Senna sighs sensing their concern. "I have already cured her of both poisons. Those were directly burned by Mika here." Senna points to Mika crouching next to Senna. Mika immediately stands hearing her name and puffs her feathers to try and seem more prestigious.

"How come it came out of your mouth if it was in sister Iris?" Liliana raises her hand and asks.

"I sucked it out when I kissed her." Senna replies without missing a beat. They silently playback the kiss in their minds. "Before I continue talking about her other problems, I should apologize for the trouble I've caused with my cure. I used quite the forceful method because of how extensive her injuries were. She’s 17 now after making her four years younger.”

“You made her younger?!” The Queen exclaims with surprise. Concern is plastered over her face, but her eyes gleam with anticipation.

“It’s not something I can use as I please. It shortens my lifespan significantly with each use.” Senna replies with a weak sigh.

“I see…” The Queen becomes downcast with Senna’s rejection. If Senna could freely use that magic, then she could benefit from eternal youth with Senna’s assistance. Senna inwardly breathes a sigh of relief that her lie was convincing enough to get the Queen to drop the subject.

“Will there be any side effects?” King Victor asks.

Senna shakes her head. “Other than becoming younger, there shouldn’t be any significant changes to her health. She would normally have some balance issues because of the change in her height, but Princess Iris has mostly been confined to the bed for quite some time, so the effect would be minimal.” Senna pauses and scans their faces for any further questions. Seeing none, Senna decides to keep talking. “The third illness is something I was surprised to discover. Heart cancer…” She gives a heavy sigh announcing the name.

However, instead of shock, Senna is met with blank stares at confusion. The adults look at one another silently asking what was ‘cancer’. They can only shake their heads in confusion unsure of the term. Liliana kept staring at Senna waiting for her to continue the explanation. When Senna doesn’t continue, Liliana gets impatient and speaks up first. “Senna, what’s that?”

"Ah. As expected. I never read any books on cancer, so I was wondering if it was the same here. You've never heard of it then." Senna asks and receives a unified head shake. "I see. How should I explain it then?" Senna rests her arm against her chin and starts thinking.

"Okay. Let's do it this way." Senna raises her arm showing the back of her hand. A small square about 5 centimeter in length is marked with yellow light. "See this?" After receiving a confirmation, Senna creates a large square panel next to her spanning 3 meters on each side. On the panel is a large grid made of 900 pink squares with each individual square about 10 centimeters in length. "This will be a giant close up of my arm."

"Normally, my skin slowly replaces like this." Senna snaps her fingers. The squares split in half doubling in number as the squares deform to fit within the panel. "After splitting in half, the new pieces slowly take over because the old ones become too old to keep working. Once the old squares reach the end, they're discarded." With her explanation, some of the squares begin to turn gray and are shoved out of the panel. The discarded squares hit the ground and turn into a wisp of light as the panel returns to the original count of 900 squares.

"Isn't that too mean to kick them out like that?" Liliana complains folding her hands in front of her chest.

"Not really. Nothing can last forever. I'm simply giving a short explanation. Hm... You can think of it as continuing the legacy. Your grandfather was a king for most of his life. When he got older, he passed everything to your dad, his child to continue the reign as King." Senna tries to kindly explain.

"But we don't leave grandfather out in the cold like that." Liliana refutes.

"True. But these guys need to be kept in the best possible condition. There's no chance for sympathy with their job. Your family is the most important in this kingdom, so you need to be protected even if the guards need to get hurt to do that." Senna tries to explain in a patient manner. Liliana puffs her cheeks unwilling to accept Senna's explanation. The adults all nod agreeing with Senna's point of view.

"Back on topic, this is the normal status though a bit faster than normal. Cancer is a bit different. A normal piece becomes 'broken' and ...what would be the right word...?" Senna explanation halts as she tilts her head. At this point, Mika crouches next to Senna and takes a nap. "‘Poisonous’ isn't right...’Dangerous’, no... Let's say ‘Corrupted’. That piece becomes corrupted and spreads its influence."

