The game system’s notifications depopped on their own. There was no additional warning about what that high level divinity actually was or if it had finally turned its eyes on her now that she’d squelchily popped one of its bubonic pimples. The brightness of her tiny pinprick slightly intensified the longer it stayed in place. She felt a bit like a welder. The thought weirded her out a bit.
A loading circle appeared again in a new game window. She’d pushed her pinprick in another of the pimples for the third time when she felt that maybe it’d work better that way since all the ones across the girl’s hand had gone down while the ones on the wrist weren’t decreasing in size anymore. It was a bit weird. Wasn’t the [Big Magic Sword] spell supposed to work exponentially better the longer she stayed in place?
The priestess hesitantly cleaned and bandaged the small wounds Vic had inflicted, making sure to properly discard the tainted clothe.
The loading circle disappeared from the game window, leaving one behind it.
That one looked weird. It wasn’t one of the usual ones. It looked kind of… glitched.
>[Big Magic Sword]’s second aspect [Mana Concentration] activated<
>Issue: Converting [divinity tainted mana] to [Player’s mana]]<
>>&cd:corruption/Y<<
Was this an error message? Its format reminded her of an error dialog box. She read further down.
>>Danger: [High level divinity]. Force conversion?&cd<<
[Critical incompatibility detected]
>>Mana conversion rate reduced to 0%<<
>Grant [Player] new title? [Suicidal fool]
The notification for the new title jingled. HUH?? Why the roast?
[Suicidal fool]
{Condition: &cd/WP.}
Enables the forceful conversion of [divinity tainted mana] to [mana] only through [aspected spells] with a conversion rate of 10%. Surplus has 20% chance of being turned into [exp]. Unadaptable partially corrupted surplus will be cast out in the surrounding environment.
>>Danger: [high level divinity]. Force conversion?&cd.<<
[Critical incompatibility detected]
>>Mana conversion rate reduced to 0.53%<<
Vic blinked at that. HUH??? That was.. barely above 0%. How was an improvement so… pathetic? What was wrong with this? That was nearly the weirdest thing that the Game System had shown her.
She snapped out of it when she heard the skin in contact with the laser pinprick sizzle.
She removed the pinprick and put it in another pimple. Baffled, she saw her mana bar take a soft purple glow, with a little emoticon showing that it was regenerating back up despite the upkeep’s cost of the spell. A soft, pleasant ping also informed her that she had gained 5 experience points.
“Your Holiness, Vic…torya,” the priestess carefully said, “Do you believe it to be wise for me to heal the incurable as you work, or should I wait for you to have expunged this curse?”
“I have uh, no idea,” Vic replied. She eyed pointlessly the sunken pinprick like she was focusing on the spell she was using. Gazing down on it did nothing of course, but it was better that than the alternative. She just had a great view on how the pimple was shrinking. Delightful stuff.
“Would… Would regeneration or restoration be preferable?” the priestess asked hesitantly.
Vic stared back briefly. She didn’t reply when she went back to moving her pinprick to another pimple, closer to the girl’s shoulder this time around.
“I have no idea what the actual difference between those are. I’m not from here” Vic said. She grimaced. Nobody should be looking up to her for guidance. No one should delegate their own free will to someone higher. If every member of the emperor’s holy order was like this, she’d have to stop herself from freaking bulldozing it. Maybe she wouldn’t stop herself. Maybe she’d put that in her personal customizable bucket list. It’d belong right under [finding the tallest corpse around in this world and pooping down from it while having a healthy dose of toilet paper in stock].
“Do… as you would do… to the best of your ability,” Vic quietly continued after the priestess didn’t reply. Something in her felt brittle. “You know better than me when it comes to this… stuff. Healers specialised in healing magic know fucking better than someone who hasn’t managed to cast a single healing spell in their whole life.”
Vic stopped herself before saying: “…and someone who has only started doing magic for the past year and a half”. She didn’t want the priestess to start basking or singing undeserved praises, or even doing anything remotely half as embarrassing as that. She’d get second-hand embarrassment for fuck’s sake.
“I see. Very well, Holiness. It’s as you say,” the priestess said humbly, and Vic pretended she did not hear the admiration that came out of the priestess’s mouth despite everything. Myrilla, come on. Don’t be impressed at this “humility”. And if this wasn’t about Vic’s hypothetical humility, maybe Victorya needed to fuck up a few times to express how exactly she was fallible and human. Wait, t’was probably not the time to fuck up while a life was on the life. Fuck, this was frustrating.
Vic switched to another pimple.
