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After stepping into the room, Freya gently closed the door behind her with her elbow while both hands remained occupied by two glass vials. The liquid inside one of them was pale grey, while the other had a faint amber tint.
She stopped a few steps away from him.
"I finally finished them." Her gaze briefly lingered on the sling supporting his shoulder before returning to his face. "...Although one of them wasn't part of your request."
Kiyotaka sat down on the chair. "I asked for a lot more than 2, but regardless, bring them here and sit down."
Freya hesitated for only a second before taking a seat on the edge of the bed as Kiyotaka pulled his chair closer to her. She sunk into the soft bed and was momentarily taken aback. While the mattress in her room was better than anything she'd slept on before, this level of comfort was still alien to her.
Bringing her mind back to reality, she placed both transparent bottles on the small table between them with care, aligning them neatly until both labels faced him.
"This one first." She nudged the grey vial forward that looked to carry glowing white threads inside. "It should suppress spirituality."
Kiyotaka picked it up and rotated the bottle slightly. The liquid clung to the glass surface longer than ordinary water before slowly sliding back down.
"AH!" Freya yelped.
"Hm?"
Realizing she had overreacted, she quickly explained herself. "Twirling it around too much would make it poisonous... Well, not poisonous in a conventional manner, but poisonous for spirituality. In it's current form, it doesn't 'remove' spirituality but rather only suppress it.
Totally removing it, even temporarily, is impossible, at least for me."
Kiyotaka looked at her and huffed. "For now, yes. As you advance, you would be able to influence it."
Freya kept her head high but eyes low. She merely nodded her head and gulped.
"Regardless, why can't you fully deprive someone of their spirituality as of yet?" Kiyotaka posed a question as he stared at the glowing white threads inside the silvery viscous liquid.
"I tried..." Freya pondered over it. "...I followed your instruction and the things which were written in the books you had recommended." As she talked about her experience, she grew more fluent and began to shed the formality. "I'd like to think of spirituality as some kind of immortal flame.
We can cover it, weaken it, or make it hard for others to notice it, but its impossible to fully suppress it."
Kiyotaka heard her with silence, however, on the inside, he felt a little disappointed. "No one is immortal. Not even the gods."
This was a deliberate reveal on his part. There were many things that Kiyotaka wanted Freya to shed about herself, and the belief on anyone but himself was something he could not tolerate.
"How does it work? Is oral ingestion required or is just applying it to a wound enough?"
"Applying to a wound would be enough, but it's not as potent. Full ingestion is required to full take effect. The potency of this kind of potion is very low as well. I feel like I am limited by my abilities."
"I see." Without another word, Kiyotaka removed the cork and drank the potion as Freya blinked incredulously.
After a few seconds, she suddenly stood up. "Sir...! Why did you drink it?"
Kiyotaka was using Cogitation to control his spirituality. The effects were minute, however, if it was used in a high-stake battle, it could turn the tides quite easily. He did not reply for a long while as Freya kept rubbing her sweaty palms in anticipation.
A moment later when Kiyotaka felt the effects subside, he cleared his throat. "It's effective. Make a few copies of it."
Freya wanted to say something, however, she decided to stay silent. While Kiyotaka looked quite lenient, she realized it was not her place to reprimand him about things like these. In her eyes, he was someone who was better than her in everything, be it as a normal human or as a Beyonder.
Instead, she picked the empty vial back up and turned it slowly between her thin fingers. "I thought the Moon Grass extract would be enough to make it last long."
"Apparently not." Kiyotaka swiveled into his chair and made some distance between them.
"I'll have to increase—" Freya stopped herself. "...Actually, no. That will probably make the mixture unstable." She fell silent, already lost in thought.
'She has a good mind. If it was a normal world, it would've taken years for her to fully grasp everything. However, being a Sequence 9: Apothecary does have it's own perks. She should be able to have an intuitional understanding of what to mix together to gain that specific result.
And she is ready to improve. With enough time, she should be able to make potions or poisons which can fully neutralize someone's spirituality. However, I don't have that much time. I have to make do with what I have.'
Meanwhile, Freya snapped out of her thoughts and carefully placed the grey vial aside before reaching for the amber one. "This is the other medicine."
Her expression became a little more restrained. "You didn't specifically ask for it... I heard what happened." Her eyes unconsciously drifted toward the sling again. "I thought... Well, fractured bones take forever to heal normally. I figured I could at least help."
She slid the vial toward him. "It won't mend the bone, as I'm not capable of making something like that." She thought back at Kiyotaka's words. "For now."
"But it'll increase your body's natural functions. It has a downside as well... Since it will accelerate everything, while you will recover faster, you might feel some extra hunger, along with some other things.
But If everything goes well...maybe, you will be back to normal in two weeks."
"Did you try it on yourself?"
"Umm... Yes..." Feeling a little skittish, Freya began talking again while Kiyotaka picked up the vial and shook his head.
"I-It wasn't difficult to make. I already had most of the ingredients."
"...Well." Her thin lips formed an awkward smile. "I was missing one. So I borrowed some money from mother. You don't have to reimburse me."
"I wasn't planning to." Kiyotaka replied without looking at her.
Freya froze. "...I mean—"
Before she could correct herself, Kiyotaka continued calmly. "I'll pay you for the medicine. You used your personal money. Even if I was the one who paid that money, that doesn't make them free."
Freya opened her mouth, then quietly closed it again. "This was the least I could do after all you did for us." She said quietly, her fingers tightening slightly around the empty grey vial she was still holding, turning it over once, twice—as if unsure what to do or say.
