~3000 words
'Trissy Cheek breaks through her confinements, and decides to track down the two closest men to solving her issue using her powers. As luck would have it, in the evening of December 2, both involved individuals — the shrewd detective, Sherlock Moriarty and the mysterious inventor, Williams Holmes — were in the same house.'
A seemingly ordinary looking quill wrote on a yellowing piece of paper. However, as it did, an old and weathered hand seemed to suddenly grip it. The source of this hand looked at the text it had written and grunted in extreme exhaustion and pain.
'Sherlock Moriarty and Williams Holmes both break their abstinence and drink themselves to near death. Yes, they happened to do it until the alcohol began to poison their insides!'
The old man stared at it for a moment and waited for the quill to write something else. However, he gripped it again, and began writing himself again.
'Before any kind of Divination could happen, the weaker one of the two just happened to fall and the piece of paper just happened to fall on a candle, burning it to ashes... Any Beyonder power used to extinguish the flames is greatly weakened due to the after effects of Alcohol!
Williams Holmes and Sherlock Moriarty truly are the unluckiest bunch of people at this moment! Yes, bad luck just happened to curse them in that singular moment.
The Great Detective and the Prodigal Investor are about to meet their demise purely due to over-indulgence! Both of them lost the strength to even call for any help and eventually died!'
*****
Shaking the after effects of consuming too much alcohol, Kiyotaka and Klein spent the next few hours in an extremely sick manner, throwing the contents of their stomach repeatedly.
Since the alcohol was a naturally occurring item and not something mystical in nature, going above the Grey Fog to mitigate the effects was useless as well.
As the sun began to dawn on Backlund, Freya was the first to wake up, other than the two gentlemen.
With nimble footfalls, she hopped down the stairs of the top-floor and arrived at the middle level.
Once she did, she was about to awaken her Spirit Vision to look at fluctuations in Klein's room, but remembering the abnormal and somewhat terrifying reaction from last time when Klein just saw right at her, she dropped the thought.
She walked over to Kiyotaka's room and stood outside it.
Freya was wearing her night clothes that consisted of a thick, woolen sweater over a shirt and a long skirt that extended to her ankles. Underneath the skirt, she was wearing woolen trousers and thick woolen socks.
Having lived with extreme cold throughout her life due to the dampness that permeated into her bones, she subconsciously wore more layers of clothing than what was required.
Perhaps, it was a kind of mental reflex— or a coping mechanism to something she was always sick of.
Raising her hand, she brought her thin fingers towards the door and knocked three times. She licked her parched lips as her long eyes narrowed in a rather complicated expression.
She bit down on her lower lip and waited patiently.
When she did not receive any reply, instead of going away — as formal etiquettes demanded — she banged on the door this time, instead of softly knocking it.
This time, as soon as she banged on it, she heard a croaky voice from inside. "Come..."
Freya's expressions brightened but darkened right after. She had never heard his voice sound so... vulnerable.
Placing her hand on the handle, she quickly turned it and stepped inside before closing it after herself.
Inside, she saw the room empty with the sheets of the bed crumpled and the blankets thrown over the carpeted floor. Meanwhile, Kiyotaka was nowhere to be seen.
Freya's eyes quickly scanned the room and then letting her spirituality guide her, she quickly ran towards the bathroom. As she arrived in front of it, she saw that a slight sliver of light was emanating from inside, which was being washed over by the natural sunlight.
Feeling a little perturbed, Freya pushed the door open.
Inside, Kiyotaka was hunched over the sink, his entire body shaking violently as he dry-heaved. His hand clutched at his chest over his heart as if trying to hold his insides together, but with nothing left in his stomach, his body could only force up bitter bile and painful gulps of air.
He looked at Freya, and his bloodied lips moved, as if trying to say something but he turned away and with a ragged cough, he spat into the basin, once more.
Freya jerked her gaze away as an instinctual surge of bile rose to the back of her own throat.
The wet, metallic stench of iron and stomach acid hit her nostrils which felt disgusting and suffocating in the enclosed bathroom.
Involuntarily, her hands twitched upward, wanting to cover her ears against the harsh, agonizing sounds of his retching, but she controlled herself.
For a split second, pure revulsion took over her and she almost retched herself.
She forced herself to breathe through her mouth, fighting the instinct to turn and walk out.
When the retching sounds finally subsided into ragged, shallow wheezing, she looked back, her thin face twisted into a grimace.
Splattered against the sink was a dark, coffee-ground-like sludge — digested blood from a severely damaged stomach lining — laced with bright, fresh striations of red where the violent retching had torn the lining of his esophagus.
"S-Sir..."
She wished to take a step forward, to somehow reach out and do something about it, but her body refused to do so. The stench was unbearable, and from an initial guess, she could tell that this condition had gone on for an entire night.
Seeing Kiyotaka speechless and pale, she quickly tapped her forehead and activated her Spirit Vision. As her eyes flicked from his head to toe, she shivered.
