“Umm… @*#$&%?” asked one of the villagers, as he observed the group.
“Hello! @3%*#@ @#*$&#,” sang Allira, in fluent in Fendrallian.
“Illvarian? Not speak… not speak Illvarian good,” said the villager. He stumbled over his words as he spoke, and sounded almost… anxious as he spoke with Allira. “@*#$*&# @# %#@ @#$#@ @#$@ @#$#@#$ @#$# #$#@$@?”
“@#*($&#@ @#(*$&#(*@&#$ @#(*$*!” sang Allira, smiling brightly at the man.
Alice started to wish that she spoke Fendrallian. Being unable to participate in the conversation was frustrating.
“Do you want me to translate?” asked Ethan.
“Yes please,” said Alice. “I know Allira said that she was going to talk about killing some ‘heart of the swamp’ or something, but I want to know exactly what she says. That way I can try to observe how people’s beliefs impact the swamp.”
Ethan nodded thoughtfully as he glanced at the swamp in the distance. Then, he cleared his throat. “The man started out by asking if we were Immortals, since our [Dexterity] and [Charisma] seemed to be so exceptionally high.” Ethan seemed a bit amused by that, and shot Allira a glance. Allira rolled her eyes at Ethan while she continued speaking to the villager. “Allira confirmed that three of us were Immortals, and the rest of the group were ordinary people. Then, he asked if the conversation could be conducted in Fendrallian, since he’s not very confident in his Illvarian. Allira said she was happy to speak in Fendrallian,” he said. Ethan continued to translate the conversation, and Alice and the others started to get a rough idea what the conversation was about.
“The others are here for various reasons – although Alice over there is Immortal Ethan’s apprentice,” said Allira, as she laughed. Alice took a second to marvel at the fact that Allira somehow wove laughing into her singing, and made it sound natural.
“So it’s true. Grand Immortals have visited our village,” said the villager. His voice was a mixture of awe, and a small, poorly-hidden dose of caution. “May I ask Grand Immortal why you’re here? I don’t think that our village is important enough to receive attention from Grand Immortals. Not to mention, if you’ll forgive me for being blunt, I don’t recognize any of you three. That means that you must not be Fendrallian Immortals. Why are you here, instead of in your own country?”
Alice turned towards Ethan. “Grand Immortal?” she whispered.
Ethan shrugged. “The ‘official’ titles for Immortals sometimes change from one culture to another. In Illvaria, we’re called ‘Honored Immortals,’ but that’s not the case everywhere.”
Alice nodded, and her attention returned to the conversation.
“The three of us came to do some research on the things that have gone wrong recently, both with the terrain and with the System,” said Allira. “Surely, by now you’ve noticed that things have become rather… odd in the past month or two?”
The villager glanced uneasily at the swamp in the distance, and then nodded. “There are really a lot of strange things that have happened recently. The expansion of the swamp is unnatural. The swamp is advancing, almost as if it’s alive. I know that sometimes terrain can change a bit from year to year, but… this isn’t natural at all. The swamp might overtake our village in a few weeks if nothing changes.
“Worse, people are getting sick. There is a strange illness going around that seems to cause people to space out for extended periods of time, or completely lose their minds. [Farmer] Billy and his kids are the most recent victims. [Farmer] Billy’s never been completely right in the head after his wife died, but recently, he isn’t even talking to people. He just farms all day. He isn’t even giving food to his kids! He used to treat them like treasures that might break from a stray breeze! They were his last mementos of his wife, and he cherished them. But now they’re on the edge of starvation!
“The kids don’t seem to notice that they’re dying, either! They’re clearly starving to death, but they just keep working for some reason! It’s like they haven’t even noticed how skinny they’ve become.” The villager shuddered violently, as he gazed into the distance. “Recently, I’ve also started feeling odd as well. Like all I want to do is farm, and farm, and farm…” the man seemed to get lost in thought for several seconds, almost as if he had been hypnotized, before he snapped out of it. “I can’t figure it out at all. I’ve been farming all my life, and I’ve never felt this way about farming before. There’s a certain satisfaction in watching your fields grow into fields of lush green and gold, as the wheat ripens… but this is something completely different. It’s almost like farming is taking over my mind!” the villager shuddered again. “Recently, some of the villagers have been whispering that these events mean something else. That maybe something broke in the world itself, and this is the herald of the end. I don’t know if I believe them or not, but… times are bad. Hostile terrain expanding outwards, people getting sick from strange diseases left and right, monsters attacking other villages…” Alice started to feel alarm bells ring inside of her brain.
