Luxtivin watched Rosalyn make the potion in silence. Sweat dripped down her face, perhaps knowing how devastating her failure will be given the Weetle Flower's value.
So, humans can mix plants together and make all kinds of concoctions? How does the human brain remember both the ingredients for a brew and how to make the brew itself? Are there complexities depending on what kind of potion it is? Also, how can they do all this without even looking at a book?
Rosalyn wasn't even looking up at the scroll that much, as if one look was enough for her to remember it all.
Swords don't have brains—in fact, they have no concept of memory and the like. Yet somehow Luxtivin can remember all sorts of things. It knows this is a game turned into reality and that its master is from another world and fused with the Arnold from this game they call Star Fantasy.
Why?
Luxtivin could feel pain and bleed as Arnold's copy but does it have a brain that lets it remember stuff? It didn't want to check inside its head now but it poked its head a bit and shook it from side to side when the two women had their focus elsewhere.
it was hollow and there was no weight in its head.
Then how is it able to remember things and experience human sentience? Will it still retain consciousness if its head is cut off?
-Answer: Luxtivin need not have a brain, as it operates on specialized wires called nano-cables that connect your subconscious to a mainframe that your sentience created when you were given that sentience. When in Player Arnold's body, Luxtivin shares memories with him. But when in a transformed state, Luxtivin runs on the A.I built into the game—the mainframe as mentioned before.
A voice resounded in its head. Interesting, so Luxtivin can hear the system even when Arnold isn't contacting it.
It tried to ask a question.
How human am I?
-Answer: 60% when outside Player Arnold's body. 0% otherwise.
Elaborate.
-Answer: When within Player Arnold's body, Luxtivin is more prone to the A.I's influence, thus you can no longer be considered human. Despite this, the A.I can also strip Luxtivin of humanity, therefore it will be in Luxtivin and Arnold's best interest to build up your humanity for as much as possible.
Are you not the A.I?
-Puzzling: System has no answer to that. Studying the code is vital but without source code, that will be impossible.
What influence did you speak of? Is it related to Master's?
-Answer: Player Arnold did not only inherit future Arnold's memories, but also his Identity.
Elaborate.
-Elaboration: Current Arnold was entrusted with the memories and identity of an alternative Arnold who, if certain things were to happen, became humanity's enemy. He is known by the Moniker: Demon King Arnold, taking the name despite being only human, after Arsnoria and her Lords perished. While the memories are already implanted in the current Arnold, he already has an identity so the identity of alternate Arnold seeks a new host—that being the A.I that granted you sentience through him.
Him receiving the skill to create me or create copes of himself was no mere coincidence, I take it?
-Nod: While the world itself cannot be influenced by the A.I after the "Reality Convergence", Player Arnold's rewards can. The only way to combat it is to never accept the rewards no matter how tempting.
I am most vulnerable to its influence when I am inside his body, then?
-Specific: Luxtivin is most vulnerable when it has no sentience.
When it's in the form of a sword as well, huh.
The system went quiet. It seems it only speaks when asked questions.
Doesn't matter. Arnold will probably receive this information when Luxtivin returns to his aura pool. But this will be risky since his humanity, given to him by his master, is being stripped away.
Luxtivin doesn't want to inconvenience his master with this since he already has a mountain on his shoulder. Unfortunately, it seems it's inevitable for Arnold to get involved to ensure a rogue identity doesn't run rampant without a leash.
The only worrisome part is finding out how to push a leash on it or at least put up countermeasures against it.
Luxtivin stared back at Rosalyn, marveling at the human mind's ability to come up with such complex yet convenient items. Thinking about it in a broader sense, everything around him was made by human minds—
That metal table, the glass equipment meant to brew potions, the microscope—everything was born from a simple question: "What do we need to build civilizations?"
A thought, an idea, then trial and error until the impossible became ordinary. Humans had no claws, no fangs, no scales for armor, yet they built wonders out of nothing more than thought and persistence.
