“Miss Lacey. Because of you, I can try more things, I’ve added to my repertoire, and I’m having more fun serving new dishes in the restaurant. I’d like you to take responsibility for that and come by to eat every so often. I’ll give you a special customer discount.”
“R-Responsibility...?” Before she’d even known it, Lacey’s inventions had spurred changes in places she didn’t even realize. It was a very strange feeling.
The ice cream and steak had filled her stomach. She felt toasty warm throughout, and she just kept getting warmer.
“You’re seeking out some distant stars, Lacey.” Dana chuckled. It was like a scene right out of a picture. Her lips relaxed into a smile. She took a sip from her cup of water. “HWAGH?! R-r-r-aghhh, erghhhh!!! I’ve been sitting for too long, I can feel it in my back...!” She trembled and threw her fists against the table. Even changing her posture while sitting was an issue. She was in a pitiful state.
“I-I’m sorry, Dana! I don’t have any herbs right now! I can go back home and get some...!”
“I-I’m okay. It’ll calm down after a while. Just wait, don’t move me right now...” Dana was bent forward, halfway between sitting and standing. She flapped one hand feebly.
“You’ve got back pain? That looks like it hurts.”
Dana stiffened up when she heard Cedric.
It was preposterous for the Saint of Light, who possessed the healing power of miracles, to have joint flare-ups. However, she didn’t have the strength to deny it. Dana bit her lip with a groan and braced herself as she endured the agony.
“You can wear a corset for back pain or you can warm your body up. I’m getting older and do a lot of work while standing, so I’ve been trying to change my posture more often,” Cedric said candidly to Dana. Apparently he was no stranger to this kind of problem. Lacey hadn’t expected to learn this about him now of all times.
“By the way, is it only your back that hurts? When it gets really bad for me, even my thighs start tingling.”
Cedric gave Dana all sorts of other advice about her back, like doing moderate exercise within reasonable limits, or how to move without hurting herself. He was, in his own way, just as overly helpful as Wayne.
As she listened to what Cedric had to say, Lacey put her hand on her chin and meditated. When one’s back ached like Dana’s did, sometimes the pain would start to radiate even down to the thighs. Although it was possible that there was some kind of disease behind this, it was more likely that the back pain was linked to the nerves and was causing symptoms in the legs, which should have been fine.
There were forms of magic that could directly affect people, such as transformation or velocity magic. In order to use those, she’d gained a working understanding of the human body structure.
In effect, symptoms are always associated with something. “So basically...” Lacey murmured to herself.
Then she banged on the table. “I know!” She stood up out of her chair and exclaimed in excitement.
The other two stared at Lacey—Dana with tears still in her eyes, and Cedric blinking behind his glasses.
“What do you know, now...?” Dana looked like she might burst out crying at any second.
Lacey had just one answer for her. “How to make an artifact that’ll solve your problem, of course!”
∗ ∗ ∗
“The first thing we need to consider is the root cause of why your body hurts, Dana.”
Bright, warm light streamed in through the windows. Inside the mansion suffused with morning air, Lacey stuck up her index finger. She was talking more briskly than usual and her expression was lively as well.
Dana had somehow managed to return to the mansion from Sasanqua while clutching her aching back. She was currently seated on a cushy sofa and giving her body a rest, repeatedly blinking as Lacey gave a whole lecture.
Despite the fact that the sun had already set long before, Lacey had been raring to go as soon as they got back last night. It had been tough convincing her to settle down and get some sleep first.
Next to Dana was Allen, with his arms folded, eyebrows knitted, and mouth pressed into a thin line. Just as he’d declared yesterday, he’d come first thing in the morning.
It would be inadvisable to wantonly spread word of Dana’s poor health, but Cedric had found out already. One more person wouldn’t make any difference—but that was just an excuse. The truth was that Lacey had been so surprised yesterday by how radically different Dana was that she wasn’t sure of what to do and wanted someone else to be around. Allen’s presence was a relief.
In between Dana and Allen was Tee, still sleepy-eyed, languidly leaning back against the back of the sofa...but at some point, it drifted off and started to contentedly snore “kyewww kyewww.”
Lacey continued her enthusiastic explanation, but Dana couldn’t follow what she was saying anymore. Had she always been like this? Dana compared her to the Lacey she remembered and felt utterly confused.
However, Allen seemed to be used to this. He was starting to act a little less nervous around Dana.
