She screamed so loudly and harshly that it probably tore her throat. I could scarcely believe the scream came from the same tomboyish girl I knew. What the hell kind of pain did she have to be in right now for her to scream like that? I couldn’t even imagine it.
Astrid gave a brief command to one of the maids, who immediately ran out of the room like she’d been fired from a cannon.
“Father, it’s—” Astrid began.
“Yes, I know,” Duke Dragonaut said, cutting her off with a sorrowful expression as he looked at us. “Dear guests, I apologize for the shocking scene you just witnessed. It appears that Claudia got a little too overstimulated today.”
After another apology, he told us to return to our rooms. They would carry our dinner to us once we were all inside. Of course, we did as he asked. I doubted any of us would have had the appetite to continue eating after seeing Claudia like that. Plus, it was clear the duke was trying to shoo us away. With no doctor or priest in our ranks, we wouldn’t be any help anyway. And I still didn’t know whether I could use my power to help Claudia.
As the maids quickly got to work cleaning her plate off the floor, my group left the dining room in a hurry.
“Master, there’s something I’d like to report,” Lunamaria said somberly the minute we’d returned to our room.
Seele and Suzume had their own rooms, so since she’d waited until we were alone, this was probably something she could only discuss with me. And that alone was enough for me to realize that whatever she was about to tell me, it wasn’t going to be good news. Bracing myself, I urged her to continue.
“While you were all out shopping, the duke asked me something. He asked whether the Jirai Ao Ochs fruit could remove the toxin from a tanashia herb.”
“A tanashia herb? You mean the herb of death? Oh, I see. So that’s what they used on her.” I was familiar with the medicinal herb—or poisonous herb, really—called tanashia. It was billed as an analgesic, but what it really did was kill a person’s ability to feel pain, allowing one to pass away peacefully rather than in suffering. The duke and Astrid must have given it to Claudia as a last resort to suppress her pain.
But it wasn’t any different from a person on the verge of starving to death devouring their own limbs in order to survive. If Lunamaria had told me this before our dinner tonight, I probably would have been furious. But after hearing a scream like that come from the poor girl, I couldn’t blame either of them.
“And what did you tell him?”
“There’s still much we don’t know about the fruit or what it’s truly capable of, so I couldn’t give him a definite answer. However, even if the Jirai Ao Ochs could completely remove a tanashia herb’s toxin, it can’t reverse the damage to the body that’s already been done. Each time she takes the herb, her body inches closer to death. No antidote will be able to change that. And though it pained me to do so, I told the duke as much.” The forest elf and sage looked miserable as she spoke. Perhaps it was even harder for her to say all this out loud after seeing the pain Claudia was in just now.
Claudia needed to take the herb to withstand her pain, yet every time she took it, it brought her closer to her demise. That was a reality that not even the Jirai Ao Ochs could overturn. Of course, the fruit would reduce the adverse effects of the tanashia to a minimum, so it could at least extend her life a little. But the longer she lived, the more her suffering would continue.
I unconsciously bit my lip in chagrin. “So that’s what it means to be up against a curse. If I’d known this would happen, I’d have researched curses a lot more thoroughly before coming here. Come to think of it, you’re a spirit user. Have your keen eyes picked up on anything unusual?”
“Regrettably, nothing concrete at the moment. However, there is one thing that I noticed.”
“You did? What was it?”
“Yes, well, just before Miss Claudia collapsed in pain, I felt an...oppressive sensation in my ear.”
“Oppressive sensation? You mean you heard a weird noise?”
“It wasn’t a noise, per se... Let’s see. Master, do you know what a dog whistle is?”
“Yeah, it’s an item tamers use, right?” It was a flutelike object that supposedly only dogs and wolves were able to hear. Rumor had it that an extremely skilled tamer could control an entire pack of wolves with that one item alone. Astrid had also briefly mentioned during one of our conversations that dragon tamers used a similar item called a dragon whistle to control the beasts and summon them from afar. But apparently the details were a trade secret, because she wouldn’t tell me any more than that.
Anyway, Lunamaria told me that the sensation she felt near her ear was very similar to that of someone blowing a dog whistle nearby. “I’m not sure it has anything to do with Claudia’s abnormality,” she clarified. “However, if it was related, I find it odd that it didn’t make everyone in the room suffer.”
“Agreed. But I think it’s too soon to dismiss it as unrelated. Seele also has exceptional hearing, so we’ll ask her whether she heard anything strange.”
“Understood. Then I’ll summon Seele here right away.”
“No, not yet.” I stopped Lunamaria before she could leave the room. She looked confused, but I beckoned her back over. That made her even more puzzled, but she came over to me obediently. I grabbed her slender shoulders.
“We’re going to test it out right now.”
“T-Test it out...now?”
“That’s right. I wanted to proceed at a more careful pace, but now I realize we don’t have time to dally.”
Naturally, I was talking about testing whether I could transfer part of my soul to someone else. That said, even if it succeeded with Lunamaria, there was a chance it might not work for a regular human. But Seele was part beast and Suzume was a demonkin. I didn’t have time to go back to Ishka and test it on Miroslav...or Iria in Merte for that matter. So Lunamaria was my best bet. Even if there wasn’t a specific method to it, getting a general feel for it would be good enough.
I had expected Lunamaria to push back upon being told she’d be my guinea pig, but the golden-haired elf didn’t resist one bit. She relaxed her shoulders and stared into my eyes. In those emerald irises of hers was my own slightly taken aback image.
“What do you want me to do? Just name it, and I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Er...just the usual is fine.”
With that, Lunamaria closed her eyes and waited. And, as though to mask my own bewilderment at her response, I covered her lips with mine.