In that sense, their minds were sharper than any blade. While there were those dedicating themselves to training their bodies and magic prowess, there are those who have free time to think and invent. Of course, there are exceptions among the aforementioned. Blacksmiths are one of these exceptions.
Only a warrior could know what other warriors would need, and as a result of his determination to create something that will benefit people like him, he established a new profession.
Magicians are the same since they aren't born with magic potential in their bodies and can cast right out of the womb. It requires being exposed to said magic, learning about it, practicing by yourself, etc.
Rosalyn was both an alchemist and a magician, from what Luxtivin knew. She could take the rawest of ingredients and turn them into something beneficial to her kind, while also wielding the refined craft of sorcery she had spent two decades practicing.
He found himself dwelling on that duality—how she embodied the restless spirit of humanity itself, never content with what simply existed. Where a sword like him was forged once and remained what it was, humans were always reshaping themselves, always reaching toward something just beyond their grasp.
It was… admirable. And to him, a mere sword granted sentience, almost unfathomable.
'Hm?'
He heard tapping coming from someone's heel tapping the tiles and glanced at Rachel.
When he looked at the fidgeting Rachel, he noticed purple veins bulge around the visible part of her arm. She was scratching it furiously and stared forward as if she was in a daze or possibly lightheaded. The area around her mouth looked blue.
Rosalyn turned on the Bunsen burner then looked at her sister. Her eyes widened and she hurriedly approached Rachel.
She grabbed her sister's arm, "B-Blood? No… This is way too dark to be blood—Don't scratch the marks like that!"
"Eh?" dazingly, Rachel looked down at the arm.
Her blood dripped down that arm, looking darker than what you would expect blood to look like.
"Punctures from needles aren't supposed to look like this." Rosalyn examined her arm, noticing the holes that had mysteriously appeared, "This isn't normal."
She chanted a restorative spell then held the magic circle over Rachel's arm. The blood vanished and the scratching marks around the vanished but the mysterious wounds themselves didn't change. Rather, when the glow subsided, they continued to leak blood.
"—Rosalyn, I thought I asked you to keep watch." Melissa entered the room, "Why are there people in my lab when I specifically told you keep it closed?"
At the same time, Arnold switched places with Luxtivin, who disappeared into his aura pool.
'Looks like you had a fun chatter with my System, eh Luxtivin?' thought Arnold.
"Melissa? Why are you awake—"
Rachel suddenly began to scream, "Get it out! It hurts!" she pushed her sister away and began to scratch her arm again, this time tearing off the skin and breaking a nail.
"W-What's with her?"
"Rachel, what's wrong!?" Rosalyn tried to approach but was pushed again. Her little sister's arm began to turn purple. No, the area around the holes turned purple but the pigmentation slowly spread to her whole arm.
"What the…" Arnold looked at the scene with a frown. Upon closer inspection, the hazy purple fog was being sucked into her wounds. First, it festered at a rapid rate then began to intake the fog, which spread across her skin like lava on the earth.
"!!!" black vines shot out of Rachel's wounds and she screamed her lungs out.
Rosalyn fell on the floor and stared wide-eyed at what was happening. Melissa looked at Arnold, thinking he knew what to do.
"Finish the potion!" he yelled over Rachel's screams.
"W-Will it be enough!? Don't we need a priest!?" Rosalyn screamed back, her eyes swimming around, looking at the twisting purple cloud that was heading for Rachel.
"It will release the residue inside her body, leaving only what's outside…!"
'System, analysis.'
-Answer: It would appear Rachel has somehow absorbed the residue from the lab.
'That was pretty obvious. How was it possible for that to happen? I'm breathing it in just fine.'
Not just him but the two magicians with him in the lab as well.
-Question: Has Rachel been involved with a demon summoning ritual before? Demons are able to inject their energy into humans through their rituals. Not physically inject but in the spiritual sense. Unlike oxygen that travels from the mouth into the blood, brain and lungs, demonic lifeforce is instantly attacked by one's immune system, killing it instantly as humans have developed a natural defense against it over hundreds of thousands of years. However, when injected with the energy, it corrupts the body from within, making the immune system's defenses powerless to defend it. This in turn creates a cracking shell of a human.