She bit down on her lip angrily. Did… people need to see a rare few as gods? Was that the game? Did they need to push some randos on a pedestal and claim they were gods who could do no wrong? Did that make them feel better about themselves? Did the thought that at least someone was in control of the situation make them feel like they could afford to make mistakes?
Vic switched to another pimple.
Did believing all of that horseshit make them feel like they didn’t have to worry about what they were doing since a “perfect” god would always come along and make the worries and pain go away? Did they wanna feel all better? Did they want the ouchies to go away? How fucking immature.
The bulbous pimple’s pus burst out abruptly. Vic stared blankly. She was suddenly very glad for the shadow armour because that had been very gross. The pus dripped down the magic barrier around her hands. Ew. Disgusting. It only took a few more seconds for that pimple to disappear into nothing while the pleasant notification of gained [exp] points and MP slowly increased. Vic didn’t even try to remove it. It was dripping down on its own. Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting.
“What’s the difference between those two healing spells you mentioned?” Vic asked to smalltalk. She switched to another pimple. Damn, soon she’d be done with all the ones on that arm. It’d been quicker than expected. She only needed to do the main ones. The tiny ones faded quickly enough when she maintained the pinprick in there for more than five seconds.
“Oh. Holiness, regeneration accelerates the natural processes the body undertakes to repair itself, while restoration replenishes the stamina of the patient, as though they’d have eaten a good meal,” the priestess said, cutting away the girl’s top. Vic stared in disgust as the pimples there were already oozing and sticking to the clothes. A few had visible tiny holes from which pus was still escaping. Vic’s grimace turned into a sunken frown. She had to show it. Holy shit, it wasn’t even undeserved.
“There are of course the fables of sorcerers accelerating the regeneration of their bodies to the point of dying from old age, and although those superstitions do get the danger of that spell across, the sorcerer is much more likely to faint from exhaustion before that comes anywhere close to happening.”
Vic blinked. Myrilla knew her stuff. T’was probably why she’d been put here with Vic in the first place. Vic looked down at the colony of pimples there. That was a very deformed torso. She made another face.
“I take it that when using the restoration spell, the illness ripens or something?” she said. Holy shit. The pimples. So ew. Ew. A good part of the skin surrounding her bellybutton… was just a trip down trypophobia lane. Those pimples looked weirder and plumpier than the ones before. Their colour was a bit different from the ones before.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Precisely right, Holiness,” the priestess said with that reverent edge. Okay. One more strike of that and Vic was reaffirming her stance on being called “Vic” and not being deified. Only poor suckers got deified as a coping mechanism.
The priestess was giving the sick girl a pained look.
“There comes a point where regeneration cannot hold the illness at bay and intensifies its reaction, all while restoring the body only gives more fuel to it. There have been experiments where visible lumps were precisely cut out before dealing with a difficult balance of restoration and regeneration. None of those were fully successful. Relapse is inevitable for those cases. One could only delay the inevitable.”
“Have health potions worked any better?” Vic asked. The priestess gave Vic a surprised look.
“Only high grade potions have managed to successfully cull the illness within patients,” she said. Shoot. She was going to think that “of course Vic had known, hur hur, godliness obliges”. The priestess looked away. “Most families cannot afford them, and… they have never worked on incurables.”
Okay.
Vic let out a short breath. She inserted the pinprick in one of the bulbous things near the girl’s bellybutton. So gross.
The experience points and regenerated mana made satisfying popping sounds, so at least there was that. Vic kept going. Curiously, even the pimples that her fingers weren’t close to were waning fast, leaving the hollow space behind. Yes, yes, one after the other, she’d exterminate them all, yes indeed. Begone. Shooh. The power of The Lone Pinprick compels thou. Be popped. Be gone.
She watched as the pimples in that zone deflated.
Vic sighed. When it came down to it, this was surprisingly… kind of boring.
Honestly this sort of reminded her of stupid, repetitive levels in phone games. The kind that got deleted quickly and had too many ads. Vic glanced back at Myrilla.
“It’s, uh, probably for the best if you…” Vic said, but she stopped talking. She faltered.
She removed the pinprick, staring straight at the priestess with wide eyes. Myrilla glanced away but ended up looking back, swiftly growing alarmed.
“What is the matter, Holiness?” she said. Vic immediately interrupted her.
“What do you think we should do?” Vic said. “What’s the best healing spell to use?”
“Holiness…” the priestess said, and there was a bit of a hidden rictus beneath her facial expression, all because Vic was acting out of place. Vic herself would have probably made that smile if she were very constipated.