With Senna's words, a single square turns pitch black. "If a normal piece splits every minute, then a corrupted piece splits..." Senna creates a countdown as they watch the black square split twice in the time it takes for a normal square to split. "The growth is barely noticeably at first, but once gradually takes over." Senna snaps her fingers as the black tiles gradually spread and force out the normal pink tiles.

"That's..." They grimace hearing her explanation.

Senna sighs as she continues. "I won’t lie to you. It isn't possible to use healing magic to cure this sort of problem. In fact, it's the worst possible thing to do." Senna extends her arm and presses against the panel. Her hand is covered in a bright white light for the demonstration. In response, the black tiles shake for a brief moment and begin to divide with an even greater speed. They soon cover half of the board before Senna drops her hand ending the magic.

"Ah..." The King and Queen cover their mouths as tears form in the corner of their eyes. Their thoughts go back to the countless healers they’ve employed to help cure their daughter. If Senna’s diagnosis is correct, then they’ve been slowly killing her instead of helping her get better. The feeling of grief and guilt washes over their bodies.

"You did not know. You've never heard of cancer. You shouldn't blame yourselves." Senna shoddily consoles them. The two of them avert their gaze clearly still affected by her words.

"Senna, what about the last one?" Iru asks changing the topic.

"The last one is pnu...Ah. Um…*cough*... A severe cold." Senna stops herself from saying pnuemonia after realizing that the name is most likely unknown to them just like cancer. She chooses a safer general term to use as a base for her explanation. "Iris has multiple illnesses making her much weaker than normal. She caught a cold that had time to cling to the body and wreak havoc on Iris’ insides. Most of the treatment she received was absorbed by her other illnesses and did not treat her cold at all." She gives a weak sigh as she looks at the sleeping Princess.

"What happens now?" Captain Lewis asks.

"Cancer is a complicated thing to treat. I have to try out different things and see what works." Senna scratches her head.

"You don't know how to treat it. If you've studied the illness, then you must know the treatment." Iru retorts.

"I know it, but I can't use that kind of treatment. It would end up killing the Princess." Senna replies with a bitter look. "The method is quite crude in using a spell to carve out the source, while killing everything nearby it. Her condition is quite bad, so carving out the illness is unreasonable. I have some ideas about what to do, so I just need some time."

"Thinking about the situation, I bought some time for your daughter. So would you like me to set aside some time to deal with the culprits?" Senna smiles and asks.

"Will you be able to do it? You're considerable worn from the procedure already." King Victor asks looking at Senna.

Senna smiles and nods. "If you have everyone gather in... 3 hours, then I can return to an acceptable condition by then. It provides me with plenty of time to prepare various materials too."

King Victor nods. "I will send out the order for everyone to gather on the training grounds. Will you require anything else?"

"Pen and paper. And several people that can record the servants' names." Senna replies.

"Understood. I'll prepare them right away." Irene volunteers immediately.

“Senna, what about these names?” Iru interrupts presenting the list to Senna.

“Ah sorry. I forget. Let me see.” Senna takes the list from Iru. She marks three different papers with a 1, 2, or 3 on top of each sheet and copies over the names. “The Queen already knows she’s ill, so we don’t need her name here. And done. Get more paper, so that we can continue recording names for each group.” Senna hands back the newly transcribed lists to Iru. She crumbles up the old list and puts it away to discard later.

“What do these numbers mean?” Iru asks taking the paper from Senna.

“That’s for later. We can worry about it then.” Senna replies with a smile. Mmm. That's all I need. I want to perform a bit more treatment without being distracted, so if everyone could leave the room." Senna requests. They agree to Senna's request fully trusting her with the Princess' safety.

"Then I'll take the Doctor and lock him inside the Dungeons." Captain Lewis nods.

"Oh about the doctor." Senna stands up walking over to the Royal doctor. She enchants her hand with lightning and gives him a firm strike to the back of his head. I would advise you be careful. It has not been confirmed yet, but it is possible he holds an exploding type core in his body that I've previously mentioned. If he dies, then it could heavily damage parts of the castle, not to mention everyone in range."

The Royal Family immediately backs away hearing the word explosion. Captain Lewis pales, but grips his blade ready to cut the doctor down. "What do you recommend?"