So, this is how a demon's lifeforce corrupts the human body.
He asked Rosalyn the same question.
"Eh? No! W-Well, I don't think so… If that were the case, I would've heard about it, I think…" she wiped sweat from her brows and her hands shook as she ground the last of the herbs, muttering silently, "Just a little more… T-The flower is almost done boiling—"
"She's your little sister and the two of you don't talk about these sorts of things!?" her friend yelled over Rachel's screams. She was trying her best to heal the arm but it was becoming worse by the minute. The black tentacles coming out of the girl's arm looked like vines desperate to consume the purple energy.
"You left her to wither while you buried yourself in your work! Have you no shame as a sibling!?"
"You were the one that came to me asking if I was ready to give up my daily life to help you! Were it not for you, I could've become rich from selling Elf slaves to high-class brothels but you promised me an even better future! Remember? Our discoveries will make us the richest women in Diacree!"
"I never forced you to come! When have I ever told you to abandon your family just for our work and gold!? We've known each other for 20 years and never once have I bossed you around!"
"Enough." Tired of their yelling on top of Rachel's screams, Arnold spoke coldly. "Your quarrel doesn't help her. Focus on what can save her, not on who failed her."
For a moment, only Rachel's ragged breaths and the bubbling of the concoction filled the silence.
Rosalyn lowered her head, whispering through clenched teeth, "If this works, it won't matter who was right."
"Exactly. Just be there for her unlike your shitty mother and incompetent father."
Melissa glared at her but said nothing, turning her attention back to Rachel.
"The white of her eyes are turning black. Is something like this even reversible with just a potion…?"
"That's not any potion—it's from a Weetle flower."
"Where did Rosalyn get something like that!?"
"I gave it to her. Long story short, Rachel used a drug called Demon Punch. We should assume she did it multiple times going by the number of holes in her arm that never healed."
"H-How did that drug end up in our school!? I thought manufacturing of the drug will get you executed."
"Just because it's outlawed doesn't mean production or distribution will vanish. It's quick money."
"I…I know that… But why are kids distributing them when they're given so many opportunities to succeed in life!"
"Ask the ones who decided the school fees should be thousands of gold."
"…"
"One of the ingredients for making the drug is demon lifeforce, something you get from orcs, goblins, trolls, and so on. Whether the drugs are made inside these walls, or outside and smuggled in, someone from either an adventurer party or an alchemist guild is involved in making sure they cross into this empire."
'The healing spell is being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of energy in the air.' He observed.
"…You're right. Only adventurers and alchemists are allowed to bring monster parts into the empire or any city walls for that matter."
How this works is they probably give their accomplices a written permission slip so that whenever a guard asks for their authorization, they can just provide the written slip and confirm it with the alchemist in question. It's more straightforward for adventurers since they can just waltz into the empire with the parts, claiming they're delivering it to the guilds.
"They're probably profiting off it more than their own jobs. The two of you are no different from those people since you're putting others' lives on the line."
Neither said anything, merely looked at each other with troubled expressions.
"Not like I can judge." He shrugged. "My only responsibility is making sure this drug gets off the school and order is restored. Everyone else can deal with it outside the school."
"Who else knows about this? The drugs being on school, I mean." asked Rosalyn.
"Only Morwenne, your cousin. We can't let news of it spread just yet since that will spook the criminals. I wanted to ask Rachel to ask her friends to help her gather evidence and present it to Morwenne at the end of the week. I will be busy inspecting everyone's bags."
"By friends, do you mean… others like her?"
"Yeah."
Rosalyn bit her lip.
"…I feel like shit being happy knowing there are irresponsible family members other than me out there."
Rachel's screams began to die down and she was left moaning with a dazed expression staring up at Arnold.
She stretched out her hand towards him as the tears began to flow.
