Chapter 85: Detoxification and Healing

“Miss Victoria, what’s wrong?” Roland hurried over, bending down to ask in a low voice, but she gave no response whatsoever to his question.

He could see her delicate body trembling slightly, faint groans occasionally escaping her lips; it seemed she had lost consciousness.

“Uncle Kuss, what’s happened to her?” Roland, after all, was only a twelve-year-old boy. Suddenly faced with such a situation, he was at a loss and turned to Kuss for help.

Kuss surveyed Victoria, noticing a faint layer of black mist on her face and arms. With his seasoned experience, Kuss quickly deduced that she must have been poisoned. Her trembling body and the faint sounds she still uttered showed the poison hadn’t fully invaded yet. He hurriedly said, “Roland, I think she’s been poisoned. Search her pack for an antidote and apply it to her.”

Following his directions, Roland rummaged through the small, opened bag beside her, but found only an empty, transparent crystal vial—the kind used to store alchemical potions.

“It seems she tried to detoxify herself, but the antidote wasn’t enough, which allowed the poison to spread throughout her body. This is troublesome… Judging by the severity of her condition, the poison is quite potent. The low-grade antidote you carry won’t be able to cure her,” Kuss sighed.

Roland had purchased several potions at the Cervantes Alchemy Shop in the imperial capital under Kuss’s guidance, but those were all low-grade, unranked concoctions. For Roland, a third-level mage, they were adequate, but they would be useless against such a powerful toxin afflicting Victoria.

However, Roland flipped his palm, revealing a refined crystal vial in his hand, filled with alchemical antidote.

“What’s this…” Kuss asked in surprise, for he remembered none of the vials they bought looked so exquisite, and the clarity and color of the potion inside suggested it was a ranked antidote.

Roland briefly explained that this was a three-star detoxification potion he had crafted during the Misius trial, and now he would try it to see if it could neutralize Victoria’s poison.

He gently lifted Victoria, who had collapsed to the ground, into a sitting position. Noticing the lower part of her purple dress had already been unfastened—likely from her earlier attempt to detoxify.

“Er… boy, you help her with the antidote yourself. I’m heading back into White Stone. I haven’t entered it in ages and find myself missing it,” Kuss said, drifting into White Stone.

“Uncle Kuss, I’m treating her—can’t you guide me? Why did you suddenly run off into White Stone?” Roland asked in confusion.

Kuss replied gruffly, “Boy, have you even looked at where she’s injured? Earlier, I saw the two of you exchanging glances. If she becomes your wife one day and I see something I shouldn’t, you might not make me the potion to restore my body! Wouldn’t you say I ought to avoid trouble beforehand?”

Roland couldn’t help but laugh and cry at once; he hadn’t expected such words from Uncle Kuss. In his rush, he hadn’t thought about it at all—Victoria becoming his wife? That had never crossed his mind.

He shook his head, pushing the thought aside; saving her was the priority. Just as he prepared to lift Victoria’s clothing, he caught sight of the donkey nearby, craning its neck and staring with wide eyes. If not for Kuss’s comment, Roland would have thought nothing of it, but now he shooed Blackie away.

Blackie was reluctant to leave, but finally retreated to the cave entrance, defeated by Roland’s threat of withholding roast meat.

Gently lifting a corner of Victoria’s dress, Roland saw her lower abdomen had turned a dark blue-black, especially around a grim, glistening wound. Not daring to delay, Roland quickly poured the antidote onto the injury.

The potion sizzled softly as it touched the wound; Roland was delighted to see the three-star antidote taking effect, the blackening fading bit by bit. Yet the poison was so fierce that it rapidly consumed the potion—what he’d just applied was almost gone.

Roland hurried on, pouring more antidote, watching as the darkness receded with each dose. In the blink of an eye, the small vial was emptied, most of the poison neutralized. He fetched another antidote from the necromancer’s space, continuing Victoria’s treatment.

With the potent effect of enough antidote, the poison was finally purged almost entirely; the black color vanished from Victoria’s abdomen, though the prolonged exposure had left a red mark even after the toxin faded.

Next, Roland took out a healing potion, sprinkling it gently over the wound. The healing potion worked wonders—under his gaze, the injury slowly closed, and even the red marks left by the poison gradually diminished.

Seeing how effective both his antidote and healing potion were, Roland felt a rare sense of achievement. He imagined that when he was battered unconscious by the alchemical golem, the black-robed Misius had likely treated him in the same way. The results of alchemical potions were truly marvelous, far superior to his own “fire therapy.”

Under the powerful effects of the healing potion, Victoria’s abdomen soon regained its delicate, smooth appearance. By the faint light, Roland saw her fair, flat stomach rising and falling gently, the round navel below charming and cute. He felt a surge of restlessness and quickly averted his gaze, taking several deep breaths to calm himself.

As the lamps began to glow in the evening, in Dormitory 2015 at Porter Academy, Marle, Gebaz, and Bill lay chatting on their respective beds.

“Bill, do you think your sister Victoria and our fourth roommate, since they're both in the Maya Mountains, might run into each other and maybe, in fighting monsters together, spark a bit of romance?” Gebaz teased.

“Oh, come off it, Second. The Maya Mountains are huge. The odds of those two meeting are about as small as Miss Victoria falling in love with me!” Marle replied grumpily.

The banter among the roommates was long familiar. Bill didn’t take their jokes about his sister to heart; he yawned and said, “My sister and Fourth sparking romance? He’s younger than me—he’s my little brother. If anything ever happened between them, how would I address him in the future…”