“I am effectively expunging this cursed thing from that girl, and it should be easy to finish that up. If the body’s emptied of that godly curse, what does her body need?” Vic said, pointing at the girl, who was making tiny shallow breaths.
The priestess’s face contorted into a funny variety of expressions, but then her eyes seemed very focused. She was not looking straight at Vic then, but rather emptily to a horizon that wasn’t there.
She spoke softly at first.
“Holiness, I believe restoration should be used first for two reasons,” the older woman said like Vic required any sort of explanation as though she was some sort of strict teacher. “First, to ensure the… girl survives being unable to eat for the past weeks. Secondly, to ensure the illness has been successfully eliminated, as it would feed off the body’s resources and react to the divinity tainted spells I would provide. Residue could remain, and though I doubt your ability to fail, Holiness, remnants will zealously react and will be immediately noticeable to us both. Thirdly, although I do not know how your spell works, I do not… believe that you are restoring the body. Using regeneration on a person lacking sustenance could kill them.”
Vic smirked, head tilted a little sideways. Myrilla had given her three reasons, not two as she’d promised. Vic wasn’t picky, and wasn’t currently smirking because of that.
“Then we’ll do that,” Vic said with a devious smile. “We’ll follow your advice.” Vic stared back down at the girl. The chest was nearly done. She’d probably be done with the rest in less than five minutes.
The girl’s previously closed eye was open, unseeing. It was pointed at the ceiling, looking sickly pink. Entirely sickly pink. Oh. That was just another of those lumps. It had taken over the eye. Ew.
Oh, gross. She didn’t want to put her pinprick in that girl’s eyeball. Vic swallowed down some rising bile. She did have her limits.
She sighed, and got back to work, finishing off the chest and neck. The priestess confirmed to her that there were none on the legs, which was a bit of a relief, because the thought of being exposed to a naked body was uncomfortable.
Now, there was just the face left. The big pimples over the head had… kind of widened since before. She was pretty sure of that. Vic put the pinprick in one of the pimples on the girl’s left cheek. She glimpsed at the eye. Oh. That thing had been enlarging. That’s why the eye had opened. The eyelid couldn’t contain it and had been pushed open. Gross. So gross.
That, or… wait, was it a normal eye that had one of those bulbs grow from within it, or had the eye atrophied because the bulb from the infection had taken all the available space for itself?
Vic focused on pricking the big pimples on her cheek. Maybe… if she stayed in one long enough, would the bulb in the eye shrink without Vic having to try prickling the eye? She reeeeally didn’t feel like doing the latter. The eye wouldn’t survive that. And she didn’t want to poke that. Her mana bar kept slowly growing. She didn’t remove the pinprick even when the pimple it was in had waned. The surrounding pimples continued shrinking. The bulb in the eyesocket also started doing the same. Vic made a tiny smile while the pink of the pimple took a warmer orange hue.
“You know, maybe we should tie up the patients next time,” Vic said, as the girl made a pained cough. Vic put her free shadow-armoured hand on the girl’s stomach to keep her still. This was some zombie shit in the making, especially if the infection attacked the brain. “It honestly feels insane that you haven’t done that so far.”
“How so?” the priestess asked. Damn. They genuinely didn’t know. Zombie movies might not be popular around these parts. One could only guess why.
“For necromancy related reasons?” Vic said. The priestess blinked a few times like Vic had said something a bit absurd. “The way they move and spasm reminds me of a type of necromancy I’ve borne witness to,” she explained, half-lying. “It’s not a very well known sort of necromancy around here. Still, better safe than sorry, right?”
“Assuredly, Holiness,” the priestess said. “We will tie them up from now on. I will pass the message.”
“Don’t.” Vic said. “Stop with that title.”
“Is… is it perhaps another title you’d like? Holiness?”
“No.”
“…What is it… then? I could not… I am not… There is worthiness in respecting-”
“I don’t require worship.” Vic interrupted. “Only fake gods do.”
Myrilla stared at her wide-eyed. Perhaps the blasphemy-detecting part of her brain was blaring notifications about a thought she had to cull in the next few seconds.
[[75 exp] gained!] the game interface pinged.
Vic stared at it. She glanced back at the girl. She’d been holding her chin to make sure the pinprick didn’t slip up when the girl’s body jerked ever so slightly. Dangerous stuff. The pinprick was now on a big pimple on the side of the upper jaw, right on the left to the eye. She pointedly tried to see if the blob of the eye was shrinking. Maybe a bit. Just a tiny bit conclusive so far instead of fully conclusive, fuck. Should she just keep the laser against the pimple even though there was nothing left? That didn’t feel like a good idea, but maybe her spell would just find the rest of the infection? Ah fuck, she wasn’t equipped for this. She wasn’t a doctor for fuck’s sake.