Human beliefs could influence the rest of the world. This was something she was becoming more and more certain of. The way that mana and sapience interacted with each other was incredibly dangerous if something happened. What would happen if a lot of people believed that the world was ending? If that was the case… Alice felt deeply worried about the future. Because mana would definitely pick up on that belief and make it ‘real.’
She needed to dispel this belief before it became worse. Luckily, Alice had a good idea of what was actually happening behind the scenes. Humans feared the unknown most of all. If she could just explain it all in terms that other people could accept, hopefully the talk of the ‘end of the world’ would be silenced before it became a true threat.
Cecilia tapped Alice on the shoulder, and Alice realized she had gotten lost in her thoughts again. She returned her focus to Ethan’s translations.
“- the [Innkeeper] keeps losing his train of thought for hours on end while he manages his inn. He’s never been a distracted man, but falling into a routine for hours on end, and not even noticing what he’s doing isn’t right. It’s almost like he’s possessed or something. I’ve never heard of a monster that can slip inside of somebody’s body and control it like a puppet before, but… I can’t think of any other reason why people would be acting this way!” The man finally paused, before giving Allira a hopeful look. “Have… have you come to fix everything?”
Possession? That was… another alarming belief. Alice felt a headache start to form. If the group hadn’t stopped here, she wouldn’t have realized just how many worrying beliefs could form in the average village. These needed to be addressed immediately, before the world broke in some sort of irrecoverable way.
Allira glanced at Alice, as if she was asking her what to do. Alice froze for a second, as she felt the pressure of trying to fix the broken beliefs of this village before they spiraled out of control. She took a deep breath, before she let it out.
“Tell them about our efforts to dispatch the heart of the swamp. Also, let them know that I’m willing to heal their ‘getting lost in their work’ illness. It’s actually a bad reaction caused by the interaction between humans and mana, and so I can straighten it out since I have the proper magic seeds to treat it,” said Alice. “Make sure they understand that it’s a reaction caused by ‘bad mana.’ It’s close enough to the actual explanation, without needing me to get into a lot of technical details.” Details that Alice wasn’t sure it was a good idea to share with others. Alice also needed to make sure people were at least roughly correct in their understanding of how and why this ‘strange disease’ had come about. Otherwise, there was no telling whether the ‘rules’ behind this disease might suddenly change behind the scenes – leaving all of Alice’s work to cure it utterly pointless.
Allira gave Alice a thumbs up.
“In that case, have all of those who have been having issues with their focus and strange workaholic tendencies line up. The Immortal’s apprentice is particularly well-versed in this kind of problem, and she can help you out. It’s caused by a bad reaction between humans and a certain kind of mana, and she has the correct magic seeds to address the problem. As for the Swamp…” Allira laughed, and her grin widened into a slightly more feral smile. “We’ve already done some work on halting the swamp’s advance. In the heart of the swamp, we found a group of unusual monsters that seemed deeply connected to the swamp and its growth. We’ve killed several of them, and taken several more back for study.” She sang as she indicated the row of cages that Allira had sang into existence in the swamps. “To that end, I’d like to ask your local [Blacksmith] for help making some more secure cages, and we would also like to ask the local inn for a place to rest for the night.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The villager’s eyes widened. “The Immortal’s apprentice can cure people who are having problems? The swamp’s growth has already been halted? Wonderful! Thank you, Grand Immortal!” said the villager. “I’ll go get the village [Blacksmith], and then spread the word about the healing. I’m sure Jeb wouldn’t mind giving you spots in his inn for free, if you can cure his problem.” The villager departed to alert the rest of the village.
About ten minutes later, the man returned with a [Blacksmith]. The [Blacksmith] was a rather petite woman, who had dark red hair and bright green eyes. She looked at the group with a strange sense of eagerness, and her eyes lit up when she saw Alice.