"I'm… I… I'm… sc…are…d …"
He knelt beside her and grabbed her hand.
"The Weetle Flower can cure any disease, wound and even halt aging for a period of time—You'll make it."
What he said surprised even himself.
Why was he bothering to reassure her? His duty was to restore order in the academy, not waste breath on comfort. Making her feel at ease wasn't necessary to that end.
Yet as he looked at her pale, tear-streaked face, he understood. Maybe he pitied her—because this was partly her family's fault, and partly her own naïve blindness. That naivety, however, wasn't immovable. It could be outgrown… if she lived long enough to see the truth of the world.
She had been pampered from birth, never given the chance to harden her heart or sharpen her judgment because her family was always there for her for the most part. Every knight on a white horse was a savior in her eyes, every stranger who smiled at her was surely a friend. She had never considered that cruelty hides behind charm, or that not every hand extended toward her meant safety.
It wasn't just that he saw Melina's future self in Rachel—though the resemblance was undeniable. He pitied her, truly. Out of everyone he had learned about through his playthroughs, Rachel was the one who most deserved a happy life, a bright future untouched by cruelty.
Anyone who knew the kind of man he was might have found it shocking. Him? Pitying someone he would once have called a bug on the street?
Maybe Rachel will be the only one…
"!!" she began to scream again but this time her body twitched and her arm was suddenly surrounded in black, slimy tentacles. Half of her face also changed into something inhuman.
That same hand that transformed was still in Arnold's hand. He never let go even while Melissa was cowering behind him. One side of Rachel's face was in pure agony while the other oozed bloodlust. If he let go, it would try to kill them.
"I-It's done!" Rosalyn hurriedly came over with a glass filled with the potion's liquid. There was no time to pour it in a vial, after all.
Arnold grabbed Rachel's chin and forced her to face him. Then he activated his Halo, which made her go silent the next moment and her body went weak.
"Do it."
Rosalyn nodded and tilted the glass over her sister's mouth, letting the liquid pour in her mouth.
Whether the potion made from one of the most valuable flowers in the world will work, will be shown in the next few moments.
…
…
There were no flashing lights or screams. No sudden miracle that announced itself to the world. Only the quiet sound of liquid sliding down her throat, followed by silence.
A black fog came out of every orifice on her body but the tentacles remained and her face was unchanged.
"Miss Melissa, fetch me one of the talismans."
It seems an exorcism is needed even though the spread had slowed down.
She nodded and hurried downstairs, making the two wait in silence. Their eyes remained on the frozen young girl who still hadn't responded. Her pulse felt weak and her body grew cold.
Melissa came running back, bringing one of the talismans Arnold drew. He took it from her and then told Rosalyn: "Lift up her shirt."
She nodded and did as he said, revealing the young girl's flat belly.
Arnold placed the talisman on her belly and surrounded one of his fingers in Aether then he placed his finger on the simple runic formation. A glow appeared the next moment then the paper was burned up by a yellow light. that light was absorbed through Rachel's skin.
A golden magic circle then appeared above her.
This is a simple exorcism spell that even a novice can use to banish a demon from someone's body. It typically only works if the demon hasn't finished its metastasis, such in the case of Rachel.
Not even a second later once the magic circle broke down—
The tentacles twitched, writhing once then fell off as if something pulled them from her body. Her skin began to pale, the black veins receding like ink dissolving in water. The warped half of her face convulsed until the flesh smoothed over and the bloodlust in her eye flickered… then died.
Arnold still hadn't let go of her hand. He could feel her pulse thundering beneath the skin then gradually slowing into something almost human again.
Rosalyn and Melissa both froze, too afraid to breathe.
Finally, Rachel's lips parted in a ragged gasp. She shivered, then coughed violently, dark sludge spraying from her mouth before dissolving into smoke the moment it touched the air.
Life returned to her eyes, and as she looked up at Arnold, tears fell and a smile appeared on her face.
Rosalyn saw that and immediately jumped on her little sister, her cries filling the whole room.