[[Big Magic Sword] has levelled up!]
Vic blinked. Well, holy shit, maybe this whole thing would be worth it to farm the levels of that spell. She wouldn’t get many occasions like this where hundreds of enemies would remain unmoving awaiting patiently for her to come to them. This was a semi-automatic farm for sure. Vic glanced back at the blobby eye. Huh. It had started shrinking. Ew. The instant of truth to know if this was a pimple that had grown within the eye or from somewhere within the eye socket was coming.
To Vic’s quiet horror, it looked like this was coming from within the eye. Mierda.
Vic’s expression ripened. She felt like an old dry raisin left under the sun.
How…? Had the eye become more elastic to enlarge? Eyes couldn’t grow in size as far as she knew. Fucking hells. Ew. Ew. Jelly-monstrosities weren’t her thing.
She sighed. She kept the prickle where it’d been. Thankfully, that seemed to work, as the pimples on the rest of the face seemed to shrink too. Some of the tiny holes were left bleeding. Vic glanced at the girl’s eye. At least she had a clear view on it. The orange-ish hue was fading a little, leaving red veins across the sclera. That shit looked inflamed. Ew. Gross, so gross. There was no good reason to keep staring.
The iris of that eye looked damaged beyond repair. Damn. The pupil was split open in several ways, little branches crisscrossing across the iris and a tiny bit on the sclera too. The girl was most likely going to lose her eye if she survived this. Vic retreated a little, straightening up. Meeting face to face, or rather eye to eye that girl’s one-eyed stare was probably an introvert’s worst nightmare. Being stared back in the eye by someone not quite there was not pleasant. Scratch that, this was any cosmetic surgeon’s nightmare because of all that inflamed, irritated skin. The eye was the cherry on top.
After a few more moments, the pimples over the girl’s face were all gone. Welp, she was done. She’d removed an unruly tenant that wasn’t paying rent from the girl’s eyeball and more. Vic stared back at her, taking a slight step back to see if she’d properly finished. The girl’s breathing was steady, her mouth was half-open, and one eye, the “safe” one was nearly closed, while the opposite one had been staring unmovingly at where Vic had been leaning close a few moments ago.
Vic blinked.
“Well, I’m done with the girl, I think. You can try the restoration spell to check if all of that curse is fully eliminated,” Vic said.
The priestess leaned on Vic’s right, putting her gloved hands against the girl. She began quietly incanting. The girl didn’t react. The healing magic happened. Vic wanted to sit down and collect her thoughts. She didn’t, just in case the patient went all zombie rage and abruptly killed Myrilla. Nuh huh, not on her watch.
There wasn’t any movement from the girl. Her eyes softly closed as the girl’s shoulders softly slumped down in relief. Oh.
Oh, had Vic managed to do it well? Was it all good and swell now?
She was about to ask that question when she turned her face to the priestess. There were some tears in her eyes.
Vic blinked a few times. The priestess shed her tears by rubbing her face against her shoulder, making sure that her hands didn’t touch her face.
The girl might be successfully healed from her reaction, huh.
“Is she healed?” Vic said. Maybe she shouldn’t ask it. Maybe that’d jinx it.
“Only time will truly tell, but… I… I believe you have done it,” she said. Her smile was full of pain and hope. She looked incredibly relieved. A bit unhinged, perhaps. Just a tiny bit.
“Don’t cheapen the part you had in this, Myrilla,” Vic said while looking away, back onto the girl. A couple of small chortles came out from the priestess.
“I’ll… have to tell the others, properly report it- if- if- no we must, we have to properly organise this. So many deaths to avoid- you’ve… you’ve healed someone from this blight.” Myrilla said, putting her back against the wall, voice fresh out of air. “You’ve done it. You have done it.”
“You did the healing, Myrilla. I just did some basic skin laser surgery on that girl,” Vic said, raising a single finger forwards while doing her best impression of the nerd emoji with her face. She hid the mini laser saber behind her back.
Myrilla chortled. It probably was only because of nerves. After a few moments, letting her arms return to her sides, she formally looked back to Vic.
“I… didn’t want to contradict you, Vic, but… that’s not a girl. It’s a boy,” she said, lightly smiling. She looked weirdly sorry. Another unhinged, exhausted but glad laugh escaped the priestess.
Vic stared blankly back. Oh. Oh, okay.