"A couple of things. Make sure he doesn't die unexpectedly, whether by your subordinates' hands or his own hands. Don't lock him in a magic void zone. And I'll assume you plan to lock him up in a large cell to minimize damage." Senna suggests. "He'll be out for some time, so you can carry him without worry."

Lewis lets out a breath of relief. "Understood." He's grateful that the conditions are far easier than expected. Senna nods as the doctor is taken away. Everyone shuffles out of the room leaving only Senna, Mika, and the unconscious Princess Iris in the room.

"Mika, what will you do?" Senna asks speaking normally.

"Sis, are you really okay?" Mika asks fluently speaking in the Erein language.

"Yes. No problem. I can handle this much." Senna nods with a bright smile. She feels some pride seeing Mika pick up the language so quickly after quietly listening to everyone speak for the last week.

"I'm going hunting then." Mika replies jumping into the air.

"Stay away from the mountains okay? It's dangerous." Senna solemnly replies.

"Okay." Mika answers sensing Senna's concern.

"Good." Senna quietly watches Mika fly off before focusing on her own work. She sits down in front of the metal tub and places the blood bubble in the center. After making the necessary medicinal and magical preparations, she starts her experimentation.

In the next few minutes, her eardrums ring from the continuous explosions. Thankfully she set down a surrounding her and the tub, preventing the sounds from leaking out. So far, every attempt at using healing magic or general antidotes have ended with the same results. The tumor absorbs the magic or medicine applied into it and poorly reacts to it. The tumor quickly expands unable to digest the foreign material and expands to three times its normal size before violently exploding. Senna experimented with small chunks of the tumor, but even a few grams were able to blow open a hole in the bottom of the metal washtub. She expected things to fail for the first few attempts, but the volatile nature of the tumor leaves her stunned. "It's no surprise these creations have exploding cores then."

She grumbles to herself as she starts considering other possible cures. Half an hour later, Senna slams her head against edge of the wash basin. "Are you kidding me? Why is THAT the cure?" She stares at the remains of the tumor as it cleanly disintegrates without an explosion. Blankly staring at it for a few moments, she gives a defeated sigh. She hits the edge of the basin rousing her mood. "Fine! If that's the cure, then I'll make it and improve it to the best possible condition!"

Senna spends the next hour creating a large amount of drinking water fine tuning the cure. "I made too much…" Senna heavily sighs at the sight before her. The end result, 500 bottles tower in front of her with another 500 vials set aside in boxes to the side. Each of the bottles are tightly capped and sealed to prevent any air from escaping. They all disappear into Senna's [Storage] with a wave of her hand.

"Now then...There's still some time." Senna sits on the bed and touches Iris' chest. Invoking , she takes a detailed look at Iris' condition. Both of the poisons have completely left the Princess' body. Her spell had greatly altered Iris' body, but the brunt of the spell had been focused on the poisons. The corroding poison was particularly widespread damaging all of her internal organs. Her magic reversed and negated its control until it reached the size of a fingernail. The yellow tumor was much easier covering 40% of Princess Iris' core. It was quickly reduced to the same size through Senna's magic.

Locking them in a layer of magic, she forcefully detached them from Iris' body. Senna held them in her mouth for a brief moment, but had a wave of ready to burn them if any accident happened. Thankfully nothing did, so the cleanup was left to the destruction loving Mika.

With the worry about the poisons out of the way, Senna focused on Iris' natural illnesses. Senna activates her magic once again. Iris' body was already reverted back three years to reverse some of the atrophy that had set in throughout her body. At this point, she was stable enough to need some rehabilitation without being confined to her bed for an extended period of time. As a result, Senna could focus on targeted her damaged organs and burning a significant amount of magic.

The scarring on the lungs from pneumonia was quickly patched up with her magic. The pneumonia was carefully healed out of existence. The cancer cells on Iris’ heart were a slightly more complicated manner. The exterior of her heart was already 90% coated in cancer cell with about 60% of the interior already taken over. Thinking about the original situation, it was a large surprise that Iris was even alive. The entire situation left her wondering if she would have even survived long enough to become a monster before her heart completely broke down.