The Yellow and Green colours of his Ether Body — that symbolised digestive system and heart and other regulatory organs respectively — were overlaid with a thick black colour.
As far as Ether Body was concerned, a healthy person would show white colour overlay on their various body parts. So, to see these two specific colours being tinged with a murky black sent a wave of extreme paranoia throughout Freya's body.
Kiyotaka's face returned to his usual impassiveness as he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and looked up with bloodshot eyes. "Medi...Medicine..."
Freya's eyes widened and she froze for a fleeting moment, as if strength was sapped from her body. Her eyes suddenly shone with moisture and her lips quivered.
Balling her hands into fists, she suddenly turned around and ran up to her room.
Meanwhile, Liv, who had just woken up, yawned and walked out of her room. She had dressed up in her maid attire and was ready to do some chores when she saw Freya bolt out of Kiyotaka's room, but not before closing it after herself.
She ran with surprising mobility, as if the weak girl had somehow died long ago. Liv smiled and was about to call out to her when she suddenly ran past her before she could utter the first word and closed the door of her room after herself.
The sound of bolt rising followed right after.
Liv stared at her with a frown. "What has gotten into this girl! So ungrateful!"
Inside her room, Freya quickly lifted her skirt above her knees, to not tear it and then bent down to see underneath her bed. When she looked down, she reached out for a brown coloured suitcase and hastily pulled it out.
Inside this brown coloured suitcase were 3 £1 banknotes and quite a lot of ingredients. These were the items that Kiyotaka had told her to buy with the money he said he'd reimburse.
'Think... Think... If something is not done quickly, the effects might become permanent...'
Putting strain on her mind, she began to extract different materials and began thinking on the fly. 'I... I need to concoct a medicine that acts in two stages: first to act as a soothing liquid and second to act as a restorative decoction.'
She quickly uncorked five vials.
Her fingers trembled as she grabbed a small vial of Night Vanilla extract that could dull the intense agony in his chest, and paired it with a paper packet of Dragon Blood Grass powder.
Dragon Blood Grass Powder was a rare astringent herb known to instantly bind bleeding wounds.
To protect his shredded esophagus from his own stomach acid, she scooped a dollop of thick and viscous Elm Resin, mixing them thoroughly together with a few drops of Gold Mint hydrosol.
She then poured it into a small porcelain cup of pure dew water.
It was a bitter, dark-red concoction that was thick enough to coat his throat and stomach lining on the way down and halt the internal bleeding before he choked on his own blood.
She repeated the process once more, making a spare medicinal remedy.
Once she was done, she quickly poured them into two vials and clutched them tightly in her hands before quickly unbolting her room's door.
Standing outside was Daisy, who was ready to leave the house and attend her morning classes.
"Good morning, Freya!—"
Freya left her standing there, and quickly paced down to Kiyotaka's room.
She did not knock and entered, before bolting the room from inside.
The silence inside the room was far worse than the sound of retching from before.
By this time, Kiyotaka was no longer over the sink and had instead collapsed on the carpeted floor, curled slightly on its side.
His hand was clamped around his own throat, as if even breathing was hurting some part of him.
After all, every breath he took was an agonising, rattling drag of air that caused his chest to heave painfully.
Cold panic spiked throughout Freya's chest and for a horrifying second, her heart stopped.
Abandoning all pretense of distance, she dropped to her knees beside him as her trembling hands reached down and slid beneath his head, lifting it onto her thigh.
The sheer weight of his head caught her off guard. After advancing to Briber, the boost he had received to his body was increased even more, making his bones much, much heavier than a normal human.
A violent shudder ran Freya's entire body as Kiyotaka's icy, sweat-slick strands of his bright golden hair sprawled across the warm wool of her skirt.
His bloodshot blue eyes flicked up slowly to meet hers.
His eyes were unblinking, but those little blue ponds moved left and right a sea of red.
Without her saying a word, Kiyotaka quickly opened his mouth, and without hesitation, Freya removed the stopper from the vial and poured it down his throat, all at once.
The moment the thick, bitter remedy hit his throat, Kiyotaka's throat muscles twitched due to a violent and involuntary reflex.
A sharp, icy burn spread down his esophagus, instantly dulling the agonizing heat of torn flesh. The spastic contractions in his abdomen grounded to a shuddering halt as the resin coated his stomach lining, suffocating the violent urge to purge itself.
His chest heaved once or twice in a sluggish manner, but he no longer felt as if he was choking on his own blood.
The bloodshot haze in his eyes didn't vanish, but a sharp clarity returned to his pupils with an unsettling speed. Even Freya was taken aback with how quickly he seemed to have come back to normalcy.
Slowly, his fingers unclamped from his throat and his hand dropped to the carpet with a dull thud.
As slow seconds trickled into a minute, Kiyotaka's condition finally stabilised. He was still in pain, but it was within manageable levels.