“@*#($U# @(#$#@(*$ &@#(*$&@#)(*$ #()@*$@)(!” she said, as she ran towards Alice like a freight train speeding towards its destination. “@#*()$@# @(#$(#@)@) @)#(#)@)# )@#( ($()!#*%)(#&% @#()$*@#)$(* #@?” She stopped right in front of Alice, before she picked Alice up like a rag doll and hugged her. Alice froze in shock, and nearly tried to tear herself free using her kinetic mana before she realized the woman wasn’t trying to hurt her. actually started snickering, until Ethan finally stepped in.
“@*#($ @#(*$ @#(* @%#E$#$@?” he said.
The [Blacksmith] woman blushed, and then stepped back from Alice, before she proffered her hand for a handshake.
“The woman apologizes. She forgot that you were a foreigner,” said Ethan. “It’s a bit more normal for people in this country to hug strangers. As for why she’s so eager to see you… it seems that she wants you to heal her wife. She got sick from class mana poisoning, and no longer does anything but obsessively wash clothes over and over again. The [Blacksmith] is quite… enthusiastic about seeking help.”
Alice sighed, and decided to just pretend that the woman had never hugged her. Alice had never been a very touchy-feely person, and had a hard time dealing with huggers, but she wouldn’t make an issue out of it.
“Just tell her to bring her wife here. I’ll treat her while the [Blacksmith] gets the cages ready for Allira.”
Ethan translated, and the woman happily nodded before she left. Meanwhile, other villagers started to arrive.
One after another, Alice saw other villagers appear. Several of them weren’t even self-aware enough to make it to the area on their own – their friends, neighbors, and family members had to guide them or carry them to Alice. Alice took a look at the mixture of children and adults, all of whom were suffering from uncontrolled mana, and sighed. There were nearly four hundred people in the village, and all of them were starting to suffer.
“Tell them to give me {Patient’s Consent},“ said Alice. Ethan translated for her, and the group quickly gave Alice a series of consent statements. Alice wasn’t entirely sure whether {Lesser Patient’s Consent} would work with her treatment of mana illness, but there was no harm in giving it a shot. Then, Alice got to work.
The first patient was a [Farmer]. Alice had an easy time cleaning up the mana inside of his body and filtering all of it back into [Farmer] mana. Just like when she corrected the mana inside of her own class seeds, Alice only needed a minute or two to convert everything into [Farmer] mana, unclog his other class seeds, and get everything straightened out. Partway through her treatment, as if he had realized what was happening, the man’s eyes widened. It seemed that he had returned to some level of self-awareness. The [Farmer] sat as still as a rock, as if he was afraid any wriggling on his end might mess up Alice’s treatment attempts. Once she finished fixing the mana in his body, he tried to give her a thank-you hug, which Ethan rejected after Alice sent him a pleading look. The man seemed a little uncertain what to think of Alice’s rejection of the hug, but after a few words from Allira and Ethan, he nodded and moved away so that the next patient could come to Alice.
Alice continued working her way through the villagers. As she did, she started to reflect on her actions during the crisis so far. She had done her best to find ways to spread knowledge of how to combat the collapse of the System. She genuinely believed that she had worked very hard to control the crisis and try to help people. On the other hand, she also didn’t interact with the people who were directly harmed by the crisis. She hadn’t really done this sort of mass-healing before. Usually, she was more than willing to fix her own class mana, and also healed a few close friends, such as Cecilia. She had always thought that it made the most sense to find a way to fix the crisis at its roots instead of treat a few people that would just get sick again anyway. Any amount of mana she spent healing others could also be spent researching a way to fix the problem for everyone. There was no way for Alice to ever heal every human on the planet, after all. So she had just tried to focus on mass-producing ways to fix the issue at its roots. For that reason, she hadn’t actually stepped up and healed people directly before – she simply worked on her research and hoped that she would find a solution before time ran out for the planet.
In a way, Alice still thought that was the correct approach to things. It was probably the most efficient way to solve the crisis, and a part of Alice couldn’t help but feel like mass-healing people like this was a waste of time and mana.
The other part of her felt like she should have started doing this sooner. There was something to be said about using her magic to help people and seeing their eyes light up in gratitude. Even if healing every single person she ran into might not be the ‘optimal’ way to handle the crisis, it made Alice feel good about herself in a way that she hadn’t since the crisis had started. It took away some of her stress and anxiety at not correcting the current crisis yet, and not having every single solution she needed. It felt… nice to know that right here, right now, she was solving problems wrought by the catastrophe. That she was helping people survive. There was less thinking and worrying involved, and more doing.