Under Senna's , the cancer cells separate from Iris' heart and get scooped up into a web of magic entrapping them. After some time, Senna ends the spell allowing her body to relax for a moment. Her total magic has dropped below half, so she focusing on recovering her used magical power to raise it to an acceptable level. She watches her magic levels carefully to avoid having it cut suddenly like it did during the first battle with the demons.

After resting, she cuts her finger extracting several drops of blood. Using [Blood Manipulation], she sends the blood down the Princess' throat towards the collected cancer cells. The blood surrounds the magic cocoon of magic firmly restricting all of the leftover cancer cells. When the blood layer fully forms, Senna decides it is safe enough to start destroying the cells. Blades form inside the magic cocoon as the walls rotate acting as a blender. Afterwards, Senna releases a small flame inside the cocoon thoroughly burning any of the remains. Destroying the last bits of cancer, Senna separates the cocoon leaving only stray molecules behind. The magic cocoon disperses, but she sends her blood over to confirm there is nothing else wrong with the Princess' heart.

"Good. It's fully healed." Senna nods preparing to remove her blood. "Okay. Time to take it out...EHHH?! NO WAY?!" In the slight moment that she relaxed her concentration, the connection with her blood suddenly cut. Bewildered, Senna extracts another drop of her blood and sends it into Iris' body once again. Focusing on the connection, Senna discovers the abnormality.

Iris' heart deform slightly as the walls stretch towards the blood droplet. Touching the blood, the heart sucks up the blood absorbs it pulling it inside. "Geh!" Senna immediately casts on Iris' heart, but she can only knit her brow. "I already turned back the time an entire day, but it hasn't released the blood at all. Why?" She can only tilt her head at the inexplicable turn of events.

Senna opens Iris’ [Status] for another look. “Ah. Her stats have increased. She picked up some skills too. Did we form a [Blood Contract]?” She notices the similarities to the contract with Mika, but shakes her head. “Guess not. There’s nothing about the contract here. Hmm…Nothing in mine either. She learnt it by absorbing my blood maybe? Or maybe I can’t see the contract because it isn’t complete? Ahh…I don’t know!” She scratches her head completely perplexed by the situation.

“Haa…Fine, whatever. I’ll figure it out later. It’s almost time.” Senna can only sigh and give up. She stands up fixing her clothes. Closing the window, she draws the curtains dimming the room. “Time to catch the culprits.” Senna shuts the door behind her and starts cracking her knuckles with an eager smile.

Author’s Note

Another chapter done. I should have a chapter out next week unless something throws a wrench into my plans.

I’m currently trying to check off a bucket list item, ‘Fix the rape scene in Prologue 2.’ Nowhere near done yet, and I’m doing it offline on my comp, so you won’t see any changes to the chapter until I’m done. I’ll give a heads up when I do though. Not sure how it will come out though. XD

Review for the novels jumped up to 29. Thanks to everyone that took the time to leave a review! There was one that hit one of my concerns, so I thought I would take the chance to talk about it while I have the chance.

My writing tends to follow the same trend, Female MC, who's overpowered. My MCs also go through various kinds of abuse in one way or another. I use these tropes the most because I like to write with some self-insert with the MC. I can use the MC as a board to throw various things in her direction. The slave past of Senna's is a reflection of that because I have imagined a gender bend situation where I'm raped and abused in one way or another. Though it's all imagination in the end since I have a normal sexual orientation.

And not surprisingly, the OP part is just wish fulfillment on my end about wanting to freely use magic for any situation I come across. Nothing too surprising since readers will have come across it in one form or another.

Right now things are going along a high point of Senna where she's handling everything with ease. I've been just going along with things because I'm enjoying what I write at the moment and want to do this and that. I do plan to throw a wrench to worsen Senna's situation, just not yet. It's vague to keep things interesting, but here's a spoiler with the plan of events for things to come.

Spoiler : Planned course of events

• Guild evaluation

• Iris Joining (important)

• Mountain quest?

• Tournament (Scrapped idea)

• Ariel (important)

• Demons (important)

• Leaving Erein

Anyways, that's a bit of background on the story. I apologize if the story isn't your thing, but I'll continue to write because I enjoy it. It's a thing chock full of my whims, but I'm happy with it since I write for my own entertainment.