Freya, who was still clutching one of the vials with one hand and had the fingers of her other hand tangled in his sweat-slicked hair, suddenly heaved a quiet sigh of relief as the suffocating tightness in her chest receded.
The sudden inhale of air caused the thick, heavy wool of her sweater to stretch taut across her.
At the same time, her eyes seemed to shine as a feeling of liberation washed over and a feeling akin to something cracking inside her spread all over.
Her potion had digested quite a lot by this small act — or well, rather huge act.
A soothing wave of cold air seemed to breeze through Kiyotaka's insides as he slowly began to sit.
Freya, realising she still had her fingers tangled in his hair, suddenly pulled her thin fingers away and placed a hand behind his back, gently propping him up. As she did, she quickly picked up the empty vial and stood up.
Kiyotaka placed a hand in front of his mouth as his shoulders lurched, but he puked nothing. Gaining a moment of respite, he slowly turned around to face Freya who was standing with her hands clasped in front of her and a look of worry over her thin and pale features.
His eyes naturally went from her face to her clothes, and then to the vials in her grasp. He parted his lips to say something but the dryness in throat only allowed a choked gargle.
Freya was about to turn around and bring some water for him but Kiyotaka shook his head before she did. Instead, he pointed towards the vial. "Take... it to the adjacent room."
Realising what he meant, Freya pursed her lips. She did not wish to leave him alone, however, not listening to him was a much bigger sin.
Taking quick strides, she unbolted the door and ran inside Klein's room.
Klein, however, was in a much better state. His eyes were closed and there were traces of dried blood over his lips, but he seemed to be in a much better state.
He was laying flat on the floor near the bathroom. As she entered and ran by his side, she saw the little bin next to the toilet was overflowing with tissues—some of them in brown colour and a lot of them in red.
Freya's face grimaced into a disgusted one as she looked away. She lowered down to one knee and uncorked the vial.
Klein, who saw this, tightened his jaw before slowly opening his mouth.
Freya indifferently poured the medicine inside.
After sitting beside him for five minutes, Klein suddenly shot up, standing normally on two feet. He stretched his body and cracked his neck which gave out a lot of pops.
"I knew it wasn't a good idea coming to his house..." Klein mumbled to himself as he rubbed his back. "...ah, thank you, Freya."
At that moment, Freya suddenly felt her Potion near complete digestion. Not paying attention to the glorious feeling, Freya moved her head up and down. "You're welcome..."
Klein looked at her. "How's Williams?"
"He's... alive."
Just as she said that, Kiyotaka walked into the room, making Freya's eyes widen. Any kind of wobble or some other irregularities were completely absent. The only abnormal thing about him — which he shared with Klein — was the extremely pale complexion.
"Looks more than alive to me." Klein chuckled and then took the support of the nearby dressing table.
Kiyotaka momentarily looked at Freya and then turned to Klein. "Make something to replenish our states. We have to leave soon."
Freya alternated her gaze frantically between the two men who were just rolling in pain and now looked almost as if nothing had happened. A few seconds later, she just simply nodded and took her leave, with her head heavy.
As she left, Klein took a seat. "Phew! Apothecary, huh? It's good... For someone who had lived their lives as destitutes and surrounded by ailments, it should give her a sense of security. That said, I wonder... What went into your head when you made her an Apothecary?"
Kiyotaka took a seat on the bed as well. "Nothing, really. The ingredients were quite easy and cheap to find. So there's that..."
"Fair enough." Klein raised his hands. "Are you really okay?"
"It will do. Her medicine has stopped the abnormality in my body. And my Sequence has turned my body into something beyond that of a human... So the healing factor is quite fast as well. The thing that is concerning is..."
"...why did we drink so much?" Klein interjected, his tone solemn. Then, a rather complicated expression appeared on his face. "There is something I want you to know. But we cannot discuss that here..."
Kiyotaka turned to look at him and then nodded. "Sure."
As he did, he made his way back to his room and locked the door after himself. He waited a little time for Klein to arrive above the Grey Fog. In the meantime, Kiyotaka walked over to the window.
As he opened it, he walked into the balcony where Mal had been waiting for him. The man enveloped in drags and bandages tapped at his forehead and then suddenly bowed when he saw Kiyotaka approach.
"Sir... The girl is ready to cooperate." He reported, his voice rough and sandpapery.
"Alright." Kiyotaka looked into the distance where the houses of multiple other rich magnates were. Then, he turned around and walked to the bed before laying down on it.
'I need to digest Briber potion as soon as possible. Something big is coming this way... And as I am right now, I am not strong enough. If it presents itself to be something that I can't handle...'
The expression in his eyes hardened into something that was unlike a normal human — something profane. 'I will have to sacrifice these people in order to maintain the highest percentage of my own survival.'
As he thought, a boundless grey fog enveloped him and he soon found himself detached from his physical body.