I spotted the snakeborn girl in the prayer room that evening. The chairs around her were empty. She was facing the altar, praying intently, and muttering under her breath.
“Her...please...”
The dragon girl would take her revenge on the snakeborn every day at combat training, beating her until the latter either passed out or vomited blood. It was the snakeborn’s own fault, but she didn’t seem to realize it. She had been more than happy to lie and claim the dragon girl had attacked her just so she could join the punishment shortly after the system was established. Envy was her motivation.
“Kill her, kill her, kill her, kill the lizard bitch. Kill her now, right now, kill her no matter what.” She spewed out ghastly curses one after another. She did seem to realize that it was best no one overheard her, though, because whenever someone passed by, she would lower her voice.
That said, she wasn’t brave enough to say these curses to the dragon girl directly. She preferred acting from the dark and damp shadows—a true snakeborn through and through.
Once the room started to empty and she was coming to the end of her daily “prayers,” someone sat down beside her. She tried to get up, but the figure put a hand up to stop her. Her eyes widened with a questioning look. The figure pulled out a round wooden container from its breast and showed it to her.
✦ ✦ ✦
I was done turning my knife into an arcane tool. As I munched thoughtfully on a poisonous plant, I absentmindedly watched the dragon girl work on her weapon.
There were some combinations of poison herbs that canceled each other’s effects. It was similar to the relationship between blowfish and wolfsbane from my previous life. I had heard that their effects were the total opposite of each other and ingesting them simultaneously made them counteract, extending the time before death. A similar principle seemed to exist in this world. Consuming a poison that elevated essence output and one that lowered it at the same time resulted in no change to the output whatsoever.
I kept chewing. The reason I knew this was because I once ate too much of a certain plant by accident. I kept vomiting, and I feared I would die. My symptoms only receded when I ate a flower with a conflicting effect. Of course, it was rare for an herb to have a perfect counterpart, so I had been especially careful with my doses ever since.
Chewing, chewing, chewing. The dragon girl clicked her tongue.
It was by accident that I learned how poison and medicine were two sides of the same coin. The body had several parameters: temperature, fluids, nutrient levels, and more. Fever medicine lowered temperature, while drinking water increased fluids. Take caffeine, a diuretic. When the body’s fluid levels were high, it could be considered a medicine that flushed out toxins. However, when fluids were low, it could be a “poison” that caused dehydration. There was a thin line between medicine and poison, and what you called a substance depended on how you used it.
Chew, chew, chew, chew...
“Quit it.”
Chew.
“Seriously?!” The dragon girl took my jaw in her iron hold. “Do that again, and I’ll tear your chin off.”
I would rather she didn’t.
“You got it?”
I gave a series of rapid nods, then forced myself to swallow the leaves in my mouth. They could’ve been chewed a bit more; they felt like needles scraping my throat as they went down. I endured it. They weren’t nearly as piercing as the golden eyes right in front of me.
Once she was sure my mouth was empty, she let go. She returned to her original position and went back to working on her knife. I was now without my snack, an incredibly useful way of killing time, and had nothing to do. It was past lights out, so I couldn’t leave the room. Sister would question me if she found me wandering around. Meditating was the only beneficial thing I could think of, but the dragon girl was using her essence to transform her knife. Releasing or charging my own would interfere.
I decided to exercise my tail. I still felt I wasn’t using it to its full potential. I especially tended to forget about it at instances that called for snap decisions. In a sense, that was where the memories of my previous life gave me a disadvantage. Right now, my tail was nothing more than deadweight. If I could, I wanted to be able to manipulate it with the same dexterity as my arms.
Glaring at the tip of my tail, I tried to use it to scoop up some wood chips that were scattered on the floor. It was as frustrating as trying to write with my left hand and took almost ten times as long compared to just picking them up normally. I eventually managed to curl my tail around them. I brought the appendage toward myself and dropped the chips into my hand.
This time, I tried the opposite: picking the chips out of my palm and putting them back on the floor some distance away. It was like I had gone back to infancy and was playing with wooden blocks again.
Just as I decided to practice piling the chips up, the dragon girl completed her arcane tool. Given her abilities, she took a long time, but I figured she was trying to be as accurate as possible. It was impossible to tell what effect she added to her knife just by looking at it. Some children made theirs glow or flicker with flames, but it seemed she hadn’t chosen anything as impractical as that. Practicality aside, though, it wasn’t fair how downright awesome fire knives looked. I was close to letting that compelling thought lead me astray, so I forced it from my mind.
Survival training started tomorrow. I doubted it would only go for a single day. I slipped under the covers and closed my eyes.
It was the last night before the greatest trial of my new life.