After getting through nearly two hundred patients, Alice was amused to see a few System notifications pop up.
You have leveled up!
Explorer of Magic: 86 -> 87, Legendary Organic Mage 7 -> 8
Alice… had not used any organic mana during her healing process. Despite that fact, she had still gotten levels in [Legendary Organic Mage]. Of course, most people associated organic magic and healing with each other, which was probably why Alice had gotten a level in [Legendary Organic Mage]. But the idea of getting levels in [Organic Mage] without using organic magic was quite absurd. Alice couldn’t help but wonder if people had encountered similar problems before the System had broken. Had the System originally had some way of ‘fixing’ issues like this if they were too obviously hinting at the true nature of the System? Alice suspected that might have been the case.
Of course, the mana that her [Legendary Organic Mage] class seed absorbed seemed to be quite a bit less focused than usual, so Alice lost quite a bit during the filtration and conversion process. However, at the end of the day, it was still not bad to get a few free levels. Alice was actually a bit curious to see what Perks she would get from [Legendary Organic Mage] as well. Surely a class with ‘legendary’ in its name wouldn’t give her ordinary Perks.
As Alice took a few moments to look over her new Systme notifications, she saw the [Blacksmith] woman return. She was now carrying a few large, sturdy-looking metal cages, and she was also leading another woman, who seemed almost completely oblivious to her surroundings. The woman was constantly washing a rag she held in her hands. The rag was already spotless, but the woman kept cleaning it over and over again despite her actions having no meaning.
“@#($ @#*$(#@&$*( @#*$@#*( @#$*#@! @#*$#&$@ @#($#*!” said the [Blacksmith], as she handed Allira the cages. Alice looked at the cages, and grinned. Allira wouldn’t have to keep singing anymore. The cages were quite large, so all of the monsters should fit inside of them.
The [Blacksmith] brought her wife towards Alice. Alice didn’t tarry, and immediately helped fix the woman’s [Laundress] class. Meanwhile, Allira started stuffing the swamp monsters into metal cages, before she finally gave her poor throat a rest and stopped singing. Alice was impressed that the Immortal had kept her singing up for so long. Immortal or not, Alice still suspected that Allira’s throat should have gotten sore eventually, but the woman had simply soldiered on until they finally had cages ready.
After Alice finished treating all of the people in the village, she got two new surprises.
First, after she purified her own mana, she had enough to level up [Legendary Organic Mage] one more time.
You have leveled up!
Legendary Organic Mage 8 -> 9
She was only one level away from getting a Perk in [Legendary Organic Mage] now. However, much more interestingly, as Alice healed villagers, she had also observed little threads of belief cycle through her body and towards the little mana gem in her brain. Until finally, the little mana gem shone with rainbow light, and then a new Achievement appeared.
You have gained an Achievement!
Distributing the Cure (I) (Rarity: 4)
You have treated the strange illness in the village of Frostriver. The villagers are grateful for your help!
+30% Experience for healing and magic-research related classes, +5% magic stat.
It wasn’t an astounding reward, but Alice wasn’t going to complain about a small XP boost and a minor improvement to her magic stat. Every little bit helped, after all. Unfortunately, the new Achievement was only giving Alice 50% of the benefits it was supposed to give, just like the other Achievements she had received after the System broke. Alice would probably need to use {First Steps} again if she wanted to fix her new Achievement. Alice wasn’t actually that upset about that, though. It meant that even if she needed to observe the process of ‘fixing’ an Achievement again, she had an easy way to do so.
It also got Alice thinking. If she treated a few more villages, would she get a few more, similar Achievements, or increase the rank of {Distributing the Cure}? If so, it might be a good way to boost Alice’s levelling speed. Definitely something to think about after they left this village. She would mention it to Ethan later.
Still, for now she decided to push it to the back of her mind. She let herself smile and relax, as the villages thanked the group for healing them and slowing down the expansion of the swamp. The group made their way into the inn to sleep for the night shortly afterwards, since most of them were tired.
It was a day where she had made very little actual progress towards fixing the System as a whole… but she found herself in one of the best moods she’d had in weeks. That night, while in her dream library, she threw herself into her use of {Magic Modelling} with renewed energy and hope.