"And you are going to work for me until you die. So it's not really a favor." Kiyotaka shrugged and a thin sliver of pain shot up his shoulder.
Freya opened her mouth as if to answer, then simply nodded instead. It was a small motion but a beat too fast.
Picking the amber vial up, Kiyotaka put it to his mouth and drank it. The effects were not instant, and he could not feel anything at the moment, however, it was acceptable since she was merely a Sequence 9. His Sequence 7 physique was naturally prone to recover quite quickly on itself.
Noticing Freya was still sitting, he asked. "Anything else?"
"I am making progress with the potions and medicine." She nodded faintly to herself, as though mentally confirming each point before continuing.
"However, Ada's condition is not good. She looks healthy, but after I saw her through my... umm, Spirit Vision? Yes, Spirit Vision, she seems to have some kind of sickness that keeps growing and... multiplicating?"
'Hmm.'
"She is currently sleeping after I gave her milk of poppy. Daisy is attending the school that you granted her admission in. She has a worship day coming in this week at the Church of Evernight Goddess, but we have already bought the items required for it. As for mother, she is much healthier and happier than before. She just finished cleaning the house and is preparing for lunch.
Would you come down or eat in your room?"
As Freya finished brainstorming, Kiyotaka adjusted his pocket watch. "I have to leave for something important. I will be back by evening, so don't make anything for me. You can leave now."
Freya bowed her head a little and left. Once she was gone and the sound of her steps indicated she had climbed the flight of stairs down, Kiyotaka quickly left his room and walked upstairs.
The room was quiet and the curtains had been drawn halfway shut, allowing only a muted strip of afternoon light to seep inside and illuminate the countless motes of dust drifting lazily through the air.
The smell of herbs was lingering throughout the room, mixed together with the unmistakable scent of medicine that had seeped into the old wooden furniture after weeks of treatment.
On the bed was the old woman. Her breathing was shallow and uneven as beads of sweat covered her wrinkled forehead despite the room itself being pleasantly cool.
Every breath seemed shallower than the last one as her frail chest rose ever so slightly before slowly sinking back into the mattress.
Kiyotaka silently walked over until he stood beside the bed.
His gaze remained upon the old woman's face for a long while before slowly trailing lower. Although Spirit Vision was not one of his abilities, a Sequence 7 Briber possessed sufficient spirituality to instinctively perceive when something supernatural was amiss.
Combined with Freya's description, the conclusion was simple enough.
The specific illness had rooted itself within Ada's body and had already spread beyond recovery.
It was not possible to cure, not in this era, and even if there had been, it was no longer worth seeking.
Kiyotaka reached into the inside pocket of his coat before withdrawing a single coin, letting it rest between his thumb and index finger as he quietly observed the sleeping woman while his expressions did not change.
A person who had already exhausted nearly every fragment of strength left within themselves required remarkably little encouragement to reach the end.
His spirituality flowed into the coin as he gently placed it in the woman's left palm.
Suddenly, Ada's eyelids trembled before slowly opening. Her cloudy eyes wandered aimlessly across the room until they finally settled on the blonde man standing beside her bed.
Confusion lingered there for only a fleeting moment before gradually giving way to a strange warmth, then relief, and finally overwhelming joy as a frail smile slowly bloomed across her aged face.
"Oh..." Her lips trembled as she spoke. "...James."
Her right hand that was resting weakly on the blanket slowly rose into the air, shaking so violently that it seemed likely to fall before reaching him. Kiyotaka made no effort to avoid it and instead bent down, allowing those paper-thin fingers to gently settle on his hair.
"My little James..." Her fingers weakly brushed through it. "You've grown so much. I almost didn't recognize you."
A quiet laugh escaped her lips, carrying none of the bitterness that illness had carved into the rest of her body. "I kept telling everyone... That you'd come home. That you'd come back to me. You know, even your father said I was becoming forgetful.
But see, I knew they were wrong." Her breathing gradually became heavier. "You were always such a good and lively boy... Always worrying about your mother."
She paused and looked at the ceiling. "Ah... you must be hungry. I'll..." Her voice faltered once more. "I'll make something..."
She made the smallest attempt to rise from the bed before immediately collapsing back onto the pillow as her breathing became noticeably more labored. Even then, the smile on her face never disappeared.
Kiyotaka quietly watched her struggle without offering assistance. His pale blue eyes remained calm.
Ada slowly turned her head back towards Kiyotaka. "...James. I..."
A violent cough interrupted her as her entire body rattled. When it subsided, there was a faint trace of blood on the corner of her lips. "I missed you. Why did you leave us?"
Her fingers that were resting against his hair gradually lost their strength before slowly sliding down the side of his head.
Ada's chest rose once and then fell. She let out a raspy breath and then another. Each one of the breath was farther apart than the last, until the room gradually became so quiet that only the ticking of Kiyotaka's pocket watch remained.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Ada's lips moved one final time. "...don't..."
Whether she intended to ask him not to leave, not to forget, or simply not to disappear again, even she no longer knew as her final words never came.
The peaceful smile remained frozen on her face, as though she had truly been reunited with the son she had waited years to see.
Retrieving the £1 coin from her left palm, Kiyotaka turned around and quietly left the room. As the wooden door slowly closed behind him, the warmth lingering on Ada's face remained unchanged, preserving the illusion that, in her final moments, James had indeed come home.