“Big sis Lacey gets kind of weird when she’s motivated.”
“Motivated...”
That certainly seemed to be the appropriate word to describe the girl who was panting with reddened cheeks and furiously gesticulating with her whole tiny body as she spoke.
Maybe this isn’t a Lacey I don’t know. Maybe this is just her natural state.
Dana had thought that she’d never seen Lacey like this before, but that might have been incorrect.
During their travels, there had been times when she happened to notice that Lacey was gone. When they all gathered around to set up camp or make a meal, the girl in the black robe would suddenly be nowhere to be seen. Then she’d eventually pop back in, looking completely ragged. Whenever Dana asked where she’d been, Lacey would dart her gaze around evasively as if she were afraid of making eye contact and simply explain herself with “I was practicing magic.”
Lacey had been all by herself until then. Her head had been full of magic, and she had thought that magic was all there would ever be to her life.
But now, Dana was here, and so was Allen.
“So Dana, with this method, I think you can give your body a good rest and get yourself back into your best condition! The only definite thing it’ll require is temperature!” Lacey looked at Dana with glimmering eyes.
Magic and inventing things were most likely the same thing to Lacey. When she made things, she made connections to other people as well.
For some reason, that made Dana feel a little happy. Nonetheless...
“Hold your horses, Lacey. We can’t understand unless you explain at a slower pace.”
If so, Dana wanted to watch where inventing things took Lacey.
She’d commissioned Lacey out of desperation, but had abandoned any hope of getting a satisfactory product, thinking it impossible. Now she felt differently. She was restless with anticipation. She was dreadfully curious, and without even thinking about it, her body (which had marginally recovered with the aid of Lacey’s medicinal herbs) was leaning forward in interest. She didn’t even notice the very childlike grin on her own face.
I’m really starting to enjoy this.
Lacey blinked her eyes and placed the back of her hands against her cheeks, trying to get the flushing under control. “I’m sorry, I’ll settle down. I was thinking about it all last night and just couldn’t get to sleep.” She had probably been too excited for morning to come.
Taking deep breaths didn’t help her calm down at all, and her eyes were still glimmering. But of course, Dana didn’t point this out.
“The first thing we need to do is identify your issues. Your back hurts, you have stiff shoulders, and you get headaches and dizzy spells. Do you know the root cause?”
There was only one cause that Dana could think of—the same thing she’d told Lacey before.
“Perhaps because my body parts are whiny troublemakers,” she said with the steadfast smile of a holy woman. She didn’t reply with “those shitty nobles” out of consideration for Allen, who was sitting next to her. Dana didn’t have the courage to corrupt such a bright-eyed, innocent young lad. Allen noticed her glance at him for a moment and tilted his head in confusion.
“Yes, it’s because of stress. So you need to prevent stress from building up in the first place—”
“I know that. I’m already dealing with the painful consequences. I’ll consult with my body from now on.” Even youth and physical strength had their limits, and the mental tax was eating away at her from the inside as well.
Lacey gave a nod. That was the key part here. “Stress deteriorates your physical condition. Everything can be traced back to a root cause, like how your back pain is referred down into your thighs via your nerves. So I think we need to figure out the intermediate steps and stop it in its tracks there.”
Lacey pulled out a large sheet of paper. Judging by how cloth pieces fell as she moved it, this was probably pattern paper that she used to make insulated thermal bags and sachets. She set the paper on top of the table and scribbled on it.
Stress -> -> Health Problems
There was a blank space between the words, and she also added illustrations. Under “stress,” she drew a sad-looking person with a gloomy dark cloud over its head. Under “health problems,” she drew a person crying. They were in a cute pop art style and were fairly well drawn. This was another unexpected talent of Lacey’s.
Dana understood what Lacey was saying, but was mystified by the wide blank space between terms.
Lacey tapped the end of her pen over the blank space. “I think a lot of words can fit here.”
“A lot of words?” This was getting more abstract. Allen frowned as he deliberated on it, desperately trying to stay on the same page.
“Dana, when you said your back hurts, Mr. Cedric gave you some suggestions, right? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
“Um, like getting more exercise? Come to think of it, I feel much more out of shape than during the quest...”
“Right. You’ll have to be careful of that too, then. But I was thinking of something else. Why not try improving the quality of the other things you do each day that fit into this space?”
“What kind of daily things?” Dana tried to think of what that might include, but her mind felt foggy and she couldn’t locate the right words.